building the Bullet XV

sarconcepts

Adventurer
Nothing serious, just the 60,000 mile service plus a couple small electrical things. I did notice they parked the Bullet in the prime corner/intersection spot to draw attention.
I just replaced the tires, so they only have about 4000 hard miles on them but they do seem to be wearing well & definitely give a better ride than my last set. As far as the springs go, I chose not to have longer springs made for the same reason I chose not to alter the rear leafs when I lifted it the 2", I have a lot of faith in the stock 5500 suspension, it's tough as hell & with the last trip Bethany & I just finished, I have even more faith in it, as we beat the hell out of the Bullet on several trails we went on. One trail was so rough, it took us 1 1/2 hours to go 3 miles, but the reward was our favorite little private canyon & waterfall/warm spring. Had this trail been washed out at some point, it would have taken us about a day to slowly back up, as one side was bedrock & the other, an 800' fall into the river below.
But this is why we build these beasts
some pics from the last trip....

Optimized-20170829_070710.jpg

Optimized-20170829_074113.jpg
for a sense of scale, if you zoom in, you'll find the Bullet in both photos above
Optimized-20170830_083323.jpg
yes, another hot spring, & yes, that's hot water running off the bedrock cliffs above, & yes, that's a cave behind the waterfall.
IMG_20140727_121530.jpg
you guys didn't know I built a small remote control model of the Bullet did you !
 

Paddy

Adventurer
Nice build I'm inspired! I had debated cutting out the back cab of my f350 but now im definitely doing it. I also have one of those bogert hmmwv jacks and aren't they the coolest? Just know that the us gov spent 2000$ on that jack!
 

ATCws

New member
Nice build. I'm going to put a custom camper on the back of a RAM 4500 168" wheelbase, 84 inch CA, and am concerned about the ride comfort. I know Kelderman makes suspensions for this truck but I don't know if I want to pay that money replacing springs with a comfy air system or have all my eggs in one basket relying on said comfy air system not to break and leave me stranded. Have you done anything with the factory springs?
 

sarconcepts

Adventurer
ATCws
nope, I am still running the original 5500 springs. I thought about changing over to Kelderman early on as well, but decided not to for the reason of not wanting to have a potential bag failure. I was also proposed changing out to a 4500 leaf pac, but also chose not to do that as I just paid for this extremely heavy duty thing & didn't want to pay more to make it less strong. My solution after years of use, was to change out to adjustable shocks.
(see post #355)
Sorry, I can't remember the brand right now, but I know I have them set down to about a '2' on a scale of 1-10, I also remember that the original shocks had a daintiness of a 2" lead pipe.
this made a huge difference & I still have the original 5500 strength. If I were you, I would ride it for a year or so & then look at replacing the shocks.
Steve
 
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sarconcepts

Adventurer
Hey Strangers
Bethany & I are gearing up for a 5 week trip around Alaska, so one thing I wanted to have for this trip was the ability to refill the water tanks from rives & streams.. .. plus I'm about due to do something to the Bullet, it's been too long!
I know there are several posts on here regarding water filter systems, but most are older & due for some fresh information, plus I need to rethink & overthink everything myself.
water filter system 001.jpg
The system I came up with is a 5 part filter & pump system, broken down as follows;
(we'll start from the river & work our way up to the Bullet)
water filter system 008.jpg
The pump I chose came with a hose strainer to filter out rocks which could damage the pump, that filters out solids greater than 1/8″. This is on the end of 3/4″ x 8' long suction hose which then attaches before the pump to a 50 mesh sediment filter, which equals 1/50 of an inch or 304 microns in size, protecting the pump even further.
water filter system 007.jpgthe 50 mesh filter was a simple Grainger purchase. https://www.grainger.com/product/GRAINGER-APPROVED-50-Mesh-T-Line-Strainer-6UJL3

