Moresmoke

This is what the inside of your walls look like. You will need to do some rearranging of the ductwork and move the sleeper control panel on the other side. By the time you are done will likely need new wall panels also. I didn’t want to give up the bunk HVAC or storage, so I removed the flip up bed frame and put a sheet of plywood on top of the lower frame to mount a seat to. Also had to make a 4 inch riser in front of the seat to get the height right.

Does your state issue specific plates for RVs or commercial vehicles? That would be the simplest divider. If not, it would probably have to revolve around the fact of titling as an RV. Possibly a permit of some sort after proof of title conversion.

Keep in mind when adding a box behind the sleeper, most truck cabs are air ride. So you have a moving cab to deal with if you want a pass through.

Take a look at Racing junk. They have a section for RV/Toters. Everything from high dollar to diy specials. You might find something that fits your needs. Or at least get some ideas.

Most people here you will find have the sleeper and amenities to be able to claim as an RV for registration purposes. Some of us are not so lucky as our states don’t like the idea of loosing registration revenue. I installed a jackknife sofa in mine. That is where the kids ride. I also use my HDT to pull my toy hauler, which happens to be a lowboy. I can operate in my state registered as a truck without much hassle, so long as I don’t leave the state in truck mode. The jack knife sofa allows me to have a spot to crash for the weekend at a tractor show if I want to. They generally have restrooms/showers/food so I don’t need to worry about that. So it boils down to what works for you, and that will be primarily driven by the rules of the state you call home. One other option I will throw out is a modified bus of some sort. I have seen a few that were nicely modified, shortened up on the back, so they could have a hitch with decent capacity.

The top and bottom flanges of a beam (frame) are what give it strength. So unless that section of frame is there for nothing but looks, it is not a good idea to cut away the flanges. Heck, the manufacturer forbids the drilling of holes in the flanges too!

And the frame half way rusted through from the winter road salt in Quebec.

The D11 can’t tear itself up. I only own one because it was cheap. It works for what I need, but I wouldn’t buy a new one on purpose.

The biggest seller for my wife on an HDT was the seat. An F350 rides like an F350. Her back did not like traveling long distances. Now with air ride seat in an air ride cab, she has no complaints. I did have to concede and agree to an auto shift. While I tolerate it, I also was not in love with the automatic in the Ford either. Yes she does drive too. I find that I am not as tired at the end of a travel day. Especially windy days. Living on the open prairie, you have to deal with wind, or stay home. Last trip, we were battling 45 mph head winds. Didn’t get very good fuel mileage, but made good time!

My uncle runs some trucks over the road out of the far NE US. A couple years ago they tried a few of the trailer skirts to see if there was any benefit. They didn’t find any worthwhile fuel savings, but did find a good ROI on maintenance. Their issues related to ice and snow pulling stuff apart under the trailers diminished greatly.

With what you describe as the breakaway system, the wipers would still park reliably, just not at “home”. When you can’t get the wipers to stop at all, or just a very short window, it is electrical, typically in the motor as that is where the park switching usually is. Either way, beats my old Freightliner from years past. Air wipers with intermittent function. Some days they worked and some days they didn’t.

One thing not mentioned here on tires. Truck tires have a tapered bead. Sometimes, when you install the tire, it does not push out evenly around the rim. If your tire has a raised ridge just outside the rim you can see the difference. After some time on the road, they will settle into the right spot. Higher pressure in the tire will help them seat properly, especially if you run lower pressures for reduced load most of the time. My little truck has 19.5 tires on it, also taper beads. The rims are cold galvanized coated. It is not a smooth surface. On those I have to air them to max pressure (120 psi) for a couple weeks to get the tires to seat on the beads right.

If your KW cab is rocking, don’t go knocking!

If your deck lights are connected to the trailer circuit, the truck does not monitor the load and will not care. If the deck lights are hooked to the chassis circuits, the LCU may get unhappy. The dealer computer can fix that. (Note: connecting to the trailer circuit may affect shifting. The truck senses the trailer lights and starts to shift from 1st gear and doesn’t skip. This too can be changed.) If your bed is wider than the cab, you need amber light visible from the front and side on the front corners of 5he bed, and red visible from side and back at the rear. You can pretty well put whatever amber lights you want in between.

