Coachgeo
Explorer
Well I'll be damn... another person called Jeep. Didn't expect to ever see that. Tis my family nick name for last 54yrs and going. Was my daily use name for first 18yrs but went to George when started college.
@Adrifters - F550 Surf Camper Build - Adrift Motorhome
- Thread starter S2DM
- Start date
Camper itself, with batteries, mattress, solar panels, and most of the internal furniture, is around 2500lbs. We are hoping the fully loaded finished weight will be between 13-14k. Heavier than I wanted, but thats to be expected with a prototype/one off.
I'm happy with the v10. Got 9.2 average mpg on my drive to Canada driving 75-80mph the whole way. I'm guessing it would have been better if Id gone 62, but that wasnt in the cards on a 2 day, 1800 mile sprint. Not spectacular, but not much worse than a comparable diesel rig either. I didn't regear, even with the 41's, so my effective gear ratio is around 3.7, which puts me at 2k rpm at 68 mph, and it still has some go left. It does work on hills, and you hear it. 3.5-4k rpm to maintain 65-70 on long grades. All said, I'd do it again. There are trade offs with the gas, and on long trips with lots of long grades, I'm aware of them. But for my purposes its a better choice.
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The basement is permanently attached to the camper. So it stays with the camper always, and has quick connects for mounting on the flatbed deck. All of the systems live in the basement and so are permanently hooked up. There will be a quick connect for alternator power, but I am not plumbing the camper into the trucks coolant system. I'm running a system that has a heatpump AC unit (9k btu heating and cooling) and a water heater that takes both hydronic loop and has a 750 watt element. There will be an unleaded powered espar d5 for the hydronic loop. The plan is to do most of the water heating and air heating and cooling with solar, and the espar will function as a heating backup when solar isn't plentiful enough.
pappawheely
Autonomous4X4
Very cool design. Can't wait to see the finished product. Keep the updates coming.
SDDiver5
Expedition Leader
Thats the next big project. The plan is to do a removable aluminum l profile, 1/2" flange that sits on top of the wall and then 2.5" face that lives in the area of overlap between the top and bottom boxes. Was thinking a combo of flap, bulb and brush seal. I decided to go the removable profile route because its probably going to take some experimenting to get it right and working in the 3/4" space between the boxes aint easy for my ham hands.
goofballracer
Observer
holy cow this thing is rad this is my dream build.