Luton camper coffin

[cobblers]

Well I've had this T25 syncro pickup for ages, I've tried various half arsed ways about making it a "camper" in the past because where I go camping requires a fairly capable 4WD vehicle for about 5 months of the year. 

I've put it on here before:

First was a pickup bed tent (wank) then the roof tent (very lovely in summer, a ballache in winter if you have to put it away wet)

As such I didn't use it that much. I've got a T6 4 motion as a work van and I would camp in that quite often but we could do with selling it next year. 

Anyway, a few weeks ago I was measuring stuff, and one of the guys who works for me has a 110 defender he's converted to a camper and used quite happily, and I measured the length of the back end of it, and it was within an inch of the length of the t25 bed. Then I measured the width - and I have another 20cm! I'd always assumed the pickup bed was too small to do anything with. 

Cogs turned in my brain a bit. It was a busy, stressful week at work but because of ADHD I spent far too much time researching the construction of luton bodies and found a company that used a really cool looking "hex" extrusion section. Half an hour of kidpix spec CAD (123d design) I had this laid out:

I really liked the look of it, so after a few days of  measuring my existing van, looking up off the shelf windows and doors etc I decided it was worth a go - The camper back is nearly the same width and length of the back of a T6, but 20-25cm lower. It's a proper usable space, and I'd never considered it before.

 

So I got my wallet out and bought some hex extrusion and corners to make a start:

 

 

I decided that as much as having totally square sides would be easier, I think it would look a bit too much like a bin lorry, and despite being a lot lower than the roof tent the corners felt quite  vulnerable when offroading. so I experimented with tilting the sides in a bit.

That looks a lot better! and it allows me to get the roof out of a standard 1500mm insulated cladding panel, which will save an absolute fortune vs getting a custom sheet made, or having a potentially leaking joint.

 

Today I had a few more hours at it and got the front half of the frame cut and bolted together:

The roof and walls will be a sandwich, most likely an aluminium outer skin, about an inch of rigid foam insulation then a thin plywood with a presentable face on the inside.

I've got a 1 piece, drop in sealed door coming direct from the manufacturers in china.... We'll see how good that is next week.

I was planning on using no name chinese double glazed caravan windows - new ones of these were not much more than the price of scruffy 2nd hand caravan windows, however I've potentially ended up with some brand new, sub half price dometic/ seitz windows which have blinds and fly screens on the inside. Either that or someone has my credit card details and they'll rinse the remaining £300 from my bank account.

I'll use this for camping with just me and the little dog, so there's just going to be a conventional, small single mattress fixed bed along one side. These off the shelf foam beds people put in campers, whether they are folding or made from an arrangement of cushions are just never as comfy as even a fairly cheap mattress (I made the mistake of spending nearly two grand on a rib bed and it's like sleeping on a disabled access ramp!). So a mattress it is!.

The fixed bed will be quite low to the floor, with four 10cm tall drawers underneath it. The flat sides of the pod will make into a sofa with a few cushions, and there will be basic unit in one corner with a sink, a fold out worktop, portaloo and a few drawers.

Not sure on how I'll heat it - my normal chinese diesel heater will be way too powerful, so I'm going to try a hydronic system heating up the whole engine coolant system and teeing off that, or maybe just put a big battery in and use electric heating - I'll need 400w of heat to keep a 15c delta, so 5c outside, 20c inside. 

 

 

[High Jetter]

You're bonkers. Carry on!

[Rave]

2 hours ago, cobblers said:

Where I go camping requires a fairly capable 4WD vehicle for about 5 months of the year. 

Nobody else seems to care, but where and what's so brilliant about it? 😛

[Rustybullethole]

Watching with interest. Have oft thought of doing a shed/barrel top detachable caravan effort on a flat bed as a work van/camper compromise vehicle with all my ideas being low cash homebrew. Will be great to see you do things properly. 

[Tickman]

5 hours ago, Rave said:

Nobody else seems to care, but where and what's so brilliant about it? 😛

It has been mentioned a few times before.

It is a beautiful place with very few others around to spoil it.

[cobblers]

Yeah, the camping place isn't owt too extreme - just a friendly farmer in a nice part of the world that lets me camp wherever. During winter it's pretty muddy most of the place,  so you need something capable or you'll end up stuck. I go for a night out most weeks, in order to stop my head exploding!

