2022 Ford F550 - DIY - Adventure Expedition Vehicle Build Thread

[Vance Vanz]

Slide Out Solar Panel Rack/Arrays - Continued......

Going with the lockable surfboard racks vs cross bars reduced my walkway to get to the boards pretty significantly. In addition, one of the actuators had to be mounted across this path, so I wanted to lay out something to scale. I needed to know what it was going to be like stepping over the actuator in a narrow path and whether a vertical or horizontal actuator mount would be best.



All the details that just eat up time, but are super important. These are the design decisions you don't want to screw up.

Now that the lower slide racks were structurally designed, along with the actuator placements, I had to move onto the hardest part of the design. Figuring out how to secure and run the PV wires was a task I was dreading. My PV wires can't be sealed to the roof (LINE-X is plastic), so I need to mount/secure them to the solar panel racks. My PV wires will also need to be ran and stay under the solar panel array foot print, as every space adjacent to the panels is either the side of the camper, or a usable space/walkway. This may sound simple, but trust me it is not. Every sliding rack design I have seen allows for the wires and/or entry glands to extend outside the footprint, or run above the solar panels.

I also wanted to make sure my PV wires were secured in a a track or raceway, so they would not be flopping/whipping around on the roof (making noise and/or creating some wonderful wear marks on the roof) .

Playing with the low profile roof entry glands and how to route the PV wires under the panels.


Cable chain track. I tried everything to avoid using this stuff, as a means to keep it simple and less expensive. In the end, it was the only way that made sense (would prevent the issues I noted above). The good stuff is not cheap.

Getting my needed length dialed in.


Getting my height dialed in


Once the cable chain track was all dialed in, the height of the lower racks changed as a result, so I had to go through everything again and re-adjust/re-design many things.

I then had to design a custom fabricated bracket to: support the PV wires as they come out of the roof entry gland and also to provide a mount and support for the cable chain track. I guess you could call this single bracket my PV wire and cable chain track management bracket. It is one of the most time consuming single fabricated brackets/items that I have had to design on the build so far. The amount of design hours that culminate into this one bracket is nauseating to think about.

Somehow I don't have a pic of this thing. I will snap one this week and insert it below on the next round of posts.

(INSERT PICTURE HERE PLEASE)


Next up was finishing the layout/design of the upper panels and getting the needed spacers and cover caps all sorted. Figuring out how to structurally tie the lower sliding solar panels together, while keeping everything clean and simple looking, also took some time, Custom brackets/hardware to attach the linear actuators to the solar panel/frames also took some time.

The pics don't really do it justice. It was about Five 12 hour days just for the design of the two arrays. Another 1/2 to 3/4's of a day to complete the drawings for fabrication of items. That's not including the time to research and source all of the parts, aluminum material and mounting hardware. Not to mention I still need to build, dry fit and install this thing. My guess is it will have taken about 3-3.5 weeks total/minimum to complete both sliding arrays when they are finally finished .

I also had one of the solar panel aluminum frames start to separate from the panel a bit. It looked like the MFG's seal/pooky job was not all that great, so I took the time to 3M 4000 UV re-seal all of the bottom edges on all 10 panels. Not so fun cleaning up somebody else's mess, but that seems to be the story of the build.


I'm also going to install aluminum angle cross supports at the center of the panels to help stiffen them up, since my mounting feet for the panels will be on the ends of the panels. This was unavoidable given my design (the solar panels needing to be able to slide out towards the side of the panels). Although the seal job was not so bueno on these panels, the frames are super thick and stout. Once my cross supports are installed, these things will be bomber.

Most of this will make a lot more sense as soon as I get the final install pics posted.

 

[Vance Vanz]

Sealing Items to the Camper

I'm going stir crazy over here ! Finally a break from designing and time to get stuff mounted.

Trying to perfect straight, clean and crisp cut lines on LINE-X . This is crucial, because I'm mounting/sealing everything on the outside of the camper with Black 3M UV Marine 4000 and the camper is light grey, so there is no hiding poopy cut lines. It's a make or break it kinda thing.


First official thing mounted to the camper (pass through flange). Not earth shattering, but a mini-milestone nonetheless .


Let's not stop here. I need more room in the shop. Start the Pooky-Mounting-Madness ........



Pulling the lid off


I wish other shops would take the time to do this (so they quit losing parts and hardware!)


