C5500 TopKick 4x4 Crew Cab Build

[NeverEnough]

Awesome build! Congrats men!

Thanks, and it is definitely a team effort.

Wow.

I'm impressed by so many different things. The build has obviously been done right. Frankly though, what I'm more impressed with, is the amount of time you're able to spend with your kids doing awesome stuff. I get 3 weeks off a year and never feel like I have much to show for it at the end. I suspect there is a connection between your means to build such a rig, and your means to enjoy the important things in life as much as you appear to do.

I say "wow" to myself alot lately, but mainly because of what I got myself into!

And thanks for the kind words. I was lucky to be raised in a home where working together and playing together was a way of life, even with very limited means (8 kids and dad was a school teacher). And while I've been fortunate to have more resources than I experienced growing up, I try to follow my parent's example of priorities. As a result, we have lots of play stuff in the garage, but no furniture in the house! With the age of my kids, it's tough to take long trips as a family due to scheduling conflicts; but we try to have one outing a week together, even if it's just a couple of hours. We're fortunate to live in a place where outdoor recreation is minutes away- climbing, hiking, biking, skiing, fishing- so it doesn't cost much and it's way better than going to a movie or out to dinner.

One thing I do different from my parents is escape with Mrs. Neverenough on occassion without the boys in tow. We blazed down to Torrey, UT this weekend for an overnighter with some great riding around Thousand Lakes Mtn., Capitol Reef, and the Swell, as well as dinner at one of the best restaurants ever, Cafe Diablo. I find myself assessing each road we travel to see if the new rig will be able to handle it.

Back in the shop, we're pushing hard to wrap this up. Here's an interesting shot of the solar panel support frame with the slide room extended. I struggled for a long time with the best way to distribute 12VDC and 120VAC to the big room. I finally decided on an articulating whip system. Two sealtite whips hold all the 12V and 120V feeds, as well as the incoming feed from the panels. The whips easily accommodate the 90 degree arc between the extended and retracted position. I'll probably add a tension spring to keep them from dragging on the roof, however.

The 6 185W panels weigh less than 200lbs combined, but I still wanted additional support for the frame assembly. Two sets of wheels help support the weight as it moves in and out with the slide-out room, and roll on a 4"x.25" wear-strip on the roof.

This is a crappy photo, but the rest of the load is picked up by the PCM bearings that ride in a uni-strut track welded to each ram tube.

The articulating whips are connected to the solar panel J-box, which is mounted to the middle of the panel frame on the driver's side. The box had enough room inside to serve as a J-box for the slide out room feeds (quite a bundle of 10, 12, and 14 gauge wire).

Since the remaining run didn't need to articulate, I consolidated the feeds into a single 1.25" sealtite run from the J box back to the rear of the slide out room. It makes two 90's and enters via the back wall.

I thought about using rigid conduit, but decided to stick with the sealtite, hoping it will deal with the over-the-road conditions better. Here's what the rear of the camper looks like with the room extended. The aluminum framing was added to increase the stiffness of the slide-out assembly. The vertical channels also provide a strong mechanical connection point for the room's leveling jacks, as well as guide rails for the cargo platform (the crane assembly and platform still need to be fab'd). The various components will be painted either white or black to make them somewhat less visible.

The actuator in the middle keeps the room level during extension and retraction- very important with a 100" travel stroke with that kind of load. The leveling jacks (not mounted yet) take the load once it's out.

The big horizontal roof-top actuators are steel, but the rest of the slide-out assembly is aluminum. It all had to be beefed up after the initial tests to increase stiffness, but it's still quite a bit lighter than the steel alternative. For those of you just joining in, the original design used internal composite beams and tracks, but there was just too much flex in the overall system (we never got much past 80" of decent travel stroke). Here's Jose doing his stuff on the "push-out" beam.

The inside wiring is almost wrapped. I still need to finish the battery box, which holds 4 220ah AGM cells (480lbs!) and the rig's control panel. Slowly but surely........

