My next new build is about to start - V3 Explorer - Feedback from the group needed

[ski_bike_camp]

I fell off the grid a little. Too busy I guess. But, I have been busy finishing some things on the rig in preparation for a tour of SW Colorado ski resorts next week. 5 resorts, 5 days and 660 miles. We are going to live like gypsies from one parking lot to another.

So what's new ...

Titan XL Fuel Tank:

I had to drop the Titan XL fuel tank because the fuel gauge wasn't reading correctly and I almost ran out twice. Oops! The issue was the OEM fuel sender gets used for only the fuel level when the Titan tank is installed and the fuel pick is via a FASS sump and FASS fuel pump/filter. If the OEM sender is isn't rotated just right in the tank, it interferes with the FASS fuel sump hose and therefore gets stuck. Lots of fiddling and getting the position just right, problem solved.

Espar Heater Deisel Fuel Pickup:

I used a FASS pickup, which is a 5/8" tube and it didn't do far enough down into the tank. Basically if the tank was less than half full the pick-up tube emptied and it being such a large diameter tube the little Bosch pump couldn't overcome the airlock to feed the Espar furnace. I ordered a longer tube from FASS and it now sits approx 2" off the bottom of the tank which is roughly a 7-10 gallon reserve. I didn't want the heater to run the truck out of fuel

A heater data point, I ran the heater in Breckenridge for 3 days straight. It was going down to approx 4F overnight. I was able to keep the camper at 74F steady and used approx 1.5gal of deisel per day. The furnace underneath is a Espar D5 Hydronic with two air handlers and a hot water exchanger inside the camper. It is all part of a Rixen System.

Cubbies:

The covers for the cubby holes arrived for the back wall storage. They are sunbrella. A note on this ... I really tried hard not to create an sealed spaces where mositure could remain and eventually mold develop. The cloth covers allow everything to breath but keeps things from flying out of the cubby as I go down the road.

Redarc BCBD1240D:

I now have the house batteries connected to the truck for charging as I run the engine. I opted for a Redarc unit from Australia. I ordered in the US from eTrailer.com. The unit basically simplifies and improves the charging of the LiFEP04 batteries.

I have attached some new pictures of the interior.

 

[ski_bike_camp]

Some picture of us in the desert for a mountain bike weekend ...

BTW: We hit a deer on the way home at 70mph. Buckstop bumper-1 Deer-0.

 

[DiploStrat]

Holy smokes man! Did the tire blow and then the nuts sheered or the other way around?

I did have a couple of lugs loosen off after a long highway trip. But, I figured that it was my fault for not getting them torqued tight enough.

BTW: My Stazworks rims have the gold grade 8 nuts/bolts holding the two halves together.

Bolts sheered, leading to explosive deflation. After that, found loose bolts on all of the other wheels. Had to keep checking every hour or so.

 

[ski_bike_camp]

Bolts sheered, leading to explosive deflation. After that, found loose bolts on all of the other wheels. Had to keep checking every hour or so.

What was your longer term fix? Locktite (which color).

I am glad you posted. I am going to check right away.

BTW: How many miles did you have on them before this happened?

 

[DiploStrat]

The solution was to limp into Terry Lee Associates in La Junta and convert the wheels into fire rings. The wheels loosened from the beginning. Here is the tale of the first repair. On this basis, I bought the truck, thinking that the problem was solved. The only solution is to throw the Stazworks wheels away. http://robinsonfuso.com/2017/05/15/day-24-post-overland-expo/
The NTHSA issued a recall for firetrucks with Stazworks wheels. These were on a Ford 550, a lighter truck than my Mercedes. The wheels are simply not safe.

Tried some MRAP/Stryker wheels but they were not round.

Final solution was Accuride wheels from Germany: http://www.expeditions-lkw.de/LKW-Zubehoer/

I used a company called Allways for the shipping. They were very responsive. Dan’s e-mai: dano@awis.us

On the Road, Again

This time our departure was rather rushed as we could not leave until the new wheels arrived from Germany. ( Thank you, Fabian!) They made it by the skin of their teeth and we drove to Baltimore …

diplostrat.net

 

[mk216v]

Some picture of us in the desert for a mountain bike weekend ...

BTW: We hit a deer on the way home at 70mph. Buckstop bumper-1 Deer-0.

Awesome build!
Great info on the deer strike. I see you have the quad 3.5x5" foglight openings in the Buckstop...are you using 4" Rigid's? (Rigid E-Pro in 4" are actually 2.7x5.2"; https://www.rigidindustries.com/e-series-pro-e-series.html )

 

[ski_bike_camp]

Awesome build!
Great info on the deer strike. I see you have the quad 3.5x5" foglight openings in the Buckstop, yet I haven't found many LED companies (ie Rigid, Baja Designs, VisionX) selling this size. What brand/model# are you using?

Here are a couple of pictures... Not a mark on the truck. I just had to scrub the rig clean again.

Lights are Rigid Industries. They sure light up the way in front. Crazy bright. Kinda of shows how dim/yellow the OEM regular headlights are. All four of mine are white. I didn't do the yellow/fog light option. Maybe I should have.

 

[calicamper]

More pictures - Stairs & Battery box

The stairs were heavy and royal pain to get mounted. But its done. Did it by myself, but it would have been easier with two other guys. Check out the fancy battery box with one of my Lithium Iron batteries. This is what happens when you have some left over carbon/foam panel. Kinda Gucci

View attachment 400299View attachment 400300View attachment 400301View attachment 400303

Nice. I know of a few sail boats with carbon heads thanks to left over materials ?

 

[mk216v]

Here are a couple of pictures... Not a mark on the truck. I just had to scrub the rig clean again.

