Where to Start indeed.
A few have may have read a thread I started a few years ago:
"Problems with Mog Import.....Need some opinions." - This setback did not discourage my wife and I in the least. We were determined and did find our travelling home.
Below is the start of our Expedition camper build thread - Please enjoy
Well....Where to start.
I was a kid maybe 13 or 14 years old and my older brother pointed out a Unimog to me. From that moment I wanted one. As time went on and I realized how expensive they were I filed it into the "If I win the lottery." category. Fast forward to 2007, my wife and I were on our honeymoon in Alaska. We were travelling in my lifted Dodge 3500 diesel 4X4. At our first camp site in Alaska (Where we needed to carefully 4x4 into our "private and secluded" campsite we were greeted by an unexpected thing. Two fully camperized Unimogs. They were Ex-army U1300L's. My wife immediately asked "What are those?" After I explained to her what they were and why they were special she took an immediate liking to them. (One of many reasons we are still married.) The owner of one of the Unimogs came over to chat with us briefly and in his very German way made fun of the fact that it took us 45 min to 4x4 up the trail to where they were when it had only taken minutes in the Unimog. What he did say is that he had purchased the base truck from the German army for less than 15000 Euro. At that point I realized my dream could become reality. Upon return to our home in British Columbia I started searching. For about three years I searched for the Mog while saving the money I needed to purchase the vehicle. I found a company who told me they would import a Unimog for me from Germany, a deal was struck for 27000USD and the truck was on its way. (Due to an unfortunate chain of events this truck never arrived, nor its replacement after it was "Dropped by a crane." I'm not going to get into the details of this or who the vendor was as it is not good for anyone.) Fast forward to the Spring of 2014. I found a Unimog Camper already in Canada and made an appointment to go see it. The truck rolled into the parking lot and my wife got a little emotional. She knew this was the truck we had been waiting for. We looked it over, then went for a drive. It was my first time driving a Unimog. I am glad to say no one was injured All I could think at the time was this truck is pretty nice. We got up to just a hair over 130kmh and it still had more to go. It wasn't shaking or rattling, or drifting. We looked it over for any leaks and any visible problems. A friend of mine (Trevor an individual who you might say has a fair amount of experience with unimogs) took it for a drive then helped me look it over and was very happy with its performance / condition.... This was the truck. We went home and talked about it, made an offer and a couple months later we were driving it home. Just under 800km on the first trip with no problems, then a following 2500km just to make sure......
When we bought it I could not fit on the bed (I'm about 6'3") so we have made some adjustments to the interior. The big problem is that the camper is built from 1 1/2" square steel tubing on 16" centres vertically and horizontally. It would look like a gorilla cage if you took the skin off. so that is heavy, then they went ahead and skinned it with 14 or 16 gauge steel. Basically the camper skin is heavier than the skin of the body of the truck. then just for good measure the slide out shelves are heavy gauge steel, the bottom is covered in checker plate aluminum and the large side storage compartment is also checker plate aluminum. They wanted to use every ounce of the 8500kg GVW. It is a 10' camper and it has the truck weighing in at around 8000kg with water, fuel, me, and my wife on-board, but no other supplies......way too heavy.
I have already started trimming some Fat. I removed the ridiculously large rear hitch, that weighed in at just over 200 lbs. I removed the Dometic tec 30 diesel generator (for sale PM me if interested ). at close to 200lbs it makes more sense for us just to pack a small Honda and some gasoline. Not to mention the fact that my newly added 500W solar system now make it redundant.
Over the next four years we will be Building a sandwich panel Camper with a fixed bed and dinette. We are planning on just under 500L total fuel, and 300L total water. I have been speaking with a company In BC called Rhinocore and am looking at using their sandwich panel. if the weights they gave me are correct the camper with sub-frame doors and windows would be be less than 1500lbs.....no interior and using Seitz S4 windows and and Outbound door. I am thinking this will trump the current camper weight by a lot and it will be almost 3' longer.
As the Build thread goes I will break the plans down into sections hopefully I will get a little input on my ideas from the folks out there with experience in this type of build. But for now I would just like to introduce Mjolnir "Das Maultier" (The Mule - His affectionate nickname)...
If anyone is interested in my current camper please let me know....I told the previous owner I would keep this truck as an expedition truck. I fully intend to, but the camper due to its weight and size is better off on a weekend warrior style of truck.
