Camper body ideas

[Tinbasherdan]

talking about building a body for the Volvo with a mate and once he’d fed the right prompts into the old AI machine, it spat out a design I quite like:

I was just going to build a 40x40 frame out of steel, skin it with alu and sandwich celotex in, but I do like the chamfered edging that the alu profiles give. Presumably to build with them I’m stuck with using grp sandwich board like fridge boxes?

I know frame and skin, so that’s what I was going for but I must say I do like the slightly more complex edging in the image. I’ve tried searching for composite panel manufacturers, plenty about but no mention of prices at all which is unhelpful.

The other option is to buy a 20ft fridge box and modify it to suit, but I need to know the weight to see if it’s practical. I’ve got about 1.3t spare, I’d like the box to be no more than 750kg when done which according to my fag packet calcs is more than doable from 2.5mm wall box and 1mm alu skin. And ideas, oh great forum wisdom?

 

[sako243]

My thoughts are ditch the box and just go corner extrusions and composite panels. I contacted CBF (Claire Balfour is the lady I dealt with) and I was very pleasantly surprised that the part I was after (very difficult to source lock mechanism on a box we bought) they had in stock, was a very cheap price and they overnighted the parts to me.

I just filled out their online form for an RFQ expecting not available or hundreds of pounds or we only deal with trade. Answer was £24 for all the lock bits I wanted and if it's a business address we can overnight it for the same price.

 

[Tinbasherdan]

My thoughts are ditch the box and just go corner extrusions and composite panels. I contacted CBF (Claire Balfour is the lady I dealt with) and I was very pleasantly surprised that the part I was after (very difficult to source lock mechanism on a box we bought) they had in stock, was a very cheap price and they overnighted the parts to me.

I just filled out their online form for an RFQ expecting not available or hundreds of pounds or we only deal with trade. Answer was £24 for all the lock bits I wanted and if it's a business address we can overnight it for the same price.

I do wonder about the rigidity of that, the box needs to be ideally demountable

 

[Turbo]

Could you not simply mount a caravan on the back?

 

[Tinbasherdan]

Could you not simply mount a caravan on the back?

I could but I’d rather have something that looks half decent

 

[jo1010]

Conflicting goals.... A lightweight custom body will need a lot of extra reinforcement (and weight) to make it removable....
Normally I'd go for not reinventing the wheel and upcycling something like an ambulance body - guarantees a decent finished look too, but probably weighty...for example...

Volvo TGB 1314 6x6 Expedition Truck Chassis | Expedition Truck Brokers

Volvo 6x6 TGB 1314 Expedition Truck Chassis in good condition

www.expedition-trucks.com

 

[Tinbasherdan]

Conflicting goals.... A lightweight custom body will need a lot of extra reinforcement (and weight) to make it removable....
Normally I'd go for not reinventing the wheel and upcycling something like an ambulance body - guarantees a decent finished look too, but probably weighty...for example...

Volvo TGB 1314 6x6 Expedition Truck Chassis | Expedition Truck Brokers

Volvo 6x6 TGB 1314 Expedition Truck Chassis in good condition

www.expedition-trucks.com

That’s the factory tgb13 ambulance/radio box, I do have the option but they’re incredibly heavy and also 3ft too short for the tgb20

 

[sako243]

I do wonder about the rigidity of that, the box needs to be ideally demountable

Have a look at Ambition Strikes - smaller scale but they built a demountable camper for a larger American pickup using that technique.

We've got a yellow box that I think was a British Rail service body for a 130 and that's an aluminium frame underneath (C channel) with some hefty but not heavy extrusions in the corners and laminated walls (albeit ply as a core) and it's pretty sudbstantial and not very heavy for it's size.

Do a welded frame underneath a bit like a chassis and I think you'll be fine. The bed on the 6x6 is 2x4"x8mm aluminium C section - 8x5.5ft with a headboard and I can just about pick it up so suspect under just 100kg. That frame is self comfortably self supporting so anything on top doesn't necessarily need to be structural to the lift.

 

[KaneH]

Aluminium faced sandwich panels could be used to get the form you’re looking for. Bit more robust than GRP but do carry the additional cost.

You may need to get some of the corner trims made up for any non-standard angles but flashings / trim for all the 90’s should be a doddle.

For lifting, what plant have you go access to for shifting it on / off? Whatever it is, design the lifting arrangement into the main body from the start so it won’t fall to bits the first time you try to remove it. We designed some 1 bedroom Air BnB type pod units a while ago, ~12x9m overall footprint done in 3 separate sections which were fully finished apart from the joints where the three sections tied together. All delivered to site on the back of an arctic and then put together.

Was a forked telehandler they used which we designed the floor plate around. Ended up being a steel frame with timber joisted infill that the telehandler lifted at the midpoint via fork reliefs in each of the frames.

 

[Tinbasherdan]

Aluminium faced sandwich panels could be used to get the form you’re looking for. Bit more robust than GRP but do carry the additional cost.

You may need to get some of the corner trims made up for any non-standard angles but flashings / trim for all the 90’s should be a doddle.

