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Diesel for sure.

I have bought a lot of stuff from Explorist including their wiring diagram, Victron components, misc wiring, etc. Highly recommend working with them. Honestly, buying what they create in terms of wiring diagrams and adapting it as needed would most likely be much easier than buying software...

LOL IDK that I have seen any understanding to any of the topics discussed thus far. @llamalander is providing a very important insight into how batteries (especially modern lithium iron phosphate and other non-lead chemistries) work and how their limitations may impact the ability of your...

Maybe a dumb question but is it not possible to lengthen the cabover portion for these off-the-shelf builds?

The quality and attention to detail of your build continues to be amazing! Could you share where you had your shower pan made? I had a quote for a stainless one for ~$2500. I’d love to hear about an alternative like yours. Thanks!

FWIW, we have 600ah of battery and 800w of solar. IDK if there it is possible to have too much energy storage or production capacity. We camp a lot in the SW and run the AC continuously during the summer. We never need shore power and I would argue that with a properly sized battery and solar...

That seems like a great solution but I would be reluctant based on my own experience with my Planar/Autoterm 2D. It has never worked right and the support from Planar/Autoterm North American (not Expedition Upfitters) has been terrible. IMHO, the main benefit of using Planar/Autoterm was its...

Agreed - I imagined the relief valve venting and being very annoyed - luckily it would mostly be cosmetic. The only electrical in that space is for the heater itself. I did think about removing the shrouding but it actually made it easier to mount so I left it on. I agree with the idea that...

No expansion tank; the relief valve hasn’t relieved itself. I have no specific concerns in a mobile application - could you share what yours might be? The lack of an expansion tank is an issue but space was limited; technically, the install manual made it a recommendation and so I ran with...

I have that exact Bosch heater. I have 800w of solar and 600ah of lithium storage. I usually turn the heater on at home while still connected to shore power. Once hot, it doesn’t cycle that much to keep things hot. Similar to the idea of the increased efficiency of a calorifier, I have a mixing...

4-low will get you lower, but my point is it is not as low as stock would be (which often isn’t low enough anyhow for real off-road work). The ability to drive down and up obstacles as slowly as possible is key, especially on heavy and cumbersome trucks like those being discussed. It is easier...

You’re of course partially correct - with more ratios, a 10spd is more likely to find the right gear without adjusting the final drive. For me, the biggest issue being undergeared and its associated loss of torque and engine braking is at slow speeds off-road. At those speeds, the transmission...

Long McArthur Ford does a great weekly update of Ford’s production capacity for all of their various models. According to their most recent update (week of 7/8), the order banks for regular Super Duties (not 450/550) are still open. I’ve been watching them a bit this past year and it seems like...

Agree with everyone who recommends not going with a cassette toilet. We’re using the Wrappon toilet which is neither a cassette or a compositing. It is amazing but its operational costs are highest of the three types and its need to store consumables makes it tougher to take on longer (1m or...

Our minisplit has been fine, dust/dirt wise. It sits high up on the rear wall so it gets dirty but not terrible. Never considered covering it - too lazy. Our total costs were similar although the camper body and build out costs were reversed; labor (labour!) costs were the same. We have...

TL;DR - skip the generator, get more batteries. You haven’t shared your budget (you don’t need too, necessarily) but with the cost of lithium ion batteries coming down and the space that will be available to you on a 550/5500 platform, I can’t think of any reason why you’d want to get a...

It depends on what you need the rails to do. You don’t need the rails at all. IDK if they actually add anything apart from looking cool. I don’t have any on mine.

They are commonly rivnutted and maybe glued. As @mog mentioned, the extrusions are strong and the job of these rails are to act as branch deflectors and/or a final reminder that you’re about to do something you’ll regret on a tight trail or parking structure.

It is a cheapo that has some sort of internal power-saving function. When I would turn on the truck, I had to go through some weird switch flipping to get it to turn on. I'd have to do this process each time I started the truck which got old. I ended up getting some Feniex LEDs for more...

Why do you think that a front locker is necessary for this type of project? “Overlanding” is just car camping for most people (including me). Front lockers are great on trucks that see real trails - on a heavy camper, it could theoretically help, but most of the time, it will probably just get...