I am about to start on my expedition truck build on my 2007 Isuzu FTS 750 after years of ogling those big Euro Unicats etc ... I have more mundane underpinnings to begin with. It is a big truck, but not hard to drive, I live in rural Victoria , Oz, so I have been driving it through some tight dirt tracks ok, I don't expect to be climbing cliffs in it. Time and budget puts it at a five year plan, with suspension and super singles the big ticket items, also, the accomodation on the back will have to be very comfortable or "her indoors" won't be into my planned long term adventures. I welcome advice and constructive criticism. I will put up a pic when I work out how to.
FTS 750 build
- Thread starter Brenie
- Start date
whatcharterboat
Supporting Sponsor, Overland Certified OC0018
Hi Brenie ,
Welcome to the forum. Very good truck to start with. Big and strong and common enough to source parts for. Being Isuzu, many of the components are shared with other models too. A friend had one that had rolled over and picked up an entire cab for an FVR (same cab as FTS), full interior, airseats, headlights, etc, etc for around $5k. All I'm saying there is it's a good basic platform for an outback expedition vehicle....hell, the old FTS exactly like yours is still sold now as the current model in Africa!!!
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Suspension on them isn't too tricky if you can find a good spring works willing to tackle it. They don't have rear shocks and the front shocks are useless so dual Konis on each corner , from experience, is a great setup. Upgrading the springs is a specialist job but as long as you're not planning to convert to long span springs leave this job until after your camper build is completed and the vehicle is sitting at roughly it's final weight.
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Single wheels are easy.....ATW has a good conversion with 15" x 22.5" rims for that model that allow you to run 385 or 425 or 445 /65R 22.5"s. We run 385's on our bigger Isuzus on the beach with the ATW single wheel conversion done. We've got an '06 FSS 550 (similar to your FTS 750 but with lighter axles) and a current '14 FTS 800. Our opposition runs Hino GT's on 425's but at around 10 ton fully loaded I reckon the 385's are fine. If the trucks were heavier (and I really doubt an FTS camper would run much more than that) then you could look at 425's or 445's. Unfortunately there isn't a great selection of offroad/allterrain tyres in that size but a drive tyre like a Hankook AM02 is a cheap all round alternative. Of course there are plenty of even cheaper Chinese tyres on the market if the prices of common tyres sound scary.
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Look forward to you posting more up about your project.
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Regards John.
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steve4wdaus
4WDaus "tralia"
Sounds a great project Brenie. We have been with a group squeezing a Man truck down some of your Vic Highland Tracks. In some circumstances we needed to close the track so he didn't risk meeting someone coming the other way. The FTS should be a good size. Look forward to reading about your progress.
Regards
Steve
Regards
Steve
My shed is not tall enough to build inside, can't complain, I followed a build by one of our Commonwealth cousins in Canada (possibly on this site) as he built up a Unimog camper outside, mostly in the snow! My worry, is that the hot OZ sun tends to trash things left in it too long, thinking of getting a caravan cover for the cab. I am surprised that the tray is bolted straight on to the chassis, no spring mounts to flex! anyhoo, that's coming off, we'll flog that if we can.
Aussie Iron
Explorer
nick disjunkt
Adventurer
The tray will be pretty flexible itself and wont do much to restrain chassis movement
SkiFreak
Crazy Person
I agree, but when you mount a camper body onto the tray it will give it more structural strength.
When the wheels are articulated that tortional stress has to go somewhere. If you utilize some form of kinematic mounting system between the chassis and the subframe/tray then a lot less stress will be transferred into the camper body.
Have any of you guys added an external cabin air filter to your truck cabins system? I am trying to come up with a system to lightly pressurise the cabin to keep the dust out, I live on dirt roads and retro fitted a cabin filter to my VZ Holden ute, with the HVAC fan on when driving through the dust, it has made a lot of difference to the gradual dust build up inside the cabin.