New Alaskan side entry flatbed 8.5' build!!

[Chorky]

No toilet?? Interesting choice. But that's great to know they were willing to consider options and have an open discussion. Their build quality is very nice, and much more of a 'warm' feeling. Something I may be considering. Assuming the camper is a 10' version, how does it hold up to the flexing of off highway use? I've watched a few of your insta videos and just wondering if you expect any structural issues to arise. I'm assuming the Alaskan is hard mounted to the bed, which is hard mounted to the frame. Although these new truck frames have very little flex anyway.

Now the real question, do you have an Alaska trip planned soon?

 

[Jo_Duval]

Now the big question

van vs truck
How is Wind noise in the cab down the road?
Do you miss the pass through?
Cab comfort for long drives?
Other + and - ?

I’m looking at truck camper setup I think the comfort and quietness of the cab would be better in a truck, but man do we love to pullover park and crawl into bed without going out.

 

[ncalies]

No toilet?? Interesting choice. But that's great to know they were willing to consider options and have an open discussion. Their build quality is very nice, and much more of a 'warm' feeling. Something I may be considering. Assuming the camper is a 10' version, how does it hold up to the flexing of off highway use? I've watched a few of your insta videos and just wondering if you expect any structural issues to arise. I'm assuming the Alaskan is hard mounted to the bed, which is hard mounted to the frame. Although these new truck frames have very little flex anyway.

Now the real question, do you have an Alaska trip planned soon?

We didn't want to deal with the toilet, we've never had one and have been fine, but we can see the appeal to having one.

Our camper is the 8.5' version and so far, it's doing fine for off road use. It is heavy but I'm not sure how much heavier than other campers. In terms of it holding up, we sure hope it does. We were very open at the beginning telling Bryan and his team that this camper will be going off road a lot, can it handle the flexing, off-camber, washboard use and they didn't have any concerns. So I guess time will tell. It has been handling everything fine so far but I'm not sure how much flexing is actually going on in the camper vs the truck. It is bolted to the flatbed which is bolted to the frame of the truck, so I'm guessing if the frame flexes, the camper will feel it.

We'd love to make a trip to Alaska but need to find the time with work so not sure when that will happen! It is on our list though!

 

[ncalies]

Now the big question

van vs truck
How is Wind noise in the cab down the road?
Do you miss the pass through?
Cab comfort for long drives?
Other + and - ?

I’m looking at truck camper setup I think the comfort and quietness of the cab would be better in a truck, but man do we love to pullover park and crawl into bed without going out.

Van vs truck...... that's a hard one. They each of their pro's and con's. Remember that we owned a high roof Sprinter, so we are comparing to that (for the most part). A lot of these pro's and con's can be switched depending on what's important to you.

Truck Pro's:
- Much nicer drive, it's very quiet and very solid. You do feel more bumps because of the solid axles, but those solid axles mean strength.
- Beefy 4x4 system
- Does not get blown around in the wind - this on is huge for me. It makes driving so much more comfortable.
- Super quiet compared to a large van
- Meant to be driven off road with the body on frame construction
- Because it's built for more abuse, we have more comfort adventuring further into the backcountry
- With a popup camper, you have a lower height which is usually always good
- Overall, more ground clearance
- Depending on the van, trucks have way more affordable after market parts
- Driving area is separate from living area (safer for accidents, no noises while driving)

Van Pro's:
- Easier to go from driving to sleeping
- Easier to store larger items
- Faster getting in and out of the van vs in and out of a truck camper (van doesn't require stairs)
- Probably better MPG
- A lot of times, looks cooler

Truck Con's:
- Worse MPG's compared to our Sprinter
- Takes longer to go from driving to sleeping (about 2 min vs just walking in)
- You have to be more precise with packing, we use our flatbed underbody boxes for all of our gear which get stored in individual bags vs just throwing bins in the back of the van
- Much heavier than our van was

Overall, I'd say we like driving the truck more. The big things we miss with the van are the simplicity of the space (big garage space for bins and easy to get in and out of the van). But having the true 4x4, body on frame, doesn't get affected by side gust of wind, overall, I think we like the truck setup. There is no perfect vehicle. What you gain with choosing one, you are losing on something else. It's all about what the most important items are and which one satisfies that the most. For me personally, I love having a truck (outside of the MPG's). I think having for example the Ford E350 style van where it's got a true 4x4, body on frame, and can pop up would be an awesome vehicle. That way you can have a permanent bed when it's down for sleeping and just pop it when you are hanging out so you have standing height. But then you are driving in your living space, so that can be both a pro and a con!

