Good morning. I am starting this thread for my restoration effort on a 1970-something "Custom Camper" camper shell. I stumbled across a few threads of Alaskan Camper rebuilds, and I see a lot of similarities between the top of an Alaskan and my shell, mostly the shape, but the shape and the structure do go hand-in-hand, so looking for any input along the way.
The camper shell was a craigslist find. The guy I got it from had inherited it on his uncle's truck, but him and his wife didn't like the look of the camper. He took it off and leaned it against his house, but it fell over upside down and started getting rained on in the inside. Shame, because it still had the old 1970s curtains with tassels inside. When I called him about the ad he said I could have it for free if I wanted it, due to the condition. It was pretty rough with mildew, waterlogged paneling, and pink panther fiberglass insulation everywhere.
I put it on the truck and drove it around for a few months, then I eventually stripped out all the old insulation and paneling and replaced it. I ripped down some 2x6s on my tablesaw to make trim around the edges and on the butt-joints in between panels.
After that I built a platform using (2) 2x12s that run parallel with the frame of the truck, set against the wheel wells, several 2x4s running left-to-right, decked out with 1/2” plywood. The platform is about the exact dimension of a queen sized mattress and right now I have a 4-inch-thick queen mattress and 2 (?) inches of foam, and a queen size fitted sheet.
I took it on it’s first camping trip with my oldest boy (who was about 2 ½ at the time) in October of 2017 and we did 3 nights camping at 3 different primitive campsites.
After that trip I built the drawers. The drawers are just 5-sided boxes made from 1/2 plywood and 2x12s ripped down from 11.25" to 10.25". No tracks, no slides, just plywood sliding on steel. Each drawer is 6 feet long with a divider at the midpoint, and about 21.25" wide inside. The length of the platform, length of the drawers, and dimension from the end of the platform to the edge of the tail gate when it is down worked out to allow me to pull the drawers a few inches shy of clearing the platform and the midpoint is still not beyond the edge of the tailgate, so everything remains horizontal and my stuff doesn’t dump out on the ground. In one of the photos I have the drawer pulled pretty much all the way out and it balances fine. The drawers are awesome, I have the left one full of tools and the right one fits most of my camping gear. I would like to take the platform out and rework a few things, and put something slippery under the drawers to make them slide a little better. Always room for improvement.
One thing to consider if you are building something similar is how much space you need between the platform/drawer assembly and the tailgate to fit an ice chest and/or spare tire. With my 8 ft bed I have just enough room for aforementioned items.
My mom had the idea to make some curtains and I mounted those using the cheapest, smallest, most simple curtain rods (brackets included) I could find at Wal-Mart. That was a major improvement for camping in an area with lights that stay on all night.
I still have a few things I want to do on it, like add some white LEDs inside that I can flip on when we are getting ready for bed, and a usb charging port that you would see on a boat, (found a few on Amazon) so I can charge a phone or camera at night.
All that being said, the “2017 rebuild” was very hasty and my first one, and I still have a few seeping slow leaks and I know there are some rotten pieces of wood underneath the beautiful weathered exterior. My long-term plan is to rebuild the camper altogether, or, basically build a new one and use as many parts as I can salvage off of this one, like the skin, windows, and door.
