Camper Shell To Narrow...

I bought this century camper shell off of Letgo for $60 . But its so narrow it rests on the bed rail cleats but it does flute out in the front. so the front of the shell rests on the truck bed not the cleats. My question to you TW is what do you suggest I do to the camper shell so that it rests on the truck bed and not the bed rail cleats...Btw I have 4 C clamps at each corner through the bed rail cleats holding the camper down.

 

Cut it in half and make it wider.






If it doesn't fit, it doesn't fit. Sell it.

 

I was thinking glueing wide boards under neath to distribute the weight.

 

Use pipe clamps to squeeze the bed together. It's only composite.

Ok, if the truck is a beater you can make something up. Angle iron comes to mind. Attach to the inside rails and let it lay over the bed rails. Coat it with bedliner to protect the outside exposed part. It will also make a base for welding a frame to go over the topper if you wish.

But whatever you do will look 'wrong' if you are trying to keep the truck nice.

Time to 'letgo'?

 

Put it back on LetGo for $75. Sell it, then get a beer and a burger to celebrate.

 

Thats not a bad idea... with a few beers its a great idea.

 

But am gonna see about getting a couple more bed rail cleats to distribute the weight of the camper since that what the camper rests on. It does "Flute" out at the front, so I would say half of the entire camper weight is actually on the cleats

 

I added pictures

 

Heres a better picture of the truck. I took it to Louisiana (4 hr drive) as a test run. the clamps and the bed rail cleats held up fine just looking for ideas

 

I had the same thing. cap is a bit to narrow. old school fiberglass high rise cap. I fabbed these quick n dirty clamps out of 5/16" plate. Not pretty but they're solid.



top plate floats til it's bolted down. few more minor changes to make but they came out pretty good for a husband with 2 kids that only welds once a year. No time to clean it up, just get er dun

 

WOW! thats a real good idea. seems more secure then the c-clamps am using. Thank you for sharing

 

Do you have pictures of underneath the clamp? do you remember about how big each plate was?

 

All plate steel is 5/16" thick and +/- 2 1/2" wide (A). It came from a 2 1/2" chunk of angle that I had sittin around. All cuts were done with a .044 cutting wheel on a 4 1/2" grinder. Welds were done with a no name 110V mig running el cheapo flux core wire that my dad bought new 25 years ago for $200.

Underneath the clamp is just a nut welded to the bottom side around a hole for the bolt to go through and fasten.



The end of the bottom plate (D) has a cleat welded on it the same as C except this cleat faces up, it fits into the top of the channel that the tie downs slide in. That cleat is only 3/8" wide to fit into the channel. B is the only other dimension that matters. In my case it is 1 3/4" high (B) to clear E. It is only because of E that the top cleat C was added. The bottom of the top cleat C has an x pattern cross hatch filed into it to help prevent slippage. The length F just had to be enough so that the top cleat C would sit tight against the inside of the cap wall. I think it was 2 3/4" but all 4 clamps are different in some aspect so it really doesn't matter.

All bolts have to be up sized to 5/16". The 1/4" bolts in it now aren't holding it down quite tight enough. Once I get them changed I'll get them all torqued up to the same level. I don't want to tighten the 1/4" bolts any more for fear of stripping the nut and the cap has moved a bit since they were installed. They're doing a hell of a lot better than the C clamps I had on it for the first week though.

Once everything is satisfactory I'll clean them up and paint them.

BTW I built these things because I didn't even want to look and see now much clamps were for this sliding rail contraption. I was sure they'd be in the order of $150. I still don't want to look as I'll probably come to find out they're only $12 each. Fun and simple to build either way.
Pete

 

Thank you for showing us this!

 

Hey quick question. Did you ever manage to get the camper to fit just right? I just recently purchased a shell myself off of 5 Mile and thedthe were a little wider in the description but ended up being a little too narrow but it's still rests on the side of the bed. I as well have the shell clamp down. Are there any fixes for narrow width?