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PostPosted: January 10, 2016, 1:01 am 
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Hey guys,

Planning on going racing in the next few years and thinking about logistics. I've decided I want a ramp-truck or a roll-off to haul the racecar. I don't like trailers, and I won't drive a truck year-round. Not being rich, I started looking at Class C motorhomes for a base. It seems like you could get a decent, older chassis where the interior is wrecked etc for a few thousand. Rip off the motorhome part (probably keeping bed over cab) and convert the back into a ramp, or roll-off. Other than the chassis, I'm not that familiar with the construction of the RVs. I am wondering if more experienced people know of issues I will run into. I know rear GAWR is an issue, but I'm only going to race light stuff, and some of these RVs must have 10,000lb+ rear GAWR to play with.

Cheers,
Cory

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PostPosted: January 10, 2016, 1:46 pm 
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Those are called Toterhomes in the industry and are quite popular, though quite expensive. If you're going to rip everything off anyway, why don't you start with an old U-Haul truck or Ryder truck to begin with?

If I was going to do it, I would get a class C motorhome and just reinforce the rear frame and then make the whole rear panel into a tilt down door/ramp. It's a heck of a lot easier to make it look nice than starting from scratch. You can look for one that has the bathroom up front and still have a bathroom when you're done.

They usually use interior walls as bracing to keep the whole frame from scissoring but you can duplicate that with a perimeter frame in the middle and at your new rear door. It should be made of 2x4x.125.

Tom

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PostPosted: January 10, 2016, 9:30 pm 
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Back in my 'Dirt Track' days, we had a guy that came to the track frequently with a rig like this. The race car rode in back and there was crews quarters up front.


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PostPosted: January 11, 2016, 12:26 am 
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was just going to say school bus! You can get a 15-20 year old DT466 or Navi 7.3 full size school bus around these parts for 3-4k. i've looked into it too many times to count.. And with the amount of car moving I do, I figure I may as well just own something that can do it.

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PostPosted: January 11, 2016, 12:10 pm 
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I've refurbed several motorhomes and travel trailers. Those suckers are plenty heavy when loaded; GVWR shouldn't be an issue.

Normal construction is to lay the floor, then attach the side walls, roof, and interior walls and cabinetry. Without any interior walls you'll get some twisting on bumps or with side winds; it happens to enclosed trailers too, and is generally harmless, but would probably startling if you were inside to watch it. A partition or cabinets just ahead of the car and some corner braces at the rear hatch and you should be fine.

Your ramp/hatch/door needs to be fairly sturdy. Depending on your approach angle and the height of the floor, you may need to fold the back down onto some supports, then use conventional trailer ramps to drive up onto that. And unless you're a weight lifter you probably should plan for a winch to crank it up and down with. You might want to run some triangulated tubes from the cable axle at the top to the floor instead of depending on the sidewall structure; a lot of that is just stapled 2x2s.

Weather sealing can be a hassle. Steele Rubber and others sell various types of weatherstripping; get some catalogs (there are places lots cheaper than Steele) and look at what's available *before* you build the rear door.

Don't forget to check on registration and insurance before purchasing. With some states/insurance companies there are sizeable price jumps between Class C and Class B motorhomes, and "once a motorhome, always a motorhome." In my state motorhomes and box trucks are taxed differently. *But* most motorhomes spend most of their life parked, and can be very low-mileage, while box trucks are generally commercial vehicles and thoroughly used.

Generators are most often at the rear; you can relocate the generator forward if needed. It's nice to have power and air conditioning... the furnace and water heater can probably go. The water and sewer holding tanks are plastic and don't weigh much when empty; you can just cap the openings and ignore them. You can screw through the plywood down into the frame for your tiedown anchors. Put some lights at floor level to assist hooking up, and remember you need access at the front to hook up straps or chains. It's easy to frame hatch openings in the wall for that; you frame the inside first, jigsaw the aluminum or fiberglass siding from the inside, and you can get the aluminum trim and hardware from RV suppliers to make factory-style access hatches.

Oh, and if you need to move the entry door, you can just frame and cut another one forward if necessary and leave the old one on place. It shouldn't be hard to find a complete door and frame from a scrapped RV. Or you can make your own like for an access hatch.

Existing outside hatches that aren't needed any more - refrigerator, storage, etc. - can be sealed shut so rain and wind don't enter. Louvers can be sealed by gluing or riveting a piece of sheet metal to the inside.


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PostPosted: January 11, 2016, 12:18 pm 
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Re-reading your original post, it sounds like you're thinking of just ripping off everything but the cab and making a flatbed hauler.

If you do that, you wind up with a big hole at the back of the cab. Some people cover it with plywood, but you can do a neater job if you find a wrecked van of the same type and cut the back off to splice to your cab. Even if you just overlap the edges and rivet, it'll look better than plywood and won't leak.

You can cut off as much of the donor van as you need, until you run into the nose of the car, anyway. Also, some long vans have extensions on the back from the factory; they were made short and the lengthened rear section was riveted or welded on.


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PostPosted: January 11, 2016, 12:21 pm 
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TRX wrote:
I've refurbed several motorhomes and travel trailers. Those suckers are plenty heavy when loaded; GVWR shouldn't be an issue.

Normal construction is to lay the floor, then attach the side walls, roof, and interior walls and cabinetry. Without any interior walls you'll get some twisting on bumps or with side winds; it happens to enclosed trailers too, and is generally harmless, but would probably startling if you were inside to watch it. A partition or cabinets just ahead of the car and some corner braces at the rear hatch and you should be fine.

