Completing the Subframe
There were a lot of unforeseen details that went into finishing the subframe, the first of which was framing out the wheel wells. Unfortunately, I originally sized the wheels wells based on Ford’s guidance, which proved to be pretty incorrect (way too big) considering the change in suspension that will happen with the 4x4 conversion. I was able to shrink the wheels wells front/rear substantially, but this took a long time to frame out and consisted of sooooo many measurements, angles, and welds.
After the wheel wells, I built out the lowered entryway. This is crucial to allow for as tall of an entry door as possible and to make getting in/out of the camper easier.
I also welded up the side flanges that will hold the edge of the wall panels. This was just made out of thin strips of .100 5052, the same as the rest of the exo. I made these only 4in tall and welded it to the bottom and top of the tube, leaving only 2in of exposed flange (3in at the wheel wells/entryway). The lack of exposed flange has been a huge source of problems now that we’re doing the panel joints and we ended up adding more aluminum angle trim along the edges to allow for more glue surface. If I were to do this again, I would definitely leave more flange for the wall.
The last step of the subframe was finishing up all of the mounting provisions. This includes the Aux Gas Tank, Grey Water Tank, Rear Bumper/Lights, Jack, and Air Compressor. All of this ended up being extremely time consuming and there was dozens of other things I wanted to have wrapped up while the access was so easy.
Here is a photo of it during paint prep:
