Vagabond Drifter Camper Buildout and Mods

Random battery update. I have a 170Ah from bigbattery.com for reference. Was out all over Arizona for a 3 week winter holiday trip including the AZ Strip, some routes along the southern border with Mexico and north up the east part of the AZ Peace Trail loop. Temps in Nevada and N Az got as low as 17F. The bigbattery is rated at -5C to charge and I think the youtube video I saw testing it had it down to -20C and still charging. It doesn't use heaters as far as I have seen, nor do I remember talk of battery heaters on the Will Prowse YT review.

Anyways, the battery was fantastic. I threw a box together as a proof of concept with a BEP voltage sensing relay, Renogy 40 DC-DC charger, and a Giandel 1200W pure sine wave inverter. I only had 50A breakers at the main and on my aux/distribution panel, so the 40A charging tripped one. Thankfully Renogy allows you to cut charging in half at one pin and that change worked without issue the entire trip. I also had the VCR too far from the main battery so voltages it was fed weren't accurate and I just manually switched it from connect/disconnect each day. I was only running a small fridge and electric blanket under some micro plush sheets (which was heaven) but didn't want to take the chance of the blanket draining the main in cold weather. I carry an Audew 20k mAh emergency battery as well, and actually used it on a car stranded outside a small town in the AZ desert.. jumped it fine with only 50% capacity showing on the display (oops). The big battery would always be at 14.6V at the end of the day and settle to about 13.9V. It seemed like it only took an hour or two to charge fully, and I was pretty low RPM most of the tracks I was on. 13.3V was as low as I saw it in the morning so there was plenty of capacity left from my minimal use overnight. I think it would run a setup, depending on ambient and what you're running, easily over 3 days of no charging.

I need to pull my rear seats to build in more storage and more of an electrical/charging panel to the rear wall of the cab, and probably mount the aux battery in the bed somewhere. Seemed like an easy success to run off the (towing 130A?) alternator without killing it, thanks to the Renogy charger. I also am going to print a beefy mount for the VSR in the pocket behind the headlight next to the main battery for accurate measurement (and run a dual voltage gauge like I do in the Land Cruiser). Here are some of the components I used.

https://bigbattery.com/products/12v-lifepo4-power-block/ (not sure if it still works but the Will Prowse video had a 10% code)

$138 Bep Digital Voltage Sensing Relay Dvsr - 12/24v

https://www.amazon.com/Bep-Digital-Voltage-Sensing-Relay/dp/B07G87DX53 (mine is no longer made.. it is much higher amp rating and has a physical on/off/auto switch)

Renogy 12V 40A DC to DC On-Board Battery Charger for Flooded, Gel, AGM, and Lithium, Using Multi-Stage Charging in RVs, Commercial Vehicles, Boats, Yachts, 40A

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07Q4SVX3M

$169 Power Inverter Pure Sine Wave 1200 Watt 12V DC to 120V Lithium Battery Compatible with UL Fuses and USB-C PD30W and QC 3.0 Fast Charger and Wired Remote for RVs Car Solar System Emergency

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07G36Z2TH

https://www.amazon.com/Audew-18000mAh-Wireless-Intelligent-Flashlight/dp/B08FXCNDXD (similar to my emergency jump Audew.. my model is out of production)

Of course I didn't take many pics of it setup, so here are some of the components and into the build process. And one of where I was for a few days.

 

How about some 3m clear tape either on the tent and/or the strut?

 

You can see how I did it here starting on post #4159 of this thread.

 

That'd probably take care of it. I'm honestly not concerned about it, just sharing for the sake of transparency.

 

I read Vag and saw none

 

Just catching up on this thread... (I know, I know), drilling that hole must have puckered the sphincter some. I know it did me when I saw the pic.

 

You guys have some good looking set ups. I have been looking at the drifter for a while now, and would like to see one in real life before pulling the trigger. Would anyone in Northern Utah be willing to meet up so I could check one out?

