Exceptionally Cheap Raising Roof Slide-In Camper (like FWC Grandby shell); Portland

[mhiscox]

For most of their time in business, Four Wheel Camper, Alaskan and others aluminum camper manufacturers competed with the Roamin’ Chariot Company of Spokane, WA. Though their campers had merit, Roamin’ Chariot seems not to have made it through the Great Recession. I have one, however, acquired a year ago from an owner here in Portland.



It’s very similar in size and shape to the shell version of the FWC Grandby, with the main difference being a roof that lifts across the rear rather than at all four corners.



It weighs less, too, about 600 pounds versus 975 for the current Grandby. (You can, BTW, check out the Granby specifications at http://www.fourwh.com/four-wheel-popup-truck-camper-empty-shell-model-pricing-worksheet.pdf.)

I personally much prefer the RC’s easier-to-wrangle roof (it literally takes 20 seconds up or down), and the lighter weight lets you stuff a lot of things into and around it without exceeding GVWR.

But perhaps the outstanding feature of my camper is that it’s FREE to a good home. I have a set of composite panels coming for a new cabin build and this camper needs to go.

The cabin fills an 98” longbed or, more commonly these days, sits in a 6.5-foot bed with the tailgate dropped. The cabover section adds another 42 inches. It’s a bit less than 6.5 feet wide. The drop-into-the-bed section is 20” deep, so if you have a shiny new truck with deeper bed walls, you’ll need to build a support platform under the floor.



There’s a decent thread on Wander the West that shows the camper in action: http://www.wanderthewest.com/forum/topic/7405-new-roamin-chariot-on-my-tundra/

and a blog mention of camping out of one: https://truckpopupcamper.wordpress.com/2015/01/22/roamin-to-arizona/.

Additionally, web searching for images of “Roamin’ Chariot camper” will get you about four rows of helpful images. You should look them over to help decide how my unit might suit you.

And, in what you have to admit is bizarre coincidence given the relative rarity of these, a new member just put his Roamin’ Chariot up for sale as his first contribution. I found it when I logged on to start this thread. His ExPo post just links to the Craigslist ad: https://reno.craigslist.org/for/6162195727.html. The Craigslist ad has some additional photos, so worth looking at.

I’d like to gift this to someone with a suitable truck who would go out adventuring if only they had a sizable cabin. If you have a truck and some travel in mind, glom onto this.

If you want to flip it, or have it for when you get a truck someday, or think it’d be a good playhouse for your kids, that’s cool, too, but give me a week or so to see if anyone with a current need can profit from it. Same if you want to it to pluck off the fully-functional roof/fabric assembly for an E-Series roof conversion or use the doors/windows, etc. for a cabin build. It’s fine with me, but let’s first be sure there’s no better and higher use.

The camper has to be picked up at my house on the west edge of Portland as I’ve no way to deliver it. I can stretch to keeping it around until the end of June, though ASAP is preferred. If you are in the immediate area, I’ve no objection to having you arrange to take a look in person. And if you’re not from the area but are going to NW Overland Rally and want to pick it up coming or going, that’ll work, too.

You’d be given a Bill of Sale with the camper’s serial number. In Oregon, light truck campers without facilities don’t need to be titled, registered, licensed or insured. This is generally perceived to be an sizable advantage to a shell camper, though it’ll be different if you’re from another state.

The camper comes with a dolly to move it around on which you can take with you or not. It works fine except for one of the Harbor Freight wheels refusing to retain air, making the first step in moving the camper getting out an air pump. It also has two camper jacks to get it in and out of the truck bed. These jacks work okay, but it’s a tedious process and seems pretty old fashioned. If you were going to take the camper in and out a lot, you’d probably want to get different jacks.



There should be nothing tricky about fetching the camper. I’ll be able to help you get the camper into a properly-prepared pickup bed to transport it, or it’ll also travel fine on an open trailer or inside a 12 foot box van. At 600 pounds, it’s pretty easy to move around on the dolly.

If you are a good candidate for this freebie, please send me private message by clicking my screen name in the upper left. You don’t need to post to this thread that you sent a message; I’ll get notification of it as soon as you send it and I will reply promptly.

Ideally, you won’t just send a message saying, “Hey, I’ll take your camper.” Try to provide some mention of the truck you have and what you might do with the camper. I’m not looking for an essay, but if multiple people want to have this, I’d like enough information to be able to make an informed choice.

