Newbie Question

[VerMonsterRV]

Hi all, got a question for you but first a bit of background. If all goes as planned by this time next summer my wife and I will be complete a trip sailing around the world. It has been great but we also love the mountains and want to give an expedition RV a shot. Before the sailing trip we spent 3 months doing a circuit of the USA in a 13' Scamp (also great but a bit limiting). This is all a bit of background so you all can possibly best answer my question. We are thinking of an expedition RV to at the minimum take to Alaska, then possibly to the southern tip of South America. We are not loaded so a new custom build is out of the question. Having been a boater for years I am ok with some fiberglass fabrication(minor compared to a RV shell) but do not know how to weld (though I plan to learn once we are back). I am ok mechanically but have never rebuilt an engine. Also, the truck will need to be registered in the USA but be able to burn any diesel I throw at it. I am looking forward to a custom build hopefully using pre-made foam cored panels. I also like the overall length of the Fuso based RV's, better for getting to the places we want to be.

So, at this point I am thinking a Fuso based 4x4 using a Total Composite body. I am also hoping for a hard sided popup for a few reasons (insulation, security, better fuel mileage and the ability to ship in a container).

Question 1: So given it needs to be registered in the USA and burn high/low sulfur diesel and be a 4x4 which model/year Fuso should I hope for, what are the potential problem areas? How many miles is too many miles on an engine/chassis? Is finding a suitable Fuso realistic?

Question 2: Assume a used Fuso and a body shell from Total Composites (still need to find out if they will do a hard sided popup) and I do most if not all the other work myself, what would a realistic budget goal for a fairly comfortable RV (water heater, stove, fridge, solar, shower).

Question 3: Last one for now, if I plan on working on this full time and try to plan things out well ahead (why I am starting now), and am used to working on boats and cars what is a general time frame that people are targeting for building something like this.

 

[1aquaholic]

These are very loaded questions but since I'm half way into it I'll give you my opinion and you know what opinions are worth. I plan on going around the world in mine and living in it for many years so. 05-07 are the years before all the emission stuff and The Sweet Spot as far as I'm concerned, 08 and newer had many big problems and have slowly work them out to the newer rigs but with those the emissions equipment takes up a lot of room and it means that you need to buy an extra fluid regularly. If the vehicle is well taken care of it should run for half a million to a million miles. Mine looked good but had a little surface rust on the frame so I sandblasted it and repainted it which was a lot of work, I also had to rebuild the injectors an injector pump and it only had 60,000 miles.

I'm doing absolutely all the work myself design purchasing welding electrical plumbing working on it about half time. I'm very detailed and particular about everything and I've slowly snowballed into making my whole build more and more elaborate so when I say I'm a couple of years in take all that into consideration. Like everybody says it's a ton more work than I planned but I know it will be worth it.

I'd really have to know how much you pay for a rig and how much total Composites is going to charge you to give you a guess but if you really did absolutely everything yourself other than the box and you hunted for deals on parts my wild guess would be around $75,000 in the model years 05 to 07. Now if you went very basic it would be less and if you want fancy would be more.

All my opinions and not worth much but there you go. Would I do it again knowing how much work it is to build? Not sure I can answer that question......

Sent from my SM-G935T using Tapatalk

 

[VerMonsterRV]

Sort of knew this was a bit hard to answer, sorry about that. I have had the same questions from new sailors and always struggle to answer. Good to get a ballpark guess for both cost and time though before I head down this road, thanks for yours. The Fuso really is the big question mark to me. If I am able to find a decent one, at a decent price I think it might be the perfect truck for what I am looking for. The other option is a full sized American truck, other issues with that, the biggest I see is for the same living area it would be longer and most likely get worse mileage (but that is only a guess). Also parts might be hard to come by in remote areas.

By the way, do you have a build thread or website?

 

[SkiFreak]

You already know many of my views from our previous discussions Jon, but something that many do not take into consideration is that quite often life gets in the way of your plans. I too would have to think hard if I would start a project like this again, knowing what I do now.
Bottom line... if you are not a business set up to do this kind of work and have no contacts in the RV industry to know what is best or what is available, building your own expedition camper is likely to take you considerably longer than you estimate it will.
I would argue that you can probably double your estimated build time, as lots of things "pop up" that you did not plan on.

For me, actually building stuff is fairly easy, but the planning and research seems to take forever, and that research seems to be never ending. I would estimate that well over 90% of my time is spent looking for solutions and products. To that end, the longer the build takes it may be that more viable solutions appear (LiFePO4 batteries are a typical example), so unless you are very regimented in your design (which I am not) then you could end up changing already completed sections for what you believe is a better solution. This is both timely and costly, but I have done it quite a few times already.