Lights are Rigid Industries. They sure light up the way in front. Crazy bright. Kinda of shows how dim/yellow the OEM regular headlights are. All four of mine are white. I didn't do the yellow/fog light option. Maybe I should have.

Thx. Do you know if you have driving, driving diffused, flood, flood diffused, hyperspot or spot?...or a part number? From what I see on Rigid's **************' Viewpoint site, the driving diffused dump the most light right down in front of the truck. For my build, I'm thinking 4 of the amber, since I'll have a Rigid 30" E-Series bar on the bumper, and Rigid 50" E-Series bar on the truck cab roof.

 

[RAM5500 CAMPERTHING]

Beautiful work and great detailed write up!

Bravo sir!

 

[ski_bike_camp]

Thx. Do you know if you have driving, driving diffused, flood, flood diffused, hyperspot or spot?...or a part number? From what I see on Rigid's **************' Viewpoint site, the driving diffused dump the most light right down in front of the truck. For my build, I'm thinking 4 of the amber, since I'll have a Rigid 30" E-Series bar on the bumper, and Rigid 50" E-Series bar on the truck cab roof.

Floods on the outside and driving in the middle. No spots.

Sorry it took me a bit to reply, I had to figure it out.

 

[mk216v]

Floods on the outside and driving in the middle. No spots.

Sorry it took me a bit to reply, I had to figure it out.

No worries, thx John. I think I'll be trying the driving diffused in all 4.

 

[ski_bike_camp]

Well, the first official shake down cruise is in the books. But, not without some struggles ...

So, you don't have to go back to the initial post, the original idea of this build was to be able to chase the powder skiing, ride bikes wherever and sail/kite when there is salt water and wind.

I had a few must haves for the new build after 40K miles in the Sprinter Van.
#1 - Had to be able to keep it warm, 70 degrees plus all the time and even over night
#2 - Four wheel drive, don't get stuck and not have to leave early if the snow is coming down and the skiing is great
#3 - Dedicated bed
#4 - Fully off the grid
#5 - Indoor head

We planned 5 ski resorts in Southwestern Colorado in 5 days. Gypsying our way from one parking lot to another. Starting in Breckenridge, CO our first stop was Monarch and then followed by Crested Butte, Telluride, Purgatory & Wolf Creek.

What worked?

Most everything, but here are a couple of highlights.
- The Rixen Espar deisel heater provided a stable 74 degrees the entire time. We ran the unit non-stop for the entire trip burning approx 1.5gal of fuel per day. Fuel consumption didn't vary much even though we had a -18F day/night. The added benefit of the Rixen system is we get hot water too.
- Between the solar panel and the charge we got driving from one place to the next, we were able to run the furnace, fridge, magnum inverter, microwave, lights etc without a worry and never saw much decline. 360Ah of LifePo batteries, Radarc BCBD1240D and 360W SunPower 24v PV panel w/Morningstar MPPT Charge Controller.
- Because of the blackout shades and when we typically rolled into the resorts, no one bothered us at all and were never rousted out of our spot for the night.
- We got plenty of snow. There was never any issue getting stuck, driving although sometimes visibility was a little tough. We always felt safe.

What didn't?

All of these could have been avoided and would be included in the category of user error, but ...
- On the morning of our departure is was -18F. While the truck started fine and I let it warm up, it would go very far once we left the driveway. I guessed/diagnosed the issue to be gelling or wax in the fuel. Even though the recent fill was winter blend, we had an issue. The short term fix was a hot pail of water around the FASS filter and water separator and 15 minutes later the fuel pumped jumped to life. Later we added the 911 Additive to the tank as a precaution.

I changed to the Titan XL 55gal tank with the FASS system, the OEM pump might not have had the same issue since its' pump is in the tank. After talking to FASS, their diagnosis was that with many blends (even in winter) having a percentage of bio or organic fuels, wax becomes a problem. They had two recommendations. #1 There is a FASS heater option for those of us in cold climates. They have a ring system or heated probes. I am going with the ring system because it is 300w versus the probes at only 100w. #2 They like the Schaefer Arctic Shield additive best from all their testing.

- I hit a rock that came off the hillside. It was probably a 12" cube with sharp corners. I wish I had seen it sooner and I almost avoided it but, not so lucky. Sliced the sidewall of the Nitto TrailGrappler like it was butter and dinged the rim (pictures attached). BTW: Even with a blown tire the truck behaved very well driving and slowing down. Nothing crazy at all.

During the build I found this Humvee hydraulic jack, but once it came, it couldn't figure out where or how to store it given its size. (Its for-sale if anyone wants one). Consequently all I had was the stock Dodge RAM jack, which is little and not very stable. User error #1 - A lame jack. User error #2 - Not taking the spare off the back of the camper before we jacked everything up and removed the damaged tire. While struggling to get the spare off, I guess we shook the camper enough that it fell off the little jack and onto the wheel. After an iterative approach of jacking, putting rocks underneath the axel and re-jacking we did get the thing high enough and the new tire on. User error #3 - I had always wanted to have some kind of crane rig with a block & tackle to lift the spare on and off its mount. It took two of us all we had to get the spare up and back on the mount. 2 hours to change a tire on the side of the road in the dark and cold. A couple of big lessons leaned!

We picked up a 6 ton hydraulic bottle jack just in case and said our prayers.

More work to do before the next trip, but a promising first big shake down.

Thanks everyone for reading and letting me put it all in writing, so I could remember what to fix and not do again.

JV

 

[mk216v]

Thanks for sharing John. Sounds like everything worked damn well overall!

 

[RAM5500 CAMPERTHING]

Glad all is well and you're safe. We've all had tough learning moments, anyone that hasnt is a liar! Kudos and thanks for sharing!

What steps are those?

This thing came out saweeet