Wind noise is nothing when there isn't wind. If we have a head wind, you can hear more noise in the back of the cab, it's not terrible, but it is louder. We had wind noise with the van as well with headwinds and having the large interior of the van probably was louder than our camper.

Do we miss the pass through...yes and no. Yes because of simplicity but no because you could hear every rattle, squeak, etc while driving.

The truck is very comfortable for long drives. Because it doesn't get affected by the wind nearly as much, I don't have to be stressed while driving.

Let us know if you want more specifics on pro's and cons. We can always chat on the phone or something if you want to throw ideas around about the nitty gritty.

 

[Jo_Duval]

Such a complete answer! We are not looking at off-roading, we do drive 5-10hours to get places regularly but 90%highway.

I love the passtrough, simplicity and cargo space in the van.

I don’t like the wind pushing us around and the road noise and the few rattles we managed to limit them a lot.

I would enjoy a wider interior living space for when it rains but that’s the only time we spend inside. I quite like how easy it is to get in and out of a van.

I sure miss the comfort and quietness of my diesel truck for long hauls. Our next build is probably still 2 years out so I have time to think about it still but less wind and noise in the cab plus a more comfortable seat could be quite interesting.

 

[Motafinga]

Great looking rig I like your choices on the interior too. I have a 2000 8' cabover in a modified tool bed. Brian is indeed a great guy to work with, the extent of my communication with him has mostly been questions regarding my old camper which he's always happy to make time for. I love the idea of a side entry and the way you can carry bikes or moto so high and tight to the rear of the rig but I would have a hard time losing the tool bed storage. I guess there's no perfect combo of packaging. Enjoy the rig!

 

[ncalies]

Great looking rig I like your choices on the interior too. I have a 2000 8' cabover in a modified tool bed. Brian is indeed a great guy to work with, the extent of my communication with him has mostly been questions regarding my old camper which he's always happy to make time for. I love the idea of a side entry and the way you can carry bikes or moto so high and tight to the rear of the rig but I would have a hard time losing the tool bed storage. I guess there's no perfect combo of packaging. Enjoy the rig!

Thanks! Totally agree that there is no perfect rig, what you gain in one, you are losing something in the other. As for the bikes being high off the ground, that was a big want of mine when designing the flatbed, we were lucky to have Alum-line be so open to installing one in the bed. It's worked out great so far, a little hard to load the bikes but it's worth the ground clearance back there.

 

[ncalies]

@Motafinga , how is yours holding up through all of these years? Would be very interested in hearing what you've had to deal with if you don't mind sharing.

 

[Motafinga]

@Motafinga , how is yours holding up through all of these years? Would be very interested in hearing what you've had to deal with if you don't mind sharing.

I've had the camper about 4 years now and she's been pretty solid for the most part, I would imagine yours incorporates new and even better building materials / methods. One thing I've had to chase down a bit is some of the screws loosening up especially the ones that hold the outside lifting guides and also the inside ones that fix the hydraulic rams to the walls. I've gotten away with using gorilla glue pretty well if the screws start to strip out since the glue expands when you add water. Your camper uses an updated piston so hopefully that and the guides / screws are more stout now. I think perhaps it puts a lot of stress on the lifting mechanisms if the top is lifted without the rig being super level so be mindful of that. Another thing I had to reinforce is the lower part of the camper joining to the 90 deg bend over the bed rails but you wouldn't have that issue ; )
The laminate veneer glue is failing on some of the interior but we are going to do some kind of face lift and change that up soon anyway. Otherwise it's mostly been maintenance stuff like seals and O-rings for the hydraulics.
There's a build thread on my sig line if you want to check it out

 

[Motafinga]

I'm curious about the cover on your bicycles. What model is it and how has it held up on the back of the rig? Thanks

 

[ncalies]

I'm curious about the cover on your bicycles. What model is it and how has it held up on the back of the rig? Thanks

It's actually an ATV cover - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006JMK3FA/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

We tried two different bike covers and neither were large enough to cover both of our bikes at once (wide bars, long bikes) so I figured we'd give the ATV cover a shot. We've only done one trip so far with that cover but it worked great. It pretty much keeps the bikes completely clean no matter what we drive through. This last trip was a full snow storm in the mountains followed by dusty desert driving.

 

[mattlemoo]

Thanks! Totally agree that there is no perfect rig, what you gain in one, you are losing something in the other. As for the bikes being high off the ground, that was a big want of mine when designing the flatbed, we were lucky to have Alum-line be so open to installing one in the bed. It's worked out great so far, a little hard to load the bikes but it's worth the ground clearance back there.

