Kenworth K370 6X6 with BoxManufaktur Habitat & Torsion Free Subframe

[Alloy]

How are you planning on installing the tubing on/in the floor and are you thinking of a floor covering that provides some thermal mass? I have been casually trying to find light weight alternatives to products like gypcrete but haven't come across anything yet.

Ultra-light mixes use different filler materials to reduce weight. Fillers that increase the R value. As R Value increases it is harder for the floor to absorb & retain heat which reduces the thermal mass and makes for a wide variation in floor temp.

As thermal mass is reduced both the tube spacing (may result in more loops) and system temp should be reduced. This is not always done due to cost of materials and labor.

To increase the efficiency of lightweight systems aluminum is used.

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[DeAusten]

How are you planning on installing the tubing on/in the floor and are you thinking of a floor covering that provides some thermal mass? I have been casually trying to find light weight alternatives to products like gypcrete but haven't come across anything yet.

Ah, I was lucky enough to avoid that problem as the tubing in the floor is installed by BoxManufaktur at the time they build the box. They expose the ends of this tubing through a small cut out in the floor so that one can plumb hydronic to it. As to the material, I believe the floors are made of the same insulation material as the walls, just thicker, and containing a fair bit of aluminum for rigidity and mounting.

 

[DeAusten]

No but I have heard of a current GXV Kenworth owner who is planning an engine/transmission swap.

Any chance they’re on Expedition Portal? I’d love to know what engine/transmission they went for and why. In my limited experience so far, there aren’t many shops who are familiar with the K370, and as a result have been hesitant to recommend any sort of alternations to the engine/trans.

 

[DeAusten]

I have 4 x 330W Panasonic on the roof + another 4x330w portable. The portable don't get used much spring and fall because we park in full sun but they get used in the summer while parked in the shade and in winter.

There was room for 2 more 330W on the roof but I wanted a pathway to be able to tilt the panels and remove branches that get stuck under the panels.

With 3 different size panels won't you need 3 controllers?

I’m not an expert, so I may be wrong here. My understanding is that a single controller can handle all of the panels as long as they are wired appropriately in series/parallel to output the same voltage. In my case my system is 24v. I’ll need to do a bit more reading now after answering as I’m questioning my understanding a bit now ?

How did you decide on Panasonic panels over some of the other brands?

 

[DeAusten]

Love the build! I am doing something similar but with rear steering as well. Using a different platform that lets me have the X15 Cummins for a ton of power/torque - that was the one thing that stopped me from going K370. Curious how you end up getting more power from that engine. Seems doable.

Appreciate it! The PX-7 is just a cummins 6.7 with a less cool name. There are no shortage of modifications one can make to bump the power output on a 6.7. In my case, the Allison 2500RDS transmission is my limiter at ~600ft lbs of torque max. Of course, mentioning engine modifications when it comes to overloading is a good way to rile some feathers here. It's a slipper slope.

Do you have a build thread? Are you open to sharing more about your rear steering setup? I looked into rear-steer and came across the Tak4 T3 from pierce, but they only allow installs on their own equipment. I wasn’t able to make much headway beyond that.

 

[Alloy]

I’m not an expert, so I may be wrong here. My understanding is that a single controller can handle all of the panels as long as they are wired appropriately in series/parallel to output the same voltage. In my case my system is 24v. I’ll need to do a bit more reading now after answering as I’m questioning my understanding a bit now ?

How did you decide on Panasonic panels over some of the other brands?

It works if all you want to is wattage but it takes a toll on efficiency. Hard for MPPT controller to be efficient when is fed different volts/amps....add to this shading / clouds / start (cold weather) up.



Panasonic, LG and Sunpower were and still are all excellent panels.

At the time Sunpower were 15% more so I took those off the list.

The LG were all big 380w plus so fitting them on the roof was a squeeze.

The smaller Panasonic were heavier with a higher load rating than LG.

Panasonic panels had a Voc of 70V. No need to connect panels in series to keep the wiring at a reasonable size and portable panels connected in parrell can be used 1 at a time.

