Getting very close on finishing the frame for the Bigfoot

[Mock Tender]

Hopefully by tomorrow, the last of the frame will be finished and the Bigfoot will be on. I think it looks great. We think the sheer strength will be around 25 tons. Very happy with the design and build so far.

Mark

 

[Czechsix]

Looks terrific, nice work. How is frame flex going to be regulated?

 

[SkiFreak]

How is frame flex going to be regulated?

I was going to ask the exact same question, because unrestrained flexing of the Fuso chassis will likely cause as much of a problem as hard mounting, if not more.

 

[dlh62c]

Looks good!

Someone has great metal fabrication skills. With all the stock stuff hanging off the frame rails, I'm sure you had fun figuring out how and where to bolt up the mounts. Be careful working around the DEF tank, the pump housing on top is fragile.

Can't wait to see the Bigfoot camper mounted. If I remember correctly, you planned to use a trailer model?

Have you disconnected the back-up alarm yet?

 

[pugslyyy]

Hopefully by tomorrow, the last of the frame will be finished and the Bigfoot will be on. I think it looks great. We think the sheer strength will be around 25 tons. Very happy with the design and build so far.

Mark
View attachment 275004View attachment 275002View attachment 275003View attachment 275005

Wow, that is quite the beefy 3 point attachment! Are you going to have some shock dampers on the front pivot?

 

[kerry]

I'm wondering if that system will concentrated the flex loads just in front of of the step-down portion of the frame in the general vicinity of the back of the transmission since it appears from the pictures that the additional materials make the entire back portion of the frame far more rigid. Of course, it's hard to tell just from pictures.

 

[GR8ADV]

I was going to ask the exact same question, because unrestrained flexing of the Fuso chassis will likely cause as much of a problem as hard mounting, if not more.

And who is having a problem with hard mounting?

 

[pugslyyy]

And who is having a problem with hard mounting?

Hmm, that's an interesting question! "Everybody" knows not to do it, but I can't say that I've seen any pictures of torn up campers from hard mounting.

Plenty of pictures of the carnage from 3 point mounts on Fusos though!

 

[GR8ADV]

Hmm, that's an interesting question! "Everybody" knows not to do it, but I can't say that I've seen any pictures of torn up campers from hard mounting.

Plenty of pictures of the carnage from 3 point mounts on Fusos though!

yup. we have 150k on ours. u bolted to the frame the way it was designed to take loads. I will continue to knock on wood. I am not sure where the over engineered 3 and 4 point mounting systems came from. Maybe a MOG carryover?

 

[kerry]

Mine had a hard mounted service body on it for 176k miles and my camper in the service body for any 30k and no problems have arisen yet.

 

[SkiFreak]

I have seen (personally, not in pictures) at least four trucks that had cracks in the chassis as a direct result of a hard mounted body.
Obviously, hard mounting is a tried and tested method on tens of thousands of goods trucks, no one can argue that. I guess that it comes down to what you do with the truck. If it spends most of its life on the black top then it may go through its life with no frame issues, but use it off road with a heavy camper that is twisting the chassis continually and focusing that torsional stress between the cab and the step and you increase the potential for failure of the chassis.

If you have a hard mounted camper on a FG I do not think that anyone would dispute that it will cause more concentrated stress to the chassis when taken off road than if the camper were to be spring mounted.
Is a hard mounted camper guaranteed to have a frame failure? Absolutely not, but the possibility of this happening is significantly increased.

 

[DiploStrat]

If you have a hard mounted camper on a FG I do not think that anyone would dispute that it will cause more concentrated stress to the chassis when taken off road than if the camper were to be spring mounted.
Is a hard mounted camper guaranteed to have a frame failure? Absolutely not, but the possibility of this happening is significantly increased.

We may be talking past each other here, but my big complaint of pivot frames is precisely that they concentrate all of the camper's weight onto three or four mount points, as opposed to spreading it along the length of the frame.

Of course, a lot of this depends on the the stiffness of the camper/sub frame. I had huge arguments with Tiger about the mounting of my Malayan. I have a three point mount, and while it may offer advantages in extreme torque situations, I have always worried much more about the impact of vibration from washboard/corrugations.

My favorite design is the pull apart mount used by some German companies and, I believe, Earth Cruiser.

 

[SkiFreak]

I don't want to hijack this thread and turn it into yet another discussion about mounting systems, as this has pretty much been done to death already in other threads.
The 3 point mount on Mock Tender's truck looks like it has been done very well. My main concern is that if it allows the chassis to flex freely that it may cause additional problems.

 

[dlh62c]

Mark can correct me if I'm wrong, but if I remember correctly, he's mounting a Bigfoot trailer not a truck camper. I think his plan was to do something similar to what Carl Hunter did.

http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/132141-Trip-down-Oregon-coast?highlight=Carl+hunter

 

[DzlToy]

Are those factory grid/bolt pattern in the frame and brackets made to fit or frame holes drilled in bracket pattern?

Just curious, as it appears from the Fuso Body Builder's guide that holes should not be drilled in a perfect grid or all in a line. I can't imagine the steel cracking between holes, but stranger things have happened.

Certainly beefy.