trekker's taco and Melly's 4R

Will do, and we miss hanging with you too!

 

Those are the best trips. We have got to get out there sometime to see everyone.

 

Thanks Jason

 

Here it is opened up in the driveway. 11'6" from ground to the peak, which means I have 3" to spare to the ceiling in the shop, which also means that's where I'm sleeping tonight



And here's the furthest point forward I can stand in the bed before my head hits the raised bed platform (I'm 6'). That's almost the full bed plus tailgate area available for full height standing. I couldn't find these measurements or comparisons anywhere online, so hopefully they help someone else that is curious.

 

I will be near Longview that whole week hunting. Let me see if I can talk Amber into camping a night, would be fun to hang out.

 

This is great.

 

Take a road trip one of these days and come see us in Idaho!

 

I have been trying to talk Amber into a winter vacation sometime soon. Would love to visit that part of the country. Have never been.

 

Amazon diesel heater showed up today. I wanted to go with a propex heater since I already carry lots of propane, but shipping from Europe would have ate into the install time. First trip will be hauling the family to Arizona over Christmas to see my mom. Grand Canyon, Zion, and Bryce Canyon are on our camp list so far.

Had my water pump in the driver side cubby and now I'm thinking this is a great space for the heater. The fuel tank would be mounted to the outside of the camper for easy fill ups and no diesel spillage inside. I have an idea for mounting the heater, but I really need to figure out a wheel well liner to protect it from the shit kicked up by that tire. I'll route a pipe under the bedside for air intake inside the camper (to heat air that is already warmed, hopefully increasing efficiency) and the heat outlet will turn into the bed just behind the taillight. In the bed itself I'm going to build a storage cubby in that space to even up the width to the wheel well arch. Never mind that loose wire, it used to go to the water pump and that fuse has been pulled. Shame I can't use it to power the heater though, would need to run a thicker wire for a bit more amperage during the glow plug cycle.

 

If that’s a 10 awg wire, you’ll be fine.

 

Nah, it's a shit quality 18-14er with the insulation cracking all over the place. I wasn't thinking with the smart part of my brain when I did that but the water pump drew about an amp and a half so I let it ride.

Eventually I'll build out the electrical and have all of the bed stuff powered off of its own system. For now I'll rig up the heater harnesses to plug into my bed outlets powered by the truck batteries. Electrical should be a January/February project.

Bare bones projects to get going for the Christmas trip will be a new fridge on a cabinet/slider and this heater. Anything else will be a bonus, but unfortunately I don't get a lot of time to tinker with this stuff.

 

Hope y'all had a great Thanksgiving! We ate too much, but I guess that's the reason for the season. Today I got the diesel heater fitted up and ran a test burn. Seems like it'll do the job. Got up to +200°F before I shut it down. Permanent install and splash guards are on the agenda for the rest of the weekend.

I

 

Got the heater all situated and found a good solution to mounting the fuel tank. It's a cheap Chinese plastic tank, so I figure it's better mounted on the swingout than on the side of the camper where things could potentially get snagged on trails. Hopefully it all works out over time.



Then I had to seal up the bedsides and their plastic top caps. They leak all sorts of crap spun up from the tires, and living in a state where roads are treated for snow and ice, It'd rather that crap stay outside. I found this weather sealing tape at the big box store and it's badass. Problem solved. I also used this tape, some cut ABS plastic sheets from Amazon, and some aluminum sheetmetal to seal off the bed cubby area where the heater now lives. I routed the exhaust to a bulkhead in the bumper. I can slip on an extra length of exhaust pipe there to get the fumes away from the truck when camp is set up.



I've also been collecting goodies for the electrical build.

 

Added a floor, some anti fatigue mat from harbor freight, and laid out the kid's bed for reference. I need to build a step up to the loft bed and remount my maxtrax on the front of the roof rack, then that should be enough to get us a few nights of camping during our Christmas roadtrip. Later this week the lows here will be single digits. I'll camp solo to really test the heater before I take the girls out.

 

We had a great trip over Christmas and had some good camping before a winter storm hit on our way home from Az. The drive home was a mad dash to beat the slick stuff at the mountain passes. In the process I cooked my trans fluid and it started slipping... probably shouldn't have tried to set a land speed record

I've got around 90K on the clock but it's closer to 100K in actual mileage if I account for gear/tire differences. I don't know if I ever had the trans fluid drained and filled from the dealer back when it was under warranty service. I was planning on adding a bigger trans cooler this spring before this happened, but it may not be necessary with better/new fluid.

I got the skids off to find that the exhaust wrap I put on my URD Y pipe had disintegrated right where I needed it most under the trans pan. I know the exhaust isn't solely to blame for what happened. My right foot and lots of weight in the truck carry most of the fault, but hot exhaust an inch and a half from the pan didn't help.



Decided I'd do a full transmission fluid flush to purge the spent molasses colored ATF that drained from the pan. Since I already had to drop the skids, Y pipe, and trans pan to clean it and replace the filter, I figure why not drop the valve body and install the Ratiotek HD shift kit? If my clutches slipped too much and caused excess wear due to the cooked fluid then surely my trans could benefit from ther higher pressures gained with the shift kit... at least that's how I convinced myself to go ahead with the project. It was pretty easy, just had to keep track of where everything goes. Finally got the truck off of jack stands today and it rips like new. It may be my buttdyno missing driving my truck regularly (been down a few weeks waiting on parts), but it feels like I get a greater torque transfer when launching and shifts may be slightly faster.

Anyway, ATF is messy so I didn't get many pictures, but here are a few. There are threads on here that go over the trans flush process and valve body upgrades, which I definitely looked into and didn't encounter anything out of the ordinary - otherwise I'd be sure to share.







Oh I lied... I did run into an issue. I broke one of the solenoid plugs on the valve body. Luckily it was a clean break and a small bit of epoxy took care of it.

 

I'm looking at getting a Harker here soon. How have you liked it so far? I'm a little concerned about wind, bugs, and it getting too hot inside when it's warm out.

 

I dig it so far. I added some extra snaps around my bumper to help mitigate any wind issues (which I haven't run into many of yet), but it's still winter here in the great white north so I haven't had a ton of testing data to draw from yet. I saw someone on youtube added additional snaps to his jeep gladiator and I basically copied him. As far as bugs, they won't be a problem here for a few more months and I can't speak to that yet. I don't foresee having any problems that aren't currently inherent to rooftop tents. My tent trailer got pretty warm in summer and I don't expect the truck camper to be any different. There's plenty of ventilation offered by the windows and doors though. I'm adding fans to mine since I typically sleep with a fan on.

I'm hoping to have most of the interior built out by Memorial Day for a family camp with my neighbors and their campervan. That'll be the beginning of heavy usage and fine tuning for us.

 

Got a decent start on the interior build

 

Picked up a kelty waypoints tarp and it works perfectly with the camper. Somebody's ready to go camping!

 

I've got a decent chunk of the electrical system set up in the camper, finally! Been hanging on to these parts for too long.

This is before I set up the battery heating plates. Lithium doesn't like working in my cold climate.


Pipe heater wraps sandwiched in aluminum. I snugged up two of these plates around the battery with some kapton tape.


Going to control the battery heating, and fan cooling, with this guy. Not sure if any of this will work, but I'm going to find out.


Should have solar done this weekend.