 

I'll be driving the White Rim trail mid February. Otherwise, there are a few Drifters in the SLC area.

Cristin is in SLC with a 2nd gen short bed: https://www.instagram.com/badassbrunette/

And @SenatorBlutarsky is around somewhere.

 

How are you guys wiring power to the rear? Through the cubby holes or making a hole in the camper?

 

I have a run of 10AWG ANCOR marine grade duplex wire connected directly to my single battery with a 10A fuse on it. This runs down the firewall and along the brake lines to the rear and then up through the driver side cubby hole where it connects to the 6-pin connector on the Drifter. I only have the lower, upper lighting and a Dometic fridge hooked up to it.

 

Through cubbies. Mine runs from the main into the cab for a sort of a power distribution area behind the rear seats (I have amps, charging ports and a 2nd breaker there), then through a hole in the rear bottom of the cab, along the frame into the cubby. I think 4 gauge? I potentially have some higher current services I prepped for..

I've tried to stick to the same fuses as the truck, and make use of mini fuse boxes I found on Amazon. There aren't a lot of options for these, but I have some 6 and 10-fuse boxes -

$28 10 Position Mini/ATM Fuse Panel (1 per pack)

https://www.amazon.com/Position-Mini-Fuse-Panel-pack/dp/B00O7SEZDO

I tie the camper to the frame for ground and then have some ground bolts on the camper.

 

My battery box is at the front of the truck bed, so I simply drilled a hole in the side of the composite bed for wiring to pass through.

 

If running the wiring from the bed to the cab, how did you get the wires into the cab specifically ?

is there another entry boot underneath the vehicle or between the bed and rear cab ?

what issues did you encounter or solutions did you employ for protecting the wiring underneath the vehicle from the elements and keeping it secure ?

 

What year is your truck and what cab is it? I know the 2nd gen double cab has several entry points through plastic/rubber plugs.

 

I'm in SLC and could show you my drifter some time

 

Hey 8020 people - I'm working through my interior build for my Super Pacific - wondering if anyone has been able to manage/optimize the grooves in the bed without going for a full floor panel? Secondly - any insight into bedrail attachment given the taper from bottom to top of bed would be super appreciated. Did you just make the top crossmember lengths longer than the bottom?

 

Short of drilling through the bed itself I don't know how you can get away without a baseplate.

As for cabinets... I took a super unorthodox approach and built 80/20 cabinets that, yes, have a longer top crossmember... but also don't have a rear vertical crossmember at all. My cabinets bolt to the factory bed accessory rail and the floor, and have an internal rear vertical strut support, but the cabinet sides themselves interface directly with the bed sides for a clean fit. The rear edges of my ABS panels are roughly cut to match the bedside shape, and then I cut black foam to more tightly fit/seal to the bedside. Look behind the fridge slide. Best photos I have, sorry.

Odd idea, and they weren't easy to build, but I'm very happy with the function.

 

Interesting idea. I also plan on bolting mine to the rail, but with some sort of square tube bracket that goes into both channels (someone else had done it that way that I saw). I need to get the camper on to fine tune fit, but I imagine itll end up similar to yours with longer tops vs bottom.

It looks like the bedrug impact mat and carpet mat both have underside grooves that would fill in the bed and make it a flat surface. I might go that route vs a massive panel...

 

So, will your cabinets then have a back panel I assume? This is another reason I did my cabinets this way - if you build a rectangular cabinet to fit an irregular space (the bed sides), there's a lot of wasted potential cargo room. I haven't seen anyone else's cabinet insides, but I'm thinking there's just a bunch of wasted space between the cabinet backs and bed sides.

 

I know they are expensive but am I crazy in thinking this could be amazing for front runner door access? Sill can slide things in well to well, removable in 15 seconds.

Has anyone else thought about using this? Still waiting on my drifter but I know I’ll never build the bed out (never say never right...)

https://www.pelican.com/us/en/product/cases/cargo/bx85s?sku=BX85-DKGRY