'71 F350 motorhome conversion, "Bessie"

[Jacksdad]

I was looking for a truck back around 2004, and came across a '71 Open Road motorhome on eBay. It seemed to be in decent enough shape for it's age, and had a cool drop down patio. It wasn't quite the truck I was looking for, but I decided to take a chance, and for the princely sum of $1600 I beat out a couple of other bidders and found myself the owner of a vintage RV. It was up in LA, so I made arrangements to meet the sellers in Pico Rivera, still having nothing to go on except photographs.
I met them in a parking lot, and saw it for the first time. It was a little rough around the edges, but it was based on a solid dually F350 cab and chassis, and ran well enough that the trip back to San Diego was uneventful, apart from the alarming rate the 35 gallon tank was emptying. My wife hated it at first sight, but my son (who was about three at the time) declared it to be "the best motorhome in the world", and named her Bessie.
We used her for local camping trips and got a lot of use out of her over the years, and the drop down patio was guaranteed to attract a constant procession of curious bystanders. The A/C no longer worked, but she had power steering and brakes, with front discs. Cosmetically, she was starting to show her age, but I was told that the motor had been rebuilt sometime before I got it. Apart from the obligatory exhaust manifold leaks and a leaky carb that no rebuild kit would fix, that seemed about right. When it began to drop cylinders a couple of years ago however, I did a compression test and four cylinders barely moved the needle. I pulled the heads and found that the "rebuild" was actually a 352 that had been used to replace the original 390. On the plus side, it had been bored 40 thou over and the cylinders showed practically no wear, but most of the exhaust valves were so far recessed that it was a wonder it was still running. I pulled some wrecking yard heads and cleaned them up, and we were back in business with eight cylinders again.
Fast forward to about 12 months ago, and our city council decided to ban trailers, RVs and boats on public streets between 2 and 6am. I'd been parking outside our place and moving it every day or two, but now I was faced with either paying for storage, or getting rid of her. I couldn't see the sense in paying $100+ a month for an old RV that was by now in need of a complete restoration (age, water leaks, and a sizeable ant's nest had started to take their toll on the wooden framing), and my son was never going to let me sell what had now become a member for the family, most likely for parts. I mulled over my options, and decided that a truck would be more useful than an RV that we were barely using and couldn't legally park anymore, so the decision to convert the old girl to a stake bed was made.
About this time, my in laws were moving and said I could use their driveway. I don't have off street parking 24/7 (or neighbors as understanding as theirs) so I jumped at the chance to get a start on the project. After they moved, things slowed down and a couple of other projects got in the way, but I'm hoping to get back into it in the next few weeks. I figured if I finally started the build thread, it might give me the kick in the pants I need. So here goes...

1 Bessie before.jpg

2 Bessie before.jpg

.

[sargentrs]

A shame to lose the camper but looking forward to your project!

[SeapineF37]

yes! another DRW thread. can't wait to see you get started. more motivation for me to ge my thread going...

[Jacksdad]

Actually, I've already got some work done - just lagged badly on getting the pics up. Still a good ways to go though.
She'd been parked in my in laws drive for a while before I began to work on her, and I'm kicking myself now for not starting earlier, especially since I'm out of there now and having to work over at my place. Fortunately I do have an off street parking space, but it doubles as business parking all day during the week so I have to be out each morning. Evenings and weekends (after 3pm on Saturday) it's mine, and within reach of extension cords I can string from my garage in the back of the complex, so I can run power tools and welding equipment.
At this point, I was still running the split rim wheels, and a couple of the tires needed changing badly. I put new radials on a couple of later one piece dually wheels and switched out the fronts, got her fired up, and turned her around (after a Taco Bell stop, apparently...).

0908-172218.jpg

This is what she looked like before I started working on her. The first thing I wanted to tackle was filling the hole left by the walk through cab. I figured if I left the camper box on, it would give me some shade, shelter from the elements, and keep me hidden from prying eyes. It also doubled as a workshop I could lock my tools in when I wasn't over there.

3 Interior before.jpg

4 Cab original.jpg

Sargentrs - I have to admit that I felt pretty guilty tearing into her after she'd served us so well over the years as an RV

.

[Jacksdad]

The breakdown was pretty straightforward once I figured out what they done back at Open Road when they first carried out the conversion.
It seems like they framed the walk through hole with shaped sections of 2"x4" lumber screwed to the sheet metal first before cutting it out. They made the hole a little smaller, and hammered the extra inch of sheet metal up against the wood (which followed the contours of the cab exactly) to form a 90 degree edge. Huge 3" wood screws and a bitumen-like sealer were used to hold the wooden framing solidly against the metal. It was pretty agricultural, but it worked. Unfortunately, the camper box being solidly attached to the cab and welded to the chassis meant that any twist/torque was transmitted into the sheet metal. More on the fun that caused later.

