Jon R
Senior Member
I thought I’d show my project for today.
My detached garage has an 8 foot high door opening, but my Grandby on the 3500hd is about 8 feet 2 inches at the fan. When time comes to garage the camper for the winter, I’ve been transferring it to my 93 K2500, which has a bed height several inches lower, pulling that rig into the garage, and then putting the camper on the dolly. It’s a lot of jack cranking, twice as many careful loadings into the bed of a truck, and tailgate removal and reinstallation on the old truck.
I had tried a few years ago loading onto the dolly in the driveway and using a come-along to pull it up the ramp into the garage, but I didn’t like how hard i was having to pull, and I didn’t want the camper rolling down the slope and hitting something if anything let go.
So i decided to build some wood rails to extend the garage floor out 12 feet for the camper dolly. I used some 2x10 i had in my barn from an old building, put strips of 5/8 plywood discarded by a friend on the face to make a channel for the casters, and made connecting pieces to hold the two channels square and the correct distance apart. All the wood was free - I just had to buy some carriage bolts.
I measured and made marks to place the assembly in the correct location every time and marked the height of the support blocks needed to make it level. I marked the center line for placing the truck when preparing to unload.
To unload I’ll put the truck in the rough location, jack the camper, drive away, build the rail system, roll the dolly onto it, flip the front casters for backing into the garage, lower the camper onto the dolly, and push it into the garage. I’ll then jack the camper a little to adjust it on the dolly if needed.
To load, I’ll build the rail system, push the camper on the dolly out onto the rails, jack the camper, push back the dolly, remove the rail system, and back the truck under the camper.
Now that I have it built and locations marked, it comes apart by removing carriage bolts with wingnuts that hold the crosspieces to the ralls, and I stick it all in the lumber stall in my barn. It will come apart and put away in about 10 minutes, and will probably take 20-30 minutes to assemble it, place it carefully, and place the support blocks.
I think it’s going to save me a bunch of time relative to the truck transfer thing, and reduce my risk of damaging the camper with all the extra loading and backing the old truck with camper into the garage.
Here are the pictures of the rail system I built today. I’ll post more in a few weeks when I unload the camper.
My detached garage has an 8 foot high door opening, but my Grandby on the 3500hd is about 8 feet 2 inches at the fan. When time comes to garage the camper for the winter, I’ve been transferring it to my 93 K2500, which has a bed height several inches lower, pulling that rig into the garage, and then putting the camper on the dolly. It’s a lot of jack cranking, twice as many careful loadings into the bed of a truck, and tailgate removal and reinstallation on the old truck.
I had tried a few years ago loading onto the dolly in the driveway and using a come-along to pull it up the ramp into the garage, but I didn’t like how hard i was having to pull, and I didn’t want the camper rolling down the slope and hitting something if anything let go.
So i decided to build some wood rails to extend the garage floor out 12 feet for the camper dolly. I used some 2x10 i had in my barn from an old building, put strips of 5/8 plywood discarded by a friend on the face to make a channel for the casters, and made connecting pieces to hold the two channels square and the correct distance apart. All the wood was free - I just had to buy some carriage bolts.
I measured and made marks to place the assembly in the correct location every time and marked the height of the support blocks needed to make it level. I marked the center line for placing the truck when preparing to unload.
To unload I’ll put the truck in the rough location, jack the camper, drive away, build the rail system, roll the dolly onto it, flip the front casters for backing into the garage, lower the camper onto the dolly, and push it into the garage. I’ll then jack the camper a little to adjust it on the dolly if needed.
To load, I’ll build the rail system, push the camper on the dolly out onto the rails, jack the camper, push back the dolly, remove the rail system, and back the truck under the camper.
Now that I have it built and locations marked, it comes apart by removing carriage bolts with wingnuts that hold the crosspieces to the ralls, and I stick it all in the lumber stall in my barn. It will come apart and put away in about 10 minutes, and will probably take 20-30 minutes to assemble it, place it carefully, and place the support blocks.
I think it’s going to save me a bunch of time relative to the truck transfer thing, and reduce my risk of damaging the camper with all the extra loading and backing the old truck with camper into the garage.
Here are the pictures of the rail system I built today. I’ll post more in a few weeks when I unload the camper.