What’s that? You’d like to know a bit more about the camper? Okay, I can see that. Carry on to the next post.

 

[mhiscox]

It's possible this Roamin' Chariot camper is nearly fifty years old:



but it has almost certainly received a major renovation fairly recently. The upholstery on the cushions is little used,



much of the wood on the interior is quite nice,



and the blue vinylish fabric on the roof sides has modern-looking white big-toothed plastic zippers for the openings and no rips, tears, or significant wear,



There are a few pinholes where you can see sun through if you look, but I'm quite sure they don't leak. And the bungees that suck in the tent fabric when closing (best at this I've ever had) can't be very old. Plus the roof goes up and down great, so the assist struts must be fairly new.

The cabin can sleep up to four people. The crosswise bed in the cabover section is about 39 inches by 74 inches long, but there is an additional support bedboard that pulls out to the double the size making the total bed about 78 inches long by 74 inches wide, basically king size.



And there are two six-foot benches, each of which would sleep a person bow-to-stern. The only shortcoming is that those benches are not very wide—a bit less than two feet—though it would be easy enough to hinge a board to flip out to make it wider. Alternately, one or two people could sleep crosswise by putting a board across the aisle between the two benches.



Additionally, there's a removable table that goes on a pole in a mount at the front of the cabin floor. That table could be lowered to be supported on the bench edges and make a nice wide bed for one person.

The Reno Craigslist ad mentioned in the previous post has useful photos of the bed pulled out and the table mounted, so look at that link if it's still valid.

The camper has an exterior power connection for electrical that goes to a pair of 120V duplex outlets located on the front side of the curbside cabinet. There's also a bracket to hold a 20 pound propane tank with a hose that runs into the cabin.



And at the front of the cabin, there's a 12-volt detachable connectors to supply battery power (either from the vehicle battery or a separate battery) to the cabin.



The 12 volt wiring powers a ceiling fluorescent light and a smaller light on the rear curbside cabin wall.

Two cabinets provide substantial storage space, though they don't have any shelves in them and look like they should have. There's also floor space under the streetside cabinet, which is a couple of inches deeper and you could store an appropriate-sized potti under it.



The cabinet tops can be used for cooking surfaces; in fact, that's the likely place you'd use a portable stove.

There is also storage space under the benches on each side. The spaces are covered by thin sliding doors. These are not deep, however, about 6 inches. So it's a good space for storing a collection of petrified snakes or plumbing pipe, but it wouldn't hold duffles or storage boxes.



These spaces would, however, be a good place to aggregate electrical and plumbing systems, as there's room to bolt in modest chargers, inverters, panels and water pumps. Also, the front of the bench tops have hatches useful to access things in the pickup bed.

The windows are in good shape and there are no problems with the seals. The sizable window in each lower cabin side is fixed (understandably, since they are behind the “sofa” backrest cushions) while the shorter windows higher up slide open and have screens. The triangular windows in the roof section (one on each side and one at the rear) are sizable and backed by mesh.

The rear door works fine and has a window and a screen door. It's plenty wide, and about five feet tall. That's plenty high to get in if you pay attention, though not nearly high enough if you don't.

As stated in the previous post, the only dimension that might be at issue is the 20 inch height of the slide-in part, which may prove lower than the bed rails, leaving the cabin floor unsupported by the bed. Not hard to work around, but worth knowing.

Sounds pretty good so far, doesn't it? Carry on, then, to the next post to find out why this isn't worth as much as a $11,995 a new FWC Grandby shell costs. (Spoiler alert: It's not just because there's no Woolrich Edition.)

 

[trailscape]

Wow, that is really cool.. If I weren't so far into building up my commercial topper I'd be down for a road trip.

 

[fireball]

FREE is indeed exceptionally cheap!

Very nice of you Mike.

A quick story: I took my wife on a 5 day off road trip through VT and NH when she was 7 months pregnant and we slept in a Coleman ground tent. On the last night, during a heavy thunderstorm with a leaking tent she laid down the law and said that if I ever wanted her camping again, especially with a baby, I would get her something she could stand up in! We traded in the Coleman insta-tent for a flatbed trailer and Hawk pop-up camper. We LOVE our FWC and got out 30 nights last year.... the quick and easy setup and standing room made for some very nice trips with Mom and Baby. I encourage anyone who might be in a similar situation to go grab this quick!

