The Dirt Sherpa Build

[Boatmonkey]

Amazing build! Quick question on some of your items you are using. Where did you get the waterproof housing to run your wiring through the exterior wall? Also, where are you getting your exterior trim pieces? I will be doing some FRP work soon and I am very interested in where you sourced a lot of your panels and misc fiberglass bits and pieces. Thanks and keep up the great work.

 

[GCecchetto]

Amazing build! Quick question on some of your items you are using. Where did you get the waterproof housing to run your wiring through the exterior wall? Also, where are you getting your exterior trim pieces? I will be doing some FRP work soon and I am very interested in where you sourced a lot of your panels and misc fiberglass bits and pieces. Thanks and keep up the great work.

Thanks for the kind words. The waterproof deck seals I used are Scanstrut DS16-P and you can get them here http://search.defender.com/?expression=Ds16-p&x=9&y=6. The trim is all standard RV stuf, although I'm second guessing my decision to use it, and I bought it from Fourwheel Camper in Woodland CA. You'll need to find a local supplier due to the lengths, it's just not feasible to ship. The siding I used is technically not available to us home builders but I managed to work out a deal through my construction connections to order the small quantity I needed. It's the Noble Select product by Crane Composites. The FRP on the exterior of the plywood tub is just regular peebled finish FRP like you can by at Home Depot or Lowes. If I had it to do again, I would use the FRP siding I used on the cabover on the plywood tub. It's also made by Crane but the only local supplier is a total rip off. To give you an idea of how bad you can get ripped off buying RV materials, the siding I used is Cranes top of the line product and I paid $5.00 a square foot for it. The siding I used on the cabover is a much lower quality product by Crane, but is bendable, and Al-Rite in Gilroy, CA charged me $13.00 a square foot for it. If I missed anything you want info on let me know.

 

[GCecchetto]

The holiday weekend was a slow one. I've gotten to the point where I have work ahead of me that hasn't all been figured out so there was lots of thinking going on. Most of the thinking was spent laying out the bolt pattern in the front and rear jack brackets. The fronts were a giant pain in the butt due to the construction of the sloped front wall. The layout is done but drilling the front brackets and setting all the AVK threaded inserts in the frame will be very slow. The jack brackets, believe it or not, are some of the most complicated fabrication on the camper thus far. I don't have any photos of them to post at the present but will take some this coming weekend for sure. I also ran into problems with the trim piece for the lower front wall joint. The trim is over broken so I need to flatten the angle out a bit. Below are some photos of what did get done.

Got the 7 pin outlet installed in the bed of the truck to make the electrical connection to the camper.



Here's the other end in the camper. I'm using Bargman's blue silicon arctic cable with a trailer end plug on each end to jump between the vehicle end plug in the bed and camper. There is still some misc caulking and trim to be installed on the FRP, so it looks a little rough here.



I finally managed to figure out how to get the long leg trim wrapped 90 around the corners at the front and back of the camper and get the screw cover into it. Here's the trim, and you can also see the elbow in my waste outlet.



Here's the trim at the front.



And the back.



Here's the upper trim at the front wall. This has to came back off and get powder coated white before the permanent install.

 

[locrwln]

Absolutely amazing work. I bow in awe. :drool:

Jack

 

[bill harr]

:bowdown::bowdown::bowdown::bowdown::bowdown::bowdown:

I am not worthy. What a great build.

 

[AeroNautiCal]

Absolutely amazing work.

What a great build.

^^^ All of the above!

 

[Backroad Explorer]

I'm certainly Glad you decided to keep posting!! Awesome Job :Wow1:

 

[GCecchetto]

Folks;

I'm very flattered, but I have to say, I don't think I'm doing anything extraordinary, and I have made my mistakes. The one that really bothers me is having been in a rush to try to get the camper dryed in so my son and I could use it this summer. That obviously didn't happen and now I'm left with the cabover pointing 1/4" to the drivers side. All I had to do was take the time to think about what I was doing, take a look at it, and clamp diagonally across the camper and pull it over before glueing in the floor of the cabover. This situation bothers me so much I have been contemplating tearing the cabover apart to fix it. Unfortunately I glued the floor of the cabover in with fast cure 3M 5200 and there is just no way it is coming apart.

So, while I have been trying to build an expedition grade camper, I have made my stupid moves too. Prototyping in a dirt driveway is wearing me down.

 

[JCMatthews]

Folks; This situation bothers me so much I have been contemplating tearing the cabover apart to fix it. .

Put down the hammers and prybars, and back away. If it is that much of a bother I will help you out by moving it to my house where you will not have to look at it anymore.

 

[Overland Hadley]

Put down the hammers and prybars, and back away.

x2

I have been reminded during my work on my camper that it is a camper, not perfection. I would bet that when the camper is covered in dust and you are rattling down a rough road you will not notice it being a 1/4 out.

 

[SLO_F-250]

x2

I have been reminded during my work on my camper that it is a camper, not perfection. I would bet that when the camper is covered in dust and you are rattling down a rough road you will not notice it being a 1/4 out.

x3. Done enough projects in my life to know they never are perfect. Well at least mine. At the end of the day there is always one little element that is off. Funny thing is 99% of people will never notice and the other 1% do cause you told them.

Always a tough balance between budget, time, and quality. Hard to have all three. Camper looks great! Amazing work. Get r done and use it. You wont be worried about the 1/4" watching the sunset sipping a beer in the back country with good friends.

 

[GCecchetto]

. You wont be worried about the 1/4" watching the sunset sipping a beer in the back country with good friends.

I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to that 1st beer in the eastern Sierras. At that point the whole build becomes a beer story and I'll be over the flaws. Hopefully I'll meet some of you at OE 13.

 

[GCecchetto]

Here are some pictures of this weekend's fun and excitement. The jack brackets are stainless steel and pretty tedious to install because I am using AVK threaded inserts in the aluminum frame. The fiberglass siding can't be captured in the grip of the insert so I have to use a whole saw to remove the siding and then drill the whole for the insert. The front brackets are being a giant pain in the rear due to the funky shape. The brackets break on a 45 degree angle to square the jacks to the camper, I have no idea why Happy Jack builds there jacks with the bracket on the jack an angle but they so I had to correct for it with the brackets the camper.

Here is one of the rear brackets going on. These will be powder coated white prior to final install.



Here is the lower front wall trim installed after managing to flatten the angle a bit. This has to be installed before the front jack brackets.



Here is one of the front jack brackets getting installed. The first image shows the inserts set in the frame. The lower portion of the bracket sitting over the lower wall trim is causing me some alignment problems so I'm having some aluminum spacer plates water jetted today. Looking at these front brackets it starts to become obvious why FWC doesn't slope the front wall. In addition to this headache the angle of the back wall of the cab on different make and year trucks is different so it would be another significant fitment issue. I could have made this all a lot easier on my self if the sloped front wall had not been an afterthought. If I had cut the slope on the wings of the floor pack that turn out over the rail of the bed, it would have made the fabrication in a variety of areas easier.



I also got some work done on the fold-a-way stair brackets but it was getting late so I didn't take any photos. I'm pushing to get all of the parts for the exterior that have to be powder coated done so I can take them all in at the same time to save on the setup fees.

 

[bill harr]

The inserts are a great idea, much stronger than the screws that hold the jacks to my Hawk.

Bill in STockton

 

[GCecchetto]

The inserts are a great idea, much stronger than the screws that hold the jacks to my Hawk.

Yes, it's a pain in the butt, but worth th effort.