 

[jms87]

Long tome lurker here! I had to finally join up to say that this is an AWESOME build! The quality of work and attention to detail is outstanding!

 

[dzzz]

Looking great. I like how you did the electrical. Stranded or solid wire?

The 6 185W panels weigh less than 200lbs combined,

That has to be the most solar I've heard spec'd on a vehicle. That should work well even in the winter.

I have three 220ah batteries and easily keep them charged with the vehicle alternator and 130w total solar. But I have no TV or microwave.

 

[NeverEnough]

Stranded or solid wire?

That has to be the most solar I've heard spec'd on a vehicle. That should work well even in the winter.

I have three 220ah batteries and easily keep them charged with the vehicle alternator and 130w total solar. But I have no TV or microwave.

All the 12VDC is stranded, as well as any 120VAC that moves in any way.

Jay Shapiro's rig has a similar amount of PV. The goal was to get enough PV/battery to carry the radiant heat (runs on 120VAC) through the night without running the generator. Of course, conditions will vary widely, but for most of my intended use, I think it will be more than enough. I also wanted to be charging while running the A/C. And since the camper is independent of the truck, I'm still not sure I'll bother hooking up the isolater/alternator for charging. My Xantrex setup will automatically kick on the generator at whatever level of discharge I specify, so it would be nice to just have an umbilical to the truck for the running lights.

 

[NeverEnough]

Long tome lurker here! I had to finally join up to say that this is an AWESOME build! The quality of work and attention to detail is outstanding!

Thanks and glad you're no longer lurking!

 

[Entropy]

Here's the biggest one I've run across - 10X 210W panels and 2100AH of battery capacity.

 

[dzzz]

Here's the biggest one I've run across - 10X 210W panels and 2100AH of battery capacity.

Sachagra is a great build. Interesting videos on youtube.

 

[shachagra]

Best of luck from Shachagra

Someone sent me a link to this thread and I'm so glad they did. Nice build, completely into it and then and then I see a shot of our RV!
It is fascinating to see a build that is so nice, yet so different from what we did. Ours was built like a boat hull, marine grade plywood built into SIP in the living areas, and coated with fiberglass and carbon fiber. The reason I went that way was purely because of my experience building boats (my degree is in naval architecture)
The solar array (2100W, Outback components, 2100AH) was the single biggest advantage we had. We were able to maintain in the colds of a Scotish winter.
Best of luck and I may be bugging you as I work through your thread. I kept a blog on our build but it crashed two weeks into our year trip.

 

[NeverEnough]

Someone sent me a link to this thread and I'm so glad they did. Nice build, completely into it and then and then I see a shot of our RV!
It is fascinating to see a build that is so nice, yet so different from what we did. Ours was built like a boat hull, marine grade plywood built into SIP in the living areas, and coated with fiberglass and carbon fiber. The reason I went that way was purely because of my experience building boats (my degree is in naval architecture)
The solar array (2100W, Outback components, 2100AH) was the single biggest advantage we had. We were able to maintain in the colds of a Scotish winter.
Best of luck and I may be bugging you as I work through your thread. I kept a blog on our build but it crashed two weeks into our year trip.

Your rig, and your trip, are awesome! What a great age for your kids to do a trip like that. I loved watching the construction time-lapse video. We did that for about two weeks, then made a habit of forgetting to turn on the camera!

Maybe we can brainstorm on building a floating "platorm" for my rig after I get this phase wrapped up. We just got back from a trip to Lake Powell, and I started toying with the idea of a solar-powered barge for my camper body. I figure a 45-50 foot pontoon rig could accommodate a 7-9kW PV array, a pile of AGM's and couple of decent electric motors---- AFTER I GET THIS PART DONE:snorkel:

 

[Ford Prefect]

Someone sent me a link to this thread and I'm so glad they did.

Yeah, that was me. I saw a redirect to your thread on RVforum, and after reading it I thought you had to get on here. Best way without logging onto RV was, well...

