There are chases for wiring in the roof, I believe and the DOT clearance lights are pre-installed. Otherwise, they are shells which you can spec as you see fit. Individual preferences being what they are, this allows you the most flexibility and value to design the system for your specific needs. No need to pay for junk you'll never use.
Total Composites Slide In Camper Kits
- Thread starter Victorian
- Start date
There are chases for wiring in the roof, I believe and the DOT clearance lights are pre-installed. Otherwise, they are shells which you can spec as you see fit. Individual preferences being what they are, this allows you the most flexibility and value to design the system for your specific needs. No need to pay for junk you'll never use.
Also: does anyone know of any expedition outfitters besides https://www.bearvehicles.com/ that will help put a build together? Just starting to explore options here and they're the only ones I've found so far.
Thanks
Thanks
On the Total Composite contact page there is a listing on of builders. FWIW, we're having Pronghorn Expedition Vehicles build ours; they are in Alberta but have been great to work with.
NOPEC
Well-known member
We stopped in to see Andrea and Dallas at Pronghorn EV in June on our way up to the NWT. We were very impressed with all aspects of their operation and as well, they are just super nice folks. Probably saw your rig on the floor in their shop.
Great to hear!
To add to the thread: since we are talking about builders, one of the main services that Pronghorn offered (besides building) was CAD design of the interior. They will help put together the plan you're imaging and confirm that things will or won't fit. They can even go into accurate materials lists and working plans to build off of. That was really helpful to ensure things would go together as I'd imagined as well as confirm the sizes of things we wanted "should" work. Andrea will tailor the level of detail (and associated cost) to your budget and interest.
I assume that other shops have CAD available or in house, but I can confirm that Andrea at Pronghorn does great work. I was able to order all my 80/20 and wiring off her plans and just have some peace of mind knowing that as long as I do my part building out the interior, things should go ok.
Also, the I did not mean to imply in my statement "they are in Alberta but..." that somehow someone from Alberta is suspect lol. I need to proofread a little more I guess.
NOPEC
Well-known member
Yes, they have things going very nicely in their operation and the CAD will be a big help to the likes of me.
I was born and raised in Alberta and was a bit hurt by your comment but I am fine now!! (it does appears that I don't seem to live there any more!!)
Yesterday, we came down through Grand Prairie and then down 40 to Grand Cache and Hinton and unto the Parkway to get to the TCH. It seems to me that Alberta is booming with huge construction going on all over the place, I have never seen so many brand new white F350 pickups and F550 service trucks!
pnwginger
Adventure Truck Builder
Greetings,
I run Overland Adventure Truck based out of Olympia, WA. We are super stoked to be a part of this and have been full steam ahead on TC pickup and slide in campers. Let us know if we can help!
Quade
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It's probably been asked before, but can anyone tell me about the weight capacity in the bed area? For instance, Wolverine 8 has a full 60" overhang, so a queen size bed would fit. How much weight capacity can it hold? Is there any reason to worry? For instance... what if you had 1000# up there..... let's say..... #100lb of mattress/pillows/sheets/misc...... #500 for 2 big adults.... plus throw in maybe a dog hoping up or some storage. I mean, would this handle say 700 or 800# of live weight without any issues? How is the overhang supported?
pnwginger
Adventure Truck Builder
While I’m not a physics professor, I can relate a few differences betweven static and dynamic forces in relation to this cabover setup and cantilevered forces.
First, let’s suppose that your camper is securely attached to your truck before climbing into and sleeping in the bed. Secondly, we can say that estimated static load is 750+ with the doggies, bedding, humans, etc. once dynamic forces are applied, we can get quite a bit more force applied the further from the fulcrum we go. While the adhesive and paneling has been tested to withstand this, (victorian can chime in on exact figures) we always caution against certain design elements such as window penetrations close to the cabover’s inside corner as the whole system relies greatly not just on the adhesives and extrusions, but the shear strength of the wall panels as well. In the scenario you had mentioned, I would quite likely want to help support this cabover with support brackets fron underneath to assist in load distribution to lessen the direct forces applied to only the immediate vicinity.
rruff
Explorer
I wonder if failures (in general, not just TC) are the reasons for this caution, or it's just a worry that is behind this...? Has anyone built a FEM to see the stress distribution? There are so many crappy and cheap campers built with much longer cab-overhangs that seem to survive. Yes, the sides will be loaded in shear, but that isn't a high stress... the cabover itself is quite a stout "box beam". Your comment about windows is a good one; large windows in certain locations could cause issues.
pnwginger
Adventure Truck Builder
While I’m not aware of any specific failures, I as a builder definitely don’t want one of these types of failures to happen with one of our campers, therefore I’ll take these precautions into consideration based on the client’s needs. a live testing and not just computer simulations to find the failure point would be costly. The difference between these composite shells and typical conventionally build shells is that these aren’t reliant upon internal framework for structure and instead relies upon the shell and extrusions for structure. What is achieved by this is a light weight shell without thermal transfer through the walls/corner joints. This does have a slight compromise in the distance we are comfortable (for now) offering full N/S cabover sleeping areas.
Victorian
Approved Vendor : Total Composites
Victorian
Approved Vendor : Total Composites
The 7’ is a very nice size that follows the smaller truck footprints very well.
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Victorian
Approved Vendor : Total Composites
5 more campers leaving our shop within the next several days. So exciting to see happy customers.
