In the past, I have done a lot of camping – car camping, short hikes to campsites, pull over in BLM land and throw out a tent, backpacking – I enjoy doing that a lot, but my camping companion, Tux, my dog thinks she has to protect me in a fabric tent… so neither of us sleep. Though I am cool with bears (I usually carry a .460 S&W), that is one of the reasons a lot of people camp with hard sided trailers or slide-ins.
I looked around for a bit. A bumper pull isn’t quite the right thing for just me on a short weekend trip. They don’t all make it on the roads I travel down. As far as I can tell, there is only one gooseneck camper (most are horse trailers or equipment haulers), and that runs into the same problem with bumper pulls – a lot of work for just the dog and me.
I really started looking into slide in campers. Since I only have a 2500 and the diesel engine, that limits me to mostly popups. There are a few decent ones on the market, but used, they’re usually leaky, or new, they can start getting really pricey. A quick trip to Bozeman a few weeks ago helped validate that. Yes I drove 5 hours round-trip for a 20 minute walk-through of a local slide-in distributor. But also, realized that I didn’t want to spend $25,000 for a new slide-in (this brand was on the cheaper side).
Enter Denver trip. A short side quest got me a good price on a truck cap (or canopy or whatever you want to call it). Sourcing one locally would have been a 2-3 month wait. I am too impatient for that. So, quick install and we’re good to go.
I am glad it was a “flush with roof” cap and not one of those tops that pops up a few inches. It barely fits in the garage! Which is fantastic for a place that has 5-7 months of winter weather. No need for cold starts.
By now, you’re probably thinking, “What the hell dude? That’s not a camper.” Well, this is the time I tell you that I plan on building a self contained camping unit in the truck bed. I finally have some room to work with!
Without completely spoiling the surprise (translated, I don’t have much of a plan), there will be a bed platform on the drivers side, and some storage on the passenger side. The suspension of an HD truck is more than capable of carrying a few hundred pounds of plywood.
Because Ram is a bit weird, the bed length is 76″ long. If you haven’t measured one or used the internet recently, twin beds are 75″ long. I figured since I had about a twin bed length, I’d shoot for a twin bed width as well… which is 39″. Also figured fender well height would be a good height too. I wanted to build a platform to test that though.
I decided to build a quick frame around the fender to make sure that the height and width were what I really wanted.
While a twin bed in a pickup bed is a luxury, space is more of a luxury! I realized that this is a little high (plan is to match the top of the fender with the top of the bed surface… my head was just touching the cap top), and the width is overkill for something where I will sleep on and potentially lounge on in bad weather. I was also debating on whether I should use 2×3 framing or just thicker plywood for the build.
Side Note: If you measure the outside dimensions of a fender, if you’re building a frame for testing, the fender sits between the frame, so this should be inside dimensions instead of outside dimensions. Oops! Oh well, this was full speed screws with the drill… they all sunk like 1/2 inch into the framing – I was not aiming for perfection.
I decided that instead of framing things, I would build it from 3/4″ plywood. Around that size, the strongest and cheapest plywood I could find at Home Depot was 23/32″ Douglas Fir. Instead of a 39″ width, I cut the plywood down to 32″ and figure I can cut 2″ off if that seems too wide. Way more space inside the bed! To trace the fender pattern, I used a square and a metal rod, and drew a mark on the rod where the longest distance was.
With a little jigsaw magic, I was able to cut those out without any fitment issues. Since there is a curve between the bed and the fender, I hogged out a chamfer with a belt sander.
Yes, there are many other tools to use. Yes, some will have a much nicer finished product. But since you’ll never see it, does it really matter? It was fast. And I have the base completed for my bed platform.
Keep an eye out for Part 2 of my camper build. What height will the bed platform end up being?