Yet Another Camper Homebuild Thread

[tanuki.himself]

Impressive all around! Well thought-out and resourceful building/construction methods. Did you ever get to the weighbridge? Also have you had a chance to cross up the suspension? I'm very curious how the pultruded fg subframe handles twist.

Thanks - perfect timing with a couple of questions as I was about to post an update....

Due to the ongoing travel restrictions in Europe we have decided to give up on hopes of touring anywhere in the camper this summer, and have relocated 400kms down the Spanish coast for the next year - standard property rental contracts here are for a minimum of 12 months, so it was act now to keep the option to travel next summer once the vaccine is more widely rolled out and hopefully restrictions are lifted. So, i got to take the camper on a 400km relocation run and spend a night in it at a proper campground rather than on my own drive - moving house is an acceptable reason to travel here

The Good

The Ranger drove nicely even in some quite strong crosswinds. Rear airbag helpers seem to be doing the job well and no sign of the rear bottoming out or swaying too much. And it has enough grunt to overtake lorries up hill at speeds upto 115kph - so much so that the wife now agrees our little Peugeot is underpowered on the motorway and she coudn't keep up. New toy coming i feel....

The camper itself shows no sign of cracking, movement or damage at any of the joints or seams or stress points, so i think it survived. Ditto the truck tub shows no evidence of damage from the weight of the camper bouncing around on it.

The jacks work really well to stabilise the camper when sleeping - very stable even with two restless fat people and heavy ikea mattresses in the overhang. They also performed as expected demounting the camper in its new storage yard home now it is at full weight. I just have to be careful to keep an eye on both rear jacks as its very easy for it to lift one leg clear, which i take as a sign that the overall rigidity of the shell is strong, whether its the subframe or the walls acting as a torsion box..

With the freezer running and filled with pre-frozen contents (emptying the kitchen freezer) the solar and battery kept it powered up, along with normal use of lights, fan, jacks and water pump. Solar controller showed it was recharging each day with about 3 hours of bulk and 3 hours of absorption charge. Sunny days but still 2 months from the solstice, around 40 degrees north, temperatures around 20 c during the day, mid teens overnight. So, i think we will have enough solar to keep us going even when we are at higher latitudes and closer to the equinoxes.

The Bad

The cabover is still a bit bouncy above the roof of the truck, even with stronger springs in the rear tie downs. I don't want to tighten those any more and overstress the mounting points or tie downs, so I need to look at solutions to support/damp the cabover. I have seen campers with gas struts between cabover and the bodywork at the base of the windscreen, so i need to strip some trim off the ranger and see if there are any suitable mounting points i could use. Alternatively, and this may be easier, the ranger did come with factory fitted roof rails that i have taken off and filled in, but it would be easy to uncover the front mount points and fix a supporting crossbar at the front of the roof that i could then pack with various grades of foam and rubber to provide support and damping to the underside of the cabover without fixing to it. And aesthetically i can always pimp it into a light bar......

The Mrs really likes the steps both into the truck and up to the bed, but they are heavy, cumbersome and awkward to fit on. But now i have something to work from i can see what i can do to make them smaller, lighter and easier to live with - SWMBO is far easier to convince to reduce from 100% than to enhance from 50%....

Water heater temperature is very erratic - you get about a litre of scalding hot water, then it seems to mix between, warm, cool and cold at random. The pump was surging a bit, but even so its not a great showering experience. I need to speak to Propex customer support but i wonder if the pump is pushing too much pressure into the water heater so that it is creating turbulence inside the water cylinder rather than feeding the cold water in smoothly from the base to give a smooth delivery of the hot water, so maybe a pressure control valve might help.

And the Ugly

Weight. Managed to find a weighbridge near the new storage yard, and the dry, empty shell is coming in around 970kg, and the truck with 1/4 tank of fuel and a very few tools is 2250. combined 3220. Add me and the Mrs and we are close to the 3500kg limit that the helper airbags allow, so everything needs to go on a diet - to be discussed/ruminated upon in a further post

 

[tanuki.himself]

i must echo the above observations; kudos for such a thoughtful & workmanlike execution.

Q: what adhesive did you use to bond the pvc cabinet fronts to the wood substrate?

thanks

thanks

adhesive was just locally sourced Bostik contact cement brushed on - i did check a few pieces first to make sure it didnt melt the PVC

 

[tanuki.himself]

So, Ford brochure figures are complete lies and the truck has a payload of 1000kgs, which gives me some serious and possibly expensive decisions to make.

On the camper i can save a few kilos remaking the floor and kitchen countertop with lighter materials when I can get them. I could strip out one of the wall cupboards for a couple more kilos and if I can't carry the weight to put anything in them then its kind of pointless keeping them. After that any further removals of features start to impact on how comfortable the living space is. And everything that isn't already drilled for lightness will have to get the swiss cheese treatment

Big ticket items are the solar panels and jacks. Rigid panels are supposed to be about 13kg each, whereas an equivalent Renology flexi panel is about supposed to be about 2.5, so that would give me 40kg back. I was always sceptical about the flat slab roof but that was the only shape the manufacturer could produce, and it does show signs of sagging the middle, allowing water to pool around the fan and nosecone joint which will eventually lead to leaks. So i was already thinking of remaking the roof with a more convex top surface and strengthening ribs. Combining that with flexible panels would give me a cleaner roof line on the outside and allow me to recess cables inside which i didn't do at the initial build as i was still working out where stuff needed to go. So, consider the existing roof as a prototype and look to make a better production version at some stage in the future.....need to do some prototyping with 2 pack PU foam and how to get a good bond to it with standard polyester/vinylester resin and CSM....

I could replace the motorised internal jack legs with quick adjust ones secured by pins, and with much shorter, smaller diameter acme screw feet to act as stabilisers. They might also be able to lift the camper enough to allow it to demount it and leave it up in the air. I could then use the truck independently, but i wouldnt want to go in the camper and move around, so I would have to put it back on the truck every day, and doing it manually with a spanner is very time consuming. Next time i mount the camper up i'll check out how much travel is needed between the weight being fully on the truck and fully on the legs, and check the weight of the large screws and motors.....

Or i could remove the jacks completely in normal use and just be like a normal C class motorhome with all the drawbacks that involves.

On the truck i don't have many easy options. I already stripped off all the bling that came with the wildtrack and the tailgate. I can try taking of the rear bumper but i suspect its not that big a saving. Factory fitted towbar is quite chunky and could save a few kilos, but i would have to remake the rear tie downs which may add some weight back on, And it then means I can't tow anything - see below

there are some steel bash plates that came as part of the offroad pack along with the locking rear diff, but they don't look that thick so again i suspect not much saving

Do i need a spare wheel, or in normal road use could i get away with a couple of cans of foam/slime and a compressor ? which i need to carry for the airbag adjustment anyway

I was considering swapping the tub for a custom flatbed, but initial quotes i've had still put the weight of the bed at around 180kgs compared to a stock tub of i think about 240, makes the truck less attractive on normal use and cost is GBP3500-4000 - not cheap at all

don't know if I could get another stock tub and cut away the wings/fenders to take some weight out but would that compromise the strength of the bed through a loss of bracing. Or could i make a flatbed lighter from the same style of fibreglass beam as the camper frame just to support the camper frame between the wheels and leave the outer edge and wheel arches very flimsy and lightweight? need to check legislation as it would be part of the vehicle - but bimobile do it.....

