I've purchased a truck to convert to use for hauling a track car to and from motorsport events.
I broke from what seems to be tradition in this forum in spending quite a bit up front to get most of what I want ahead of time. Please understand that sometimes time is more precious than money, and the less limiting of the factors.
For a variety of reasons, I want to convert the front portion of the box to be RV like. I've read up on the regulations that DOT might hold me to in terms of logs and such, and although I'm under CDL, this is a big truck, and I would like to avoid those headaches. Illinois has the familiar "Walk to LQ from driver seat + 4 of the following 6 items for police to sign off and agree its an RV" rules. I own a gas generator, fridge, and microwave, will look towards adding AC since motorsports will be summertime mostly.
I'm looking for suggestions on:
1) Pass through techniques... I've seen some photographs here, but not tons of advice on welding in patchs to replace glass, plexi to replace glass, and concerns about having to add flanges or not, curved vs straight corners and people's advice "if I had to do it over" type comments.
2) Adding AC to such a tall truck: I've used the overhead ones on my race trailer, but this is a 9 foot tall box, with a 46 inch deck height. I'm as tall as I can go, and there are no roof vents even yet. I suspect people will tell me to add a split unit to get real heat. Assume that would go in the attic space facing forward?
3) Not too many hybrid car hauler/RV all in one in here, will keep searching. Need to find a balance, the car is about 18 feet, and won't have much room left for LQ, but I want to make it look good, and convincing so I can get the RV designation.
4) Unfortunately angle wise, I will have to build semi-permanent ramps in the truck under the car on each side to ease the winching in, and out. These will provide storage for ramps to be slid under them that assist in the loading. They will curve gently down to the edge of the truck to help clear the lip from straight shot to the ground using ramp/liftgate. I expect to put a lot of storage in the top 2 feet of the 9 in the box over the car.
5) Hints towards a generator likely to fit in one of the boxes on the sides? I've read up, and would consider tapping it the diesel tank to run the generator. Would put a premium on quiet. I have one of the really quiet Honda 3000 types, but its tall, and hard to deal with the exhaust neatly for RV type use.
6) I'm afraid its the Cat 3126 with Allison. Hope not is all lost, and maybe someone has some pointers towards people to make it more reliable etc. To be honest I've not re-searched this yet, its my last priority.
This truck hit many of the points I wanted. 2004 California truck for first 70K miles, then 30K more in the south. No rust. 102K miles only. The attic for space, the extended cab for family, the ready installed boxes on the sides, and a serious lift in back for tool box into truck, the occasional engine or heavy object, as well as a serious ability to help out in loading in the car. Car is about 2700 lb, but VERY low to the ground. Not a CJ for rock climbing!
I'm looking for general advice from this crowd. Everytime I come back here to lurk and find inspiration, I'm more and more impressed with the experience and ingenuity I find here. I have done almost all the work on the race car, so I'm fairly handy with fabrication, but haven't any experience with the particulars I see in here. Any help is appreciated very much, suggestions, pot-shots, criticism, I can take it. I will try and keep all my questions in this thread, and just bump it to preserve bandwidth. Alex.
This is the vehicle:
Liftgate on rear is 3300 lb will assist in a system I'll put together for loading and unloading the car.
It is an extended cab with a very large window above the rear bench.
