building the Bullet XV

[The Adam Blaster]

The project is starting to look really sharp now!!!
Very shiny also, it's going to be hard to look at on a sunny day! lol

I'm interested to see what your interior build looks like as well.

[thecarman]

yes, the anal mathematician in me weighed every part beforehand & calculated the finish box weight after i cut down the parts.. ..ready!?

Thanks very much for the detailed info - that's exactly what I was looking for!

this weight of course does not include anything inside, your concrete counters & ironwood cabinets may tip the scales a bit...

I plan to keep it pretty minimal inside. I'm just looking for more space than a slide-in (2 parents, 2 kids, 1 or 2 dogs), with less weight, and less cost.

what concerns me more, as i felt this once on a friend's camper, is the tall center of gravity. the truck had a squishy suspension & would sway back & forth for about six blocks after taking a left hand turn! that's the problem with some of the 1 ton trucks, they're made to ride like a car with no weight in the back.

My truck was made before car-like ride became a consideration. It's a 79 with huge "Camper Special" rear spring packs - the ride only becomes "acceptable" once you put a load on it. It may be fine as-is (I've had a 2200lb camper on it twice before), but if it sways, I'll add a rear sway bar.

I don't mean to hijack your thread - I'll start my own if I ever get the build started. Thanks again for the info!!!

[Every Miles A Memory]

Great looking truck, and I'm sure I'm way late on this, but I just found the thread.

On the battery question, if you were to use Lifeline AGM's, they're completely sealed and dont need to be in a special box. They dont off any gasses and can be mounted in any direction or upside down if you need to put them that way.

We've had our bank of 4 6-volts run in parallel and have yet to do one ounce of maintenance on them. For the money, they're expensive, they were one of the best investments we've made on our rig

[sarconcepts]

thanks for the battery info, that's exactly what i plan to do.
got the rear bumper & winch on, spare tire mount,windows in, & got the pieces for the wall cap. things are starting to look clean.
next up, the wall cap, lift system & roof

[The Adam Blaster]

This was likely covered already, but what is the length of the camper, from exterior front wall against the cab to exterior rear wall?

[haven]

Great build, very useful to everyone thinking about constructing a
camper of our own design.



I'm a little worried about the clearance between the cab roof and the
camper overhead. This clearance may have worked fine for a UHaul
truck. The truck frame will twist more when you take it on uneven
ground. It might be enough to make the roof and the overhead touch.

Chip Haven

[sarconcepts]

a couple things here,
to the adam blaster, the length of the main body of the camper without the cabover is 11'-10", including the cabover is 14'-4" (hence a 2'-6" cabover). this length is straight from the uhaul box length as I didn't alter this.
the width is 7'-2 3/4" cut down 7" from the original box width.
& to haven, I resolved any concern I had regarding clearance above the cab by the design of my 3 point frame. The camper frame is attached firmly in two places right behind the cab to the main frame,(about 8" behind the rear cab mounting bolts) the rear has the pivot, so as the truck twists & torques, the camper always stays in exactly the same place in relation to the cab (minus vibrations) regardless of what the truck frame & axles below are doing. The only way the cab could come in contact with the camper is in vertical deflection, or lets say I hit a steep incline doing about 60 mph, the frame wants to bend down in the center of the axles. this truck has a full commercial chassis, so the frame at this location is 14" deep, greatly minimizing any deflection in the vertical plane.
With that said, this is my first & only vehicle build, so I can't say I've got test runs & trials behind me, but I have thought about this greatly.
the first pic shows the 2" pivot pin,
the second shows just how stout I designed the frame (1200 LBS worth)
the last shows how the frame stayed planar with the cab just while twisting in my driveway

[Ned B]

Incredible build. Thanks for sharing! Your attention to detail is excellent, can't wait to see the rig when you finally get it finished.

[sarconcepts]

yet another good weekend's work,(Friday & Saturday at least) the wall caps & roof are finally starting to take shape
http://bulletxv.wordpress.com

[Carlyle]

Beautiful work!