Ncalies I actually live in Golden too and would love to connect with you & Dahlberg to take a look at the camper. I just picked up a Ram 2500 and am talking with Alaskan about doing one but just haven't seen one in person. Please shoot me a text if you guys can meet up! Thanks, Matt 970-903-7358

 

[lzpup]

Love the camper. Would like to hear about how it manages for winter camping if you do any? Temperature , Condensation and snow load? Have you stealth camped in it, looks like you can get away with it with that layout. How is it having the stove right next to the bed? We have a fourwheel hawk and loving your camper, looks like a nice easy setup and easier time of it the winter. Congrats!

 

[ncalies]

Love the camper. Would like to hear about how it manages for winter camping if you do any? Temperature , Condensation and snow load? Have you stealth camped in it, looks like you can get away with it with that layout. How is it having the stove right next to the bed? We have a fourwheel hawk and loving your camper, looks like a nice easy setup and easier time of it the winter. Congrats!

@lzpup , thank you, we are overall very happy with it! We haven't done a ton of snow camping, just a few nights and the snow load seems fine. The hydraulic jacks that lift the top half of the camper are really heavy duty and very well made. I would say that the only thing you would probably notice is that it might raise a little slower than normal...??? It doesn't raise all that quickly in the first place (one thing I wish was different). In terms of temperature, it does way better than we would have thought (I think we've camped as low as 10F so far). Once you get the heater on, it holds the heat very well, we are always turning the temperature down, usually it's set to 57-60F. The cabover is definitely a little bit colder than the rest of the camper, but it's not bad, you can just tell that the full warmth doesn't make it up there as easily. I think turning on the fan above the bed to blow out would probably suck some of that warmer air up there (but then you are blowing it out).

As for condensation, it's really not bad at all. We have two people and two dogs and if we open both fans, it pretty much mitigates all of it. If we open the rear fan and run the bed fan on the lowest setting blowing out, it really does mitigate it very well. It feels weird running the fan when it's super cold out, but it makes a huge difference moisture wise, in any vehicle. We do get some typical moisture on the windows, but so far, no where else outside of the small aluminum stripping on the cabover flaps. So the front of the camper has 3 walls that fold down/up. Where those walls have the hinges, there are tiny little 5 inch walls that connect to the cabover. It's what gives the flaps (side walls) the height to fold over the mattress. These tiny little walls have framed aluminum and those little strips will sometimes have condensation on them which then touches the mattress. It's not terrible by any means, but it's there.

We haven't really needed to stealth camp yet but our thought was that it pretty much looks like a normal hard sided popup camper to the untrained eye. When we put in the curtains, we are completely dark, so I feel the only real draw back for stealth camping would be needing to pop it and then the stairs to get in or out. One night when it was snowing and cold, we brought the stairs back inside the camper so ice wouldn't freeze on them and then melt inside while we were driving. It was a little annoying getting the stairs in while being in the camper, but it's definitely doable for stealth nights. We had one night in Yellowstone where we walked on the stairs when there was snow and the foot marks created ice, so we've learned to brush them off first or store them under the truck and just jump out. The other thing you can do for stealth nights is leave it down. The dinette folds into a 44" wide bed that you can sleep in while the camper is down. You'd have to be careful to not sit up quickly because the cabinet is over your head, but I don't think it would be too bad (for one person).

Having the stove next to the bed hasn't been a concern at all. We don't normally cook things that splatter a lot in the camper, if you did, you might want to cook on the outside burner or put a towel over the bed. But so far, we really like having the entire sink side counter open and being able to look out the door while cooking.

How does your FWC do in the colder temps? I know it has a lot more aluminum so I'm curious on the condensation.

One last thing, comparing this to our van, the van had less drafts. This camper is two halves, so it's pretty hard to seal it up as if it was one unit. It's not bad by any means, you aren't feeling wind coming through or anything like that but I do think that is one reason the cabover is a bit more chilly (I know, it has a huge air gap below it). The other really pleasant surprise is that the camper in high winds is way more stable feeling than the van. I think it has to do with the heavy truck being the base, but it's an awesome surprise!

 

[lzpup]

@ncalies , we just ordered a thermal pack for the camper so hope that improves things. Generally condensation is a problem due to the aluminum. it is warm enough and a have camped for awhile in single digit temps. We have not been diligent about having a vent open when we sleep so going to try that out. Heat loss through transmission is a big factor, we have an aluminum flat bed, so next steps are foam between camper and bed. Did you insulate your bed at all? Our build: https://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/ram-2500-06-mega-cab-build.133994/