Then the pump, a ‘Liberty 331′ 1/2 horsepower transfer pump. http://www.libertypumps.com/Product/Model-331
This is a 110 volt pump, I chose 110 volt so I didn’t have to worry about wire size for the 50’ extension chord to power it. Several years ago I installed a pure sine wave inverter, along with a 110 volt outlet in the basement right where I'd be while refilling the tanks, so this all works perfect.
The pump seems really well built, all cast aluminum, with a carry handle, an on-off switch and 20' power chord.
water filter system 006.jpg
out of the pump comes a 3′ long x 3/4″ food grade hose that goes into a two filter housing. The first filter is a 1 micron sediment filter, the second is a 1/2 micron carbon filter to get out all bacteria & cysts. I purchased this from the ‘RV water filter store.com’ I chose their ‘ESSENTIAL system’
https://www.rvwaterfilterstore.com/SYSTEM_ESSENTIAL.htm
water filter system 004.jpg
After passing through those two filters, the water goes through two 5/8″ food grade hoses totaling 55′ long (see why two hoses below), then just before entering the Bullet tank, is passed through a final B.E.S.T. inline water filter with silversafe technology to kill any remaining bacteria
https://www.bestwaterfilters.com.au/
water filter system 005.jpg
then 6′ of hose to stick in the tank inlet.
The reason to have the two hoses, is I can use the last hose & B.E.S.T. filter to filter campground water as well, and not have to pull out the whole system.
This whole system packs up pretty tight into two small duffel bags; one for the pump & hoses, another for the filters which will, I’m sure, be put away wet at times, so I wanted to keep them separate.
water filter system 011.jpgwater filter system 012.jpg
Both bags store easily in the basement.

After testing the system out, I found it emptied a 5 gallon bucket in 2 minutes and 15 seconds, or 2.22 GPM, meaning it will take 13 1/2 minutes to fill my tank. I'm sure it will take longer to set up & take down the system, but we're not talking an hour long process here, I like to keep moving !
 
Before I went to Siberia-Mongolia I got an even simpler but very similar system. A 6 gal bucket, a submersible 110v pump and a standard garden hose. It was fortunate because water in those places tends to come out of large high pressure/volume hoses that can’t be used in my tank inlets. I have a triple filter system coming out of the tank- fleece, iodine and activated charcoal which removes the iodine. Each of two 55 gal tanks fills in a short time.
 
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ATCws

New member
ATCws
nope, I am still running the original 5500 springs. I thought about changing over to Kelderman early on as well, but decided not to for the reason of not wanting to have a potential bag failure. I was also proposed changing out to a 4500 leaf pac, but also chose not to do that as I just paid for this extremely heavy duty thing & didn't want to pay more to make it less strong. My solution after years of use, was to change out to adjustable shocks.
(see post #355)
Sorry, I can't remember the brand right now, but I know I have them set down to about a '2' on a scale of 1-10, I also remember that the original shocks had a daintiness of a 2" lead pipe.
this made a huge difference & I still have the original 5500 strength. If I were you, I would ride it for a year or so & then look at replacing the shocks.
Steve
thanks for the info, Steve.
 
Your pre-filling filters look a lot like 2 of my post-filling filters, I have the iodine secretor after the fleece, then the activated charcoal. I put ClO2 tablets in occaisonally (7 tablets per 220L). No GI probelms so far.
 

Britboaters

Observer
This is a great idea, thanks for sharing.
One thought though, if the transfer pump is meant for fuels, are the internals such that they won't rust with water ?
Bob
 

sarconcepts

Adventurer
This is a great idea, thanks for sharing.
One thought though, if the transfer pump is meant for fuels, are the internals such that they won't rust with water ?
Bob
the Liberty 331 is not intended for use with chemicals or flammable liquids, although they do make other pumps specifically for that. I don't know about the corrosion aspect, I couldn't find anything about that in the specs, but would still recommend airing it out after each use to preclude bacteria from growing inside the pump.
 

sarconcepts

Adventurer
time for me to do something here !
Bethany has been after me for years to bring our inflatable kayak's with us, I always resisted as we typically do whitewater kayaking and hence, take out like 7 miles from where we put in, so getting back to the camper was always my dilemma, until this past summer when we took them back to a place we had been before, with a slow moving river where we could paddle up and downstream and still paddle back to the camper.
we had so much fun I started designing before we even left that site.
first, a wood mock up designed to be supported on the bike rack I built several years ago
kayak rack.jpg
now, if you've followed this before you know I find beauty in asymmetry, plus I inevitably overdo things, this project met both of those requirements. Because the spare tire already protruded from the rear, I set that kayak vertical, and the second one horizontal where I had more dimension
I did some quick drawings
View attachment Bullet Kayak Rack.jpg
and magically, Harvest Valley Specialties got me one of these.. ..
kayak rack 002.jpg
plus these
kayak rack 005.jpg
and what i couldn't help but add was some Sapele Mahogany to match the accent on the bridging ramps
kayak rack 007.jpg
which turned into this
kayak rack 010.jpg
creating this
kayak rack 020.jpg
kayak rack 021.jpg
kayak rack 023.jpg

if you're wondering about security, the kayaks are held on with lockable straps by steelcore
kayak rack 025.jpg

that's all the shop time for this year.
 

