Remount camper

[garybo]

I will have the Greene's (now ours) camper at the Expo for anyone to look at. Bring a wrench! Gary

[ntsqd]

U-bolts with springs between the nuts and the plates was discussed in at least one of those threads. I believe that it was Joaquin Suave who posted a picture of a U.S. military 2.5t with such a bed mounting method. Die springs, available from McMaster.com, were mentioned as a likely spring to use.

[Dendy Jarrett]

Gary: Sorry for the delay. It took me a minute to realize that this was still in the wrong spot. I thought another admin had moved it.
So, I think it is now in the right spot.
Thanks
D

[westyss]

You wouldn't be referring to me now would you?

Yes, but now I see its the Greens' camper thanks, I felt like I was being left out

[garybo]

There's a Mercedes cutaway, the Atego, even has a hybrid! and here we are in the US with no choice! Gary

[garybo]

Forgot the site for the Atego
http://www2.mercedes-benz.co.uk/cont...on_sheets.html

[garybo]

Just finished Overland Expo. Special thanks to Lance Gillies of EarthCruiser who looked at my mounting situation, then gave this advice: remove the just welded on c channel plates and grind totally smooth any residual welded areas. The plates prevent normal flexing and twisting the frame requires. Don't weld anything inside any frame c channel. Thanks also to long time Fuso camper owners Lehel Garami and Brian James agreed and said to forget about the dented in c channel, torque it down and go have fun! Congratulations to Lehel for running the obstacle course proving just what a Fuso can do!

[whatcharterboat]

Hi Gary

What an awesome weekend. I went down to your truck to say hi but nobody was home. I guess the truck I saw that was on the Toyos was Lehel's.
It was good to see both trucks anyway.

Regards John

[garybo]

Tomorrow I'll get the plates un-welded. I got some other advice at the expo: after I un-weld the plates, I was told it is acceptable to leave the plates in place, just not welded on, or I could put in oak wood blocks as a substitute for the plates. Either of these would be simply to "prevent" the c channel from bending further from the u bolts.
Also no comment yet here about the amount of torque for the u bolts. I'm at 75ftlbs. Perhaps flat bed trailers have an average amount of torque to hold on the bed?
Let the thoughts fly!!

[dhackney]

Gary,

It was good to meet you in person at the show. I'm sorry we couldn't spend more time together discussing this challenge.

First, it is very, very important to remember that an FG, such as Lehel's, that has a flatbed U-bolted to the frame, is not the same as your truck. That flatbed provides a very strong and significant stiffening component to the FG frame, dramatically limiting the flex that is an inherent part of the FG's frame design.

The FG frame flexes a *lot*, even when exiting a driveway, much less over real off-road obstacles. If you have anything rigidly bolted to the frame, all the flexing forces are being taken by whatever is rigidly bolted to the frame. In your case, that is your camper box. Don & Kim built a strong camper box, and, up to now, it has been up to the task of absorbing those forces. The bending you see in your frame may be the result of those forces.

The absolute best way to mount a payload to an FG is the Ozzie method pioneered by All Terrain Warriors and later adopted by Lance's company. It's the same basic design used to mount milk and other tanks to straight trucks like your Fuso.

The advantage to the Ozzie payload mount for your FG is that it distributes the weight of the payload down the entire length (longitudinal dimension) of the frame, while allowing the frame to flex at will.

Up to the limit of its travel, the Ozzie payload mount design prevents the FGs frame flex being put into the payload. In this case, put into your camper.

Lastly, even though it is a tempered frame, it is OK to weld on the FG frame, but only within specified dimensions and places.

The information you need to do this properly is in the attached excerpted Fuso documents that detail how to properly modify an FG frame, including how to properly weld on the frame.

Excerpted Fuso FG84DE6 body builder's docs: http://www.hackneys.com//mitsu/docs/...-mod-pages.pdf

Please note these body builder documents are *not* for your generation Fuso, they are for ours, which is one generation newer than yours. You may be able to download the body builders documents for your generation FG from the Mitsubishi web site, which is where these pages came from. The general principles will be the same.

Doug