Tonight I carefully measured my truck in as many places as I thought would be needed, and made a quick AutoCAD drawing of the bed. This will be used to layout the floor pan of the camper.  These dimensions also helped me define the overall size of the camper. See the "General Dimension Notes" HERE if interested. 

All notes are just rough drafts to be refined later. All suggestions welcome, unless you suggest just buying a camper instead of building one. You can shut up, if that's your suggestion.

AutoCAD drawings will be stored and shared in the Google Drive link on the main page and below when I get around to it, if possible. I may just take screen shots of final plans and post those as the average person doesn't just have a copy of AutoCAD laying around.

I've decided to make the camper close to the maximum legal size limitations. I am keeping it short though, extending only about 2 inches past the lowered tailgate to keep it fairly easy to drive around. The camper is going to be 12 inches wider than the truck on each side, so towing mirrors will be required. The cab overhang is going to sit about 18 inches past the top of the windshield. I decided to go with a ceiling of no lower than 6', greatly increasing the initial estimated height. This should allow most people to comfortable stand inside. The floor is going to sit on top of the wheel well arches, raising the floor by just over 11", creating storage space under the main floor. This storage space will most likely be used to hold the water tanks, and supporting equipment.

I've determined that the suspension, rear axle, and bed are ready to accept a camper of over 2,500 pounds, which is about double the estimated final weight. The following needs done before subjecting the truck to a constant load of over 1,000 pounds:

- transmission flush, filter, temperature gauge installed.

- engine tune up.

- replace front tries, check weight capacity of rear tires.

- perform full maintenance on brake system, except master cylinder, which was replaced a few months ago.

- fix all signal light issues.

- prep and apply spray in liner to bed.

- stress test truck with load of gravel to determine weighted characteristics, install stronger engine if needed.

- coolant flush.

- new engine belts

- new transmission mount bushing.

- better flowing muffler.

At this point, significant progress has been made on the project, including gathering of some tools, supplies, and vital information. More updates to come.