For lifting, what plant have you go access to for shifting it on / off? Whatever it is, design the lifting arrangement into the main body from the start so it won’t fall to bits the first time you try to remove it. We designed some 1 bedroom Air BnB type pod units a while ago, ~12x9m overall footprint done in 3 separate sections which were fully finished apart from the joints where the three sections tied together. All delivered to site on the back of an arctic and then put together.

Was a forked telehandler they used which we designed the floor plate around. Ended up being a steel frame with timber joisted infill that the telehandler lifted at the midpoint via fork reliefs in each of the frames.

It’ll be either lifted via trailer jacks as the tgb13 body is, or craned off at shows with the aec wrecker. Thankfully no forklift here (that would mean I could buy heavier crap without fear or limit!)

 

[CompoSimmonite]

Look at what's available for commercial vehicle body fabrication - plenty of suppliers with on line catalogues.

 

[Bobtail4x4]

someone I know has one of these in the back of a defender 130,

Refrigerated Insulated Fridge Freezer Box Body Storage Dry Building Container | eBay UK

We convert new and used vehicles into refrigerated vehicles to suit your needs. Also refrigerated trailer hire. Refrigerated Vehicle and Trailer Specialist. WITHOUT a fridge unit. If you do not have a forklift at your end, I can move them off my trailer on wheels.

www.ebay.co.uk

 

[Tinbasherdan]

someone I know has one of these in the back of a defender 130,

Refrigerated Insulated Fridge Freezer Box Body Storage Dry Building Container | eBay UK

We convert new and used vehicles into refrigerated vehicles to suit your needs. Also refrigerated trailer hire. Refrigerated Vehicle and Trailer Specialist. WITHOUT a fridge unit. If you do not have a forklift at your end, I can move them off my trailer on wheels.

www.ebay.co.uk

i keep looking at them, but i have no experience with them so its making me a bit shy. ive worked out that a box made from 40x40x2.5 and skinned with 1mm alu should be about 500kg max, i cant find any weights on the foam sandwich boxes

 

[sako243]

A friend built a camper out of a tesco body onto a plant trailer.

Worth having a read through, he enlarged it as well - think he might still have it for sale. Lift it off the trailer and dump it on yours and job done.

https://lr4x4.com/topic/104131-overland-caravan-build

 

[jmp49]

I have a friend local with a French Army Golette van with demountable camper body built into a old accomodation box. Mostly because he doesnt have the hassle of MOT'ing it with the wrong desigation on the logbook. Once a year he demounts it and takes his pickup with bare flat bed to the MOT/CT.
I want to do this one day for my 101 but would want it to be demountable so I could swap my bed/tilt for it, or drop it off and go play when out and about, so aluminium c rails for the floor area and self supporting and clamped in place.
The pickup bed & most of the common workshop box/recovery beds of the era for my 80's master are like this, so you can swap between them if you have a forklift or lifting kit & I often see them for sale on their own and am tempted...

I think I'd be looking around at camper cellules seeing if theres one thats close over building my own from scratch. But then I'm in the "try to start less projects and finish everything unfinished" stage of life it seems.

 

[Tinbasherdan]

I have a friend local with a French Army Golette van with demountable camper body built into a old accomodation box. Mostly because he doesnt have the hassle of MOT'ing it with the wrong desigation on the logbook. Once a year he demounts it and takes his pickup with bare flat bed to the MOT/CT.
I want to do this one day for my 101 but would want it to be demountable so I could swap my bed/tilt for it, or drop it off and go play when out and about, so aluminium c rails for the floor area and self supporting and clamped in place.
The pickup bed & most of the common workshop box/recovery beds of the era for my 80's master are like this, so you can swap between them if you have a forklift or lifting kit & I often see them for sale on their own and am tempted...

I think I'd be looking around at camper cellules seeing if theres one thats close over building my own from scratch. But then I'm in the "try to start less projects and finish everything unfinished" stage of life it seems.

i simply dont have the money to even consider buying an off the shelf body

 

[Erie Fred]

Spotted this one day I was driving around.
You can see the outline of the standard trailer that it sets in/on:

 

[Erie Fred]

Of course, having a heavy truck chassis means you can maximize the camper,
I call this the "Clarkson".....:

 

[Turbo]

I could but I’d rather have something that looks half decent

This looks remarkably similar to a twin axle caravan plonked onto a truck. Has a had ladder and roof rails added and given a paint job.

Has already been fitted out internally saving a lot of work and £££. Strip off the axles and drawbar and modify the chassis to suit.

Plenty of cheap caravans for sale out there now. Bought during covid and now sitting unused on driveways across the country. Even if you don't use the framework it would make a good donor for the internal fixtures. Much better looking than a boxy fridge or a luton van.

 

[Tinbasherdan]

Of course, having a heavy truck chassis means you can maximize the camper,
I call this the "Clarkson".....:View attachment 526915

Subject to our ridiculous laws on weight though, so need to keep the old girl under 3500kg, otherwise I’d go nuts