Our build of an RV from scratch (with pics)

Here is a bit of a picture history of our attempts to build something that we could not buy. We have been working on this project for about two years, mostly on weekends. The end goal will be a two pod RV system that mounts on any 20 foot flatbed (currently on a 19,500 pound GVWR Isuzu NRR cabover truck). The main camper pod and the garage pod both use the same quick connect camper jack system to allow easy removal from the flatbed.

The main camper has a full queen size sleep number air bed, 9.1 cuft 12V/24V compressor fridge, 3 burner propane stove, microwave, 6 gal water heater (electric/propane), 19,000 BTU propane furnace, 37 gallon fresh and gray water tanks, 4kW inverter/charger, 1080 watts of solar, side wall ducted air conditioner, full LED lighting throughout, 2 seat recliner sofa, Thetford cassette toilet and loads of cabinet/closet space.

The garage pod is 12 inches shorter in height than the main camper (main camper has 8 feet of standing headroom) to allow for canoes and kayaks to be stored on the roof cargo rack. The garage pod is 10 feet long and has built in shelves on each side, a built in work bench in the rear, and a ramp door which also functions as an extended porch. There is a small teardrop trailer type door for quick access when the ramp door is closed. The garage floor has 8 tiedowns for motorcycles or other items.

Construction of both the camper and garage pod is a welded tubular steel frame with urethane (Sikaflex 252) bonded 0.063" aluminum panel skin. The roof is a continuous roll of 0.040 aluminum that has zero holes or seams over the entire surface. The roof and other joints were coated in truck bed liner for extra durability. The camper is insulated with 2 inches of polyisocyanurate foam.

This was our first time building an RV of any type and we have learned a great deal. Both of us are engineers which helps (I am electrical and my wife software). Technically this was my first welding project...quite the jump from the usual ash tray!

Anyway, here are a ton of pics from start to near finish (broken up in several consecutive posts). Enjoy.

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Wow, that is good work!
Bob

Wow indeed. Expedition Portal has some examples of Isuzu builds, but they usually build the 4x4 version.

Nice work.

Very nice work!!!

WOW! Very impressive.

Holy cow!!! I LOVE IT!!!


(we need a pic with the bikes loaded on the back!!)

Thanks for the nice comments

Here is a picture with our bikes on the back (but before we had added the aluminum truck boxes under the flatbed). I also have attached some pictures of the construction progress of the garage pod, which will go on the flatbed where the bikes are in the pic (and the bikes obviously will go inside the garage pod).

We are done with the aluminum sides and roof on the garage pod and are now welding up the ramp door.

Impressive - must be satisfying to see your plans come to life

keep posting. great job. what was the thickness of the aluminum trim that you did the radius with? was it just angle? highdesertranger

highdesertranger said:

keep posting. great job. what was the thickness of the aluminum trim that you did the radius with? was it just angle? highdesertranger

Click to expand...

The aluminum "trim" around the radius is just the portion of the continuous 0.040" thick aluminum roof that I segmented into many tabs and then bent down. This allowed a close approximation of the curve without causing the roof to crease at that point. I didn't really know if it would work but it ended up working better than expected.

yeah it came out really nice. highdesertranger

A little more work on the garage pod. We test fit the ramp door which will allow the motorcycles easy entry/exit. Welding is a blast...the other stuff is tedious.

We put the pod on wood skids and casters so it can rotate around. I turned it to try and get a picture from far enough back to see the whole garage pod (10 feet long, 8 feet wide, 7 feet tall).

Need to work on the insulation/floor and skin the ramp door. Then peel off the protective plastic from the aluminum and paint it.

Outstanding work.

We have done quite a bit more work on the garage pod portion of our pod based RV in the past few weeks.

Completely skinned the outside in 0.062" aluminum, constructed a ramp door, trimmed door in diamond plate aluminum, machined aluminum feet for ramp door which double as jack stand mounts to convert it into a porch/level work surface.

I also experimented with using a small electric ATV type winch to raise and lower the 300 pound door.   For a first go I used a really cheap $49 Harbor freight winch attached to the steel roof beams and pulling up the door in the middle with a Y harness fixed to each side.   This works and can be seen in this video but is noisy and not elegant.



I am going to change to a new design now that the winch method has been proven.  The new plan will be a winch on either side of the door at the roof (just on the inside)  with each winch attached to it's side of the ramp door with synthetic cable.  I will be using Superwinch Terra series which are built much much better than the Harbor Freight model and are whisper quiet.  In order to allow the winches to share the load equally, I am going to wire their motors in series driven by a single winch solenoid controller.   When two DC permanent magnet motors are wired in series, a neat thing happens.   If one motor starts to take on most of the load, the back emf of that motor decreases, which in turn gives the other motor more voltage/power.  It should allow them to almost perfectly share the load of the ramp door, which is 1/20 their maximum load rating.   Another advantage is that since each winch will be running at a lower voltage, they will be even quieter.  The door will raise a little slower, but it was plenty fast with the HF winch which was 13fpm and these Superwinch Terra series are 25fpm (at 12V no load).

Here are a few pictures of the garage pod and how the ramp door will be used as a porch.

Y'all are doing some very nice work! That TT is going to be a work of art!

Wow!  Beautiful work

Not satisfied with the cheap Harbor Freight 2500 pound single winch pulling up the door in the middle.

Amazon to the rescue.   We ordered two Superwinch Terra series 3500 pound winches with synthetic cable.   The price was really only double of the HF winch but the quality is 100x better.   We now have a winch pulling up the door from each side and no need for a Y-harness.   The motors are wired in series and this causes them to automatically share the load of the door equally.   The sound level dropped 10x too.

Another bit of work was adding a roof rack system to the garage pod.   I had some aluminum truck rack made by Hauler that I had never installed on our Tundra and decided to use part of that to make a rack for the pod.   The cross beams were not long enough so I bought some 8020 2x1 aluminum t-slot extrusion and added rubber block feet across the span to cushion against the aluminum roof.  Now we have a 8 foot wide, 10 foot long pretty spiffy aluminum rack for canoes, kayaks, whatever.

We do plan on insulating the walls and roof with polyiso....I was just test fitting the winches.

The quality of your work blows me away!
Bob

Wow - Phenomenal !!!  

very nice. keep it coming. highdesertranger