sarconcepts

Adventurer
THE BULLET 10 YEAR REVIEW

20210612_122440.jpg


Yup, it's been 10 years since I completed building the Bullet, if you remember, the first trip was memorial day weekend 2011 where we got to unexpectedly test out the hot water and space heater.
1st trip.jpg

I thought I would go through the various design aspect to update you all on what has worked, not worked, what I would do again and what I would do differently.

Overall, I am amazedly happy with the overall design and construction, it has been a perfect vehicle for getting us from one experience to another.
I will break this into multiple categories;

THE STERLING BULLET
12 Years in I am still so glad I started with this vehicle. compared to my Tacoma, this thing rides like a Cadillac, and having left the original suspension in tact, I have had no suspension issues whatsoever. I will admit, this vehicle was built when car companies were somewhat incestuous and this one is no exception,- truck by Dodge, electronics by Chrysler, warrantee by freightliner. The electronics have given me some issues, replacing sensors, fixing some shorts, and chasing some odd engine lights, but each time we fixed it, that specific problem never occurred again, so things are pretty reliable at this point, and most importantly, I never went into 'limp' mode, I was always able to take my time to get things looked at properly. overall, a good choice for my needs.

THE 3 POINT SUSPENSION FRAME
I designed the camper frame to attach at two points just behind the cab, and at a third pivot point at the rear
3 point pivot frame 025.jpg

3 point pivot frame 036.jpg

you can clearly see how much it can twist on my twisty driveway
I will admit, this weighed more than I hoped, coming in at about 1200 lbs., but I can also admit, I have had no issues with this at all, and after seeing some of the catastrophic failures on this sit with other designs, I am glad I built it as tough as I did. Connecting at two fixed points at the front means that the camper box always stays planar with the cab of the truck which allows for a tighter clearance between the cab roof and the bottom of the cabover
I will also say I really like the way my lower storage was worked into the frame. Overall I would definitely do this again.

THE UHAUL BOX

This is yet another choice I made to work with that I am so glad I did. Having taken the box completely apart, cleaned all of the panels, extrusions, and bolts even, then cut them down to make them what I needed, I ended up with a fantastic erector set of components to work with. Putting them all back together with modern sealant/adhesives has led to an amazingly strong box that has endured thousands of miles of washboard and stays perfectly rattle free!

THE ELECTRIC/HYDRAULIC LIFTING ROOF

Everyone has a preference between hard and soft sided pop ups, for my needs, I like the soft side, as I like to hear the woods and the wind at night, I like the sound of critters moving and eating at night as well as the sound of birds in the morning, I like the way the morning sun warms the interior letting us know we are part of the outdoors, for these reasons and more I would stick with a soft sided pop up, I am aware it does lack some security that a hard sided pop up roof has, but I can live with that.
One of the design aspects I originally wanted, was the ability to manually lift the roof if the hydraulic pump failed, this was not possible with the system I purchased, but to this day, it has never failed. I will admit, when it gets hot out, for some reason I get some cavitation, which means it makes more noise, and goes up a little slower. I am not sure why this only happens when it's hot out, or why it happens at all, but it has never compromised the function of the pump. Maybe it is caused by the 90 degree metal elbows coming out of the manifold and into the cylinders being a true 90 degree sharp corner vs. a smooth bend, but I cannot change those now and they don't cause any issues except for my brain, so I'll live with it.
The other aspect was my fit of brilliance of connecting all four roof lifting pipes with 1/16" cable like a drafting mayline to get them to all work in parallel. This has worked flawlessly and to this day, the roof lifts perfectly planar with not tilt or sway whatsoever. I would definitely use this whole lifting system again.