Anyhow glad you found your way over here. (again)

 

[shachagra]

Solar Barge

Funny you should mention a solar barge, that is my next big project- a river boat, 6KW of solar- won't drive it continuously but will allow for slow travel fuel free. I abandoned the idea of somehow transferring the truck to the water. I'd be happy to copy any ideas you have on that.
Still working through the thread- I am impressed by the workmanship and problem solving. I spent two years designing and still the details came at me like a real life tetris game.

 

[NeverEnough]

Help with cargo door decision!

I have been going back and forth on whether to side hinge or top hinge my cargo compartment doors and I can't delay the decision any longer. I would love to get some opinions/experience from anyone who cares to chime in. I have 9 compartment doors. The two largest doors are closest to the front (generator/toy tank access, waste water tank access) and measure 30" wide by 20" tall. The remaining doors are the same height but not as wide. They're made of the same material as the body, with aluminum frames and skins (required for latching and hinge attachment).

Top hinge advantages: easier to seal, less side clearance needed to open larger doors.
Disadvantages: require gas shocks (limits space, and something to break) or body-mounted "door keeper" to hold the doors open, harder to see into.

Side hinge advantages: More useable space, easy to see into, fewer parts.
Disadvantages: harder to seal, more clearance required to open compartments

Top hinges are certainly more traditional in the RV industry, but service bodies on work trucks utilize side hinged doors with greater prevalence. I'm leaning towards side hinges, with all hinges towards the cab, so that any failure to latch will at least result in the door being blown closed, rather than open. The doors weigh very little, so the hinges will handle the swing of the wider doors without any problem.

 

[dwh]

If you do top hinge with struts, they won't open all the way and will be sticking out and depending on their height, you might have to duck down to get in there. That'd be a pain. Depending on the type of keepers you used, they could be a pain as well.

I'd go side hinge rigged to trail in the wind. I doubt you'll have to worry about clearance to open them most of the time - it's not like you're ever gonna park that thing between two Toyotas at the local McD's. And even if you do, you probably won't need to get into those compartments while you're there.

 

[Riptide]

What about hinging them from the bottom? That way, they can act as a table or workbench when supported by a cable, and if you need to open them 180 degrees, just slip off the cable, like the tailgate of a pickup truck.

With your lightweight construction, lifting them to close wouldn't be an issue, and you don't have to duck under them to access like a top-hinge unit.

You could maybe even mount tools to the inner "face" of the door, or diagrams, lists, whatever, which might be harder on a top-hinge.

The only advantage of a side hinge is the full weight of the door is borne by the hinge, but again, the weight would be negligible. To me, the arc of a 30" door would get pretty cumbersome after awhile...

 

[westyss]

What about hinging them from the bottom? That way, they can act as a table or workbench when supported by a cable, and if you need to open them 180 degrees, just slip off the cable, like the tailgate of a pickup truck.

With your lightweight construction, lifting them to close wouldn't be an issue, and you don't have to duck under them to access like a top-hinge unit.

You could maybe even mount tools to the inner "face" of the door, or diagrams, lists, whatever, which might be harder on a top-hinge.

The only advantage of a side hinge is the full weight of the door is borne by the hinge, but again, the weight would be negligible. To me, the arc of a 30" door would get pretty cumbersome after awhile...

I agree, I really like to be able to use a storage door as a bit of a shelf to lay stuff onto then store the stuff properly, makes things easier for sure, another consideration for me is to have a side hinge for select doors, to provide some weather protection (wind) when open for an outside cooking site, might not apply for you. Top hinges are a bit of a pain and complicate things, bottom hinge keeps it simple, chain or cable to suppport the door, no gas shocks to replace every couple of years.
Now that I put my 2 cents in, here's a question for you, where or who and how are these doors being made? I still have several to mount and I do have some RV doors but I am reluctant to install them, they seem too cheap and flimsy and am looking at making some myself but door hardware ie. framework like Z extrusions are hard to find.