Making sure everything is dialed in. No winging it here.


Where she will sit; final resting place


One of those moments when you suddenly pause............... and start to imagine what it will be like on the top of your rig from this view............ when you are sipping on some good-morning-espresso as the sun rises, while you are also checking out the surf break 35 yards away, in another country !


Prepping for the pooky

 

[Vance Vanz]

Sealing Items to the Camper - Continued ......

Cut lines dialed in



Quick test of the AC before it heads to the roof and finds a new home


My new shop manager (Erin) giving the green light. What a Nerdy Birdy


Getting prepped for the pook


Getting there



All sealed and ready for the solar panel array(s)........



The two sealers I'm primarily using on the build (except for a few items on the inside). 4000 for the outside and 5200 for the inside/when I don't want the item/part to ever come off. Wilds gets the credit for this, I'm just the messenger .

 

[Vance Vanz]

Reviving the Build Thread

Well, it is January 3rd 2026 and my last post was August 11th 2025! It is bonkers how these builds distort time (a month feels like a week and a season feels like a month). I don't even remember fall and I'm still wondering what happened to summer ?

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving, X-Mas and New Year. Erin and I have been cranking away on the build nonstop, working through our Birthdays (late October), Thanksgiving, X-Mas and New Year. By the way, it's great to have a partner with a birthday close to yours, you get to plan something Double the fun. We decided to trade in our birthdays and the holidays for a three week trip to Sri Lanka.

I/we don't really have the time or money for a trip like this, but with the amount of burnout I'm feeling and hours we have been both putting in, it is almost a requirement in order to get this project (and ourselves) to the finish line. Plus, airfare was free (I had miles for both tickets) and Sri Lanka is pretty cheap. Warm weather, decent surf, and a foreign land will be a refreshing change of pace and environment. The inside four walls of the shop are getting old . This will be our last vacation/day off until the final last push to get the build done .

Let’s jump right into some build progress and I’ll sprinkle in details of what the heck I have been doing on the build over the past FIVE months as we go along. It is crazy to say that out loud, Five Months .

Installed the gear locker door:


Trust me, clean cut lines on LINE-X is a process


Can't have a cream colored door handle


Getting the awning installed:


Didn't particularly plan it, but it is nice that the bottom of the awning material matches/ties in well with the color of the camper


Installed a few windows

 

[Vance Vanz]

Front Hidden Winch Dry Fit

Hidden winch mount


Getting the winch on the mount


Getting the heavy assembly onto the truck and snugging it up



Dry fit complete (almost)


A few more fitment things to trim, grind, and repaint and then everything will come apart so the chrome bumper can head off to powder coat.

 

[Vance Vanz]

Grey Water Tank Install



It's still a little dirty inside the compartment from the rainy day trip back from the paint shop for the interior of the camper. I'll get it all squeaky clean before the final install. I'm sure I will need to remove and re-install the tank and brackets another 100 times before the grey water tank compartment is finished .


I didn't want any rub between the top of the tank and the bottom of the camper, so I installed a little rubber to keep things in place and quiet.


It's going to be tight, but it all fits, with just a little room left over for insulation.

 

[ITTOG]

I was wondering what happened to you. Glad you got some time off. I look forward to seeing this thing done.

 

[Vance Vanz]

I was wondering what happened to you. Glad you got some time off. I look forward to seeing this thing done.

I'm still here and cranking away on the Beast ITTOG .

The build swallowed me whole for a while (I had to shut the world out for a bit), but luckily spit me out for a much needed vacation and build thread update.

We get on the plane tomorrow and will disappear for three weeks ! I promise, I won't think about the build once .

You and me both, you and me both........ I won't know what do to with myself when this thing is finally done. Part of me may just hit the road running-tires pealing out for a foreign land, another part may pace around in a small circle in shock for an undetermined amount of days, another part may break down in the fetal position and cry for a week, who knows . Either way, it will finally be done and I will finally be moving on with my life .

 

[Vance Vanz]

Design, Design, Design & More Design……,

After getting the solar panel racks designed, I had to track down all of the material (metal) and hardware. Not a huge deal, but just a few more things to add to the amount of time everything takes.

Way back somewhere in the build thread, I bought a bunch of stainless steel hardware kits off of Amazon. I thought, “How bad could the stuff be? Maybe I can use it on non structural stuff or interior stuff.” Well, that thought didn’t last too long. No surprise, it’s not going on the build.

