2000 ford Excursion camping/backcountry vehicle

Pharms20

New member
I made all my own brackets. I have to say that the awning is super nice and sturdy. Even when some wind came in at the beach very little movement happened compared to the stand alone shades. Im in love with my truck all over again. I have been thinking of making my own version of the road shower and maybe putting a 50 in light bar on roof.

Nice, yeah the wind was one of my concerns as well but from a few other reviews I have read they said no issues either.


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elpoffroad

Adventurer
Truth be the awning is really well built, I can see some parts eventually failing but I'm pretty sure with a call to ARB they would replace them. The wind test was a biggie for me, once staked down it was pretty good. Now with that said I still wouldn't risk leaving it up during a major storm.
 

Sock Puppet

Adventurer
maybe putting a 50 in light bar on roof.

Not sure of the effect on an Excursion, but light bars on top can make a lot of noise. With the roof rack it may not be that big of a deal but I'd keep it in mind. They can also create a ton of glare on the hood. I have a 30" mounted on my replacement bumper and it works excellent.

Looks like you guys had a great holiday; thanks for sharing the pics! I need an awning one of these days and yours looks darned solid.
 

elpoffroad

Adventurer
Not sure of the effect on an Excursion, but light bars on top can make a lot of noise. With the roof rack it may not be that big of a deal but I'd keep it in mind. They can also create a ton of glare on the hood. I have a 30" mounted on my replacement bumper and it works excellent.

Looks like you guys had a great holiday; thanks for sharing the pics! I need an awning one of these days and yours looks darned solid.
I have been looking into other lighting alternatives. I thought about going with two 9in HID lights on the front bumper also...I did worry about the hood glare so I also thought about a 20 in light bar on front bumper.
 

elpoffroad

Adventurer
Well the next pair of mods were ordered. I got some 7in HID lights for the front to help alleviate the lack of lighting in dark situations.
hid lights.jpg
The other big addition to the excursion was actually more of a addition to the awning. I got to order the awning room with walls and floor.
arb_awning_room_hero.jpg
I havent had much time to work on my little projects but I did get a chance to clean out my truck after all these camping trips and that made me feel 100 times better about by truck.
Im hoping to finish the little projects I have left to do on the excursion but besides that I am also looking at my next mod which will probably be the wrangler dual battery conversion for the v10 excursion. Another thing I been contemplating is buying a new front and rear bumper from move bumper. They look to be very sturdy and within the budget for bumpers.
 

Pharms20

New member
Well the next pair of mods were ordered. I got some 7in HID lights for the front to help alleviate the lack of lighting in dark situations.
View attachment 410892
The other big addition to the excursion was actually more of a addition to the awning. I got to order the awning room with walls and floor.
View attachment 410893
I havent had much time to work on my little projects but I did get a chance to clean out my truck after all these camping trips and that made me feel 100 times better about by truck.
Im hoping to finish the little projects I have left to do on the excursion but besides that I am also looking at my next mod which will probably be the wrangler dual battery conversion for the v10 excursion. Another thing I been contemplating is buying a new front and rear bumper from move bumper. They look to be very sturdy and within the budget for bumpers.

Nice, the awning room has been on my wishlist for some time now look forward to see it in action. Yeah I'm trying to find a new rear bumper as well. Looking for one with a spare tire swing on it. Just haven't seen to many options might have to talk with my welder buddy and fab something up. Keep us posted on the wrangler battery conversion as well if you get that done.


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Nice, the awning room has been on my wishlist for some time now look forward to see it in action. Yeah I'm trying to find a new rear bumper as well. Looking for one with a spare tire swing on it. Just haven't seen to many options might have to talk with my welder buddy and fab something up. Keep us posted on the wrangler battery conversion as well if you get that done.


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Rear bumper with a tire swing to fit our Excursions are few and far between. I've been looking too.


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elpoffroad

Adventurer
Yeah bumpers with tire swing carrier would be nice but its difficult to find. Im hoping to try out the awning room before the month ends. Im hoping to be able to buy the wrangler dual battery in the next few months. Im still waiting to finish all the interior mods . Mosquito nets are high on my priority right now.
 

elpoffroad

Adventurer
So I have a small update on a simple project that I had been wanting to do for a long time. I had always been missing one rear panel so I looked at it as an opportunity to make a flap down table. Here is what I came up with :)
IMG_20170731_161105.jpg
Something else that came in but havent had a chance to try out is my ARB awning room.
1501548790745-1398526870.jpg
Hopefully I get to try it out this weekend or next weekend.
 

Paddy

Adventurer
So what's wrong with the factory spare tire carrier? I get that it can be inconvenient to use but for as often as it's used I see it as a terrible tradeoff for the inconvenience of the bumper carrier every day.
 

elpoffroad

Adventurer
I didnt mind the spare tire inside the back but once I started to sleep in the truck for camping and fishing trips it would be nice to have a little more room in the inside. I have been wanting to do some shelving in that area and storage compartments. Im not in a hurry to get the spare tire out of the inside of the truck but what I might end up doing is fabricating a spare tire carrier that mounts to the original bumper. Time will tell on this issue.
 
I recently bought a 2000 V10 4wd. Needed to mount my cargo carrier on the roof like you did, but most of the hardware didn't survive our move last December. I used some industrial strength zip ties and just cut them off when finished. We don't use it but once or twice a year, so one package of 20 ties will last us a few years. The ones I bought had a burst strength of something like 800lbs each. The roof rack would fail before the ties do! Was worried about wind once out on the road, but we just got back from a week long trip (800mi round trip) with no issues. Will continue to use these until something better comes along.
 

elpoffroad

Adventurer
I made steel mounts to mount the roof top carrier. They work really well. So well actually I ended up using same mounts to mount the roof rack. Well after some time with a bumper that wasn't meant for it I finally got the appropriate one and I got a long piece of pvc to make a roof top mounted solar container for pressurized showers. More to come soon...in process of redoing my coils and installing auxiliary HIDs.
 

rustrocket84

New member
I just started going through Excursion build threads. I scored a 2000 7.3 5 years ago from the original owner for $10k and 118k on the ticker. The only problem was seat wear. I feel like I stole this truck, but the original owner wanted it to go to an outdoor family and be loved. I have put 60k on it in 5 years. I did a 6000 mile road trip in June from San Diego to Minnesota and back. For your rear bumper there is a company in Thousand Oaks California called Cross Enterprises. They are really nice bumpers, I’ve got to see and mess with one of his first ones built, and they are affordable for a blue collar family. He will also build them where you can upgrade them to dual swing outs that can be purchased later making the initial purchase easier. Seeing these photos and others makes me think it’s time to start a build page
 

elpoffroad

Adventurer
Yeah I did the build thread to keep track of the mods and the adventures had with it. I love that bumper but I’m going to see if I can fabricate a stock looking spare tire carrier. You should start one rustrocket I try and follow all the excursion builds on this page. Onto my newest adventure.
 

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