1017a camper/tiny house buIld

[universalmind303]

I bought a 1017 with 7k km about a month ago with the intention of turning it into a full time camper/ tiny house. I picked it up from colorado, and made the long voyage through endless cornfields back to Minnesota. My first task was removing all the under body boxes and replacing the floor of the bed. I decided to keep the existing bed instead of having a custom subframe constructed. My end dimensions will be 8x18 living space.

this was after I had it stripped to the bare frame. As you would expect from one of these vehicles, everything was over built and spent about 2 days un bolting and chipping away to get to this point. After I had all the floor back together, I started with the construction of the box.

The box is permanently mounted to the subframe, I am about a week into the project now, hoping to be finished with it by the end of June, I will try to keep at least weekly updates on the progress of the camper.

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[Haf-E]

Looks like you are doing 7 foot walls? What will the roof look like? Are you planning on putting any solar on it?

 

[universalmind303]

Looks like you are doing 7 foot walls? What will the roof look like? Are you planning on putting any solar on it?

6'6" walls. I am still playing with a few ideas for the roof, either flat, or a slightly pitched roof, I would like a pitched roof for aesthetics but I am trying to keep it under 11'6" for underpasses and whatnot. I am going to wire up the roof for future solar panels, but just use my 600 ah battery bank charged by the vehicle, and a Honda eu2000i as a backup battery charger.

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[ScottReb]

Could you tell us where you found the 1017? Did you import yourself or was it in the US? Love that truck, seems like a great base vehicle. Good luck with your build!

 

[Sitec]

Hi Universalmind303.

How is your tipper tray mounted? They usually don't have a 3 point mount, and are designed to twist with the truck chassis.. Mine (1222A) has a huge amount of twist when crossed up. It would be worth taking yours out and seeing how much twist you have to deal with before getting in too deep. Following with interest as I will be following suit at some point!

 

[Joe917]

After you complete the shell, before you put in any more time, a good test drive is needed. Stick framing is fine for a tiny house that is parked, not so good for life on the road.

 

[universalmind303]

Could you tell us where you found the 1017? Did you import yourself or was it in the US? Love that truck, seems like a great base vehicle. Good luck with your build!

I bought the 1017 from rob pickering, he has a few unimog and other European trucks. I believe he did all the work on bill caids 1017 high low camper.

Hi Universalmind303.

How is your tipper tray mounted? They usually don't have a 3 point mount, and are designed to twist with the truck chassis.. Mine (1222A) has a huge amount of twist when crossed up. It would be worth taking yours out and seeing how much twist you have to deal with before getting in too deep. Following with interest as I will be following suit at some point!

Its not a tipper on mine, it has 4 mounting points, it seems to isolate the load fairly well. I did a very unscientific test of rocking the whole box, the frame rocks a bit, but it looks like most of it stays in the subframe.

After you complete the shell, before you put in any more time, a good test drive is needed. Stick framing is fine for a tiny house that is parked, not so good for life on the road.

Actually this is one of the more interesting aspects of my build! I expect it to hold up just as well as the SIP panel constructed homes. I have done alot of high end construction on homes, and on alot of jobs they use closed cell spray foam insulation instead of rigid foam or batt insulation. This stuff is durable! It will be sprayed into all the cavities, and in the roof. It has been shown to increase racking strength of framing structures 3-400%! I will also use metal straps hidden in the walls, as well as aluminum sheet metal siding. I was definitely considering a shake down test as soon as I finish the shell.

Off to a good start !
I think you should make an arched roof. Its keeping in style with european truckbodies.

After some discussion, and alot of head scratching, we will be going with an arched roof. Unfortunately, to keep under my desired 12 ft goal, it can only arch 4 inches. This didn't leave me with enough room to arch the interior ceiling, while leaving room for insulation, so it will be a flat ceiling, but an arched roof.

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[Sitec]

Its not a tipper on mine, it has 4 mounting points, it seems to isolate the load fairly well. I did a very unscientific test of rocking the whole box, the frame rocks a bit, but it looks like most of it stays in the subframe.

After some discussion, and alot of head scratching, we will be going with an arched roof. Unfortunately, to keep under my desired 12 ft goal, it can only arch 4 inches.

Even more reason to cross axle it and see how much the tray twists.. I think you'll be a little surprised when you do...

Here's an arched roof at approx 4" for you.

 

[universalmind303]

Minor update. I managed to build the loft platform for the bed. Tarped the roof because it's supposed to rain all week

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[calicamper]

Keep the truck flip down sides. Then work a fold out deck with them.. Interesting build. This sort of rig wont be a trail crawler, so the twist factor shouldnt be too extreme.

 

[universalmind303]

Latest update, framing is complete, windows are in. I am still looking for the right door. Started in on the roofing, plumbing and electric are next on the list.

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[universalmind303]

Another suggestion related to your roof.
Use some kind of raingutter & extension some method to permit runoff to fall clear of the walls.
Perhaps something detachable to apply when parked.

Walls of course still get wet, but keeping roof runoff from draining upon surface of walls helps greatly to extend lifespan of your wood & paintwork.

My camper is constructed much like yours, but styled 'Gypsy Waggon', as all its walls tapering wider toward the roof, does this automatically without gutters & adds much to its coolness.

It doesn't show up well in the picture, but there is a 2" overhang on the sides and a 8" soffit on the back.

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[straps57]

Nice!

 

[nick disjunkt]

It doesn't show up well in the picture, but there is a 2" overhang on the sides and a 8" soffit on the back.

Will that not get damaged easily when the top edges of the box hit tree limbs on tight roads?

 

[universalmind303]

I haven't updated in a while, been working on the electrical for a few days now.

I now have electricity! I have all the 110 for the outlets wired up, still have a lot to do with the 12v. I am going to add another 220 ah battery, a 24/12v converter to plug into the truck's electric system, pre-wire it for solar to be added in the future, install the battery monitor, and install all the 12v light fixtures. My next step is to finish the plumbing before the spray foam guys arrive next week.

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