 

[Nomads365]

Cool offer, hope somebody snags it for a build and actual overland use.

 

[mhiscox]

I've got a problem with all connecting to the Portal forum. Don't know why, I've tried multiple computers and home networks. Other sites are fine. WTH? I'm sitting at McDonald's using their Wi-Fi, and me typing on a phone isn't pretty.

Regardless, there's a list of issues with the RC I'm trying to post. Until it appears, don't get excited, and if you sent a PM, I'll get back to you as soon as I can get to the site.

Always something, huh?

 

[mhiscox]

Story continues . . .

AARRGH!

I'm at McDonald's with a different computer with a real keyboard using their wi-fi. I just spent half an hour typing up the last section, hit "Submit Reply" and got this, which is the same message I've gotten every time I tried it before:

[h=1]Internal Server Error[/h][FONT=&quot]The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@forum.expeditionportal.com and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]More information about this error may be available in the server error log.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

[/FONT]

 

[mhiscox]

Yeah, OK, color me confused. When I submitted the error message, it attached the photos that were supposed to be in the third section which didn't post.

I'm losing patience, and my burrito is cold, but let's use the attached pictures in conjunction with the text, leaving it to the reader to figure out which photo goes with the text.

OK, DID THAT AND GOT THE SAME ERROR, SO NOW I'LL TRY LITTLE SHORT SEGMENTS . . .

=============

All in all, this Roamin' Chariot camper is a useful piece of gear and for anyone with a suitable pickup, I can't imagine that it wouldn't serve a whole lot better than a canopy or roof top tent. It's obviously not perfect, though, which is probably not surprising given the cost (or lack thereof).


There is no impediment to using the camper as is. Most flaws it has are cosmetic and repairable by someone who cares, but I suspect most people would just live with them. Consider it patina. (It would, BTW, be the perfect acquisition for someone looking to buy an older pickup like they have sell days on Bring-A-Trailer. It came off of an older Ford Camper Special


Photo

 

[mhiscox]

OKAY, THAT WORKED. HERE'S SOME MORE . . .

. . . and looks pretty good to my mind on a truck of that vintage.) I also like the windows, both for their ventilation and the amount of light they let in.

Photo

But in spite of the fact that it cleaned up real nice and is pretty much ready to go, I'm really trying to avoid having someone sign up to get the camper and then decide it doesn't meet their standards so that I have to start over. Hence this elaborate description.

There are a handful of minor dents in the aluminum exterior. They don't show up well on photos, so I didn't bother chronicling them. They're not ugly. What is ugly is a fairly major dent on the rear of the roof.

Photo

This dent was enough to make the roof sit catawampus (possibly the first time I ever typed that word) and there is a half-inch gap between roof panel and camper on streetside while there's only about two hair's clearance on curbside. However, the important thing is that there is enough clearance, so the dent makes no operational difference and has not caused a leak.

There's rust on lots of the screwheads, though it's not particularly noticeable. But the two latches at the rear of the cabin that hold the roof closed are larger and could stand to be painted to cover the black “converted” rust that was on them.

 

[mhiscox]

CONTINUED . . .

The vinyl floor is kind of ugly and stained. It's solid, though, so attaching twenty dollars' worth of peel-n-stick tile or carpet would solve that.

As mentioned, much of the interior wood is really handsome, but the two cabinet doors would look better if refinished.

The camper came with only an uncovered foam pad as the cabover mattress and it didn't seem worth saving (especially since I'd have preferred sleeping on an inflatable pad regardless). So you need to supply something to sleep on.

There are a couple of broken plastic teeth along the top curbside edge of the triangle window in the rear of the roof. This keeps the window from closing totally, but it's nowhere close to enough of a gap to leak.

Photo

The biggest downside is that the previous owner clearly had a leak at the front of the cabover section. He/she dealt with it solely by slathering silicon sealant all over everything that could possibly be in the path of the leak. I've cleaned a lot of it up on the exterior, but there's some residue that makes the area a little groady.

Photo

We got most of the sealant off and removed enough trim to learn what was going on. The problem was that several rivets along the top front edge of the cabover section had rusted out, allowing a thin gap. This gap let enough water in to rot out part of the front edge of the cabover bed's supporting structure and discolor some of the wood.

I'm could have fixed the leak, but not in the "right" way. Here's what's up . . .