[Dobloseven]

Sure you're not related to bfg?This sort of construction project sounds right up his street!Looks good though,looking forward to seeing it finished.

[yes oui si]

Absolute hero, please continue. 

[808 Estate]

Regarding the narrower top, did you do some fancy angle stuff, or simply apply some bendinium?

How long is the box? You mention a bed, but it looks about 4' long. Are you vertically challenged, or do you have a better concept to the design than I do?

[Garythesnail]

8 hours ago, 808 Estate said:

Regarding the narrower top, did you do some fancy angle stuff, or simply apply some bendinium?

How long is the box? You mention a bed, but it looks about 4' long. Are you vertically challenged, or do you have a better concept to the design than I do?

Courtesy of Pinterest.

Had previously thought that the bed behind a "double cab" could take an 8' sheet but still has over 6'.

[Westbay]

Or , in proper money, 6ft 2" ... deceptive ...

[808 Estate]

Cool, much longer than it looked. Thanks.

[andrew e]

Cobblers will this be fixed to the VW bed or removable? Crack on its going to be a winner 👍

[mintwth]

If you find a low enough bridge, it can be both

[Asimo]

I would be cautious about the strength of those extrusion-system joints. I am not familiar with that particular aluminium system but have experienced failure of other such due to vibration fretting at the joint and it all going sloppy very quickly. Consider triangulation with bonded-in infill panels?

**I am inclined to be over-cautious about such things. Whatever, it is going to be an interesting project!

[Missy Charm]

On 23/12/2024 at 07:24, Tickman said:

It has been mentioned a few times before.

It is a beautiful place with very few others around to spoil it.

Basildon?  

Slip-on camper looks excellent!  Keen to see how it develops.  

[cobblers]

14 hours ago, 808 Estate said:

Regarding the narrower top, did you do some fancy angle stuff, or simply apply some bendinium?

How long is the box? You mention a bed, but it looks about 4' long. Are you vertically challenged, or do you have a better concept to the design than I do?

The extrusion is slightly tighter than a 90 degree bend, and it pulls out when you bolt it in to the corner castings (not sure if this is by design or not!), but that means you get a bit of wiggle room to do stuff like this. The bed is deceptive -  the same length as a standard mattress, and I'll be pinching an extra 300-400mm with the duck tail overhang

4 hours ago, andrew e said:

Cobblers will this be fixed to the VW bed or removable? Crack on its going to be a winner 👍

Removable - held on using the existing bed side hinge brackets, with a 80x20mm aluminium box section running between them. In the future I might make frame that slots in to this so I can jack the thing off the back of the van and drive the van out from underneath.

 

2 hours ago, Asimo said:

I would be cautious about the strength of those extrusion-system joints. I am not familiar with that particular aluminium system but have experienced failure of other such due to vibration fretting at the joint and it all going sloppy very quickly. Consider triangulation with bonded-in infill panels?

**I am inclined to be over-cautious about such things. Whatever, it is going to be an interesting project!

I hear you - it's fairly lightweight stuff. The panels I'll use are 25mm PU foam skinned with 1.5mm aluminium on the outside - they'll be bonded with sika 221 to the frame. I'm fairly confident it'll be significantly stronger than most coachbuilt motorhomes / caravans

[bangernomics]

I know late on in the process, but did you consider an over cab as well? Maybe you could have a whole set of demountable bodies to suit each one of your purposes.

I wonder if you could even use some reclaimed refrigerated body panels ?

[bangernomics]

Also amazing!

[cobblers]

There's a guy made a similar thing with a slim pop-top that goes right over the front cab. I don't really want the carryon of a pop-top, you get back into issues with damp canvases etc. 

 To have any usable space over the front of the van would make the thing too tall, really. With the big tyres and a lift it's already about 10" taller than a normal T25.

I'm not making any more of these... The extrusion is really bloody expensive, as are the panels! I've rang around locally to try and salvage some pf the panels from places that do accident repairs on box bodies etc, but no luck. The corner castings should have been £138 + VAT a piece (and I need 6) which nearly wrote the project off, but a regular customer of ours at work had some surplus ones they very kindly donated.

[somewhatfoolish]

8 hours ago, bangernomics said:

I know late on in the process, but did you consider an over cab as well? Maybe you could have a whole set of demountable bodies to suit each one of your purposes.