or do i tow a trailer? Its quite a common option among European motorhome owners and bang for buck it gives me by far the most additional carrying capacity for the lowest price. Europe doesn't use the same type of square hitch receiver as the US, so they can't be extended, and besides i think its better to have a longer draw bar on the trailer to keep the point of movement of the hitch as close to the rear axle as possible. Given that the camper overhangs the back of the truck by 800mm and i then need clearance to allow the whole thing to turn corners, i'm thinking a lightweight boat/zodiac trailer might be the easiest option. They are not the smallest of things, and would make parking and reversing a bit more awkward, and pay more on ferries, and you give away the advantages of a single vehicle. An unbraked 750kg single axle trailer can still be detached and manually shoved around quite easily, and gives me an additional load capacity of almost 600kg - more than enough for all the camping gear i would ever want and toys like bicycles or even a motorcycle........and i can get a new galvanized one with the required Spanish compliance paperwork for EUR1150

 

[filippomasoni]

Really great thread with lots of info I can take inspiration from, thank you @tanuki.himself

I'm planning the build of a flatbed camper (with wheel arch cutouts for a lower center of gravity as possible) on a Ford Ranger chassis cab that I'm waiting for delivery (hopefully by the end of the year, but probably later with all the production issues they are having).

My goal is to make it as light and compact as possible but still retain all the comfort of a hard-sided camper, so I want to stay below 3000kg total weight.

Can I ask you the exterior dimension of your build? And how long is the cabover?

So, Ford brochure figures are complete lies and the truck has a payload of 1000kgs

Why is that? If you increased the GVM to 3500 you have more payload.

 

[tanuki.himself]

Really great thread with lots of info I can take inspiration from, thank you @tanuki.himself

I'm planning the build of a flatbed camper (with wheel arch cutouts for a lower center of gravity as possible) on a Ford Ranger chassis cab that I'm waiting for delivery (hopefully by the end of the year, but probably later with all the production issues they are having).

My goal is to make it as light and compact as possible but still retain all the comfort of a hard-sided camper, so I want to stay below 3000kg total weight.

Can I ask you the exterior dimension of your build? And how long is the cabover?

Why is that? If you increased the GVM to 3500 you have more payload.

Glad you are finding it useful

my shell is
2160 wide
2220 high
4775 total length of which
815 rear overhang
2020 + 100 cab over - the base is 2020 to allow full size european mattresses, then the curve is 100mm deep at its most forward point

the weight of the ford as parked at the kerbside is higher than the documentation stated, so the payload is correspondingly less.

the towbar weighed 35 kgs - its removed. replacement tie down mounts added back about 8 kgs
spare wheel is 34 kgs - replaced in normal use by two cans of foam
Rear bumper is 17 kilos - i could just remove it and use the number plate cutout in the rear valance panel but i will put back a bumper made of ABS drainage gutter to give me somewhere to mount the tow electrics and extra rear foglights
under engine protection was only 6kgs so i left that in place
Rigid solar panels have been replaced with flexible renology panels giving me a saving of about 35 kgs - i didnt bother changing the roof as i don't have anywhere to work on that size of job where i am now living

i'm going to remake the floor with a 0.7mm decorative/wearing layer of High Pressure Laminate bonded to a woven/CSM /- nidacore - woven/CSM substrate that should be lighter than present - i have to collect those materials next month. I will be making a new countertop in the same way at the same time.

I am going to try swapping my preferred pocket spring mattresses for Emma memory foam ones - each single mattress drops from 25 to 12 kilos - but i have back problems so don't know how comfortable that is going to be. The Emma mattresses feel Ok in the shop and are better than just a layer of foam, and are the lightest such ones i've been able to find

i'm holding off on making any more decisions on cutting into the tub or swapping jacks until i compete all this work and get it back to the weigh bridge and, more importantly, we actually get some real world experience of living in it to see what we really need to carry. Hopefully now europe has opened up a bit more for travel we can get some time on the road this autumn once these changes have been made, and possibly get across to morocco for a few days in the atlas mountains as a test

 

[filippomasoni]

Glad you are finding it useful

my shell is
2160 wide
2220 high
4775 total length of which
815 rear overhang
2020 + 100 cab over - the base is 2020 to allow full size european mattresses, then the curve is 100mm deep at its most forward point

the weight of the ford as parked at the kerbside is higher than the documentation stated, so the payload is correspondingly less.

Thanks for the info. It's a big camper. My plan is to make it much smaller and tailored to my height (174cm), I'll travel solo and plan to have bed dimensions as most camper vans built for 2 (1300mm wide):

Shell walls will be 34mm similar to your with 30mm of styrofoam inside fiberglass on both sides, the floor will be 48mm, 40mm styrofoam, and 5-6mm plywood on the bottom. All premade by a company here in Italy.

My shell as currently planned:
1900mm wide
1900mm high (debating if going a bit taller)
3800mm total length of which 0 overhang and 1300mm cabover.

weight of the shell should be substantially lower than yours but also the problem you mentioned about the bouncy cabover, I really want to avoid that as it could be a big issue especially on offroad washboard roads. 35% shorter should be better, but I'm thinking of even going a bit shorter and have the bed a bit more on the inside, maybe I could do 1100mm cabover and gain back 20 cm with some overhang, as long as I have all the weight up front and not much in the back it shouldn't affect much. I'll have an entrance and shower in the back, so mostly empty space.

I've never seen a subframe like yours, is that aluminum or plastic material? not sure if you mentioned it but I can't quite tell from the photos. I'll have a shop build a subframe since the Ranger chassis cab doesn't come with a bed, so I don't think I need anything else and I'll only have a bare floor with 40mm in insulation.

As far as the weight of the Ranger I can't find figures of the chassis cab, but the single cab is supposed to be 2018-2104. I've seen photos of the bed removed from a supercab like yours, and weighed in at 218kg. I suspect the single cab bed to be heavier since it's 50cm longer. So the kerb weight of a chassis cab should be at least 250kg lighter or about 1750-1850kg. Not sure how much a flatbed frame will be but I'm sure I'll stay below 2000kg.

 

[tanuki.himself]

I've never seen a subframe like yours, is that aluminum or plastic material?

they are pultruded fibreglass beams made by a UK company, glued and bolted together with home made fibreglass cleats. Where aluminium profile would be extruded by pushing the material through a shaped die with huge pressure, these are made by pulling thousands of glass fibre threads through a bath of resin and then through a heated shaped die to set the resin to shape instantly. So fibreglass but will all the fibres running along the length of the beam....and hence the strength in that direction. Like the fibres in timber but that won't rot....

Mine is big enough for two comfortably, but still capable of fitting in a shipping container (dismounted) and not really any wider than most commercial motor homes. As you say, empty space doesnt weigh anything

The obvious comparisons for your rig would be a Bimobile or some of the Australian campers - i've always found it useful to compare with the commercial stuff as a reality check to be sure i'm not going off on too much of a fantasy.....if they can do it and make it work, then we should be able to do the same....

 

[filippomasoni]

they are pultruded fibreglass beams made by a UK company, glued and bolted together with home made fibreglass cleats. Where aluminium profile would be extruded by pushing the material through a shaped die with huge pressure, these are made by pulling thousands of glass fibre threads through a bath of resin and then through a heated shaped die to set the resin to shape instantly. So fibreglass but will all the fibres running along the length of the beam....and hence the strength in that direction. Like the fibres in timber but that won't rot....

Mine is big enough for two comfortably, but still capable of fitting in a shipping container (dismounted) and not really any wider than most commercial motor homes. As you say, empty space doesnt weigh anything

The obvious comparisons for your rig would be a Bimobile or some of the Australian campers - i've always found it useful to compare with the commercial stuff as a reality check to be sure i'm not going off on too much of a fantasy.....if they can do it and make it work, then we should be able to do the same....

Yes exactly, Bimobil was my initial inspiration, but I want to have it a bit more compact and with a different interior layout.