Slide in camper and tapered bed solution

[sisu]

I don't know how many of you have the older slide in campers and fight the modern tapered truck bed, but I got fed up with immediately. Today we got the camper out of the bed and cut the very rear column or stake area out of the way by 1/2+ inches on both sides. I wish I had taken pictures but alas I forgot to in the heat of the moment.
We own a 2006 Dodge 2500 8 ft bed truck. The bed taper from the cab to the tail gate and I found out when loading and unloading the camper it also tapered vertically RIGHT at the very end where the columns at the end meet the tailgate. Hard to describe but those two little upright column were a pain in the ***** and now they got trimmed, to the last 1/3 of the camper where it flares right at the very end can enter the bed with NO FRICTION and a ton of relief from us. IF you look at the photo below(I stole it from the net) you can see the white label off the guy's left well if that were my truck it's gone to the garbage bin. We cut out a pie slice from bottom to top then pushed in the material left over and welded it into position giving us additional room to load and unload the rig.

[gasman]

I feel your pain 

Both my truck and camper are 2003, and the back end of the camper is much wider then the front, and I have about 3" of manoverability on either side. It is a pain to load and unlad, and requires a spotter to kep an eye on both sides to make sure it is lined up correctly. It drives me nuts some time 

[jeepasaurusrex]

I never had a side to side issue with my F350 as they have a full size box, but I did have to space the camper up the width of a 2x4. I ended up fastening them to the bottom of the camper. If I didn't use the spacer, the overhang of the camper would of crushed my clearance lights on top of the cab. Apparently the boxes on the older trucks were not as deep or the cab as high.

[gasman]

I never had a side to side issue with my F350 as they have a full size box, but I did have to space the camper up the width of a 2x4. I ended up fastening them to the bottom of the camper. If I didn't use the spacer, the overhang of the camper would of crushed my clearance lights on top of the cab. Apparently the boxes on the older trucks were not as deep or the cab as high.

I have friends with the same problem and did the same thing as you. One guy even crushed his roof in and had to pop it out 

[CAMPMEAT]

That's a first. Never heard of that before.

[sisu]

That's a first. Never heard of that before.

Very common problem with new pick-ups & older campers. Chev started tapering beds in 89, Dodge 94, Ford from what I am told is still changing yearly. If you check out slide-in camper sites you'll hear lots of grousing.

[CAMPMEAT]

Ok, why would they do that ? Doesn't make sense.

[6x6in6]

Aerodynamics.
Every 1/10th of a mpg gain is a marketing tool.   

[CAMPMEAT]

Aerodynamics.
Every 1/10th of a mpg gain is a marketing tool.   

Ya, then you put an 11 ft camper on it.....