6 Walk through deconstruction.jpg

7 Walk through deconstruction.jpg

8 Walk through deconstruction.jpg

[Jacksdad]

As I pulled the trim off, the sheet metal plates that had been used to fill the rear window opening became apparent. The other thing that became apparent was the distortion in the roof from years of being twisted each time the chassis flexed. At this point, I thought it was limited to the roof.
Having the camper box on helped on some of the hotter days when I would have fried in the sun, but it didn't protect me from the hordes of Asian Tiger mosquitoes I later found breeding in huge numbers in my in laws unused and full hot tub. I was eaten alive every day until I found out where they were coming from and dumped a bottle of bleach in their new home. Calamine lotion, people. From experience, it's the only thing that works.

9 Walk through deconstruction.jpg

10 Cab exposed.jpg

11 Rear window metal inserts.jpg

.

[Jacksdad]

The plates over the rear window opening were next, and it didn't take long to grind down the welds.

12 Rear window metal insert removal.jpg

13 Rear window metal insert removal.jpg

14 Rear window metal insert removal.jpg

[Jacksdad]

Once the all the framing, trim, and metal were out of the way, I could get a better idea of the size of the sheet metal it would take to fill the gap.

15 Walk through opening.jpg

Tape measure and Sawzall in hand, I headed to the bone yard to do some shopping. Luckily I found a pretty rust free bump and started measuring. Unfortunately, the roof wasn't completely cancer free, but way better than anything I'd seen up to that point.

16 Junkyard bump.jpg

17 Junkyard bump.jpg

.

[Jacksdad]

I was pleasantly surprised at how fast I had the back cut out of the cab and roof- half an hour and I was heading for the exit. Even better was paying less than $30 for everything because the girl at the checkout rang both pieces up as "brackets". Couldn't pay for them and get out of there fast enough

18 Junkyard bump.jpg

19 New sheet metal.jpg

.

[Jacksdad]

Once I had the panels back to my in laws, it was time to break out the tape measure and sharpie, and decide how much of my cab's sheet metal to remove to get back to straight stuff. As nicely as the wooden pieces had been shaped to match the cab's contours, screwing it to the framing had still distorted it around the edge of the walk through, so I wanted to make sure I was into good metal. Luckily I'd cut the donor pieces quite a bit bigger than the gap and had some wiggle room.

20 New sheet metal.jpg

[Jacksdad]

I needed a break from being stuck inside the camper box/oven, so I decided to tackle the main 35 gallon gas tank on the passenger side. It was behind the step (presumably it was fitted before the camper box was constructed) so that had to go before I could get to the tank itself. The filler neck also came up through the back of the cab, so repairing the hole required it to be removed. At this point, it was running on an auxiliary 15 gallon tank on the driver's side.

21 Step removal.jpg

Once the step was out of the way, I could unbolt the rear support and remove the tank.

22 Fuel tank removal.jpg

23 Fuel tank removal.jpg

[sargentrs]

Wow! That's impressive work. Looking forward to more updates!

[Jacksdad]

Wow! That's impressive work. Looking forward to more updates!

Thank you

I have pictures on a camera, tablet and two phones - trying to get them all in order is a lot of fun, but I'm getting there.

[Jacksdad]

Once the tank was out, I found a possible cause for the horrible gas consumption (apart from the lump of cast iron between the frame rails) even when it was parked. The tank was isolated from the brackets with strips of carpet which had held moisture against the metal for decades, and there were pinholes in the bottom of the tank that went all the way through.

24 Fuel tank removal.jpg

For some reason, Open Road bolted the rear gas tank mount to the chassis, but welded the front one. It took a while to cut it free because they really didn't want it to fall off - very impressive welds.

25 Fuel tank removal.jpg

26 Fuel tank removal.jpg

In the last pic, you can see the elongated hole that they cut out of the back of the cab for the filler neck to pass through. They also chopped a chunk out of the bracing piece that runs across the back of the cab. The tank must have been bigger than they thought, because they also beat the holy hell out of the back of the cab corner to make it fit. I might just find a good donor and change it all out, rather than try to fix it. Nice work, Open Road

.

[Jacksdad]

Back into the mosquito infested hot box. I'd finally got wise and started wearing bug spray and long pants while the last of the mosquitoes died off, but it didn't make working in the heat much fun...

When I started trial fitting the donor sheet metal, I started to see just how distorted the back of the cab was. As the framing in the camper box had settled and collapsed over the years, it had put more and more weight on the cab. Add to that the twisting as it drove down the road, and it was all over the place. To try and pull it back somewhere near straight, I decided to build a framework of box section tubing behind the panels before fitting the new sheet metal. The first piece made a huge difference, but I knew I was probably going to need more.

27 Tubing brace.jpg

Using a donor rear window, I also made a cardboard template to try and get everything lined up prior to final welding. I transferred that to 1" MDF with bracing added to keep it straight, and used that to keep the metal either side of the gap lined up as best I could.

29 MDF window front.jpg

30 MDF window back.jpg