Double bed to queen modification on older 4wheel

[wetcoast]

Has anyone modified their older four wheel camper with the double bed and made it to a longer queen sizeish bed? Any pictures or links available?

I have 1984 fleet and the bed over the cab is about 70" x 50" (guestimate). US queen size beds are 60 in × 80 in or 152 cm × 203 cm.

I will not get a bed that's a perfect queen but a little bit more room might save me of spending $10,000 to upgrade a new camper

Thanks in advance.

 

[Beach]

My Hawk has the factory queen so I have never done that mod, but it should be easy for someone with basic woodworking skills. Just be sure the rails that support it are fastened well into the wall frame and use material that is rated for the load.

 

[LuckyDan]

Several years ago someone on here posted their rebuild of a fixer upper. I don't remember the specific model. They basically pulled back the top inside paneling/trim on the side walls to confirm that there was structure to attach to and then built hardwood slides to make an extended slide out bed. I also don't recall what they did for cushions/mattress and so on. I'd assume there are others. I'd guess a search of the WTW threads will get you the info.

I've toyed with extending the front of my Grandby cabover to accomodate north/south sleeping. I found a post a few years ago on another site, possibly someone's personal blog, I don't remember, where someone extended their cabover. The amount of bracing/fishplating they did to get the support and cost of new canvas so far has deterred me. Let alone doing a roof extension.

I wish you well with your endeavour...

.

 

[pvstoy]

Hey Wetcoast,

I have had two FWC campers and my first one was a early 80"s Fleet. I bought that in the early 90"s and I also said this bed is too narrow for two people. I looked at a current FWC as to how they had the slide out bed design, so I matched it.

I took off the existing bed extension on the hinge. I cleaned up the shelf and added a clean surface for plywood to slide on top of it. I cut a piece of plywood that matched the shape of the shelf and when pulled out would still overlap the shelf. I got a piece of oakboard (don't know the size) and ripped it so the plywood would slide into it. About a third up on the back face. Glued and screwed the parts together. The plywood top and bottom I polyurethane seal hard coat to allow it to slide.

For the side runners just matched FWC design. Oak strips with stops on the end. Just screwed into the wall frame.

I ordered foam of different thickness so when in the out position the bed would be level. Wife made the covers to go over them.

I never really trusted the front in the middle for bow, so I just had some thick PVC pipe and made a center column support for the front middle edge.

Never took any pictures due to the film days and why use up film for that.