Slide-In Truck Campers

I had a slide-in for two years. It was a 1,000-ish lb. Panther custom camper in a Ford Ranger (bought the camper used). It was really cool, but, ultimately, a total pain.

Where to store it in winter? In the garage, but it takes up half the garage. I live in Montana, so I was losing half my storage for half the year.

What do you do when you need to use your truck to haul stuff? You take the camper on and off and on and off. Not impossible, but a pain in the ass that needs to be planned for. 

What happens when it springs a leak on a trip? You buy $100 worth of seam tape and hope for the best.

In the end, I sold the truck and the camper and bought a little 2010 Ford Transit Connect, "built it out," and a 1988 Toyota truck to be able to haul wood, dump runs, rally around it the snow, etc.

Never going back to the slide in, they're cool, but not worth the effort (for me). 

I've got a Hallmark Guanella that rides in a 2015 Silverado 1500. When I'm loaded for a trip, I max out my payload. The truck gets a little boaty, but not dangerously so. At some point in the near future, I will upgrade my rear suspension to better handle the load. In 5 years or so I will replace the 1/2 ton truck with a 3/4 ton.

Regarding ease of use, it takes me about 30 minutes to load or unload the camper from the truck. I've only owned it for 9 months so that time keeps creeping down as I get better at loading it. I store my slide-in in my driveway on large sawhorses that I built to support the bottom of the camper. I cover the camper in the winter with a large heavy duty tarp. Its really not a huge deal (for me) to load and unload the camper for weekend trips.

I upgraded to the slide in from a basic build out with a fiberglass shell. My wife and I just had a kid and we wanted to still be able to get out with the baby and have a good time. I think for many climbers who don't have families, a full-on slide-in doesn't make sense. For those who want to live in the truck full time or who have families, the slide-in starts to make more sense. Personally, I don't want a van because I want to be able to use my vehicle for more than just camping and trucks are cool.

Great stuff, thanks to those responses so far.  In a pop-up, do the sides flap in the wind at all? How are they in the cold? 

Andy Novak wrote: Great stuff, thanks to those responses so far.  In a pop-up, do the sides flap in the wind at all? How are they in the cold? 

I haven't noticed any flapping in the wind yet, but admittedly haven't been in any big storms yet.  A pop-up is colder than a hard-sided camper, but definitely warmer than a tent.  Also, you can get an insulated cover that you Velcro to the inside of the flexible (pop-up) part that will help a lot.  There are a number of forums online that have much more info.  My wife did the research for ours- I'll see if I can get you some links to those forums. 

Andy Novak wrote: Great stuff, thanks to those responses so far.  In a pop-up, do the sides flap in the wind at all? How are they in the cold? 

My canvas sides dont really flap. They are pulled taut when the roof is raised. Mine is also double walled, so it seems to stay pretty warm. We’ve camped in it down to below freezing temps without a problem. Its way warmer than my old built out camper shell!

I had a Bigfoot fiberglass shell hard sided camper years ago on a Ford F350. Lived in it for a month in Alaska in January. It was nice.

Currently I have a 98 Lance 9.5 hard sided. It's wood frame and aluminum siding and it still works great and has no issues. It has a one piece aluminum roof so no leaks. I paid $4,200 for it about 5 years ago, and it looked like new. It has all the amenities and I use them. I like having a hot shower. I like having a convenient bathroom in the night. I like using my own clean bathrooms instead of gross ones at rest stops or other public ones. I like having a 3 way fridge with my food / drinks ready at any time. I like a full kitchen and sink with hot water to make nice meals easily.

I have a solar panel on it which is great. I can run the heater all night and the lights, and in a couple hours in a sunny morning it will charge right back up.

I have a F-250 4x4 crew cab, diesel, long bed. Basically the heaviest truck you can buy, which isn't great because it takes away your weight carrying capacity. The camper weighs about 2,500 lbs. The only difference between the F350 and F250 for my year is the F350 has blocks on the rear suspension to raise it a little and a little helper spring. I added air bags, sway bar, and upgraded shocks. They helped, but what it needed most of all was beefy helper springs like these.  The suspension handled the weight and top heaviness of the camper no problem after these. I should've done that first.