If you are dead set on having a hard sided pop-top then you would have to be pretty lucky find a second hand one built on a Fuso/Isuzu truck, as they are a pretty rare animal. A hard sided pop-top also has more complexity, engineering wise, so will have a higher build cost. If you have not already found Yves' build thread, I strongly suggest that you check it out, as he has done a very nice job of doing a hard sided pop-top home build.

 

[kerry]

To piggy back on Ski Freak. I went a different direction. I bought a well used 1999 Fuso FG with a service body, did some minor modifications to the service body, slide in a Northstar Camper and off we went. Two weeks work max. At roughly the same time, Iandrez bought a similar truck to mine with a service body and removed the service body to build his own camper. After a few years he sold the Fuso and the partially completed camper. We've been using our camper for 9 years now. Nothing around the world but all over North America. It's hard to keep focused on a big project for a long time, especially when you are employed.

In terms of what years to look for, I had my Fuso in to the local dealer recently for some routine maintenance. He offered me some free advice: Don't ever sell your Fuso and buy a newer model, you'll have constant headaches. Now I don't know what 'newer' actually means apart from a brand new one. But I do know that my 99 has been a good truck and I'd buy another.

 

[steve66]

Totally agree, I've had our truck 2 years and all I have to show for it is a half completed subframe and a house full of ebay parcels

 

[VerMonsterRV]

Thanks guys, thanks for all the info. And thanks Owen for the Yves build thread. Although not exactly what I am thinking what he has done is pretty close and I have to admit his choice of the way to build really seemed to speed up his build with a great result (which is really what I am looking for). I reading through his build now bookmarking his suppliers.

 

[Maninga]

I'm over 3 years into my build, 2 1/2 years where it's been at my place planning to register it next month, still unfinished but with enough stuff to have it usable. Taken way, way longer than expected to get to this point. If I had my chance all over again, I'd have bought something prebuilt and just paid the extra for it. At least I'd be out and using it.

As it sits now, I'm having to fix stuff on the truck that's gone wrong from lack of use. It's been an expensive garden gnome for way too long

 

[VerMonsterRV]

Well, I have to admit that I am hoping a bit more towards the time it took Yves for his build, probably just don't get all the steps yet. Time will tell and since I am a year away from getting home, plus I still have time to make sure I want to commit. The more my wife and I talk about it though the more we seem to want one.

I have a couple more questions as I continue to think things through. What is the max size box can you put on a Fuso and still maintain good offroad/onroad performance? Also, I see on some build threads some electrics seem to be put low, any thoughts on going through water and how high you need to mount that stuff? What about waterproof seals on doors?

 

[SkiFreak]

In my opinion, any water over a metre deep is better suited to what you are in now... a boat.
If you fit the truck with larger wheels/tyres, that will definitely help with giving you a bit more clearance and will also increase the height the chassis off the ground. If you plan on doing any serious four wheeling, a single rear wheel conversion is probably justified too.

On my FG84 one of my electrics concerns was the high voltage fuse box, which was mounted 900mm off the ground. That's not all that low, but it was the lowest electrical box on the truck.
Using the existing bracket, with a bit of modification, I moved the fuse box about 350mm higher. It now sits just below the cab latch mechanism, which I am much happier about. Initially I thought that this would be a complicated modification, but it ended up being quite simple and did not take a lot of time to do. Well worth the effort, in my opinion.

With regards to box size, the US has very different standards than we do here in Australia. Here we have what is usually referred to as the 60% rule. This limits the maximum rear overhang (distance between the centre of the rear axle and the rear of the truck) to 60% of the wheelbase, which obviously sets a maximum size for a camper body. Many of the US trucks I see on this forum would not be legal in Australia, as they obviously exceed this amount of overhang.
As to how big is too big... that will come down to what sort of terrain you wish to traverse. I would argue that an expedition camper is not a rock crawler, so having lots of ground clearance and larger entry/exit angles may not be as big of an issue as some might make out it is.

The bottom edge of my truck doors is 900mm off the ground and the bottom of the camper entry door will be 600mm off the ground. I have my shower in the stepwell, so if any water were to bypass the camper door seal it would not be an issue, as the camper floor is another 500mm higher than that. So for me, I do not concern myself too much with 100% waterproof seals on the doors.
Also, unless you are actually parking in the water, normal door seals should keep the majority of water out.