[blizzardND]

Guys be very careful, you have to plan every thing out, it is super SUPER easy to overload that front axle. Your Over-the-road-highway truck was designed for a 40K trailer with 15-20k on the pin, now you have next to nothing on the pin, and now all the entire weight of that box WILL BE equally spread like 50/50 on the front and rear axles.

Think about that original design, for optimal highway operation, load capacity, truck ride, and of course fleet cost, The spec as light of a front axle to save overall weight and ride comfort for the truck, as most of the time they need all the capacity they can on the drivers.

To overcome this problem, most coach builders will hang a bunch of the box rear of the rear axle to leverage the weight off the steer axle like a huge teeter totter, using the center of the drives as the pivot. An extreme example of this is a front engine'd Class A or Van based Class C, they all have those real long tails to pivot the pounds off the steer axle. (its also why you may never see a diesel E450 based Class C as the engine itself is too heavy once even a lightweight stick and aluminum RV body is loaded on it.)

When a Truck conversion involves streching the wheelbase front axle weight adds up even quicker (as mine did.)

The design, shown in the OP looks to be a toterhome box. Those balance ONLY with the fiver hooked to the back of the truck. Try to run bobtail to take 8 buds to tailgate at the football game, and that front axle is way past ugly.

I search racing junk once a week, I cringe at what my 80K might buy now as a finished RV with this economy. I also cringe at those long stretched trucks and wonder how big of water tanks the must have just to pivot the weight off the front axles. There is no doubt some very over weight trucks out there and its just a matter of time before some LEO starts scaling us.

Even if you think you may never get scaled, some day you will want to sell your $50-100K investment, you will have to disclose somewhere in that transaction that the front axle is over its limit.

I'll try to follow this thread a bit closer, good luck with your projects guys!
-blizzND