Educator I
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- Jim
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I am thinking I need one and the bed of gladiators do not seel, so give me some pics please......
Jim
Jim
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Lets see your slide in camper!
- Thread starter Jim SoG
- Start date
Well, I’m neither a Jeep, Gladiator, nor slide in camper guy, but FWIW having fought the dust wars here's my two cents.
If you chose your gladiator for getting to the remote hard to get places, it seems like a slide-in camper is really gonna fight you on that. Any slide in is gonna be heavy enough to eat up your payload when loaded, and given that you don't have the worlds biggest truck bed, a slide in really reduces that further by not accommodating the wheelwells and you usually loose the tailgate. They also stick out as much as 3 to 5 inches from the bed/cab width profile, which is a challenge, of course, for brush and aerodynamics on the road.
I'm with you on the camper absolutely, but it seems to me that you might want to consider a topper camper that sits on the bed rails and keeps your full bed available. You can drastically reduce the weight, get better off-road brush and rock clearance, better highway mpg, and save money that way. Eliminating the dust is quite achievable. Obviously, I am biased towards Ovrlnd campers, but there are others as well. OVRLND Pop Top Camper Shells (I have no affiliation just really like the product after 5 years).
As to dust, I've wrestled with that demon in two Toyota trucks, which are notorious for bed intrusions. My current Tundra had 32 holes and voids in the bed. Most of these were hidden under the bed rail, but not hard to find. My wife and I took an afternoon before we had the camper mounted, and laid on our backs in the bed and plugged those suckers with Butyl tape. Additionally, using a couple of tailgate sealing kits from Amazon we were able to make the tailgate well sealed. By using a full Bedrug, we increased the insulation factor a lot and further eliminated any minor issues with dust inside, and the final dust fighter was a positive pressure vent, which Ovrlnd has an option and is quite effective.
The result is we have more room than a Four Wheel Camper or other similar slide-in would provide. The camper on a full size Tundra weighed in at 360 lbs. For your Gladiator it would likely be in the 250 to 270 pound range (naked). We built ours out internally, but kept an eye out for weight and the result is about a 700 pound loaded camper at this point. Of course, you do commit to some DIY in the process, including creature comforts in the camper, but it’s not hard if you are so inclined or you can buy the setups too.
I don't mean to hijack your slide-in plans if you're really committed to that, but happy to answer any questions. provide pictures, or point you towards some more detail elsewhere. There are several folks I know of that have done what I’m describing with a Gladiator and are happy with the result.
If you chose your gladiator for getting to the remote hard to get places, it seems like a slide-in camper is really gonna fight you on that. Any slide in is gonna be heavy enough to eat up your payload when loaded, and given that you don't have the worlds biggest truck bed, a slide in really reduces that further by not accommodating the wheelwells and you usually loose the tailgate. They also stick out as much as 3 to 5 inches from the bed/cab width profile, which is a challenge, of course, for brush and aerodynamics on the road.
I'm with you on the camper absolutely, but it seems to me that you might want to consider a topper camper that sits on the bed rails and keeps your full bed available. You can drastically reduce the weight, get better off-road brush and rock clearance, better highway mpg, and save money that way. Eliminating the dust is quite achievable. Obviously, I am biased towards Ovrlnd campers, but there are others as well. OVRLND Pop Top Camper Shells (I have no affiliation just really like the product after 5 years).
As to dust, I've wrestled with that demon in two Toyota trucks, which are notorious for bed intrusions. My current Tundra had 32 holes and voids in the bed. Most of these were hidden under the bed rail, but not hard to find. My wife and I took an afternoon before we had the camper mounted, and laid on our backs in the bed and plugged those suckers with Butyl tape. Additionally, using a couple of tailgate sealing kits from Amazon we were able to make the tailgate well sealed. By using a full Bedrug, we increased the insulation factor a lot and further eliminated any minor issues with dust inside, and the final dust fighter was a positive pressure vent, which Ovrlnd has an option and is quite effective.
The result is we have more room than a Four Wheel Camper or other similar slide-in would provide. The camper on a full size Tundra weighed in at 360 lbs. For your Gladiator it would likely be in the 250 to 270 pound range (naked). We built ours out internally, but kept an eye out for weight and the result is about a 700 pound loaded camper at this point. Of course, you do commit to some DIY in the process, including creature comforts in the camper, but it’s not hard if you are so inclined or you can buy the setups too.
I don't mean to hijack your slide-in plans if you're really committed to that, but happy to answer any questions. provide pictures, or point you towards some more detail elsewhere. There are several folks I know of that have done what I’m describing with a Gladiator and are happy with the result.
Educator I
- 10,890
- First Name
- Jim
- Last Name
- Bro
- Member #
12989
- Service Branch
- USAF DAV
