When we started out we already had an old beat up F150. We bought a 1988 sunlite pop-up TC for 1500 bucks. The TC was "designed" for a half ton truck, but only if it was virtually empty with no other cargo. That would work for weekend warrior but right away I realized this was going to be a safety issue after we load everything we need for full timing. I added some leaf spring helpers to the truck, loaded it up with all our stuff and hoped for the best. I never felt safe driving it. Also the F150 mpg dropped to about 8mpg with the heavy load, and really struggled to go up hill. I found a heavily used F350 work truck and was able to do a trade + $500. The F350 has a V10, it gets about 11mpg with or without the camper, I honestly have a hard time telling the difference it always just seems to be slightly better then 10mpg no matter what I'm doing with this truck. I do nurse the thing pretty good, always watching my RPMs. So that is something to consider with engine size, smaller isn't always better MPG. When your fully loaded it can be possible for a bigger engine to be more efficient because it doesn't stress out and the RPMs will stay low. We try our best to not have a ton of stuff, but there are two of us and a dog, and we like to be able to go long times in between supply runs. There is a huge handling difference going from an overloaded F150 to a properly loaded F350. It is a lot more comfortable on the highway.
The old canvas pop-up proved to be a bad joke when the weather went sour so a year and half into our trip we swapped it out with an old hard top. Our current TC is from 1978 and we bought it for $1000 on craiglist. We love the thing, It has two 20lb propane tanks and all the appliances run of the propane. Stove, oven, fridge, heater, and even a water heater. It also has a toilet and shower, water pump etc. Pretty much everything an RV has. We get about a month out of the 40lbs of propane running the fridge 24/7 and using the stove/oven 1-2 times every day, and occasionally using the heater and water heater.
The slide in/out is only an issue if you want it to be. We treat ours more like a class C and just leave it on. Even if we get repairs, reason being I don't trust the jacks to hold it for a long period of time with all our extra weight, plus us moving around inside of it. I would only do that if I had something else to support it besides just the jacks, and any solution I can think of would take up so much space I don't think it would be worth it. We have never had a mechanic not work on it because of the camper, if they can't fit it in the garage they will just work on it outside. Same way they would treat an RV.
