f150 Sleeper

[Kottonwood]

Hey all,
Cool forum ya got here. Figured I'd introduce myself and my truck at the same time. I am Kottonwood Jones, I am currently in San Diego and headed south.

My rig is a 2007 f150 with enough miles to be broken in real good. Heres the stats.

Base:
2007 f150 4x4 5.4l with 373 limited slip

Suspension upgrades:
leveling kit, add a leaf, 33" discover at3, moog ball joints

In the cab:
Dog bed in back, removed center console for kicker solo baric and a digital safe, two amps, removable 6x9s that can hang on the roof rack, 1500 watt inverter.

In the back:
me currently.... also Are topper, rv vent with fan, auxillary battery, Refrigerator, Mounts for shovel, axe, tomahawk, and silky saw, custom bed frame with 48x78 mattress, 40 gallon expansion fuel tank with custom gravity feed system, 40 gallon water tank (a little overkill), tools, and enough survival and adventure gear to make Bear Grylls wanna drink a steaming mug of his own piss (I am pretty sure that's how he celebrates)

In the tool boxes
Kitchen/food, hot and cold water system with thermostatic control (heat exchanger under hood), 3 stage water filtration system, water pump, fuel fill for auxillary tank and water fill.

Outside:
homemade custom winch bumper with smittybilt winch and led lights wired to brights, homemade aluminum roof rack with 100 watt solar panel and large led light wired to switch in the cab, some fancy bedliner in all the right spots, and stupid chrome rims that I hate.

What I would like to do in the future if I ever get back to the states:
Awning with three walls would be real nice, uniball upper ball joints (camburg), fox shocks, 4bt swap

Anyways here is the pic I got for now, I'll add more when it is not the middle of the night in a home depot parking lot (yay for free wifi at home depot though!)

Keep it real folks

-K

 

[east_tn_81]

Very. Nice truck. How do those Moog ball joints work for you?

 

[ttravis5446]

That seems like an awesome setup. That commercial topper looks really cool.

 

[WAND3R3R]

f150 Sleeper, It's great to see another ARE cap in use!
-AK

 

[Raul B]

great looking truck... any way you can post a better picture of the roof rack? i have a ARE topper on my truck as well and im looking for a good rack to put on it. how did you mount it?

 

[Kottonwood]

Roof Rack

Here is the rack right after we built it. I just welded 2x4x1/4 aluminum strap underneath to mount it. It raises the rack off to clear everything it needs to on the topper as well. I just drilled through the strap and the aluminum supports for the topper and bolted it through. I coated it in silicon to keep it sealed. It came out nice... about two hundred bucks in aluminum but I probably went a bit thicker than I needed to. After i bought it I looked at the topper and realized the whole thing was constructed in aluminum about half the thickness of the stuff I got. no noise at speed though, works great. I have my spear gun, some poles, my archery target, and a 50lb bag of gear up there now. I just use a bungee cargo net to strap it all down. I've been blasting through mexico at 90mph for the past couple of days and no issues.

 

[Kottonwood]

If you look you can see the mounting tabs on the two center struts. The only issue is whacking my head on the bolts that slightly stick through the topper.... dammit.

 

[Kottonwood]

@ wanderer
nice, I checked out your topper and we have the exact same setup. Tool boxes on the drivers side and the three windows. I like the protective grates you have on yours though, that could come in handy. I just coated mine in security film. I picked this topper up on craigslist about 2 years ago for 300 bucks, best deal ever. This is the second truck I have had it on. It even came with all the lights..... sweet.

@east
So far so good with the moogs. I just installed them a couple of weeks ago. I was going over my truck for a final pretrip inspection and noticed the slightest wobble, over 100k on the original ball joints. I decided it would be good to just do em now instead of busted down in a desert or jungle somewhere. A friend recommended the moogs, I probably would've gone stock... hopefully he steered me in the right direction.

 

[Raul B]

that thing is sweet.... i have been wanting to build one for a while and i have not been able to come up with a way to mount it to the cab without buying thule cross bars to mount it on. here is my build thread so you can see what i have done to my F150 so far if your interested http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/119901-F150-overland-build

 

[Kottonwood]

Ok so I am chilling in an internet cafe and I am a about half cocked from sitting on the beach drinking tecate for most of the day so I figured I would post up some more pics.

This is how I spent my last day in the US, in the home depot parking lot tearing my whole truck down to replace a solenoid valve that crapped out on me.

Luckily I met this guy, his name is Esa (from finland) and he makes the best damn valves ever. They are electronic controlled ball valves MUCHO MEJOR, anyways he is in san diego, he has the best customer service EVER! and you will not likely find a regular ball valve cheaper than his. So if you need valves, call ehco at 619-300-2380 NOW!!!!! He is also valves4projects on ebay, that's how I got him. Make sure you call if you need something though, he has many things not listed on his ebay account.

Here is the valve

And installed

 

[Kottonwood]

So here is a little more on my fuel system

Basically it feeds down into a T that goes into the main tank fuel fill up

When you flip a switch in a cab the valves open and you watch the fuel gauge go up. Once it hits full you flip the switch back.

You have to connect the vents as well, I also added a soleniod valve here in case there are minor pressure differences

So once I got all that back together I threw the bed and fridge back in and got going!

 

[Kottonwood]

Ok last one, here is one of my front bumper, built in my buddies driveway. I think it came out pretty nice but obviously I need to figure out a better way for mounting the fog lights.

And here I am this morning on the road from caborca to puerto lobos mexico.

 

[Kottonwood]

Ok.... really the last one this time.

I just thought I would show you guys my next mod. I saw this sweet lift kit when I was in puerto lobos, I just GOTTA do this to my truck

 

[Rovertrader]

nice of the builder to keep the front bumper at a safe height!!

 

[Kottonwood]

So I figured I would post up some pics of my water system. I have most of it set up in the side tool box, the exchanger is under the hood. I have a ten plate and it is plenty for the hot weather, I haven't tried it in the cold but I imagine it will be fine. The water gets hot enough to make tea when it is 90 out. There is still plenty of room in the tool box to store the hoses, my hygiene gear, dog bowl, a shower tarp, some tools, and more. There is a 1.8 gpm pump, which seems to be plenty, 3 stage filter w/ uv light, and a hot and cold water thermostatic mixer, which protects from scalding. I have a valve manifold set up so it either goes to the mixer or through the filter so I am not unnecessarily filtering water. Also there is another manifold which allows me to draw from a water source and into the tank simply by connecting a hose or it draws from the tank in the truck. There is also a 2 inch fill neck with cap, which is my most common way of filling up, usually at gas stations. So far this has been working out quite nicely for me. The forty gallon tank is probably a bit overkill so I don't fill it all the way when I am offroad, however if I am doing mostly highway it sure is nice to not have to worry about water use and not have to fill up frequently.