Can’t quite wrap my head around the awning, but that’s something I should be thinking about, too. And sooner than later.
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Ok, so thinking about building a sleeping platform in the back, I just did some rough measurements, the back area, if I pull the second row of seats completely out, is almost exactly the same size as a “Full” mattress.
Interior height wise, if I sit straight up in the back I have 6" above my head. If I get a 3" foam mattress and trim it to fit around the wheel wells I’ll have plenty of height, but won’t have much in terms of storage. I’m thinking about building a platform raised 6", I won’t quite be able to sit up straight but it will be very close. I can hinge the platform for good storage. The only question then becomes the cooler. It’s too big to fit up front at night, and even though it’s bear proof, I still don’t want to leave it outside in bear country… The best hope is that it fits behind the front seats under the platform, but I think it’s too tall.
More brainstorming needed, but this seems like a reasonable plan at the moment. Enough height, enough width and length. I’m liking this!
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You definitely want to give it some thought. For me, the lack of headroom—plus the inability to grab a cold drink/snack out of the cooler without getting out of the truck at night—were the biggest detractions.
You know what might be really cool? [ crazy idea time ] Think about how ambulance stretcher legs/wheels drop down and slide up so easily when they slide the stretchers in and out of the ambulance. What if you could strip that assembly down to use for a loading platform.
You roll up to camp, get things level, and open the awning. Then you open the back door, grab a big handle, and with one hand, slide a table out with your fridge/cooler, pantry, and stuff on it. You move the power and gas lines to the weatherproof quick connects on the rear fender, and now you have the entire back of your truck to sleep in. And you sleep easy, too, knowing the entire box is made of impenetrable metal, and since it’s titanium, it weighs almost nothing. 
I mean, imagine a box of kitchen stuff on the left and a box of bedding stuff on the right. You get to camp, you pull the kitchen pod completely out in one fell swoop (are there other kinds of swoops, you think?) and then fold the bed side down. Boom.
Would be way to complex, though, but the exercise of thinking about the setup/teardown/packing process is worth the time, imo.
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Titanium?! 
Man you do dream big 
Im still working on it. Wife REALLY wants to do a 6" foam mattress… We will see, I’m trying to convince her that a 3" pad, flat and level, will be fine.
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I’ve been down this road. Headroom can’t be overstated.
Keep in mind most rtts ship with 2 or 2.5" foam. Mine came with “upgraded” 3". It’s very comfortable.
What about a shorter cooler that would fit better? Even two smaller ones?
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Yeah, I’ve got the crazy ideas sometimes. 
Love that sketch!
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Cooler sort of fits in the front, but I would need to make some sort of a riser for it to sit on to not damage the ebrake and seat belt buckles.
I’m going to make a quick and dirty platform in the back to use for the end of the month when I go down to Tucson to volunteer at the SAE Baja competition. That will give me a one night trial of the limited head room concept.
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Out of curiosity, how does the cooler fit under the truck? I can dig being bear conscious, but I will say that, despite camping in what is officially a bear hunting zone for almost 20 years up on the rim, I’ve only seen any evidence of bears anywhere once. And that was much closer to Flagstaff, way, way off the beaten, and the dogs barking scared it away.
If the cooler is bear resistant, it should be good on its own. I always slide my cooler under the back of the truck. It slides in nice and tight. No damage to the cooler, but the lid is not being opened. Comparing this to the picture above, consider these two thoughts:
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Bears are often attracted to the smell of food. If they want your cooler, do you want them reaching through a window to get it? I kinda feel like they might do that. And it would be pants-shitting scary in the middle of the night.
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Wedging the cooler under some 4,000lbs of vehicle makes it harder to access. And if a big bear is pushing and shoving on your vehicle, maybe it’s better they do so down low by the bumpers to avoid damage and cabin ingress?
Alternate idea:
- I see you have a handle over the passenger door. Do you have one (or provisions for one) over the driver side? If so, could you fashion something simple with rope and PVC to slide the cooler in and out without dragging it across the interior?
Something like this, but for a cooler instead of a kid.
Make a flat, plastic base that forces/keeps the ropes out to the side and you could potentially just slide the cooler in and out from either side. Don’t need it? Roll it up and stash it with the rest of the camping gear. 
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Solid points, I’ll have to think harder about that, and see how well it fits under the rig.
