The Bowman Odyssey Rig
- Thread starter LeftofLucky
- Start date
With our new government that will be a very long wait, we forecast 6-8 years before we even see a.85 cent dollar.
hadfield4wd
New member
Also living in the 'Noke!
kraven
Hegelian Scum
That just means it's a great time for Americans to explore the Labrador and tool around the maritimes, and the rest of super nice, clean, awesome Canadia.
Canada is pretty rad.
That just means it's a great time for Americans to explore the Labrador and tool around the maritimes, and the rest of super nice, clean, awesome Canadia.
Canada is pretty rad.
Absolutely! Eastern Canada is pretty spectacular.
LeftofLucky
Observer
Hey campers.
New Drive piece is up.
http://www.thedrive.com/article/2731/for-the-love-of-the-gulf
We left Gulf Breeze on Monday. We'd originally planned to aim for New Orleans, but our friend there had some drama crop up at the last minute, and we figured it was best to avoid the situation all together. Sooo, we went northwest. Stopped off in a couple of national forests in Mississippi, De Soto and Homochitto.
If I can offer one piece of advice for dealing with the Forest Service, it's call ahead. They aren't so great about updating information on their web site, and you never know when a campground will be closed. We ran into that Monday night. We'd originally planned to stop in at Cypress Creek Landing. Sure enough, the place was closed. Screaming toddler in the back seat, no cell service to find an alternative, etc. We wound up working our way back south to Wiggins until we could get someone on the line who could tell us what was open in the area. We stayed at Moody's Landing, which is little more than a pull off with four numbered sites. It was quiet, though, and the Black Creek runs right beside the campground.
From there, we jumped up to Homochitto, and stopped in at the Clear Springs campground. If you're looking at your map, you know that the two aren't far apart. We've found that while kiddo can do longer drives, it's easier on everyone if we keep the travel time to four hours or less. It also makes time to stop and check out other things we see along the way, and lets me get some writing done.
We finally found Spring. Everything's in bloom. Everything's electric green. The frogs are singing their songs. It feels good. I love the west, but I worry that I'll miss parts of living in the south. Namely, the explosion of life that happens this time of year.
Clear Springs was great. The main campground is nice, with electric and water hook ups. It has two forks, both of which roll right up against Clear Springs Lake. It's quiet, and out of the way. They also have a primitive camping area, which is what we went for. $7 a night, and exactly noooobody around.
Somewhere along the way, this happened:
Big money, big money.
We left Mississippi, pounded through Louisiana, and hit Texas yesterday. More on that soon.
New Drive piece is up.
http://www.thedrive.com/article/2731/for-the-love-of-the-gulf
We left Gulf Breeze on Monday. We'd originally planned to aim for New Orleans, but our friend there had some drama crop up at the last minute, and we figured it was best to avoid the situation all together. Sooo, we went northwest. Stopped off in a couple of national forests in Mississippi, De Soto and Homochitto.
If I can offer one piece of advice for dealing with the Forest Service, it's call ahead. They aren't so great about updating information on their web site, and you never know when a campground will be closed. We ran into that Monday night. We'd originally planned to stop in at Cypress Creek Landing. Sure enough, the place was closed. Screaming toddler in the back seat, no cell service to find an alternative, etc. We wound up working our way back south to Wiggins until we could get someone on the line who could tell us what was open in the area. We stayed at Moody's Landing, which is little more than a pull off with four numbered sites. It was quiet, though, and the Black Creek runs right beside the campground.
From there, we jumped up to Homochitto, and stopped in at the Clear Springs campground. If you're looking at your map, you know that the two aren't far apart. We've found that while kiddo can do longer drives, it's easier on everyone if we keep the travel time to four hours or less. It also makes time to stop and check out other things we see along the way, and lets me get some writing done.
We finally found Spring. Everything's in bloom. Everything's electric green. The frogs are singing their songs. It feels good. I love the west, but I worry that I'll miss parts of living in the south. Namely, the explosion of life that happens this time of year.
Clear Springs was great. The main campground is nice, with electric and water hook ups. It has two forks, both of which roll right up against Clear Springs Lake. It's quiet, and out of the way. They also have a primitive camping area, which is what we went for. $7 a night, and exactly noooobody around.
Somewhere along the way, this happened:
Big money, big money.
We left Mississippi, pounded through Louisiana, and hit Texas yesterday. More on that soon.
TwinDuro
Well-known member
Awesome, just flat-out awesome Zach! It makes me all sorts of happy to see you and your family out exploring and traveling the roads less traveled (literally) and I love the approach you all decided to take. Just read TheDrive article as well; good stuff! I was a big fan of your writing at R&T, especially "The Infuriation and Joy of a Long Shot Craigslist Purchase" :elkgrin:
Keep up the good work!
Keep up the good work!
We're four days out from leaving, and things have been happening faster than I can keep track of. So, how's about a lightning round?
First, tires. The truck has never been a highway cruiser. At 65, it sat right at 2,000 rpm, or, as I've come to understand it, the Fuel Economy Canyon. After some research, I discovered I'm running 3.73s, not 4.10s like I originally thought. Even so, I wanted to take some load off the engine. The solution came in the form of a full set of BFG A/T KO2s, 315/70/17s to go around my recently reconditioned factory steelies.
They're basically 35 inches tall and just shy of 12 inches wide. The extra diameter will effectively gear the truck down, and the additional width will be useful on soft surfaces (sand, mud). And, despite how it looks, they fit almost perfectly.