THE FLOOR PLAN

I have always appreciated how large and open the Bullet feels inside, a big part of this is that I have no dedicated bathroom, so no big chunk taken out of the interior. The initial design started around the front to back dimension of the cabover, plus room for the dog beds, plus the depth of the dressers equaling that of a queen size bed. the dogs love their 'bedroom' I like being able to close them off with the sliding dresser, and the remaining floor area is perfectly comfortable for two to cook together (we cook a lot) Another aspect that got me some flack 10 years ago was the pee toilet, to be honest, it still works great, and I still like not having to deal with any solids. For poop, we go outside, but for the middle of the road or middle of the night pees, it works great and doesn't sacrifice any space or convenience (you just have to be careful not to drop any raisinets !)
The Tempurpedic bed is amazingly comfortable, the comforter we have keeps us perfectly warm all night no matter the exterior temperature, and having the thermostat within easy reach for turning on the heater in the morning is also a must.

THE INTERIOR CABINETS

If you remember correctly, I chose to build a hybrid, European/ face frame style of cabinets, mostly for the challenge, and to this day, those cabinets have worked perfectly, I thought the no-clearance between the drawer faces would become an issue over time, but they seem to be staying perfectly in line with each other despite my abusive travels. Gluing and screwing the drawers and the frame also helped. I also used spring loaded RV drawer glides that require 13 lbs. of pull to open the drawers, but if you look back you will remember that these really didn't work for off-road conditions, as the heavier pan drawers would fly open when doing some more extreme side to side off-roading, so I added some Rutherford electric cabinet locks. These I set to be in the unlocked position until I put the key in, and then all the door and drawers would lock automatically, this has worked perfectly, the only alteration I made was to add a bypass switch inside the camper so if we're driving and someone climbs into the back to get snacks, they can unlock the cabinets. After several times of driving off with the drawers unlocked, I also added a buzzer to let us know when they were unlocked while driving.
Overall I am completely satisfied with the amount of storage we have and how functional it all is.

THE APPLIANCES

The Bullet, for all of it's innovation in other aspects, is appliance-wise pretty simple, I have a standard 3 way fridge, I like using propane for this, the heater, water heater and the cooktop, plus, I have never been in a situation where we parked not level enough for the fridge to work, it has always worked fine. I like 12 volts while driving, and 110 volts while it's parked getting ready for the next trip, so this fridge has worked perfectly for us.
The space heater- initially I had a two stage heater with a digital thermostat, I would not recommend those hi-tech options when off-roading much, bouncing around, or dust affects things in odd ways. The heater started acting funny a couple years in (truthfully, it always was a bit funny) so I changed it out for a single stage unit with an analogue thermostat and have been perfectly happy ever since.
The water heater also doesn't like being bounced around much, so I have had to replace the control unit once, and it continues to work fine.
The cooktop is a two burner non-self igniting unit, really, it's so simple it has nothing really to go wrong, so it continues to work perfectly. The only thing I may consider doing differently here if I build another camper, is that the unit I chose sits on top of the counter proud by like 2" or so, I would not mind a counter-flush unit with a cover smooth with the countertop, just to give more prep space when not cooking.

WATER TANKS

The Bullet has a 30 gallon fresh water tank, plus a 15 gallon grey water tank. With this I can go about 3 or 4 days between fill ups dependent on cooking. Ultimately I would prefer a larger fresh water tank, like 50 gallons minimum, preferably 60 gallons. What I had before I built this was a Four Wheel Camper with a 13 gallon tank, so I thought this would be more than enough, but as things grow, so do your expectations. I would have liked to go about 7 days between fill ups, but I had to choose a size that fit in the area I had and leave room for the storage I needed, so as with everything in these tiny mobile homes, it is a compromise.

OVERALL

Well.. .. I get very attached to things I build !
The two and a half years I spent building this (nights and weekends) are a great time and memory in my life. I still use the camper regularly almost all throughout the year, (maybe minus two months in the winter) and am in-fact, getting ready to leave on another two month trip across the country in a couple weeks (gotta go visit mom in Boston again) I cannot imagine another camper fitting the way I personally move better than the Bullet and see myself living in this more and more per year as I phase into retirement or at least working less, specifically to enjoy life more. For this reason alone, it is good to have a 10 year tested and proven vehicle I can trust.
That is all humans

picture from last weekend's trip to eastern Oregon
20210612_131015.jpg
 

java

Expedition Leader
Thanks for the update. This build was a big inspiration of mine. Glad to see its still working well and to most of what you wanted out of it!
 

chris_the_wrench

Fixer & Builder of Things
THE BULLET 10 YEAR REVIEW

Whew, time!!

I remember following along closely to your build and then I was lucky enough to see it roaming around town a handful of times. Do you know did Sterling every do a 4500/5500 with the 5.9? I don't think that existed....

-Chris
 

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