My FGB71 build

[BigSkyBrad]

It's finally happened - as of three days ago, we are homeless and on the road! Chucked in our jobs, sold the house and put everything into storage, and the exciting (and daunting) future lays ahead of us, til we 'run out of money and luck' (line from Jerry Reed/Elvis Presley's Guitar Man).

It'll take a bit to get used to the idea that we are unemployed (early retired?) and travelling, rather than a couple of weeks away and back to the grindstone.

We've tucked Fergus (the Fuso) into a quiet wee spot we've known about for some time, and we'll probably stay here for a week to decompress, then start to Ramble On (Led Zeppelin). We'll re-do Scotland for the -nth time (at a much slower pace this time) over the summer and autumn, then probably venture into southern Europe to catch some winter sun.

Systems observations so far? Running the inverter to power the kettle, toaster, laptop, washing machine, etc hasn't had us drop below 90% - thats purely off summer solar. Yet to cook in the 1300w bench-oven. Things will change in the winter, but that will be compensated by B2B charging when we're moving on. Both of us having two navy showers a day, washing dishes, flushing the loo, three loads in the washing machine, etc (being careful but not miserly) looks like we have a week's worth of water on board (300 ltr). Our limitation is the capacity of the cassette toilet, so we're glad we have two cassettes to last us the same as the water.

 

[SkiFreak]

Livin' the dream...
I'm definitely envious.

 

[eg23]

Congrats!!!
Have an amazing adventure!!!
All the best and safe travels.

 

[kerry]

That campsite is idyllic. All it needs to complete the dream is some Scottish fog and rain. .

 

[Wazak]

Nice Spot Brad, I haven't found that yet!
We've just had a Month in Scotland and will be definitely going back up there come October for another month or so.

 

[BigSkyBrad]

Random park-up pic. Two nights here, on the Mull of Galloway, first night was driving rain and 30mph winds, felt like we would be swept off the cliff in our sleep!

 

[Curtis in Texas]

I've got to say that is one impressive build Brad. I've followed it from the start, but never found the time to post up. I really like the interior as it doen't look so Clinical/ Dr's Office'y.

I've been shopping aroud to find an FSR here in the USA that I can convert to 4WD. Hoping to build either a 20 or 24 foot box. Wife is spoiled with my 36' Class A I have, so I don't think I can get her into anything much smaller.
And I don't plan on doing any extreme off roading. More just dirt roads and unimproved roads to the good trail heads. I've got a Rock Crawler Rig I"ll be flat towing for the knarly stuff.

Anyway, I'm going to show off your videos to the Wife and prep her for a down size.

You guys ever get to the USA, do plan on dropping by if you find yourselves in North Central Texas. I've got a full size shop, all the tools you will need and hook ups for 3 campers. in both 120 V 30Amp and 240 V 50 Amp. And a dump station!
If you need to do some upgrades or refits I'd be happy to help. I retired early too! So I've got time!

 

[BigSkyBrad]

@Curtis in Texas An F-series is a big rig with a decent donk, it will tow well, and take the 6.1-7.3 metre box you're talking about. Our box is 4.2 metres externally, so everything is compromised to get everything in we wanted. The extra 2-3 metres should be enough to sway your missus!

I had to Google 'flat towing', though I thought I knew what is was - in NZ we call it A-framing.

I could do with your invitation of workshop and hook-up at the moment, we are in the middle of a two-week breakdown. A long story, but the short version is we waited five days to get recovered from the middle of nowhere to my chosen workshop. Luckily we were able to limp-mode to a truck layby a couple of miles away, and we had enough food and water. The code reader in the dashboard said an injector failure, and the sump had started to fill up with diesel (overfueling injector?). Not good for a truck that's only done 11k miles, but well out of warranty. My 'chosen' workshop was far from any 1st choice, but it was better than my breakdown insurance company's choice. They are an Iveco dealership, my reasoning being the Iveco and Canter have the same engine. The only thing I worry about is them being able to get the new injectors coded in the ECU.

They said they could look at it within a couple of days, whereas the nearest Fuso dealer said it would be three weeks -not good when your truck is also your house! Well, it's been over a week, and still not started due to slow parts delivery. We are down the hole for a week's Airbnb, and are now couch surfing at our son's 1-bed apartment while we wait.

Go van-lifing they said, it'll be fun they said! Not this month, it isn't.🥺

 

[SkiFreak]

That sux!

 

[Curtis in Texas]

Oh man that's hurts just to read it. If you were close we'd figure out how to drag that to my shop and get you going. And I have a few Diesel Mechanic Buddies that could help get it repaired.
Plus, I have a Nephew who is the Parts manager for a Large Commercial Truck Dealership in Fort Worth TX, and he's a wiz at running down hard to find parts for me. And he's local! (within 25 miles of my shop)

Good to hear you didn't get a runaway turbo with all that fuel in the turbo.

I'm a fair diesel engine mechanic, as long as it's not one of those all computerized diesels. But I'm told the new trucks can do everything but tell what toilet paper to use.......