It's over the legal limit of the truck, but under the axle and tires weight rating. It handles and stops fine. But I still keep the mph down to 59 mph on the freeway typically because it has so much wind resistance it really kills the mpg above that. My truck gets about 17 empty. About 13.5 with the camper. Really the big campers are supposed to be on duallies, but my friend has a dually and mine with the beefy helper springs sways less than his with a similar camper.

If you can get away with 2WD it will handle better and get a little better mpg because it won't sit as high.

I have acreage so I have plenty of space to store it. I also have a clean out for my septic system where I store it so I can dump at home.

We have two cars and the truck. I drove trucks for years (Toyotas) and it's so much nicer and more economical to drive a car as a daily driver. So I have the truck only for when I need it. Which is for the camper or towing. So I don't need to take the camper off and on more than a few times year. It only takes me about 15 minutes.

I'm debating getting a Northstar pop up though. It would be nice to be able to drive 65-70 and not worry so much about mpg. And it would handle better. It would be a step down in terms of comfort though.

For two people you could live out of a camper for months. With 3 it's a little tight. With 4 it's a weekend before you start to go a little crazy. I'll bring a tent and set that up as the "2nd bedroom" when we have our family of four.

I just found this post. I have 2016 Ford 150 4x4, 6 foot bed, and on it Northstar TC 650 (2011) pop up camper. Works great for my wife and me. We have spent about 3-4 months each summer the last 4 years in it. We generally go off the beaten track, The Winds, Sawtooths, Rubies, Absaroka-Beartooths, Canada etc.  the farther from people, the better. The 30 gallon water tank and 5 gallon propane lets us stay for about three weeks+ without refill at a time.

The camper is all manual. The only things we added were solar panels, mountain bike rock mounts at the back of the camper and air suspension bags for the truck. The camper (bought used) had a winter package included. It keeps the temps a bit higher inside in the late fall.

I don't know if I missed it while reading this post, but to me, an extremely important thing is gear space. If you are going to use the set up for weekend travel, it is of less importance, but if you might take it on a month or longer trip, gear space becomes an extremely important issue. 

There are very few pop-ups on the market that have reasonable gear storage, in fact, storage is an after thought in most of them.  Our Northstar and very few other brands have space under the mattress. The TC 650 has about 8 inches of space under the queen size bed. That allows for a lot of rock climbing. mountaineering and back packing gear. We generally cram all of our climbing gear and packs under the mattress where it is easily accessible. 

If we keep the speed to about 65 MPH, we get about 16.5 to 17 MPG. The rig is very stable at 80, but  the mileage suffers. The 4x4 is very usefull. We don't generally go 4 wheeling, but a lot of approaches in the mountains are on poor roads and the 4x4 really helps.

I know, there are many reasonable and functional set ups available. We bought the Northstar used, it was relatively cheep ($8,000 in 2016), in good condition and it fit the 150 and its pay load.

After about 400 days of use, the camper is in great shape and we are not shy taking it anywhere. This set up works ok.

Alois Smrz wrote:

I just found this post. I have 2016 Ford 150 4x4, 6 foot bed, and on it Northstar TC 650 (2011) pop up camper. 

Better check your driveway. Your rig might be missing. Haha.

That is pretty much exactly the route I ended up going. Crewcab F150 with a 2016 TC650. My solar panels arrived the other day, just waiting on some lap seal and a few other things to install them and have 300W of solar available. The truck camper market is currently insane with new production happening very slowly and demand through the roof. I went this route partly because it was what was available, and partly because it is a good compromise between maximum livability (something like a Lance 650) and maximum portability (something like a Caribou Lite 6.5, or FWC Hawk). The F150 handles the weight quite well so far. Added air bags, and will probably go with a higher load rated tire when these wear out, not in love with the stock tires anyway. You are right that storage space is at a premium, and I am still figuring out exactly how to pack this thing. The under bed storage is key, although I need a tray or something so I can pull things out from way under the bed a little easier. The crewcab helps too, as I can throw bulky items (a bin of climbing gear and a paraglider) up there. Those bike mounts look like a great idea. What sort of hardware etc, did you use to mount them?

