The starting Point

[David Kreuser]

Good Morning happy campers, and not so happy. Well continuing the saga of the starting point, after having many trucks in my life time, I was in dire need of some transportation, previous truck wasn't getting the gas mileage I needed, and repairs were too costly, so I sold it. I stumbled on my current camper hauler, 1987 Dodge D250. I found it via craigslist, and after purchasing it for $1200, took it home and started cleaning it up, and found the original window sticker from the manufacturer. It is now embossed in clear plastic. It seems that this truck was built for the military, and has a lot of military extras. Of course one of the extras was the block heater and battery heater. I don't need them in Florida, so I did away with them, and the plug in is now the CB whip antenna base mount. The truck is a 3/4 ton truck, my first ever. After reviewing receipts that had been for repairs, for this truck, (which were hardly any) it seems this was an excellent buy, and only 26,378 miles at purchase.

Now that I had a 3/4 ton truck, I had always wanted a slide in truck camper. But, even 5 years ago the cost was prohibitive, so I started looking into building one.

I started with GLEN-L plans, and again, adding up materials, even if I cut corners was expensive. So I started searching craigslist, and found a camper listed up around Tampa for $300, ad said it was gutted. I thought to myself, how much can you gut, when there's not much in them to begin with, and I could put in my own interior. I brought it home, ratchet strap holding it on to the back of the truck, and at 65 down the highway for 55 miles, I couldn't feel it on the truck, this is nice.

I learned many lessons building this my first camper. I now know why most are built with toothpicks and staples. Because when you start using 1/4 in, 1/2 in, and 3/4 in wood you'd be surprised of the weight added onto your GVWR. Not excluding stainless hardware, sinks, electrical wire, battery's, pumps, porta-potty's, untinsels, water tanks, bedding, etc, etc, etc,. Top bunk was so rotted, I rolled the roof back and cut off 18 inches to shorten the bunk to cot size, or storage, and pinned the roof down and under and had a 8' shorty with wind deflector.  

[Kevin Crowley]

You've got a nice looking setup there David. That should turn a few heads. I'm liking the retro bike in your trailer! Ties in well with the whole package.

[david craft]

Looks good. I like the brophy hssf tiedown. You get away from the wear point onthe bed. Slide em' where you want and tighten. They are not a stake pocket style. And they fit any truck..have excellent resale value, with no drillin'

[Rich Thomas]

That's going to be a really nice setup David. The chop job job looks well done from this view; have fun with it.