I almost sold all of those hardware kits for a dollar or two, but didn’t have the time, and even thought about throwing them away. Now that I’m designing and dry fitting a bunch of stuff, it is nice to have a wide variety of cheap hardware that I can use. It saved me a bunch of money, not having to stock the shop with a lot of quality hardware that may never get used.

Here is most of the stainless hardware for the solar panel racks/arrays. I'm doing bulk orders for all of my hardware because buying local is often 2-4 times the price, and I need a lot of it.


That's the other thing that takes so much time on these builds, the number of parts you have to: size, research, track down, price, order, receive, check, and sometimes (more often than you realize) return. This literally becomes a full time job, for months.

Right after the solar panel rack design and material/hardware purchases, I jumped right into the same process for what I'm calling the Rear Bumper & Camper Assembly. This includes the: 1. Rear Winch Mount 2. Rear Bumper 3. Standing Platform (on/for the rear bumper) 4. Bumper Ladder/Steps (to get on the rear bumper) 5. Spare Tire Carrier 6. Maxtrax II Mount (for securing traction boards x 4) 7. Rear Ladder (to get on the roof of the camper).

This was a project I did not want to wait until the end of the build to complete. I knew it was going to take more time to design than I thought and would require a fab and powder coat shop with lead times that would take longer than originally quoted. Another complex beast of a project within a Beast of a build.

First step, design the 1. Rear Winch Mount. Drag out all the parts you have and start doing some head scratching.


Honestly, the hardest part of the winch mount was dialing in the underneath part of it, the: hitch receiver sleeve, outlet for the trailer lights, safety chain eyelets, departure angle, making it structurally strong enough to use as a single recovery point, etc.


2. Rear Bumper, this is when things started becoming a little more difficult.


There is only so much you can do with a bumper, but I wanted to keep things clean and simple, while also tying into the aesthetic of the build. What started out being rather simple, the bumper to winch mount fitment, became more complex with each individual part and system that needed to integrate with the bumper. Sounds obvious, but there are a lot of things happening on this bumper. Every time I added an additional part/system, most often another round of re-work would need to happen on previously completed/designed items.

3. Standing Platform. You need to be able to stand on top of the bumper (standing platform), get a mountain bike (MTB) out of the gear locker and turn 180 degrees while holding the MTB in one hand. You also need to be able to get on and off the roof ladder, from the top of the bumper (standing platform), while holding a longboard surfboard in one hand/arm. Should the standing platform be bolted to or welded to the top of the bumper? Should I integrate it into the top of the bumper? How long and how wide should it be? How can a ladder or steps attach to it. It needs to support the weight of a 300lb person and the gear they are holding. Do I make it large enough so a person can squat down in front of the gear locker door (to get something out of the back/bottom of the gear locker) without losing balance and falling off of the bumper/standing platform................

You get the idea; no stone unturned on this design/build!

No design pics for this one (standing platform), just take a look at the final fabricated bumper when I eventually post it.

 

[Vance Vanz]

Rear Bumper & Camper Assembly Design - Continued......

4. Bumper Ladder/Steps.

This is probably the most miss designed, or ignored, element of an expedition vehicle I see. Some builders will include large/tall gear lockers on the back of a camper and no way to get to them (or no way to access 80% of the locker-the upper 80% of the gear locker). Yes, a bed step has been used by some prominent builders in the past, but try using a single drop down bed step that is 36-42" off the ground. Also try using said bed step when no handrail is present and while you are also holding gear in one of your hands.

I like to call these bed steps, marketing steps. They are great to look at, but functionally they are pretty much useless .

Sure, you can carry around a step ladder, but now you have to store and secure a step ladder. I personally don't have room for a large step ladder and I don't want to make room for a large step ladder. Step ladders also have very small step treads and are a Bee I t c H to use on uneven ground. Getting to the top of a bumper 36-42" off the ground, usually requires a very large step ladder. At that needed height and using a ladder with a realistic load capacity, you have probably moved into the 6' aluminum/fiberglass ladder category, not a step ladder category.

No thanks to all of this for me.

An aluminum two piece hinged ladder (like some use for their entry doors on Unimogs/larger box builds-internally mounted/stored), or aluminum scissors steps, were the only two clean and simple options I could find/think of. Each have their own pros and cons, but in the end, I decided on scissor steps for my specific application/needs. Even though I was going to buy a pre: designed and fabricated set of scissor steps, I still had to modify them in several ways to get them to work.

