So I've been talking about this project for a couple of years now here on the forum in posts on other threads, and I've finally put welder to steel and got the project underway.
Just a brief summary to start: I was in need of a larger truck to replace my Chevy dually to tow my 40' race/living quarters trailer that I use for my business. At up to 23000# trailer weight at times I was of course far exceeding the gvw of the poor old Chevy dually. The original plan was to find a medium duty chassis and convert it to a full on legal rv toterhome to pull the trailer and skate the d.o.t. with rv registration. Time and money kept that project start in check, and in the meantime I ended up having to go the legal usdot/cdl route for the business anyway so I no longer really need the full rv conversion (have living quarters in trailer already) so I have scaled back the project to something more on the order of a toter like the fifth wheel rv guys use for their big trailers. I will still have a full toter style bed, but with a scaled down box outfitted with a backseat area, a storage area big enough to haul a motorcycle if I want to, and under box storage doors. And taking a cue from blizzardnd, I am keeping it to a height which will fit inside my 9'6" shop door to make it easy to work on. The original plan was full height with a bunk over the cab, but without the living quarters I can do without the head room and my ass is too old to lay outside under the truck to work on it if needed. This way it fits in the shop.
The truck I found is an ex Schwan's Ice Cream truck, hence the name Project Ice Cream as we got in the habit of calling it "the ice cream truck" around here. As discussed in other threads, the thing runs on propane instead of gas or diesel, has adequate power for what I need, and is cheaper to run per mile. Unfortunately, (or maybe fortunately) I never took any pictures of the truck when I got it with the fugly goldish tan Schwan's fleet paint job, so here are a few at the first stage of the build. At this point I had blasted and painted the chassis matte black, had the cab re-painted Chevy white, and installed new Accuride 22.5x7.5 aluminum wheels and steer rubber, and gone through the mechanicals and dot inspection. Also installed the trailer saver air fifth wheel hitch, which I will detail in a separate post.
I have made decent progress on the box, and will post some pics more info as I have some time.
There it is guys, finally a work in progress instead of a work in planning.
Just a brief summary to start: I was in need of a larger truck to replace my Chevy dually to tow my 40' race/living quarters trailer that I use for my business. At up to 23000# trailer weight at times I was of course far exceeding the gvw of the poor old Chevy dually. The original plan was to find a medium duty chassis and convert it to a full on legal rv toterhome to pull the trailer and skate the d.o.t. with rv registration. Time and money kept that project start in check, and in the meantime I ended up having to go the legal usdot/cdl route for the business anyway so I no longer really need the full rv conversion (have living quarters in trailer already) so I have scaled back the project to something more on the order of a toter like the fifth wheel rv guys use for their big trailers. I will still have a full toter style bed, but with a scaled down box outfitted with a backseat area, a storage area big enough to haul a motorcycle if I want to, and under box storage doors. And taking a cue from blizzardnd, I am keeping it to a height which will fit inside my 9'6" shop door to make it easy to work on. The original plan was full height with a bunk over the cab, but without the living quarters I can do without the head room and my ass is too old to lay outside under the truck to work on it if needed. This way it fits in the shop.
The truck I found is an ex Schwan's Ice Cream truck, hence the name Project Ice Cream as we got in the habit of calling it "the ice cream truck" around here. As discussed in other threads, the thing runs on propane instead of gas or diesel, has adequate power for what I need, and is cheaper to run per mile. Unfortunately, (or maybe fortunately) I never took any pictures of the truck when I got it with the fugly goldish tan Schwan's fleet paint job, so here are a few at the first stage of the build. At this point I had blasted and painted the chassis matte black, had the cab re-painted Chevy white, and installed new Accuride 22.5x7.5 aluminum wheels and steer rubber, and gone through the mechanicals and dot inspection. Also installed the trailer saver air fifth wheel hitch, which I will detail in a separate post.
I have made decent progress on the box, and will post some pics more info as I have some time.
There it is guys, finally a work in progress instead of a work in planning.
