My M1010 build

[krebsatm02]

I bought an M1010 with the sold purpose of building an "expedition" vehicle. I'm went back to school for a second degree and only have a little money that my wife allows me to spend.:Wow1: After trying to shower from a shower bag in CO a few weeks ago in 20 mph winds, she's much more supportive now!

I've been rock crawling for ~ 10 years now, so I have a very good back ground in 4x4's, fab, etc... I also work in two different shops with mills, lathes, etc...

For those of you wondering what an M1010 is... It's an ex military ambulance. It has a dana 60 front and a 14 bolt rear with a detroit locker and 4.56's. It also has a 6.2 diesel with a th400 and a np208.

The cab actually has a pass through to the rear box. The rear box is all aluminum and has a separate AC system that is run off a engine driven compressor. Unfortunately, it doesn't have AC in the cab.

Stock they are sluggish and slow. With the turbo, nv4500, and 35's it should be able to hold it's own.

Plans for the vehicle:

Paint
Change 12 volt
6.5 turbo/manifolds/etc... and serpentine belt setup
NV4500 backed by a NP205 with a PTO for a front winch.
Rear Warn HS9500i
35"bfg mt's
Shackle flip in the rear and factory leaf springs
Front, lift springs.
Custom bumpers, sliders, etc...

Pics:

 

[Donsfast]

I like it!! Get busy on it so I can watch :ylsmoke:

 

[krebsatm02]

As far as the interior goes...

My friend acquired an RV from his deer lease that the floor rotted out. I hope to take whatever I can to help with the project.

Plans include:

Polar cub AC unit
Sink
cooktop
Shower/toilet
queen bed
etc...

The dimensions of the box are 106.5" long X 75" wide X 65" tall. I'm 6'3" and my wife is 5'11" so it's not optimal, but we'll make do. It's also going to be interesting without a cabover portion for the bed. I do know that we want to be able to use the toilet in the middle of the night.

Here are my thoughts on the layout so far. The bed is going to have to be futon like. It has to go lengthwise, as I physically won't fit width wise. I want the "kitchen" area to go along the driver side wall and mirror the length of the futon.

I imagine the futon will be against the passenger wall with storage underneath. In addition, I think it makes sense to have the bed against the rear doors as opposed to against the front wall. The reason being there should still be 2 foot of open space in between the bed and the front wall. This will allow easy access to cab using the pass through. If I orient the bed like this the shower will also be in this 2 foot area.

When in the "bed" mode, I think the futon will need to be raised above kitchen counter. In it's previous life it could hold 4 laying passengers. This was accomplished with 2 on benches and 2 hanging from the ceiling/brackets on the wall. I see no reason this couldn't be duplicated if necessary.

I've seen a couple campers use an "open shower" where the shower is in a door way with a shower curtain that hangs from the ceiling and some kind of catch pan on the bottom. I like this concept, but i'm not sure it's practical in my application.

Any suggestions/thoughts on the layout would be appreciated.

 

[UHAULER]

I like the project. I have a similar size box I that is a work in progress. Here is a link to mine, it might give you some ideas. My box is 72" wide x 120" long and i'm a little over 6'2" so sleeping across would not work either. One idea I had was to make a bunk cross ways in the front about half way down for my wife and have a 3' x 7' bed lenghtwise on one side. With this layout your feet would be under her bed and would free up alot of space for other amenities.I look forward to seeing your progress.

http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=21709&highlight=uhauler

 

[krebsatm02]

Hmm... I don't necessarily need a queen/full size bed. I could do two separate bunks. I don't think the wife and I need to conceive our kids in this camper! Though I'm not sure we need a queen bed to do that anyways.

and now back to the pg rated thread...

 

[krebsatm02]

I aquired a 1982 Jayco 25'ish trailer yesterday with the help of another member on here. It's definately seen better days, but it should have a decent amount of stuff I can salvage off of it.

Water pump, water tank, inverter, heater, and maybe the water heater

 

[z3r0]

really looking forward in seeing how this turns out.

 

[Funrover]

That is sweet!

 

[tamangel]

you might check steel soldiers as there are several folks over there that have the same idea..

http://www.steelsoldiers.com/

use the search function and put in ' m1010 camper '

You may have to be a member to see the pic's but not a big deal and great resources although mainly MV oriented..

Mike

I'll reference your thread over there also..

also another reference from over there..although a bigger box/vehicle, great ideas: http://www.militarytrucks.ca/rv_project.htm

 

[krebsatm02]

Thanks tamangel! You should have dug a little deeper though

I'm already there!

I agree it's a great place for the mechanics of the CUCV's, but all I'm going to do is make them angry! I'll probably convert everything to 12 volts and switch the accessories to a serpentine belt.

I mainly worried about the layout at the moment. I've also toyed with the idea of making a flatbed and taking the box on and off when needed. Of course, I'd have to figure a way to plug the hole in the cab, but that shouldn't be too hard:sombrero:

 

[tamangel]

Didn't notice that the user names were the same...ha..oh well, maybe others will enjoy it..

Mike

 

[krebsatm02]

Ok, so I've made a decision that I definitely want the option of having a flatbed. While not in camper mode, this would make the truck much more practical.

There's two problems with this, one of which can can be solved pretty easily. Making a flatbed means the box is most likely going to be raised which means the pass through becomes offset. This should easily be fixed with a 1" body lift on the cab. I usually don't like body lifts, but 1" isn't much and it should help with a few other things also. It will help fit the 35's and also give a tad more ground clearance on the cab.

Next decision. Do I make the flatbed the width of the box, or do I make the flatbed the width of a dually sized bed? I could see the sides being handy for holding the spare tire, water, hi lift, etc... The outside of the box measures 78". Looks like a dually flatbed is anywhere from 94-98". Might look a little goofy, but should add useful space.

Second problem is the pass through. Any ideas on some kinda quick fasteners? Right now there are probably 50 rivets that go through a flange along the inside perimeter of the pass through to hold it onto the cab.

 

[lstzephyr]

dzus fasteners may work for you. It might be a little fiddly if you have 20 of them but if you only take it off every once and awhile it could work. You could always do some sort of double door that covered the rear opening and then opened up to fill the pass through. I'm thinking like a soft jeep door style.

 

[BlueBomber]

Not to be a kill-joy, but how do you plan on getting the box off? its going to be really heavy. Plus, the amount you spend on making the box removable, you could probably spend on a truck that get better MPGs and can hold/tow more. If you dont want two trucks, how about a utility trailer? Im just thinking its gonna be really hard to keep the box together removing it mutiple times.

EDIT: if you still want to try, I wonder if a fridge type seal would work for the space between the cab and box.

 

[krebsatm02]

For the moment I'm going to concentrate on getting the drive train updated and everything mechanical functioning so I can actually use it. I'll worry about the pipe dreams later!

Waiting on finances to return to normal. Had a few unexpected bills in the last few months.