Nothing new or special; they've been around awhile.


Stripping them down and sizing them up for my needed mounting orientation and the associated modifications. This is how they will mount on the top of the bumper, vertically stacked.


Seeing all the ways I can get them to hinge with the factory bracket and wether I can use or modify the factory bracket.



As expected, ditch the factory mounting bracket and make a new one, make some new hinge arms, pull some of the factory hardware off, find replacement hardware, and figure out how to secure and lock these to the top of the bumper. OH, don't forget to start another material and hardware list for everything. Let's not mention the number of phone calls I had to make and the number of parts I purchased and returned to get all of this dialed in .

 

[Vance Vanz]

Rear Bumper & Camper Assembly Design - Continued......

5. Spare Tire Carrier

There are simply no prebuilt options out there for a spare tire carrier that would have worked for my build. I might go as far as saying that they are only one or two prebuilt spare tire carrier options out there for larger 41-43" tires (Could be wrong). I would also add that the one or two available options are also very limited in how they can be mounted or used. You basically have to design your build around them, or start doing things to your design/build that you would otherwise not want to do in order to use them. I also saw some design issues with them that I was not willing to accept, even if they would have worked design/fitment wise with my build.

I guess what I'm saying, or information I'm trying to impart related to a spare tire carrier for a 41-43" tire is, be prepared to design and build one yourself from scratch (or have one built by a shop from scratch), or buy one of the two I'm speaking about and be willing to accept their design issues and fitment limitations.

Indulge me a few more minutes while I'm on my Spare Tire Carrier-information-sharing-soapbox , . Spare tire carriers are the second most overlooked, miss designed, element on an expedition vehicle (IMHO). Most people think of them as something that only needs to be used when there is a flat tire. I've heard countless people/builders (the top builders in the industry) talk about how infrequent they are used, or specifically that "They are only used when you have a flat and how often do you have a flat?" I find that this is the verbiage a builder often uses when someone (a potential customer/interviewer) is asking a legitimate and intelligent question about a significant design flaw related to the builder's spare tire carrier.

You don't just use a spare tire carrier when you have a flat. If you want your tires to last (those very expensive ones that don't last very long anyway), you also have to use your spare tire carrier every time you rotate your tires. You are going to be getting your spare tire carrier down every 5 to 10K miles (depending on how often you decide to rotate your tires). If you are also traveling the world, doing a multi-year trip, live in your rig full time, etc., this is a lot. For my/our trip, Alaska to the tip of South America and back, I'm guessing it will be about 90K miles round trip. At 5K intreval tire rotations, this is 19 times the spare tire will need to come down and go back up. Add one or two flat tires and we are at 20 cycles. I don't want to lift a 175-200lb tire manually and/or in manner that is unsafe 20 times. I also don't want to HATE rotating my tires. The task of rotating tires already sucks, and starting/finishing the the task with manually lowering and lifting a 200lb tire (especially in an unsafe/sketchy manner) can turn barely tolerable into intolerable.

Beyond these considerations, I also went to several campervan/overland expos this summer and was surprised/shocked at some of the spare tire carrier designs . A few so called prominent builders had tire carriers mounted very high on the camper that required complex arms and pulleys to be set up. There was no way to prevent the tire from hitting/rubbing the camper as it came down (or required two people to operate it). A few also had these same set ups and required the operator to get on the bumper to set them up and remove hardware (a bumper that was hard/not safe to stand on), or required you to stand on a 6' minimum ladder to set up the rigging/remove the hardware. This/these designs also required a second person to be standing on the ladder to pull/prevent the tire from banging/rubbing on the camper. I don't want myself or my partner under/around a 200lb tire hanging 8-10' off the ground, while also standing on a ladder and pulling/tugging at it. It's INSANE that someone thought this was acceptable. These were $550-650K builds, not just builds that were for sale, but also builds of customers that had already been sold/built .

Furthermore, I would love to have someone in the truck with me when a flat/emergency happens, always have a safety buddy, but what if I get a flat and I'm traveling solo. I guess I just say screw it and add some new pin stripes to the back of my $600K rig and call it good .

Alright, I'm done with my rant. It just sucks when the customers are often the ones who end up having to ultimately pay, pay twice or several times, for these oversights/design mistakes.

