Pop up and Pop Out Camper

[johnr9q]

I built the camper displayed with the following features. (I guess you wouldn't call this an Expedition Camper but if it were on a 4WD PU it might be. I am into rock climbing and I do need to go, and often do, into areas where some of the rigs shown on this website would be nice but 99% of my travel is on high speed pavement so am happy with the 2WD and a winch, which has come in handy more than once) I wanted a dual purpose vehicle. So I built an aluminum flatbed for my truck. I made the flatbed sit at the same elevation as the original PU bed because I didn't want to lose the height required of a standard flatbed by sitting above the rear wheels so I made wheel wells that extend up into the flat bed so technically it isn't totally flat but works well. I made corresponding clearance areas in the camper to accommodate the wheel wells. When I put the camper on the truck, I have to not only slide it in but I also need to lift the camper about 5" to get it over the wheel wells. When I have the camper off I have stake sides which go on the flat bed. I can convert the truck from a flatbed pickup to a camper in less than 30 minutes. I have a cable hoist system I designed for my garage that lifts the camper off and on. I wanted solid sides not fabric and easily openable glass windows so designed the folding panels you can see in the erected position in the pictures. I also wanted a larger dinette so designed the slideout you can see in the pics. The slideout and the top all go up with electro/mechanical actuators. The unit is fully self contained with toilet (self contained), shower (The toilet and shower are in a 32" X 32" room and the toilet slides into the wall to make the shower very roomy) I have a stove and 3 way frig. I have one fresh water tank installed in the RV and another fresh water tank and a grey water tank installed under the flatbed. Total fresh water capacity is 60 gal and grey water is 15 gal. I have a solar panel on the top also. By building a camper that fits on a flatbed there is much more room for placing all the interior components. I completed the camper a few months ago and it has been operating nicely.

 

[Lynn]

That has to be the coolest pickup camper I've ever seen!

Got any pix of the inside?

What supports the upper walls of the slideout when they are folded?

Oh, and welcome to the board!

 

[johnr9q]

Lynn: Thanks for the welcome. I was looking for someplace to show off my camper and stumbled across this site. I'll post an interior pic. The Slider just folds down like the rest of the camper. I'll come up with a better interior pic. I forgot to mention that it has a catolytic heater which you can see in the picture

 

[Lynn]

I'm not sure how to phrase the question, but...

I know that the cab-over walls lay on the bed when folded. When you fold down the walls on the slide-out, how are they supported? Do they lay on top of the cabinets?

Thanks for the interior pic.

 

[Carlyle]

John,

All I can say is wow! I wish I had just a bit of your building skills. Please give us some more information and pictures on your awesome build. :bowdown:

 

[UHAULER]

Nice. I'm close by, maybe I can check it out sometime. Did you get your windows local ? I'll be in the market for some for my project.

 

[johnr9q]

Here are a few more interior pics.

 

[soenke]

very nice build John, :sunny:

what kind of hinge did you use for the fold up walls? You have some pics showing the progress of folding and sliding?

 

[johnr9q]

Answers to your questions: How are the slideout walls supported: The roof and largest wall (passenger side wall) are one piece and hinged at the base. The two small side walls of the slider are also hinged at their bases and fold down before the roof/passenger side wall is folded down. The whole camper is like Origami and was difficult to engineer. I built a full size prototype out of wood first to insure my ideas would work and made many modifications to the prototype. I purchased the windows from Kinro out of S Calif. I looked around for a window that didn't protrude very far on the exterior or interior cause I needed the low profile so the whole thing would fold down in as little space as possible. Wall construction and folding panel construction. I used 1" square alu square tubing as my framing material and filled in with 1" foam. On top of the alu frame and foam on the exterior I placed 1/8" Luan plywood then fiberglass (filon) over that. The interior is 1/8" luan plywood with Formica. Lift mechanism: So far It has been very reliable. I purchased the actuators from Firgelli. Hinges: I used aluminum piano hinges.

 

[suntinez]

Alot of great ideas here! It's clear that you spent alot of time on this, thanks for sharing - and welcome to the board. I'm a big fan of things that go POP. Do you know what the unladen weight of the camper is?

 

[johnr9q]

Suntinez: The Camper weighs 3000# wet

 

[allochris]

3 questions:

-How long was the design part of build?
-How long did the construction part take?
-Approximate total $ into camper? and flatdeck?

Thanks

 

[johnr9q]

Allochris: It took approximately 3 months working with the prototype and 9 months with the actual build. That's working 10 hours a day 6 days a week. I hate to say how much it cost but will say it cost way too much. Don't ever try to build something like this to save either time or money (at least from my experience). I enjoyed building it and came out with something that is unique. I don't know of any other solid sided (or canvas sided, for that matter) popup that also has a popout.

 

[Lynn]

John,

Thanks for all the pix and info. You have a truly unique ride.

The only other campers I’ve seen with pop-up and pop-out were trailers.

I ran across a write-up on the web of a home-built camp trailer a few years ago that has a hard-sided pop-top kind of like yours, and also a small pop-out to extend the sleeping area. At lease he mentions it in the write-up, but doesn’t have pix.

Also, I just saw the other day that Hi-Lo makes a camp trail now with a slide-out.

Not trying to bust your bubble, ‘cuz yours is still the only truck-mounted I’ve seen with both.

Very cool.

 

[Overland Hadley]

Welcome to ExPo John!

Good looking rig.

Quick question, do you have to have the pop out in the out position to get inside?

See you out there.