2020 Ram 5500 DIY Composite Panel Camper Build Thread

DirtWhiskey

Western Dirt Rat
Those boxes look down right SEXY! Well done! I agree on the boxes. They have to follow the lines, plus you get all that additional real estate in the box around the wheel wells. Forgive if this is repetitive, but are those Highway boxes?
 

RAM5500 CAMPERTHING

OG Portal Member #183
Again, i am VERY fortunate to have some super rad and talented friends that are down for the cause when things are out of my wheelhouse.

I had cut out the pieces of aluminum oversize and planned to make it a flanged pieced and rivet it on with sealant since me and the 2 homies doing most of it can't weld aluminum well, or barely.

Had another buddy swing by (welder by trade) and he hated my idea and pulled this off in about 15 minutes. Going to paint it, remount it and BOOM

THANKS JARED!!!

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ITTOG

Well-known member
Again, i am VERY fortunate to have some super rad and talented friends that are down for the cause when things are out of my wheelhouse.

I had cut out the pieces of aluminum oversize and planned to make it a flanged pieced and rivet it on with sealant since me and the 2 homies doing most of it can't weld aluminum well, or barely.

Had another buddy swing by (welder by trade) and he hated my idea and pulled this off in about 15 minutes. Going to paint it, remount it and BOOM

THANKS JARED!!!

View attachment 738073

View attachment 738074

View attachment 738075
Half the battle is often having the right friends.
 

RAM5500 CAMPERTHING

OG Portal Member #183
Half the battle is often having the right friends.

Abso Freaking Lutely!

Funny because my friend that welded this piece (and the radius corner caps) builds some of the top Trophy Trucks and said he enjoys these little one off projects because he gets to be creative and do stuff from scratch, where as the trucks and such are basically just repetative assembly.

Also lucky to have timing fall into place here because during race season, his free time is close to zero.

Stoked
 

calameda

Member
Thanks for the feedback. We had this on the backburner for a long time.... Finally assembled it with a tight timeline for BC Overland Rally and next weeks Expo in Bend. IF and it's still a big IF we bring this into production we will need to change a couple things. The slanted roof ads roughly 150lb!. This featue also only allows for the medium size Wildlands door . These are not insulated and fairly short....

Will see what people say at the expo.....
Apologies I’m v late to this party, and don’t mean to derail this very informative conversation. But wondering how it’s possible that the TC slant roof design is 150 lbs heavier. Can’t be from panel weight, since there’s less panel area than a square side roof. So must be from the additional joints and extrusions and glue.

But is it really? Would be astounded if each long extrusion plus glue weighs 75 pounds. Can this be right?
 
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RAM5500 CAMPERTHING

OG Portal Member #183
Apologies I’m v late to this party, and don’t mean to derail this very informative conversation. But wondering how it’s possible that the TC slant roof design is 150 lbs heavier. Can’t be from panel weight, since there’s less panel area than a square side roof. So must be from the additional joints and extrusions and glue.

But is it really? Would be astounded if each long extrusion plus glue weighs 75 pounds. Can this be right?

I was wondering that too. Although the extrusions are pretty heavy, i dont see them adding 150lbs to add the slant. But who knows
 

chris_the_wrench

Fixer & Builder of Things
@RAM5500 CAMPERTHING Im still looking at Kelderman, another question for you about your experience: do you set the psi and forget all about it? Or do you adjust pressure based off the road? For example the twisty decent on i8 going east, vs flat interstate vs secondary roads vs dirt roads? How much do you adjust the pressure?
Thanks
 

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