Honestly the cooler is heavy enough when full that I would not want to hang out from the handles, but from the door jam like that would work…
More thought required…
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Up here, bears are a bona fide concern, and have destroyed many a campsite. If they really want something, nothing will stop them. Google Casey Anderson, with Brutus and the grand prix.
If you leave ANYTHING food related out of your vehicle and leave your site, you are subject to big fines in the Natl parks in Canada in bear country.
But bears of course like easy, just the same as we do. If it’s tucked in a vehicle, they’ll more likely go after your neighbours food that’s waiting for them on the picnic table.
I wouldn’t be leaving anything outside though. If we can slide it in, they can slide it out. And it’s a stronger attractant either way. My 2 cents .
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Good to know, Phil. Thank you.
I remember we had a bear encounter camping in Yellowstone when I was a little kid. Dad put the trash in a bag and hung it 15ft in the air with a rope over a tree branch. Middle of the night, we all woke up when a large bear, standing on its rear legs, stumbled back and bumped into the side of the van (that we were sleeping in).
Noted.
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Well, wife and I spent some time trying different configurations in the back, but it’s really just not going to work to sleep back there. I hopped on the local for sale app and stumbled across a great deal on a smaller sized RTT…
I got a good enough deal I’m confident I’ll get most of all of my money back if I don’t like it.
This is a pic from an ad online for the same one:
The guy bought the tent, it got delayed in shipping, and he decided to go the adventure trailer route instead, and sold this unopened and at a decent discount. I opened it when I got it home and I’m confident he truly had not opened it, the big plastic banding was all still in tact.
So, I’ll give it a try. If I don’t like it, I think I’ll get my money back, or close to it. Wife and I are going camping soon so we will test it out.
One more pic of a similar one:
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Oh man! I’m legit jealous! In fact, you had me installing Offer Up so I could browse RTTs. And then I went to roof boxes. And then I went to Thule Atlantis roof boxes. I am so torn.
I feel like I should be moving faster to prep for fall adventures, but I’m still not there yet. Maybe I should do like I did with my PTO balance at work—figure out how many days I’m going to need off for these adventures and see how much time I have left for other things. (Good to know there’s enough vacation time available to just go, ya know?) I think a roof box is more what we need, but I should also think about how many nights we expect to spend camping in the next year and see how that impacts the RTT value prop.
Love all the work going into Stormy! We’re gonna have to go exploring together one of these days!
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Looks great! If you can get over the leaving it on top and not parking in the garage aspect (assuming it won’t fit in garage? Or maybe you didn’t park there anyway?) You’re going to love it. I had one similar, and the only draw back was that the person in the inside felt a little crammed. So we got a slightly bigger one.
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I don’t park inside anyways, but honestly it’s pretty darn light. I think I could install it in about half an hour so I probably won’t leave it on all the time. I wouldnt want it baking in the sun all summer in phoenix, the UV will destroy the straps for the cover and probably the cover itself. I still don’t see myself keeping it long term, probably just through the grand canyon trip next year. But I already have plans to use it twice in the next month and a half.
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You might realize you’ve been missing an RTT your whole life! 
Being able to leave your sleeping back up there is one of the biggest bonuses imho.
Btw, split rear doors FTW! Woohoo!
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Question for you, our resident bear expert…
I normally bring one of those toilet bucket things along. Are bears attracted to human waste? I would assume they wouldn’t mess with it, but not sure…
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I will never claim expert status at anything. Lol.
My experience has been that they are attracted to food, garbage, and any cooking implements, ie BBQs, stoves, etc. But I’ve never seen nor heard of any issues with toilets. I’ve seen yellow caution tape across certain sections of parks when there’s been bear activity, but the outhouses have never been closed as a result…
So my feeling is its not an attractant. But I am by no means a bear wrangler. Having an RTT now makes things way easier for you to load your extras inside the rig night time.
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So I’ve wanted to do this for a while now, and finally ordered parts for at least some of it:
This is my design for my on board air. The air tank is small, about a gallon. It’s actually an old dead fire extinguisher I’m modifying for the purpose.
SPST switch, relay, and pressure switch keep the tank full while the truck is on, but make sure the compressor doesn’t run while the engine is off.
The idea with the water tank isn’t fully formed yet
The idea with the regulator is that I can use it to set tire pressure, 2 tires at a time. Just hook it up to the tires, dial in the desired pressure, wait until I hear the compressor stop, or until I hear the regulator stop venting, depending on if I’m filing or draining.
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