GCecchetto
Adventurer
Thanks for the kind words everyone. It's late so I'll wait till tomorrow for the next detailed post.
The Dirt Sherpa Build
- Thread starter GCecchetto
- Start date
GCecchetto
Adventurer
The day got away from me a bit so this post has ended up being much later than I had hoped and I ended up spending the day picking up material and building a set of heavy duty saw horses to store the camper.
The days work.
Here's a shot of the rear protection plate I mentioned in an earlier post. This wraps the whole rear end of the camper that hangs out of the bed. It's just held in place by a couple of fasteners in this shot. The image below from the model gives you an idea of what this will look like when finished. You can also see the stainless steel screws, 2" on center, through a 1/4" aluminum plate, that has been powder coated white, that connects the aluminum frame to the floor pack.
Here's a shot of the cabover from the top showing the radius corner and angle that the deck for the bed will drop into.
Can't wait to get the prep done that needs to be completed prior to installing the siding so I can get on with the siding install.
The days work.
Here's a shot of the rear protection plate I mentioned in an earlier post. This wraps the whole rear end of the camper that hangs out of the bed. It's just held in place by a couple of fasteners in this shot. The image below from the model gives you an idea of what this will look like when finished. You can also see the stainless steel screws, 2" on center, through a 1/4" aluminum plate, that has been powder coated white, that connects the aluminum frame to the floor pack.
Here's a shot of the cabover from the top showing the radius corner and angle that the deck for the bed will drop into.
Can't wait to get the prep done that needs to be completed prior to installing the siding so I can get on with the siding install.
Overland Hadley
on a journey
Just wondering about the ''exo'' bars coming off the camper at the rear. It is a neat idea, but do you really want an impact to be transferred to the camper? It would be better to protect the camper with bars coming off the truck, rather than protecting the truck with bars coming off the lightweight camper frame.
Just a thought. And I might be misunderstanding the design.
GCecchetto
Adventurer
The design has changed a little from what you see in the screenshot from the model. The bars now all bolt on and the one that goes across the back of the camper is now incorporated into the mount for the telescopic aluminum steps that will store under the back of the camper when not extended. The thought was not to protect the truck but rather the portion of the camper that extends out of the bed of the truck. It's not going to protect the camper me backing into something or being rear ended but it will protect it from branch impacts and light departure angle impacts. To be honest, it's also an appearance thing as I don't really like the way the camper looks with hanging out of the bed. I thought about exactly what you mentioned as my original plan was a custom swing away setup on an expedition one bumper to carry he spare and extra gas. The plan was to build in corner guards, like you see on sportsmobile bumpers, but I just don't have the 4k that would cost.
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GCecchetto
Adventurer
Spent the day getting my rear tie downs fabed. I bought a set of the tailgate cables from Toyota and cut them down to use with a set of Fastgun Derringers. Glad that West Marine has a crimping tool out for customers to use. I'm using Fastgun Derringers in the front as well. Unfortunately I couldn't get a photo showing the connection to the camper. The camper is off of the truck now so I'll take one tomorrow and post it. I've gone out of my way to not drill holes in my truck.
The rear tie down.
The front, you can just see a bit of the mount on the camper in the upper left corner.
The rear tie down.
The front, you can just see a bit of the mount on the camper in the upper left corner.
riveroceanandmountain
Adventurer
Keep the pictures coming!
I love it!
I want to see every detail!...... I am very inspired and will be borrowing some of your ideas..... hope you keep on sharing
I love it!
I want to see every detail!...... I am very inspired and will be borrowing some of your ideas..... hope you keep on sharing
GCecchetto
Adventurer
Will do. Maybe I'll see you up in BC, my family is from Revelstoke. If I have this thing finished by next summer I'll either be headed out to Colorado or up to BC.
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Mark Harley
Expedition Leader
Nice idea on the tie downs.
GCecchetto
Adventurer
Sorry about the lapse in posts. It's been busy at work and I have been burning on the camper every spare minute I have in an effort to get to the siding install. I have a lot of misc metal fab that has to happen before I can get the aluminum plating at the back end powder coated and it needs to be powdered before i install the siding. The plan at the present is to try to get the cabover bed floor installed this weekend. I'll do a detailed post with photos sometime this weekend.
GCecchetto
Adventurer
Well, it's been a weekend of frustration. It's been foggy tree rain all weekend and I'm building the camper in my dirt driveway. Unfortunately I have no garage so I'm stuck dealing with the weather. I got some good progress made on my aluminum steps storage system, but need a few misc pieces of hardware to complete them. Also got the Baltic Birch ply cut and laminated with the fiberglass siding that will be the floor of the bed in the cabover. This is where things started to go wrong. I used 3M's slow cure 5200 adhesive sealant to laminate the panels. Crane composites, mfg of the siding, recommends cleaning the back of the siding with isopropyl alcohol, so I cleaned the back of the siding with IA. Unfortunately I forgot that 3M says not to use IA because it affects the cure. I'm not too concerned about this as I let the panel dry thoroughly. What I am very concerned about is that I left the bottle of IA on the work table with the cap off and my son spilled it on the back of the siding on the adhesive. The IA quickly flashed off and the adhesive seemed unaffected so I reluctantly laminated the ply and siding. The slow cure 5200 is really slow curing so I won't know if I'm screwed for days. The other misery for the weekend was snapping the tip off of my impact drill in one of the screws in the aluminum protection plate on the back of the camper. A piece of the tip is stuck in the screw head so I won't even be able to drill out the screw head. As if all this wasn't enough I realized that the frame of the camper is 1/8" out of square, which wouldn't normally be a big deal, but the old roof from the FWC that I need to use for this season is an 1/8 out the opposit direction so it looks like I might have some fun getting the roof back on it. Needless to say it has been a frustrating weekend and and didn't stop long enough to think about photos. I think I'll just stick a pencil in my ear.
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GCecchetto
Adventurer
Got the screw extracted after work today and some progress made on my tuck away aluminum steps. It also appears that the adhesive on the cabover bed floor is curing okay, so I think I might have dodged a bullet on that on. Hopefully I'll get panel installed in the cabover this weekend.
GCecchetto
Adventurer
The weekend is off to a good start, no fog this morning! I'm hoping to have a productive weekend. Just shot the second coat of epoxy paint on the exposed aluminum section of the bottom of the cabover. I decided to forget about the external tubes on the back of the camper as it was creating a scheduling nightmare with the sequence of events to get to the siding install, so I'm dropping off the last of the aluminum parts that have to be powder coated and installed prior to siding at the powder coater today. Hope to have the floor of the cabover in, the siding on the cabover and the radius corner fillers in most of the openings by the end of the weekend. I'll defenetly take some photos to post.