Yeah its really better in so many ways. Almost 50 square feet of space - all of it usable. Plus you can have outside storage and put all the heavy stuff (appliances etc) on the floor rather than above the bed wall.
My new custom ATC flatbed camper
- Thread starter DirtyDog
- Start date
Yeah its really better in so many ways. Almost 50 square feet of space - all of it usable. Plus you can have outside storage and put all the heavy stuff (appliances etc) on the floor rather than above the bed wall.
Fantastic looking setup. The proportions look great. The sliding fridge is very creative. You must be very excited and anxious to hit the road in your rig!
@ Tacoma flatbed:
I built a small full standup camper that fits on a 94 Toyota pickup chassis w/ an 8' flatbed. While I have managed to keep the GVW to 5,000 #'s, we are really limited to what we can carry. I agree, the 3/4 ton chassis would offer much more freedom.
I am in the process of building a 2nd truck (t100 @ Expo) and am trying to gather general information on how much wheel travel might be needed for a flatbed. Just curious what the distance from your wheels to flatbed rail is in your setup? And were any modifications done to restrict the wheel travel? Airbags? heavier shocks? I'm trying to get my flatbed as low as I can and don't have much knowledge in suspension work. Any info someone might be able to shed on the subject would be much appreciated.
@ Tacoma flatbed:
I built a small full standup camper that fits on a 94 Toyota pickup chassis w/ an 8' flatbed. While I have managed to keep the GVW to 5,000 #'s, we are really limited to what we can carry. I agree, the 3/4 ton chassis would offer much more freedom.
I am in the process of building a 2nd truck (t100 @ Expo) and am trying to gather general information on how much wheel travel might be needed for a flatbed. Just curious what the distance from your wheels to flatbed rail is in your setup? And were any modifications done to restrict the wheel travel? Airbags? heavier shocks? I'm trying to get my flatbed as low as I can and don't have much knowledge in suspension work. Any info someone might be able to shed on the subject would be much appreciated.
That flatbed is 6.25" from the top of the deck to bottom of the flatbed frame, where it would contact your frame mounts, that that is the lowest it would go but you can always add height with spacers if you needed to. I'm not sure if the mini-truck version of that flatbed uses the same dimension or not but I suspect if would be within an inch if not exactly the same. So you'd need to go look at your truck frame mounts and go up from there to find where to top of the deck is. As for wheel clearance I'm not positive but I think the bottom of the deck is ~1-1.5" lower as a guess. You'll just need to look at how your own truck articulates and what size tire you run to evaluate from there.
Here's a picture of DD's flatbed I pestered him for over on WTW,
, so you can hopefully see what I mean. His installers used some small metal spacers to level out the bed but I would imagine quality body lift blocks could be used if you determined you needed greater heights.
ersatzknarf
lost, but making time
Um, well, there's XPCamper, too...
Due to the fact that the ATC guys weren't sure of the best mounting option to the flatbed (they did not have access to the flatbed prior to the build) so they did extra frame reinforcement to allow for a couple different mounting options, and other factors like extra reinforcement of the rear wall for the custom rack, rhino lining on the floor pack for a better contact point on the aluminum bed etc, they estimated that it could weigh in the area of 1100-1200 pounds but no actual weight was taken. I saved a few hundred on the aluminum flatbed and no tailgate so overall its not much more than a stock ATC or FWC setup.
After finally spending some significant time in the camper I can now say I am extremely pleased with how it all turned out. Extra props for ATC for delivering a product of outstanding quality - especially in light of a very difficult custom build.
At this point the only thing I would change are the dimensions of the bench seats inside. I designed them around a certain sized container I wanted to store under them (through the outside storage hatches). Now that I have used the camper I know that the benches are too tall to be ideal seats. Knowing that, I would reduce the size of the storage a bit and reduce the height of the seats probably about 2 inches.
My thinking about this project has always been "what would make a good stock layout for a hypothetical production flatbed camper". With that in mind the sink-in-a-drawer didn't seem like an ideal final product feature (note that Marty came up with this to save me from my mistakes in planning). I've had inquiries as how I'd do this differently and after much discussion and thought on my part my conclusion is I wouldn't want to change any of the cabinet dimensions to accommodate a sink. So that means its either the SMEV I originally planned around and could not get, or the sink in the drawer. Despite its complications I do have to say I like my sink in a drawer a lot.
At this point the only thing I would change are the dimensions of the bench seats inside. I designed them around a certain sized container I wanted to store under them (through the outside storage hatches). Now that I have used the camper I know that the benches are too tall to be ideal seats. Knowing that, I would reduce the size of the storage a bit and reduce the height of the seats probably about 2 inches.
My thinking about this project has always been "what would make a good stock layout for a hypothetical production flatbed camper". With that in mind the sink-in-a-drawer didn't seem like an ideal final product feature (note that Marty came up with this to save me from my mistakes in planning). I've had inquiries as how I'd do this differently and after much discussion and thought on my part my conclusion is I wouldn't want to change any of the cabinet dimensions to accommodate a sink. So that means its either the SMEV I originally planned around and could not get, or the sink in the drawer. Despite its complications I do have to say I like my sink in a drawer a lot.
locrwln
Expedition Leader
Can't wait to get a chance to check it out in person someday. Glad to hear that it is living up to your expectations.
Jack
I don't recall, what height did you end up going with?
LandRoverHyter
Adventurer
I know this traded hands but any updates?