Casper's "I did a bad thing" micro off road camper build

Vent fans are awesome. We crack the window open at the head of the bed and turn the vent on low exhaust and it draws a nice night breeze across us.
Of course when it gets hot and icky sticky nothing trumps A/C

 

Hence the issue, a fan will improve circulation, however as the camper is so tiny it will also remove all of our heat when it's cold. The camper has no heater I guess you could say our bodies are what heats it.

 

AOAA:

Got back from the AOAA event today what a bunch of fun! As it was cold and windy and rained each night the TM gave us a great retreat from the weather and a nice dry place to sleep. The camp ground was very basic with the only amenitiy being 1 Don Jon for the whole tent camping area so all of our additions payed off again.
What a great year of camping and adventures it has been but this is the last trip of the year for us. Hunting season is here and I'll be trying to do more of that than I've been able to do the last couple of years.

 

I have thought about that and it's absolutely worth a try

 

Yep, kinda my thinking. We vented the windows Friday night and had no condensation Saturday morning. Last night I forgot to and we had condensation bad this morning. Granted it was cold, windy, and rained most of the night but still. I'll figure it out but the buddy heater is deffinately worth a try.

 

I bundled the outside stuff up and put it in the back of the truck. When we got home I emptied the camper like usual and blew it out really well and set the wet stuff out to dry. It dried pretty quick except a couple of things. I'm damn sure not going to put anything away wet.

 

Catalytic heater? (Radiant)

 

Well it's getting to be that time of year again. At least this weekend it wasn't raining or snowing so I bit the bullet and decided to start cleaning up and painting the wheels I got for the camper to match the truck. I was a little undecided about color it was a toss up between the current white (which I am unsure about on a green camper), bronze, or black. In the end white won out. Instead of trying the Duplicolor color match I found some regular spray paint that seems pretty damn close I guess we'll see. The Dupicolor ended up cracking on the truck wheels so they will have to be resprayed.
@EatSleepTacos picked these up for from a CL seller a couple of months ago and they were rough, really rough.



I have only done 2 of them I'll do the spare later
Lot's of grinding and sanding to get them stripped they were in bad shape





I found an interesting white primer to use so 2 coats of that then 3 coats of satin white. Lug nuts are ordered and I got the wheel adapters for Christmas. This should be an adventure going from 205/75/15's to 265/65/17's I may need to modify the fenders some "nuttin to it but to do it!"

 

Nice.

I like only needing to carry one spare tire for my truck/teardrop. I am sure you will too.

Aside from the convenience, it looks really cool!

 

Nice!!!!!!

 

Right now I will still be with 2 spares as the truck has 255/80/17's on it. The end goal is to have the same size on the camper so then yes one spare would do it or two for overkill. That way the camper tires could also be thrown in with the truck's tire rottions and make them last even longer. I'm going to have to wait and see just how much has to be done to fit these. With the side hatch opening on the passenger side right next to the tire going that much bigger may not be doable. It could probably get done with a Timbren axelless axel with a 2" lift but that may make the camper too tall. A lot of if's at this point one step at a time.

 

When I did the truck it was a fun project. These, not so much, alot of work. Nothing hard just tideous and time consuming.

 

I considered moving the trailer tires to the truck when I bought new tires, thinking about extending wear time. I had a brand new spare tire also that I considered adding in.

In the end, I got 4 tires for the truck and left the trailer tires and spare where they were. Those 3 will have to be replaced due to time not wear, but I really didn't like the idea of 5 or 7 tire rotation.

Maybe if I was younger...

 

Well yes there is that I'm no spring chicken either. Chances are I will just be happy with what i end up with here. These are large enough they will still give me a little more ground clearance.

 

And so it begins! I jacked the camper up on the driver's side and removed the stock wheel and tire. There is quite a bit of difference between what was on there and what I am trying to install.



I got it stripped down and installed the wheel adapter. It's kinda a pain to get it all torqued.



Then came the issue. I removed the outer section of the fender and thought it cleared until i set it on the ground. Oh well I knew this would be a challenge. I'll figure it out even if I have to make the fenders. Moving them up isn't a problem except how the side hatch opens on the passenger side. I'm not really sure how the wheels will work either being hubcentric I may need to find some kind of adapter.

 

That't going to look sick. The white really goes with the color scheme of the trailer too. Much better than black IMO.

I thought you were going to get black lugs? What are those hex bolts in the spacer? You had to install studs in the spacer?

 

that was only the first pat of the adapter. I put 2 of the connecting bolts in so I could use a pry bar to hold it so I could torque the lug nuts. Then the outer piece goes on with the 6 lug studs

 

Ok Skipper that was a piss poor explanation but I had just stopped working on an application and my brain was frazzled. Yes I got black lug nuts and I put them on the truck. idk why. On the camper, these aren't wheel spacers they are 2 part wheel adapters going from 5 lug to 6 and a Toyota pattern. The part in the picture is the base 5 lug part. It gets installed and the lugs torqued. The outer part is put in place and bolted with 6, 3/8 allen head bolts with blue lock tite I thought the guy in the video said 85lbs but with the allen head I could only get 75 pounds before it started to round out the bolt head which I would rather not happen. Standard torque on a 3/8 bolt is only 38 pounds anyway. Then you install the wheel and torque to spec it has grade 8 studs.
The fender is a whole other issue that I will have to conquer a little at a time. I may just move them up, i may get different ones, or I may weld brackets out from the frame and build some off of that at this point I really don't know. I'm not tickled about drilling more holes in the side of the camper even though these fenders are more or less splas guards made out of aluminum so pretty light.I knew this would take some effort which is why I wanted to start on it now. I may contact the dealer and talk my ideas through with him as well. The side walls are aluminum with foam cores and aluminum on the inside as well.

 

I did the same thing to my camping trailer., Now I just need to build new fenders.

 

Build brackets out from the frame. The fewer holes you put in your camper the better....