The almost, in this case, comes from the control arms. At full lock, the tires rub. Fortunately, the bushings in my control arms were entirely roached, which as as good an excuse as any to upgrade. Jason Cooper at Rock Your 4x4 had these ordered up and in my hands in a heartbeat.
The only issue was, the cam bolts in the lower arms were frozen in place. The driver's side came out with about an hour and a half of torching, sledge hammer work, and convincing with the air hammer. The passenger side required a little more aggression. In the form of a sawzall. And a grinder. And a pry bar.
But hey. The new ones are in, and they offer enough clearance for the larger, wider tires.
Next? A comfier mattress for the camper bed. We went with gel-infused memory foam two inches thick. The factory mattress is nice enough for a weekend stint, but not for sleeping on for a year.
Then, it was throttle position sensor time. Pure Diesel Power sells a replacement sensor with excellent install instructions for a fraction of what the factory wants. Dropped it in in about 30 minutes or so and took care of the codes.
Somewhere in there I took the Mechman alternator back to those guys. They dropped in new internals and had it back to me in about a day. They didn't have any idea why it burnt up, which isn't entirely encouraging. I'm keeping the NAPA replacement I bought in Delta as a back up just in case.
I picked up a set of aluminum scissor steps and bolted them to the rub rail of the flatbed. They detach and sit inside the camper door for easy grabbing.
Then, it was underbody box time. I wound up going with a 24" RKI steel box on the driver's side and a 30" on the passenger side. The driver's side required a shorter box due to the fuel filler location. I wanted aluminum, but that was both cost prohibitive and difficult to justify. At about $200 a pop, these are sacrificial. Snag them on a rock, lose one to the highway, whatever, I'm not going to cry about it. Just shrug and swing in the closest truck supply shop. Plus, my supplier said there's only about a 10 lb difference between the aluminum and steel boxes, anyhow.
Of course, getting them to bolt to the bed took something of a miracle. I had to weld in four 2x2 aluminum square tubes as a mounting surface.
I had to buy a 24' stick of the stuff at almost $75, and getting the tube stitched to the bed set me back another $75. Jerks.
Then something interesting happened. A few months ago, I reached out to ARB to see if they had any interest in supplying us with a few pieces for review. They were receptive, but the components never showed up. Until this week, that is.
A full bull bar, IPF 900 lights, an 8' awning with room, a compressor, and a pile of recovery bits. Better than Christmas.
My goals were originally a bit more modest. I was after a rear locker to help us scramble out of sticky spots, and I didn't want a bumper. To me, they represent a lot of flash and a lot of weight with little gain. But Matt Glass, PR for ARB, made a good case for some protection on the nose. The truck has about five different coolers up front. One animal strike, and the machine's done. Given that this is our house for the next year or more, that was a stupid risk to take.
With less than a week before we depart, I didn't really have time to jump into a massive modification fest. The rain and snow blowing through didn't help things, either. Fortunately, I have miraculously generous friends. The guys at Blaziers Trucks made a spot in their warehouse for me to do some wrenching, and a buddy blew a valuable PTO day to come suffer on the cold concrete.
This, of course, brought me to another crossroads. Winch, or no winch? Having one would add even more weight. Not having one would mean that if I wanted to install one at a later date, I'd have to completely remove the bumper. Gross. And, of course, not having one would mean I'd be stuck somewhere wishing I had one. So, Rock Your 4x4 brought another miracle to pass: a brand-new M15000.
So, there we are. The house still needs packing. So does the truck. But at least it's together.
Oh, one last thing. We rolled over 297,000 miles tonight. The brand-new fan clutch croaked as I pulled in the driveway. So much for quality aftermarket parts. I'll try and source a Mopar replacement in the morning.
This is a great thread. Please keep updating Where did you get the wheels? What brand are the control arms?
K.Ray
Adventurer
I can filter this out for Zach, as his data usage is precious in some areas.
- Wheels are OEM Dodge steelies that came on the Ram trucks from the factory. He found a dude and swapped his alloys out. Not sure if both walked about laughing or crying.
- Control arms are Metalcloak type. Beefy beefy things. The stock units were hellish to remove.
LeftofLucky
Observer
Thanks, man. The wheels are stock 17x7.5 steelies off of a base truck. I had them media blasted, then painted Rustoleum black. As for the control arms, I really wanted Carli pieces, but the turn around was too long, and the price was pretty steep. I wound up with a set from Metal Cloak. I have to say, I'm really happy with the build quality and the finish, and most importantly, they do the job.
I was a little concerned about the fact that the lower arms are .5 inches longer than stock, but it doesn't seem to have impacted the truck at all. It was a little close to the factory bumper with zero lift, but the ARB took care of that.
LeftofLucky
Observer
Ha. Thanks for reading. That bike now belongs to another ExPo guy. KRay. I'm hurting without a two-wheeled conveyance.
Ironhide Fx4
Observer
Just read and caught up from the beginning. This is an awesome story. Its inspiring to read what you have accomplished and all this with a one year old! Looking forward to following along and seeing the rest unfold. Good luck!
LeftofLucky
Observer
We have a couple of these guys:
https://www.rei.com/product/884083/...-8840830001&CAWELAID=120217890000769342&lsft=
We'll usually top it off in three days or so with conservative water use. It's probably the biggest pain on the truck. I'd like to rig up another solution, but it's difficult to do on the road.
When they're full, I clip them to the nose until we can find a dump station. Not super classy, but neither is living out of a truck.