Edit: My gas mileage hasn't been as good as yours though! I am probably (definitely) going faster though. Just got about 12mpg going from Boise to Tahoe... headwind, 70-80mph, AC on, fully loaded for a three month stint, but still... ouch! I got about 14mpg going from Goldendale, WA to Boise. Guess I have a lead foot.

Hi Ryan

Pretty funny, we should most likely not park site by site...

I hear you with the tires. We blew two Wranglers in the last 4 years and will buy "E" rated tires next time. You'll figure out the storage all right when you decide to go on a long trip. It does all work out. The rock mounts are for the newer through axle mountain bikes and are manufactured by RockyMounts. They are the RockyMounts HM. If you would want to install them and could use some help with it, let me know and I will photo it all.

These rock mounts are designed to be installed in the bed of a truck, but, especially on these Northstars, they fit the back in a way that the bikes can hang in vertical position. The door stop needs to be repositioned as well, you'll need the (I think) 4 inch door stop as opposed to the 2 inch that comes with the camper.

I drilled two holes through the skin of the camper for each mount. Then I drilled the same holes through 1 x 4 inch piece of wood to be placed inside the camper as a support. Bought two screws each for the mount, two washers and about 1/2" sized nuts matching the screws. Coated it all with silicone glue and tied it together. The rockmounts had to be installed with the locking mechanism facing down, but that just lets you lock the mount easier. I also installed two short metal grooves to hold the rear tire of the bike in place. That metal piece fits over the doors that the Northstar has for the gray water on the left and the other door on the right which on my camper has nothing in it.

So if you want to visualize it better, let me know and I will photo it all.

Hope you will enjoy your rig for many years. Happy climbing and camping.

Cheers, Alois.

BTW I looked at your camper again, in close up, and the rear of your 2016 unit looks different than my 2011.. They must have re-designed it quite a bit. So the mounts might not fit as well.

MPH makes a huge difference in MPG. A truck camper has a huge amount of wind resistance. After I got a camper I realized why most big rigs cruise at exactly 59 mph in the slow lane. Wind resistance and mpg seem to be affected exponentially over that. 

The floor of the backseat of the cab is the lowest space available so I pack my heaviest stuff there when possible. Same thing in the camper heavy stuff down low, light stuff up high when possible. 

Glowering wrote:

. . .The floor of the backseat of the cab is the lowest space available so I pack my heaviest stuff there when possible. Same thing in the camper heavy stuff down low, light stuff up high when possible. 

Here's what we did to the back of our truck (we only have 2 people in our truck on trips).  We removed the back seats and I built a shelving unit in the back.  I bolted shelf units from Home Depot to the back wall of the truck (I used the seatbelt and seat bolts for that), and built a simple wood frame right behind the seats - there's a 2x4 connecting the wood frame to the back of the truck for stability - we then hung 16" deep shelves on the back and 12" shelves on the wood frame, zip-tied together.  We now have 30" wide shelves with adjustable heights.  My wife (she's the organized one) added the red duct tape with a list of what goes where - makes it easy to stow away everything.

here's the other side:

This allows the camper to be relatively clear of crap lying around, and keeps things out of the rain when you're not using them.

That's really cool, Brian. What a great way to get some extra space. 

Cool shelves Brian. Tons of storage. One thing you may have already thought of, but just in case: be wary of things turning into projectiles in accidents. I would possibly add some cross members to the wooden frame so the openings to the front seat are smaller than anything heavy on the top shelves. My wife is always warning me about that. We were on a road trip in a SUV with a 6 month old baby and I had everything strapped down. Another driver caused us to have a rollover. The only thing not strapped down was the groceries/snacks we had just picked up. After the rollover the groceries were all over the car. While the heavy suitcases, climbing gear, etc. didn't move, but otherwise could've landed on the baby.

Glowering wrote:

Cool shelves Brian. Tons of storage. One thing you may have already thought of, but just in case: be wary of things turning into projectiles in accidents.

Good point!  Glad you guys survived that experience! I thought about the projectile thing in passing while I was designing it and is part of the reason the top cross member is so high, but I'm definitely going to look a bit closer.  Thanks!