I added the premium shifter. Bought a used shifter, installed it and had the dealer do the software. General highway driving I never use it. Where the premium shifter shines is slower speeds. Pull in the yard and it wants to stay in 5th gear until you pile on the brakes enough to stop, then it shifts to neutral. I like to coast down to a crawl and then be able to power to my parking spot in 1st gear. Or if you are trying to drive up to something and not run into it. Truck tries to do everything in 3rd gear, hard to inch up to something in 3rd. Premium shifter solves these problems. If I remember right, the shifter was $200 and the software $300. That was an update where the dealer had to contact Volvo and get the build information changed.

I believe the “max speed limiter” is 87 mph. I had the dealer take off the 65 mph fleet limit when they programmed my truck for the premium shifter. I have since had it reset to 65+13 mph driver rewards to satisfy the Canadian rules, just to be safe.

If that is what you want for a truck, then you better go buy it before someone else does. The only minus I see is it looks to have small fuel tanks. The Detroit is a very solid engine platform. As far as price is concerned, the only thing I can say is about $10k buys a truck that runs anymore. Something you want to drive will cost more. Cab and sleeper Petes (except a 377) always bring a premium over other brands. I have a Volvo, for my purposes I wanted an open cab, so a classic style sleeper was out. And I am cheap. So low cost Volvo it was. Myself, I would have gone with a manual trans, but I wasn’t given a choice on that option. We each need to decide what fits our needs.

From experience... A group 31 is roughly 1 gallon in size. So 4 gallons of fuel will get you 32 miles at 8mpg. 4 group 31 batteries will get you to the fuel pump if you are less than 100 ft away! And then it takes a lot of pumping that little pump to get the engine running again.

They already have been in California. But RVs are exempt, so far. Even non emissions compliant heavy equipment is being phased out in CA. I go along with its great to have goals, but reality can be harsh. In some areas liquid fuel will remain a mainstay just due to lack of infrastructure. Long distances, cold weather, hot weather are not conducive to electric. As far as the transportation industry is concerned, first mile and last mile is easy on electric. It’s the long distance in between that is the problem. If you look at fleets that run team operations, their goal is to keep that asset (truck) moving at all times. The only way for that to be practical with electric would be to swap battery packs. Similar as is done with lift trucks. Doable eventually? Yes. Practical in 10 years? Probably not.

The 18.7 CFM is from the compressor to the tanks at higher engine RPM. You will not have that much available from the trailer supply line. You will have enough for what you want to do. Those of us that have put in direct plumbing are using more air. I use mine to adjust the air pressure in rear tractor tires when I am at pulls. Takes a lot of volume.

The controller does back feed when you manually apply the trailer brakes. Otherwise you would be braking and have no brake lights. One of the reasons modern light trucks have that convenient plug in for the brake control (or integrated). Makes it harder to muss things up. Anyways, if you hook to the brake lights at the Jackalopee it will work just fine.

The red wire serves two purposes, it tells the P3 when the brake lights come on (applying brakes), and it provides power to the brake light circuit when you use the manual slide bar on the controller. Wiring the red wire to the Jackalopee will allow the trailer lights to work when using the manual slide bar. It will not turn on the truck brake lights. Now that said, it is the best option I could come up with when I did mine. If I remember right, there is only a pressure sensor on the brake circuit of the truck, not a snap switch. While you could add a switch for the red wire under the dash, it won’t give you the trailer brake lights if you trigger the trailer brakes manually.

Realize that most of the trucks you will see on here are custom setups designed for what the owner wanted. We all have different needs. While some posters will assure you there is a single right way to do everything. Also, one of the first things you need to look into is how your state treats registration of a larger truck. When you state work and play, it mostly rules out registering as an RV. Also license to drive it. While my state would allow someone to drive my truck with a Class D as long as a “recreational trailer” is attached, my other trailers require a class A. Play: More play: A bit more play: Too much fun: Keep in mind that any of the factory 4 door cabs tend to be expensive. It’s not hard to convert a bunk to seating. I have a jack knife sofa in the back that will sit 3-4. It is not the greatest to sleep on, but will suffice for a night. There is a for sale forum here where you might find some ideas, I would also suggest racing junk.com. As another poster mentioned, you need to figure out your budget. There are folks with $10k trucks, and some with $200k invested.

I have not entered a weigh station. Just drive on by. HDT is registered as a truck. Same as my F350. I figure if no one would bat an eye at the F350 pulling a RV, what is the difference? As long as the truck is big enough, it won’t care. You will hit a limit though of what a ball hitch can carry. May need to go to a pintle hitch.

For connection to the trailer brake line, you don’t need a shut off for safety, the valves already there will handle that. Yes, the point I was trying to make above is that you can get better airflow hooked direct to the tank. But for general inflation/blow gun the trailer line will be fine.