 

[gregmchugh]

Any chance they’re on Expedition Portal? I’d love to know what engine/transmission they went for and why. In my limited experience so far, there aren’t many shops who are familiar with the K370, and as a result have been hesitant to recommend any sort of alternations to the engine/trans.

Not on expedition portal. I sent you a message…

 

[driveby]

Wow. This seems to fit a few of our wants as well as needs. I shall be watching carefully

Good luck on the build out. No small task.

 

[DzlToy]

Call Scheid or Industrial Injection about building your 6.7L Cummins and call SunCoast about building your Allison. The engine will reliably produce 500 HP and 1000 foot pounds and a properly built transmission will take that all day long. Use top notch parts, vendors and fluids and your life on the road will be just that little bit better.

 

[DeAusten]

It’s been a little quiet as far as updates go lately, but last week was a pretty big step in the build process. The truck has arrived safely in Germany. Originally, the plan was to have the habitat shipped from BoxManufaktur to the U.S. but due to the global shipping issues we’re all currently experiencing, the cost to ship the habitat increased roughly 10X. Fortunately, the cost of RoRo vehicle shipping doesnt seem to have have been too heavily impacted it was significantly cheaper to ship the truck over to Germany and back via RoRo than to simply ship the habitat via freight, thus… the truck is now in at BoxManufaktur in Germany where it will have its cab extended, habitat fitted, and if budget allows.. a new paint job. The truck shipped out of Galveston Texas on September 21, 2021 and landed in Bremerhaven Germany on October 15th, 2021 So overall, shipping time wasn’t too bad. The process wasnt necessarily painless; and the quotes I received ranged from $2,000 on up to $8,900 dollars. Something I learned: there are only so many vehicle carrier…. So all of the quotes I received were for shipment towards the end of September out of Galveston. As a result, every quote I received was for the shipment aboard the same vessel, the Apollon Highway. That’s all to say, there is a lot of variability in the cost of these quotes from different shipping brokers and it pays to get a few because ultimately… your vehicle is likely going on the same ship given the same timeframe, port of export, and destination.

Attached are a few photos of the truck at BoxManufaktur getting some torsion testing done to ensure a flat surface for the habitat to be mounted to. In the photos there is roughly 10,000lbs of weight on the back of the vehicle.

 

[DeAusten]

Another big milestone in the build. The cab extension has been attached. This probably seems like an odd addition, but the K370 is only sold in a day cab configuration which leaves very little room for anyone other than the driver to get comfortable while the truck is in motion. I’ve seen a few extensions on K370’s from GXV here in US but as I didn’t go with GXV, that option wasn’t available to me :/ I also spent quite a bit of time talking with Kenworth about having them extend the cabin themselves as their sister company DAF sells the same cabin in extended version under the DAF LF badge. Ultimately that ended up being a dead end as well. I’m pretty excited with how the extension has turned out so far, but of course I won’t really have a true opinion of it until the truck is back in the states.

 

[DzlToy]

You could have bought a sleeper cab from a breaker in the EU that is LHD and swapped everything over.

 

[DeAusten]

You could have bought a sleeper cab from a breaker in the EU that is LHD and swapped everything over.

Unfortunately it's not that simple. Sure, I could have purchased a cabin and had it shipped to the US, and I intended to do this originally.. but then I'd be subjected to all of those above mentioned insanely high ocean freight rates you know?

My vehicle is currently temporarily imported into the EU and will need to clear US customs again on the way back home... so I can't just swap the original cabin for a non-US DAF sleeper cabin and ship it back to the US. ALL of the US DOT stickers and tags US customs uses to verify the make and legality of a vehicle are affixed to the original cabin. Customs would reject the vehicle immediately. Further complicated by the fact that the VIN on the cab and the frame would not match, and the VIN would pull back a DAF vehicle less than 25 years old.

 

[DzlToy]

All true, hence the big laughing face after my post.

Cheers

 

[Simonroadtrip]

Nice truck and thanks for the sharing. What is the reason for you to not choose Acela truck? Recently I am thinking about buying Acela Monterra 4X4 and Bliss Mobil to create my expedition vehicle. I didn’t find any problem on Acela except the 8.5 MPG.