Let's move on to my spare tire carrier shenanigans.

My tire carrier will mount to the top of the bumper. It will be two pieces, have a back supportive frame and a inner/front frame. The front frame hinges within the back frame. The front frame will pivot down 90 degrees to lower the tire parallel with the ground. Once at a 90 degree, the spare tire (hardware) can be loosened from the front frame and then the tire can be lowered to the ground with an electric winch. It is similar to the general design of Shmearth Shmroamer.

I won't claim any credit/genius for the design. What I will say is, it was a time consuming son of a B to design. It looks simple, but there are a lot of details to consider that you would never even know about/ consider, unless you designed/built one yourself.

This is me working out the clearances for the inner/front frame hinging within the back frame-at the location of the bearings.


Hear is a front view of the stack for the hinge noted above. There are two of these hinge points/bearings for the tire carrier.


I'm starting to layout the inner frame, get the angles dialed in and consider what material I will use.


I'm now working out all of the angles for how the entire front frame will hinge within the back frame while being lowered down by the winch. This also includes the height the winch will need to be mounted on the back frame and at what specific angle it will need to be mounted on the back frame for everything to hinge properly while the winch line is guided on a sheave. This is when your head can begin to spin because there is a spider web of things you have to consider. When you change/adjust one thing, it changes just about everything else. This is also when I wished everything was already in CAD, although I still would have needed to make a to-scale-model regardless. Looks janky, butt it is getting the job done.


Hard to see, but this is the top of the tire carrier, where the winch mounts to the back frame and the location the spare tire carrier mounts to the front frame. It also shows where the winch rope guide sheave resides and how the Maxtrax mounting tube passes through the center of the spare tire carrier. This was also another head scratching complex design aspect of the tire carrier, integrating the removable Maxtrax mount to the front frame of the tire carrier, while making sure it seamlessly integrated with the spare tire.


Small Warn winch and marine grade sheave for the winch line. I'll be doing some minor re-fab to the winch.


Using the center plate from one of the wheels to get the mounting plate and backing plates dialed in for the spare tire. More FUN !


6. Maxtrax II Mount

Love me some cardboard. My shop vac and cardboard are the things I use most on the build. Templating everything so I don't miss something and can cut out as much material as possible on the Maxtrax mount to lighten things up.


7. Rear Ladder

Sorry, no pics for this. The only thing I'll share is that I researched all of the current/best aluminum ladder manufactures (most/all from the campervan world) and took the best design elements from all of them to create my own custom ladder. I had some unique and specific design limitations that I had to work within, so the result was what can be best describe as a one and a half ladder, or 1.5 ladder for short.

Imagine a single aluminum campervan ladder, we'll call it ladder One. Then imagine cutting the top half off of another/separate and same/similar ladder, ladder Two. Attach/weld the top cut off section of ladder Two, directly to the side of the top half of ladder One. Basically a side by side ladder, but only the top portion of the ladder is two side by side ladders and the bottom portion is a single ladder. Sounds odd, but this was the only way I found that would result in a strong and functional ladder for getting large, odd shaped and/or heavy items safely on and off the roof.

Once all of this is dry fit on the truck/bumper/camper, I'll take more pics of everything so it makes more sense and you can see everything in action/functioning.

The last thing I will share is it took 5.5 weeks to design all of this and another 2 weeks to get everything in CAD and all of the drawings ready for fabrication. I would have never imagined it taking 7.5 weeks to design and draw all of this, but it did. I'll let everyone else be the judge of whether 7.5 weeks is worth it, when everything comes back from fabrication and it is mounted on the truck/camper. Sadly, 7.5 weeks still doesn't include the time for dry fitting, final adjustments, powder coat and final install. BONKERS

 

[Vance Vanz]

Rear Bumper & Camper Assembly Design - Continued......

More hardware orders. Here is most/all of the hardware (and some small specialty parts) for the rear bumper & camper assembly. This required a ton of research and digging to find the specific items I needed.


Hopefully not, but I'm pretty sure that I will have missed some hardware item when it comes time for the final install ; it never fails. Or......., something will change ever so slightly and I'll need some random and obscure bolt, nut, washer, thrust washer...... and I will eventually have to make another hardware order .

Here are the most expensive bolts I have ever purchased in my life , about $45 a piece. Did I mention that I'm not a bolt guy; I don't need to be spending $90 on two bolts.