A few have may have read a thread I started a few years ago:
"Problems with Mog Import.....Need some opinions." - This setback did not discourage my wife and I in the least. We were determined and did find our travelling home.
Below is the start of our Expedition camper build thread - Please enjoy
Well....Where to start.
I was a kid maybe 13 or 14 years old and my older brother pointed out a Unimog to me. From that moment I wanted one. As time went on and I realized how expensive they were I filed it into the "If I win the lottery." category. Fast forward to 2007, my wife and I were on our honeymoon in Alaska. We were travelling in my lifted Dodge 3500 diesel 4X4. At our first camp site in Alaska (Where we needed to carefully 4x4 into our "private and secluded" campsite we were greeted by an unexpected thing. Two fully camperized Unimogs. They were Ex-army U1300L's. My wife immediately asked "What are those?" After I explained to her what they were and why they were special she took an immediate liking to them. (One of many reasons we are still married.) The owner of one of the Unimogs came over to chat with us briefly and in his very German way made fun of the fact that it took us 45 min to 4x4 up the trail to where they were when it had only taken minutes in the Unimog. What he did say is that he had purchased the base truck from the German army for less than 15000 Euro. At that point I realized my dream could become reality. Upon return to our home in British Columbia I started searching. For about three years I searched for the Mog while saving the money I needed to purchase the vehicle. I found a company who told me they would import a Unimog for me from Germany, a deal was struck for 27000USD and the truck was on its way. (Due to an unfortunate chain of events this truck never arrived, nor its replacement after it was "Dropped by a crane." I'm not going to get into the details of this or who the vendor was as it is not good for anyone.) Fast forward to the Spring of 2014. I found a Unimog Camper already in Canada and made an appointment to go see it. The truck rolled into the parking lot and my wife got a little emotional. She knew this was the truck we had been waiting for. We looked it over, then went for a drive. It was my first time driving a Unimog. I am glad to say no one was injured All I could think at the time was this truck is pretty nice. We got up to just a hair over 130kmh and it still had more to go. It wasn't shaking or rattling, or drifting. We looked it over for any leaks and any visible problems. A friend of mine (Trevor an individual who you might say has a fair amount of experience with unimogs) took it for a drive then helped me look it over and was very happy with its performance / condition.... This was the truck. We went home and talked about it, made an offer and a couple months later we were driving it home. Just under 800km on the first trip with no problems, then a following 2500km just to make sure......
When we bought it I could not fit on the bed (I'm about 6'3") so we have made some adjustments to the interior. The big problem is that the camper is built from 1 1/2" square steel tubing on 16" centres vertically and horizontally. It would look like a gorilla cage if you took the skin off. so that is heavy, then they went ahead and skinned it with 14 or 16 gauge steel. Basically the camper skin is heavier than the skin of the body of the truck. then just for good measure the slide out shelves are heavy gauge steel, the bottom is covered in checker plate aluminum and the large side storage compartment is also checker plate aluminum. They wanted to use every ounce of the 8500kg GVW. It is a 10' camper and it has the truck weighing in at around 8000kg with water, fuel, me, and my wife on-board, but no other supplies......way too heavy.
I have already started trimming some Fat. I removed the ridiculously large rear hitch, that weighed in at just over 200 lbs. I removed the Dometic tec 30 diesel generator (for sale PM me if interested ). at close to 200lbs it makes more sense for us just to pack a small Honda and some gasoline. Not to mention the fact that my newly added 500W solar system now make it redundant.
Over the next four years we will be Building a sandwich panel Camper with a fixed bed and dinette. We are planning on just under 500L total fuel, and 300L total water. I have been speaking with a company In BC called Rhinocore and am looking at using their sandwich panel. if the weights they gave me are correct the camper with sub-frame doors and windows would be be less than 1500lbs.....no interior and using Seitz S4 windows and and Outbound door. I am thinking this will trump the current camper weight by a lot and it will be almost 3' longer.
As the Build thread goes I will break the plans down into sections hopefully I will get a little input on my ideas from the folks out there with experience in this type of build. But for now I would just like to introduce Mjolnir "Das Maultier" (The Mule - His affectionate nickname)...
If anyone is interested in my current camper please let me know....I told the previous owner I would keep this truck as an expedition truck. I fully intend to, but the camper due to its weight and size is better off on a weekend warrior style of truck.
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