DrivenToAdventure
Member
Hello Everyone!
We (Greg & Ginger) started traveling full-time in our truck camper on April 26th of this year. We have plans to head into Central America this fall. Our original setup was a 2005 Ford F350 dually carrying a modified Camp Lite truck camper. (we removed all propane, installed diesel heat and hot water, solar, etc. You can see some of those upgrades here.)
We had planned to remove the bed of that truck and install a flatbed with custom storage but once we hit the road and got to the scales fully loaded, we were shocked to find that we were significantly overweight. The cause is likely several factors - 600lb of AGM batteries and an entire backseat full of tools that Greg just couldn't part with didn't help.
I should note, we were over the manufacturers weight rating, not the actual axel weight rating but if we were to get in an accident, the manufacturers weight rating is all they care about and we learned that insurance could deny a claim if they discovered we were overweight. This eliminated the idea of beefing up the suspension to account for the extra weight.
So..... after just over a month on the road, we bought a new truck. It's a 2001 Ford F550, 7.3 with manual transmission, 180k miles. Our F350 had the 6.0 engine and we had planned to bulletproof it in September so once we made the decision to upgrade, we knew we wanted the 7.3.
Here is the new truck just as we purchased it
Plans for this new base rig
*Continental MPT81 tires which will get rid of the duallys and allow us to carry just 1 spare. Due to our weight, our choice of tire was limited to this class.
*Modify the existing flatbed for the bigger tires
*Build a custom "gear locker" between the cab and camper
*Build custom camper storage boxes along both sides of the bed under the camper
*Create mounting system directly to the flatbed
*Airlift air bags
*Upgrade shocks
*Swap bumpers so we can keep our Iron Bull bumper and Baja Designs light setup on the new truck
This isn't an overly complex or fancy build and I hesitated to even post a thread about it. BUT..... perhaps it's a build that will help someone in some way.
This video goes over our plans
And this video shows the modification of the bed for the larger tires as well as some other touch ups
Currently we're starting to build the custom storage boxes in the rear. This project will progress as quickly as possible so we can get back on the road!
Thanks for reading,
Ginger
We (Greg & Ginger) started traveling full-time in our truck camper on April 26th of this year. We have plans to head into Central America this fall. Our original setup was a 2005 Ford F350 dually carrying a modified Camp Lite truck camper. (we removed all propane, installed diesel heat and hot water, solar, etc. You can see some of those upgrades here.)
We had planned to remove the bed of that truck and install a flatbed with custom storage but once we hit the road and got to the scales fully loaded, we were shocked to find that we were significantly overweight. The cause is likely several factors - 600lb of AGM batteries and an entire backseat full of tools that Greg just couldn't part with didn't help.
I should note, we were over the manufacturers weight rating, not the actual axel weight rating but if we were to get in an accident, the manufacturers weight rating is all they care about and we learned that insurance could deny a claim if they discovered we were overweight. This eliminated the idea of beefing up the suspension to account for the extra weight.
So..... after just over a month on the road, we bought a new truck. It's a 2001 Ford F550, 7.3 with manual transmission, 180k miles. Our F350 had the 6.0 engine and we had planned to bulletproof it in September so once we made the decision to upgrade, we knew we wanted the 7.3.
Here is the new truck just as we purchased it
Plans for this new base rig
*Continental MPT81 tires which will get rid of the duallys and allow us to carry just 1 spare. Due to our weight, our choice of tire was limited to this class.
*Modify the existing flatbed for the bigger tires
*Build a custom "gear locker" between the cab and camper
*Build custom camper storage boxes along both sides of the bed under the camper
*Create mounting system directly to the flatbed
*Airlift air bags
*Upgrade shocks
*Swap bumpers so we can keep our Iron Bull bumper and Baja Designs light setup on the new truck
This isn't an overly complex or fancy build and I hesitated to even post a thread about it. BUT..... perhaps it's a build that will help someone in some way.
This video goes over our plans
And this video shows the modification of the bed for the larger tires as well as some other touch ups
Currently we're starting to build the custom storage boxes in the rear. This project will progress as quickly as possible so we can get back on the road!
Thanks for reading,
Ginger
