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I’m in the process of selling my 1998 Lance Lite and two of the lookers have Ford F-250 short bed pickups. They were both shocked when I informed them that they need some elevation in the bed for the camper to clear the cab roof.
For as long as I’ve been into truck campers there has been little discussion regarding the clearance mismatch between many TC’s and the immutable height of Ford’s cab. Only when trying to load a camper on a Ford does the problem become immediate. I wonder how many folks have tried to load their new camper on a Ford and found that it touches the cab before the camper is all the way down to the bed. This is exacerbated by those 3 handsome clearance lights on some F-350’s. There have been many ‘fixes’ for this problem including making a 2×4 frame with bracing around the circumference of the footprint, but that does not address the pressure of occupants having little to no support under the floor. How about adding a 1/2″ plywood sheet across the frame? This could work, but now we are adding a lot of weight to the sandwich.
A companion issue is the great flexibility of Ford’s frame: much more than Dodge/RAM or Chevy/GMC. It’s FoMoCo company protocol. This must also be taken into account as your Ford needs more cab clearance with the camper on.
Another companion issue is that long bed trucks have more flex than short beds. It’s just physics: longer frame = more twist. If you are going to use your truck camper on poor or doubtful roads, this does make a difference.
My brother John (JR on the Pirate Page) solved this woe with his own 1999 Ford F-250 long bed by purchasing a 4’X8’X3″ sheet or block of closed cell foam called Foamular 1000 XPS. It is made to take extraordinary weight like under sidewalks or basement slabs with a 100 PSI compressive strength. It’s not cheap, by any means, but Bro reports, and I have seen, no excessive sway or displacement while following his rig over rough ground, so common when using less robust closed cell foams. It also insulates the floor very well for winter use.
jefe2020 Ford F-350 XLT FX4 4WD SRW SB SC 7.3L Godzilla Gas TorqShift 10R140 397 amps dual Alt dual batts Frnt Dana 60; Rr Dana M275 E-locker 4.30's 4580/4320/4066# payload 7243# curb wt. 11,300# GVWR 5-er prepped. 2020 Northstar Laredo SC, 12v compressor fridge, cassette, 320w Solar sub zero insulation.
Hey Jefe, I use a 4x8x1” piece of high density foil backed foam sheathing (from HD about $28 per sheet) to clear my Rams rear bumper and it holds up extremely well, even with about 4,950# of fully loaded camper aboard, no problemo whatsoever…
Best Regards Always,
Phil P.
NorthStar offers a riser constructed of 2×2 around the perimeter with several pieces running crosswise. Our Hallmark also had the same. Lots of folks on the Internet report using foam board, so lots of ways to get a bump in height. With the standard NorthStar riser our camper clears the marker lights on the roof of our cab by about 1″, but I wouldn’t mind a bit more.
Steve and Andra
2012 F350 6.2 gasser SRW LB
Fab Fours front and rear in case we run into a rhino
2019 Northstar Laredo SCSteve,
Using wooden framing under the camper for height and clearance can add up to a lot of weight without the R-value in the floor you get from foam. Lots of folks use the wrong foam is my point. Using closed cell foam without a high XPS rating is doomed to fail. From side to side rocking the edges get mashed down allowing a lot of rock over a slightly curved landscape. Another option with the same 100 psi load bearing is Styrofoam brand High Load 100.
One of the advantages of using a Dodge RAM or Chevy pickup as your packmule is you don’t need to raise the camper to clear the cab. My old Lance 165-s sits on a 3/8’s inch thin sticky bed mat making the mating surfaces the tightest and lowest they can be. As you will see in my Trip Report to Canyonlands (on the editor’s desktop), inches make a big difference.
BTW, we will become official members of Club Northstar Laredo SC picking up our 2020 version at the factory in mid September. It has all the changes and upgrades that the editor complained about, changed, and upgraded on his own Northstar Laredo SC.2020 Ford F-350 XLT FX4 4WD SRW SB SC 7.3L Godzilla Gas TorqShift 10R140 397 amps dual Alt dual batts Frnt Dana 60; Rr Dana M275 E-locker 4.30's 4580/4320/4066# payload 7243# curb wt. 11,300# GVWR 5-er prepped. 2020 Northstar Laredo SC, 12v compressor fridge, cassette, 320w Solar sub zero insulation.
Lots of different ways to use TCs. Our NorthStar does not live in the bed of our truck and I don’t want to have to deal with taking foam board in and out on the days our truck has to work. Enhancing R value is useful in cold weather camping, which we seldom do here in the Southeast. Some folks do glue the board to the bottom of their campers, but I don’t care for that solution.
It takes two 2x4s split in half to make a riser that will clear the marker lights on our SuperDuty for our prior Hallmark and our current Norhstar, not sure about other campers. That means two 8-foot lengths for front to back and 4 pieces for the horizontals less than 48″ each. Given a weight of 16-20 pounds per standard 2×4 in an arena where folks seem unable to avoid exceeding their truck ratings by hundreds of pounds, I’m not sure that much weight is a concern to very many folks.
As with all things RV, I think problems solving is more often a matter of preference rather than best practices. 🙂
Steve and Andra
2012 F350 6.2 gasser SRW LB
Fab Fours front and rear in case we run into a rhino
2019 Northstar Laredo SC
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