I wonder if you could even use some reclaimed refrigerated body panels ?

I have idly pondered that; ex-fridge van bodies are available in reasonable quantity from scrapped supermarket delivery vehicles and often quite cheap if you can collect. Money no object I'd have a Nordstar demountable but they're expensive new and hold their value, so the mingebag alternative is always of interest.

[cobblers]

Had a steady day on this today, got the frame mostly made up now!

Spent a few hours scratching my head working out how to cut the 22.5 degree angles for the end - I've got a chop saw (for wood) which cuts aly quite well, but it doesn't have anywhere near enough reach to cut through the section at the angle I need it to be.

In the end I worked out a method - I'd cut through part of the way with the chop saw (as far as it would go before it bottomed out) then slide a bit of plate into the part cut slot and use straight edge held against that to mark up the rest of the cut, which I finished off with an angle grinder and tidied up with a belt sander. It was sketchy but it gave good results! This is the first test cut on some scrap:

 

As you can see the cut starts right on an unsupported, horribly flimsy but of the aly! If this was plastic or even wood it'd just smash itself to bits. I was shitting myself to be honest!

 

 

But, it worked out:

Now that I knew I could cut it, I very crudely modelled the frame up, as a sanity check as much as anything:

 

 

First two bits of the "duck bill" roughed in:

 

Humped it off the van and mostly finished it:

#

 

I need to go in tomorrow and get it all levelled and squared off before cutting the front uprights to suit (the ends need to have a 5 degree slant on them to match the front), then I'll get the 22.5 degree bits welded together by a local engineering place when they reopen. 

The whole frame feels well below 50kg, very easily lifted by hand.

It's still built 10cm higher than the lowest it can be to fit the door in. I'm still unsure. I'll get it sat on the van panelled up before finally making that call - I really don't want it to be mega high, but that few inches might make the difference between the roof grazing my head all the time which is annoying - I'm not super tall but even when sat on the rock and roll bed in my T6, my head rubs the roof.

 

 

 

[rusty_vw_man]

From my experience of high tips, pop tips and tin tops I’d agree that an extra 10cm might be the make or break - i’d always be tempted to leave it ever slightly higher than you think!! 

[cobblers]

I know what you mean.. It's taller than it looked in my head (and the original drawing) but it's still a lot lower than the roof tent I've been driving round with for a couple of years, with no issue. 

It's fair too tall to go in my garage and into "height restricted" car parks either way, but even the roof tent will fit through a drive through. 

[rusty_vw_man]

Not sure if you plan to take it abroad, if you do then 2.4m is the magic height at which prices go up a lot! 

My T25 with roof tent is 2.41m, so I tend to chance it, but it’s pretty snug! 

[warninglight]

Great work!

Following with interest as I've long wanted to build something like this for the back of the Laplander, once it's ready. More recently we've converted a big van, so my thoughts had moved to this smaller, lighter pod for the back, so it's not limiting off road and can get to the quiet spots a high top Crafter just can't.

Any recommendations for where to get the metal from?

One of the first things I did when I bought the Laplander (in 2018!) was to crudely knock this together from a stock photo of one that wasn't rotten. Definitely going smaller now, as it'll be more suited for weekend getaways than weeks-long trips.

[warninglight]

On that note, if you happen to come across any T25 single cab or similar flatbeds please let me know!

Something around the 10x5' region but could go a bit longer/wider. Any modern Transit type stuff is way too wide - will probably end up making it from scratch but still hoping I might find something to fit.

[Dyslexic Viking]

1 hour ago, warninglight said:

On that note, if you happen to come across any T25 single cab or similar flatbeds please let me know!

Something around the 10x5' region but could go a bit longer/wider. Any modern Transit type stuff is way too wide - will probably end up making it from scratch but still hoping I might find something to fit.

Have you thought of buying a flatbed trailer and using that?

[yes oui si]

This just popped up on Marketplace if anyone fancies a ghetto version:

https://www.facebook.com/share/14ZVLV7smQ/

A grand for an old romahome bolted to some dexion. 

[warninglight]

9 hours ago, Dyslexic Viking said:

Have you thought of buying a flatbed trailer and using that?

I have - but a 10x5 or 12x6 trailer in poor enough condition to cut up is still expensive enough that I may as well start from scratch, as ideally I probably want to be somewhere between the two standard trailer sizes.