I couldn't find anyone half my size who also did carpentry to crawl into the far front edge, so the height of the cabover area is too short to work in to do a comprehensive fix of the lower front wall and front edge of the floor. One particular negative is that the PO goobered a giant bead of sealant along the front joints that I can't reach, and I also can't reach to get the boards for redoing the floor right up to the front edge.

The right way to fix everything is to peel back the front aluminum so you go in from the front and fix everything and then reattach the aluminum. The not-as-good fix is a piece of cake: Remove the screws and rivets along the top and upper side edges of the leaky panel, use Sikaflex or similar to both seal and adhere the aluminum to the wood structure and then put in new screws to hold it while it dries. Then reattach the moldings that cover the screws. Put in a new piece of finish plywood for the cabover floor, but live with the front and side wood the way it is.

Photo

The problem with the easy fix is that it is pretty much permanent, and would preclude later going in from the front to make the elegant repair. So while it was easy, I didn't want to do it knowing I was passing it on to another person who might prefer the more complete approach.

The bottom line is that if someone wants the cabin, they can tell me whether they'd like me to seal the leak and close everything back up or leave it open for them to fix later. The first choice would result (I'm almost certain) in a non-leaking cabin, but with about ten lineal inches of rotted boards still in the front of the floor structure, the crude bead of sealant, and some ugliness around to the lower edge of the front interior wood.

Obviously, I can answer other questions that might come up, as well as take some more photos. Overall, though, a potential “buyer” wouldn't be wrong to figure that they'd have a “good” camper with no work or an “excellent” camper by adding maybe $100 and 10-20 hours of work.

I know it's bizarre to have provided this much detail for something that I'm giving away, but I really want people who might want it to follow through and not back out once they see it.

In summary, it's credible, it's useful, it's available and it's free. If you'd provide the proverbial good home, let me hear from you with an E-MAIL.

 

[mhiscox]

Geez, what a struggle. After 3,000 some posts, you'd think I knew how to do this. Apparently there's some issue with me using the "Go Advanced" and "Reply" techniques; I seemed to have this success (if you can call it that) using the "Quick Reply" box.

In any event, sorry for the goofy layout. If things start working for me again (as they have for like, ten years) I'll report that, but in the meantime, send me e-mails if you have questions or want to maybe get this.

 

[givemethewillys]

I want this very much. Unfortunately, Virginia is nowhere close to Portland! I definitely commend you on giving this away to a good home, I'm positive that you'll find someone to take it away and make good use out of it.

 

[josephjimenez]

Mike, this is EXACTLY what I've been looking for! I have a full size 1994 Ford F150 with an 8 ft. bed. The truck is too good to let go and since I've retired I've wanted to hit the road but I could find a camper simple enough to use and affordable for me. While I kept looking, I've had the suspension, transmission, differentials and engine on the truck rebuilt - waiting the right camper.

I recently went with a friend on a mad dash to Bonners Ferry, Idaho, to pick up another RC for him. He now has two! While cooped up in the cab for the dash to and from Idaho, he told me all about Roamin Chariots and sold me on them.

My plan to to travel the country and stay with my Vietnam vet brothers. I've planned a trip across the U.S. with stops at their homes. They don't know that yet, but after a few beers, they won't mind.There's only a few years left for some of us and we're trying to stay connected as much as we can. My wife and I recently signed up for senior lifetime passes to federal parks, and the free one this year for Canadian parks. We're looking for road trips without the high cost of motels or using much of my retirement in a lifetime investment for fancy camper that I don't have the time and patience to learn how to use.

I live in Seattle. Getting to the west edge of Portland is a short drive down I-5. I would give this RC a good home. and with the help of my fanatical Roamin Chariot friend, all the attention it should have.

Your RC would feel right at home on my truck. Call and I would be there in a few hours! I'm new to forum. How do I reach you with email?

 

[mhiscox]

OKAY, FOLKS . . . Hit the PAUSE button for a couple of days while I work with the prospective owners I've heard from so far to see what'll work for everyone.

I'll be back here within a couple of days to either tell you the camper has a potential new home or that I'm still looking for an owner.

I appreciate the interest. It's a nice camper and I'm pleased it looks like there'll be someone to make good use of it. Thanks.

 

[Haf-E]

Ok - I was going to send a message to a buddy in Portland about this camper - but that last message is way more justified in getting the camper than my buddy is...