Your ramp/hatch/door needs to be fairly sturdy. Depending on your approach angle and the height of the floor, you may need to fold the back down onto some supports, then use conventional trailer ramps to drive up onto that. And unless you're a weight lifter you probably should plan for a winch to crank it up and down with. You might want to run some triangulated tubes from the cable axle at the top to the floor instead of depending on the sidewall structure; a lot of that is just stapled 2x2s.

Weather sealing can be a hassle. Steele Rubber and others sell various types of weatherstripping; get some catalogs (there are places lots cheaper than Steele) and look at what's available *before* you build the rear door.

Don't forget to check on registration and insurance before purchasing. With some states/insurance companies there are sizeable price jumps between Class C and Class B motorhomes, and "once a motorhome, always a motorhome." In my state motorhomes and box trucks are taxed differently. *But* most motorhomes spend most of their life parked, and can be very low-mileage, while box trucks are generally commercial vehicles and thoroughly used.

Generators are most often at the rear; you can relocate the generator forward if needed. It's nice to have power and air conditioning... the furnace and water heater can probably go. The water and sewer holding tanks are plastic and don't weigh much when empty; you can just cap the openings and ignore them. You can screw through the plywood down into the frame for your tiedown anchors. Put some lights at floor level to assist hooking up, and remember you need access at the front to hook up straps or chains. It's easy to frame hatch openings in the wall for that; you frame the inside first, jigsaw the aluminum or fiberglass siding from the inside, and you can get the aluminum trim and hardware from RV suppliers to make factory-style access hatches.

Oh, and if you need to move the entry door, you can just frame and cut another one forward if necessary and leave the old one on place. It shouldn't be hard to find a complete door and frame from a scrapped RV. Or you can make your own like for an access hatch.

Existing outside hatches that aren't needed any more - refrigerator, storage, etc. - can be sealed shut so rain and wind don't enter. Louvers can be sealed by gluing or riveting a piece of sheet metal to the inside.


Touching on two points here..

A. The large fold down ramp and a winch.. Harbor Freight sells a cheapo "atv" winch that works excellent for this. we outfitted a friend of mines enclosed trailer they use to haul a NEMA Lite car with. 5 years later and its still going strong.

B. My old boss upgraded his motor home, and used to race spec miatas. He used the old grey water tank (or at least the space it occupied) combined with a 12v transfer pump for race fuel. it was secure, and with a fill on the outside of the motor home, meant that he could buy as much fuel as he needed off the track (didn't have to pay the extra $$$ associated with buying at the track), and didn't have to worry about anyone stealing it while he was busy racing.

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PostPosted: January 11, 2016, 12:24 pm 
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1055 wrote:
was just going to say school bus!


One thing to watch out for: if you plan to stay overnight anywhere, some campgrounds won't let you patronize their overpriced facility if you're driving a converted bus. Some of them go as far as to ban all "round top" RVs, which annoys the Airstream people to no end.

Apparently that all started when campgrounds were trying to keep hippie buses and "poor people" out in the '60s and '70s, and has lingered on far past its original reasons.


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PostPosted: January 11, 2016, 12:26 pm 
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If it is serious racing (i.e. almost zero ground clearance long nosed car) you will have to forget about ramps and go for one of those drive on elevator lifts the transporter guys use.


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PostPosted: January 11, 2016, 12:32 pm 
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If you used Dzus fasteners, you could just pop the nose off for loading and extra storage clearance...


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PostPosted: January 13, 2016, 12:19 am 
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Excellent info guys. Thanks.

The main reason I wanted to strip the motorhome part off is because of the GAWR of the rear. Most of the weight I add (stiffer deck, racecar, gear) is going to end up entirely on the rear axle so I figured I would do well to lighten the chassis by removing the RV walls/roof. I won't be able to get a medium-duty RV on my budget, so probably end up with a E350 or similar. I know they have around 10,000lb rear GAWR, but not sure what the curb weight is with the RV walls etc. To be honest, I never really considered keeping the walls on though. If I could, and fit the car in, that would be good too. Seems like it would be pretty tight.

Beat up Uhauls etc are about twice the price of beat-up RVs here. The RVs are less likely to be abused, and lower KM.

Deck height is an issue. First car will be a rally-car so should be fine with just ramps. But I'd also like to be able to use it with low stuff too. I've a sliding-deckdesign in mind that should(?) work well to reduce the angles. I'll do a doodle of it when I get more time.

Thanks again.

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PostPosted: February 7, 2016, 12:19 am 
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Took me a while to find the specs. Looking at the older E350s, it looks like the typical rear GAWR is around 7800lbs. The stripped chassis is around 2000lbs rear axle weight. So, ~5800lbs of wiggle-room for deck, car, and gear. I'm sure some of that weight will also go to the front axle, but probably not much. I'd guess the deck is 1000lbs or more, cars up to 3000lbs, 1000lbs in gear and.... I don't think there will be enough GAWR left to have the RV walls.

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PostPosted: February 11, 2016, 12:44 pm 
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TRX wrote:
If you used Dzus fasteners, you could just pop the nose off for loading and extra storage clearance...
The nose on the Slotus is held on by two 1/4 inch push-pin type thangs. I take the nose off for loading and unloading. Most of the Formula Ford and Formula V guys do a similar trick. The car is still low, but it gets rid of the front overhang, pretty much. Makes a big difference...

My .02, YMMV, IMHO, etc, etc...
:cheers:
JDK

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