New Rig, Ready For Suggestions and Time to Get to Work

[Overthinker]

Time to add brake controller and hitch.  Would like to know of any other must haves or suggestions.

[rickeieio]

Well, fenders would be a good start.  Depending your registration, marker and clearance lights, side marker lights if you're over 30', reflective material pretty much everywhere a light is required, mud flaps........

How are you registered?  If it's not "road tractor", you have a lot of work to do.

[Star Dreamer]

Depends on what you have to start with, which way you are registering it, and how you plan to use it. 

You might need to or want to add a porta potti, microwave, inverter, aux heater, fridge,  shore power connection to the truck if you want to use it as a mini motorhome. Storage boxes are nice.

Some people add generators & extra water tanks, especially if they do a lot of boondocking. 

Some add solar panels to keep batteries charged. 

Some add bike lifts, smart car beds, vehicle beds, or beds that can handle other types of toys.

Think about your mission profile and use that as your guide.

[Overthinker]

It's registered as a motorhome and we've already purchased the porta potti, microwave, and working on fenders.  Bed design is in my head and to come.  We will be pulling our 5th wheel and will be using it as a dual purpose vehicle.  I'm planning to essentially use it as a pick up since I traded mine in.  I know, It's going to get interesting.

[trimster]

Here's the thread on my bed build. There's other on the forum so lots of info.

I built my own wheel wells. Way to expensive if you buy pre-made but... off the shelf are easier to install. I fabricated the brackets and purchased the actual wheel wells (window wells for houses) from Home Depot. $22 per.

Star Dreamer mentioned 'build/use goals'. That's important. Maybe the most important to define.

On my bed I valued:

- the ability to removed the deck plates for service access to stuff under the bed. That meant aluminum plates instead of steel.

- Ramps under the bed.

- Overall truck length could not exceed 30' to fit in our driveway legally. So the frame extension was 25" for the hitch. But then the truck wheel base started at 210" so this was possible.

- I wanted a generator on board with extra gas storage, and tool/stuff storage.

There's more of course. I did not know how to weld when I started (I'm a woodworker at heart) but learned quickly. The storage boxes I had built. Way past my tool and skill set.

It was a rewarding project to undertake. Not a perfect bed build but it works for me and I can say..."I did that".

 

[Overthinker]

Thanks for the input.  Hopefully I will have some updates soon.