Vagabond Drifter Camper Buildout and Mods

Here are some pictures of the pigtails that go to my Goal Zero. Hope this helps.

 

^This is great news!! Just picked up a Yeti for cheap and everything you listed is on my future buy list. Can you post how you situated your cfx35?

 

My brother turned me on to this and now I am totally rethinking my solar needs... Grrr

https://lunacycle.com/sur-ron-x-bike-black-edition/

 

I just bought a Drifter build # coming up later this year, and I'm going to mount it on my trusty 1st Gen Tacoma. Does anyone have any advice or links to previous posts about prepping the bed, bed rails, whether to use a bedliner or rail caps, etc? Thanks.

 

Fortunately, there is no prep or anything necessary for the 1st gens. Lucky us!


…Unless you have a bedliner, you'll probably want to cut off the top if it goes over top of the bed rails.

 

That’s interesting. You mean we have beds that are strong enough in original condition? (I knew my wife was wrong when she said “that worn out old truck.” Unless she was talking about me...)

I see in your description you've upgraded coils, shocks, springs, Tundra brakes, and some biggie wheels and tires. I like to stay close to stock, but what's the minimum I need to do to the suspension? And what's a "relocation plate" and "3/4 inch rear bias." I'm guessing from the description it moves the rear axel back, but why and how? Thanks.

 

My bed is bare metal, no spray-on bedliner or plastic liner (anymore).

The only "prep" I did was change out the normal clamps that Vagabond uses on the 1st gens with a smaller ones (GCI G-30) that needs some material removed to work with our beds. You can see the "mod" here:
https://www.instagram.com/p/B3zx2oQloXa/

 

Forgive me for a double post, I wasn’t sure if this was better for this forum or the specs and FAQ one. Looks like people were recently talking solar and electrical, and I’m a total noob when it comes to the electrical parts of builds. We didn’t add solar pre-wire to our original order but are contemplating adding it to the final build since we’re getting insulation and want it to be clean. (Order 201, January 6 on a Nissan Frontier just in case anyone is curious.) What all is included with that prewire kit?

I’m using the wait time to try to prep our build as much as possible so we can get after it right after install and am curious what I’ll need to have in advance to have solar all good to go. We’re going to add a fan as well, because we live in the desert. Duh.

 

I have been seeing lots of bench builds have the top extend, over the top of the clamps, to the wall of the drifter. This would be compared to people having a gap between the bench and the truck side that the clamps occupy. (If that makes sense).
I could see the gap being useful storage for flat things like window coverings but also see loosing things in the gap all the time. Not sure which is the best way to go. Can anyone with their builds already done throw out their experiences?

 

The solar pre-wire isn’t fancy, but I do think it is clean. It consists of a cable of your specs (I am guessing 10awg is standard, although I did 6) run from the roof to the corner of the Drifter. You are responsible for everything on either side. VO punches through the roof and installs a gland to keep the water out. You could do this yourself, but I wanted Phil to cut all the holes in the roof, cause I don’t want leaks.

I can post some pictures after the weekend, when I have the camper out.

 

The wiring installed by VO is also underneath the insulation panel, which you would have to cut through if you did it yourself.

 

Sweet that’s what I figured I just Hadn’t read any specifics on it. We just want to run the fan, maybe charge phones, and potentially run lights down the road so we won’t be needing anything expansive or fancy but we do want solar rather than just a second battery so it’ll probably make sense for us to do the pre-wire based on what y’all are saying. I don’t want to mess with the insulation post-install and would appreciate the peace of mind having them seal holes in the roof.

 

Not really, you can drop in right down the corner panel and run it between corner panels in the gutter. No need to cut anything whatsoever. Even prewired they run it through the gutter and into the corner panels.

 

I have my bench top extend of the top of the clamps. As you mention, it prevents things from falling in the gap and I think it looks cleaner. It's also a bit trickier to get right and probably needs to be finalized after your drifter is installed so that you can get the dimensions just right. You can build in storage for flat things either way in my opinion, but it is just that...an opinion.

pics cause...

Sooooo clean!

 

You can easily cut a small hole outside of the sleeping area (gutter area) to drop under the roof, run wire in the corner of the tent (hole is already there) and drop straight down to the wiring gutter. No risk of leaks and no need to mess with insulation at all.

 

Agreed. VO doesn’t appear to run behind the insulation.

Here is the gland. I have two because of my 6awg cable.


Punch through the “eaves”.


Down through the interior.


Through the floor, and along the cable management channel.



Terminate in the corner.


Ok, I could have done this myself, but I didn’t know the correct way to do it at the time.

 

I extended mine to the edge, but left a small gap to prevent wearing of the composite walls. I found that the walls of the Drifter aren’t flat. They curve. Plan accordingly.

 

My mistake. Thanks for posting so many good images, @MapJunkie - that's the first time I have seen the details. A while ago, the photo I saw made it seem like it was run behind the panels.

 

The claims of VO's pre-wiring running behind panels might be referring to the bed/floor panel in the overhang.
The fan (and I assume solar) wiring runs from one of the corner electrical panels, underneath the bed/floor panel in the overhang portion to get up to the front corner of the overhang, where it runs up into the lid section.
At least, this is how they did it in the first batch.

When I added my own solar wiring, I was able to unscrew the bed/floor panel in the overhang to run it the same way, but it is kind of a pain to do.

 

Here’s my piece in the other VO thread
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/the-drifter-specs-and-faq.540826/page-191#post-23232754