HNewman
Member
Have you ever looked at a camper and thought; "i would do that a little differently"?
Well this is the story of exactly that. This is my idea of how a camper could be a home built on the back of a four wheel drive truck.
We can start back at the beginning and cover a few brief reasons why I am going down this road. I have spent a lot of time on the road living in various trucks and vans including some I customized for the task. I love to be able to pick up and spend time living out of my vehicle and maybe the only thing I love more is repairing and modifying the vehicles themselves.
What makes my needs unique? I spend my winters in the mountains and currently I live in Alaska. I want to have serious insulation and enough space for full time winter living. This package also needs to ride on a 4x4 for convenient winter travel.
Well 4x4 sprinter vans and true four season truck campers don't come cheap and still require so serious work and money to keep warm when the temperature dips below 0 for days at a time. After a lot of thought and searching I decided to start with a flatbed truck and build my own camper permanently fixed to the bed.
Here is what decided to start with
Although it had been sitting mostly unused for a few years this would clean up to be a perfect truck. The 2001 Silverado 3500HD with the 8.1L Vortec V8 and Allison 1000 transmission. This is an awesome drive line for my needs. The gas engine will start up on extremely cold mornings without a block heater, allows for more payload than diesel, and costs less to maintain. I believe this is a common engine and transmission combination on factory built motor homes as well. The truck had been in the same family as a work vehicle since new.
The truck will be getting some modifications of its own but taking advantage of a dry spring here in south central Alaska I decided to get started on reconditioning the flatbed next.
Well this is the story of exactly that. This is my idea of how a camper could be a home built on the back of a four wheel drive truck.
We can start back at the beginning and cover a few brief reasons why I am going down this road. I have spent a lot of time on the road living in various trucks and vans including some I customized for the task. I love to be able to pick up and spend time living out of my vehicle and maybe the only thing I love more is repairing and modifying the vehicles themselves.
What makes my needs unique? I spend my winters in the mountains and currently I live in Alaska. I want to have serious insulation and enough space for full time winter living. This package also needs to ride on a 4x4 for convenient winter travel.
Well 4x4 sprinter vans and true four season truck campers don't come cheap and still require so serious work and money to keep warm when the temperature dips below 0 for days at a time. After a lot of thought and searching I decided to start with a flatbed truck and build my own camper permanently fixed to the bed.
Here is what decided to start with
Although it had been sitting mostly unused for a few years this would clean up to be a perfect truck. The 2001 Silverado 3500HD with the 8.1L Vortec V8 and Allison 1000 transmission. This is an awesome drive line for my needs. The gas engine will start up on extremely cold mornings without a block heater, allows for more payload than diesel, and costs less to maintain. I believe this is a common engine and transmission combination on factory built motor homes as well. The truck had been in the same family as a work vehicle since new.
The truck will be getting some modifications of its own but taking advantage of a dry spring here in south central Alaska I decided to get started on reconditioning the flatbed next.
Last edited:
