I have spent the past week on the construction of the camper base and roof frame. 

The camper frame sits on top of the frame on the base of the van and the steels match the postion of those on the base. The steels are mainly 40mm x 40mm square mild steel tube with 3mm wall thickness. The back front and sides of the camper base are 80mm x 40mm 3mm rectangular tube. There is quite a lot of guess work in this but I think that I have struck a reasonable balance between strength and weight. I have had to think of the twisting that might occur as the camper unit is demounted.

I have experimented with creating a laminated floor base on 4mm Ply, 30mm XPS styrofoam and 12mm ply. I have stuck these three layers together with an expanding foam glue. This has produced a (very) surprisingly light and strong composite board which will support my weight without flexing between rafters at 800mm centres. On the basis of this I plan to construct both the floor and walls on this principle. XPS is expensive so I have done some further experimenting with PIR (Kingspan) board. I was not sure how the glue would work with the foil face on these boards. It turns out that the glue works fine so I have settled for this. The PIR board is 40mm thick. This is thicker than the average caravan wall so limits the choise of windows. I have opted for Seitz S4 windows which can cope with this wall tickness. 

On of the reasons for making the camper demountable is to enable use of the vehicle for other uses when not on holiday. Such as.....

I used the base as a template for making the roof frame. Once complete this was moved the my scaffolding workspace. I have built this as a stand on which I will build the camper. This keeps the van free for other work and means that I can work from a platform whch is level so the spirit level can be used. Once the roof frame was welded on the truck it was transferred to the scaffolding, turned over and the welds completed to the underside. 

Today I received delivery of the steel for the camper frame.

The drawings:

One of the other objectives and reason that the camper is planned as a demountable is that vehicle and unit will fit into a 40' normal height shipping container. 

The floorplan planned at the moment is rear lounge, mid galley area forward bathroom. The bed is suspended from the ceiling over the lounge and is lowered into the sleeping position by a system of line and pulleys.

Flat Bed conversion

CamperProject2020

Also dubbed 'Project Saltire 2020' with a plan to be taking a holiday in Scotland later this year.

The project is based on a Mercedes Sprinter Chassis Cab. It was purchased second hand having seen previous service as a Sainsbury's online shopping delivery vehicle.

We had the vehicle re-sprayed to get away from the 'white-van' appearance and on collection it looked like this.

The project envisages converting this base vehicle into a flat bed truck on which will be mounted a de-mountable camper unit the idea being that the truck will be used as a classic motorhome when 'on-tour' and that the camper unit will be de-mounted when there is a need to use the base vehicle for other, utility, duties. We don't envisage taking the unit on and off whilst touring but will design and construct with this opportunity in mind.

First thought on driving the vehicle. There is no load over the rear wheels so the ride is hard. It is rear wheel drive so with no load on the back there is a tendency for wheel spin. Feeling is that in utililty mode there might be a need for some ballast. On first driving the vehicle on a dual carriageway I discovered that there is a speed limiter fitted which restricts the speed to 95kph (60mph). following a visit by a tuning expert and a call to Mercedes I learned that this restriction was made at the time of manufacture (presumably a Sainsbury option) and removing might not be a simple process. The tuning expert could see the restriction on his equipment but there was no option to remove it. I am considering what to do about this. Presently I console myself with the knowledge that this has not been one of the Sprinters that sits on my tail at 80 mph in the outside lane and has never been driven faster than 60 mph. I also don't envisage wanting to drive a motorhome at more than 60 but next week I have a 500 mile trip to southern France planned and it would be nice to be able to go a bit faster then. Thinking on this.

First task is to build a flat bed on the back so that we can go to France and collect some of the parts from a dismantled camper which we hope to use in this build. Out with the welder. I am a novice at this with a one-day course under my belt.

The frame is constructed of 40x40 3mm mild steel box section. In the process of this first real foray into welding I discovered one of the key benefits of welding, instant gratification. Once the weld has cooled the joint is made, no time waiting for glue to set or such like. So, the construction moved from parts to paint in little more than half a day. 

With the frame in place I wanted to add some weight. Next was a cradle to carry the waste water container.