The wife and I have a guest apartment above our garage for out of town guest. We're used to having friends drop in and stay a few days while on cross country trips. That's why we have the dump station and all the different plug in's. So the invite is open should you find yourselves in North Central Texas. NW the Dallas ?Fort Worth Metromess!


I can see calling it A Framing!
In the USA it's referred to flat towing because all 4 wheel are flat on the ground.
My off road rig has a tow bar and air brake system that applies the brakes on the towed rig when I push on the RV's brake pedal. And it has a bar above the regular RV's brake pedal like the brake pedals on the rudders on an airplane so I can basically apply just the flat towed rigs brakes without applying the RV's brakes. Comes in real handy when running down steep grades where I'm going to need all the RV's braking power to stop at the bottom of the hill. Great for scrubbing off speed going long downhills.
So it's not an issue to drag behind us, and it's nice not to have to break camp just to run into town for groceries.

If I can get the Big Isuzu I'll build it with the ability to drag a seperate vehicle behind us. I already drive farther back into BFE now than most folks. (For you NZ guys BFE = Bum Fk Egypt! slang for= Middle of nowhere!)

 

[BigSkyBrad]

Just when we thought this breakdown couldn't get any ****************, the workshop have snapped off three of the injector clamp bolts in the head! The soonest they can get a stud extraction expert in to try to fish them out is five days away. Two of them are almost an inch down their holes.

We went to the workshop today to get more food and clothes out of the camper, as we have another week of accomodation to fork out for. The workshop was the nearest I could get recovered to, and I had hoped that they knew what they were doing, being that they are a main dealership, the Iveco F1C and Fuso 4P10 are the same engine with the same injectors, and they would have experience in removing them. The offending socket wrench was beside the truck - the first bolt had come out ok, so the second one snapping should have raised alarm bells and they could have swapped to an impact driver to shake the rest free.

 

[gator70]

Give us an update

 

[BigSkyBrad]

Finally got round to throwing together a build-finished video - only 6 months after the fact! Link down below.

It really hasn't been our year, we've almost spent as much time out of the truck as in it. A spate of electronic breakdowns were the cause, the bane of modern trucks - it became blatenly obvious why many choose old-school trucks as the base.

We finally got the injectors sorted after five weeks off the road, an absolute fiasco. However, the Iveco workshop that did the work couldn't recode the injectors because they didn't have Fuso Connect. I had to nurse the truck up north to a Fuso workshop (there's only three in Scotland) to get them to do the recoding. What I didn't know was that any ECU recoding that needs to be done on UK Fusos has to be done by Fuso UK. The workshop does the recoding work using Fuso Connect, but the actual 'save' on the ECU is performed by a tech guy at Fuso UK down in England who wifi-remotes into the Connect while it is plugged into the truck - and there literally is only one guy that does the approving, what happens when he is on holiday! Ridiculous.

To throw another spanner in the works, while driving to the Fuso workshop, the potentiometer in the fly-by-wire accelerator pedal decided to throw a wobbly. The truck went into limp mode, so I had to get recovered.

After all that was sorted, we were back on the road - but not for long. We knew the exhaust brake solenoid was faulty, but we were getting along ok without it. What we didn't realise was that the truck uses it to perform exhaust regenerations, both passively and actively. After the dash lit up with warnings, and the truck refusing to perform a roadside regen, we had to do a long motorway drive so that the engine could passively regen enough to drop the warning, and take it back to the Fuso workshop for another two weeks. I found a solenoid online for £350 (made by the same OEM manufacturer) and would have fitted it myself but was unsure if it needed to be coded on the ECU, so got the workshop to do the work. They would not let me supply the solenoid I found, they had to use one from Fuso UK for warranty reasons - £900! - for the same exact item, from the same Piersburg manufacturer! And to rub it in, the invoice after the work was done made no mention of recoding. If someone now asked me would I recommend a post-2012 Canter for a camper build, I'm very much on the fence about it after our experiences, even as a first-world-only camper.

Good news, the habitat side of things have been good, save for a dodgy Victron Orion B2B charger that is away on a warranty claim for pumping 14.8-14.9v into our lithium batteries, even though it is set at 14.4v.

We've been weigh-stationed fully loaded with full diesel and water tanks, us in the cab and all our gear inside on tour - 5500kg, leaving us with 300kg reserve on the front axle and 700kg on the rear. Very happy with that as it gives us the opportunity to add a small motorbike and rack. And at that weight we are averaging 19.2 mpg (16 mpg US) - of course aided by the fact that European trucks are electronically restricted to 90 km/h (56 ml/h). I'm thinking of adding a cab roof spoiler, in the hope that might improve the mpg a bit, because at the moment the front of the box is a bit of a brick wall.

 

[SkiFreak]

Hopefully all of your truck woes are behind you now; you have definitely had an over abundance of them.

 

[davep10000]

Great video update Brad, really sorry about your mechanical problems - hopefully thats the end of the woes, and you can get back to enjoying the van, and reaping all the work you have put into it.
We were lucky to have had the guided tour, and really enjoyed your company with a few beers, in our little woodland over summer.
You know you are welcome back to our little corner of Scotland anytime.

PS If you need space to work on the van to fit the bike rack, you are welcome to stay here and use my garage and tools (Not that your van will fit in it though!).