The WRōV

[Imnosaint]

For Sale: The White Rhino Overland Vehicle Reduced to $29K

2015 Chevrolet Tahoe PPV
1GNSK3EC3FR563661
136k miles, 6k hours, 13.7 Average MPG

This is my fifth and final overland vehicle build, a turn-key, purpose-built truck offered at $34k. Since the GM K2XX platform is a rare overland conversion, I’ve dubbed it the White Rhino Overland Vehicle, shortened to the acronym WRōV to brand the build. There’s been some confusion as to whether this is a model offering from Chevrolet. It is not.

I built the WRōV to meet our adventure and off-road needs. Aside from its excellent off-road abilities and comprehensive recovery package, It sleeps two on a custom platform/insert, has a full kitchen with H/C running water, a shower, twin on-board air compressors and more as detailed below. I’ve also created a User Guide for the vehicle along with a comprehensive build site at the wrov.com. I’ve logged 36k miles on it since its purchase mileage of 100k. Mantle cell lymphoma forces sale.

Please read the WRōV User Guide PDF:
https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:US:e46c25c2-f6f9-472d-9149-0257fb7845d8
(Best viewed in two-page mode.)

The Stock Basics:

• Built by GM Specialty Service Vehicle Plant in Arlington, TX
• 5.3 Liter EcoTec3 V8, 380hp, 411 lb-ft Torque
• Six-Speed Hydra-Matic Automatic Transmission
• Four Wheel Drive with Two-Speed Transfer Case
• Factory Automatic Rear Locker
• High Output Alternator
• Factory House 12V Power System
• HD Four-Wheel Disc Brakes with ABS and Traction Control
• HD Tuned Suspension
• ¼” Steel Bash Plates
• 5mm Boxed Steel Frame

Mechanical/Cosmetic Modifications:

• Three Inch Lift with Upper/Lower Strut Spacers/ Rear Billet Spacers and Shock Extensions
• aFe Momentum XP Aluminum Closed Cold Air Intake System
• High Performance Muffler and Cat-back Exhaust
• Sealight 6000K Cool White LED lamps - High/Low Beam
• Chrome Blackout
• Black Rhino Barstow 17X9.5 Rims wrapped with 285/75-17 Toyo Open Country A/Ts

Build Modifications (In Alphabetical Order):

12 Volt Systems
Accessory lighting powered from crank battery via Blue Sea Fuse Box/100A breaker:

• Rigid Series 50 Driving Lights on KD Fabworks Mounts
• Rigid Series D-SS Pro Fog Lamps with Amber Gels
• Rigidhorse 42” Lightbar, 40k Lumens
• Additional LED Reverse Lights (tied in to existing reverse light circuit)
• Upgraded LED Searchlight at 225k Lumens (tied into existing AUX circuit)

Platform Insert power from house battery via Blue Sea Fuse Box/100A breaker:

• Twin ARB CKMA12 Air Compressors
• Water Pump for Onboard Sink/Shower
• 32 Quart Drawer Fridge
• Auxiliary LED Light Fixtures for galley work area
• Zeak 10k Pound Winch via breaker from house battery

Awning/Awning Room are no longer part of this package.

Communications and Navigation

• Midland MXT275 GMRS Radio with Ghost Antenna
• weBoost 4G-X OTR Cell Signal Booster
• SpotX Satellite Text Transceiver
• Garmin Zūmo XT Satellite Navigator

Fresh Water System

• Nine-gallon Water Tank
• 3.5 GPM Water Pump
• Camplux Tankless Water Heater with Shower
• Dometic Sink/Cooktop Combo
• External 12V Water Acquisition Pump

Interior Storage
Driver/Passenger Headrest and Seatback Storage Systems Include:

• Blue Ridge Overland Gear Velcro Panels
• Pouches for Trauma/First Aid Kits
• Onboard Air System Components

C-Pillar Storage Includes:

• Door Awnings
• Gear Pouches

Rear Cargo Ceiling:

• Kelty Redwing Bug-out Bag

Tool Roll Beneath Driver Seat
Passenger Side Door Area Stows Two Frontrunner Expanding Camp Chairs
Platform has integrated one-inch Rok Straps for cargo tie down.

Liquid Propane System
Two - five pound LP Tanks
Powertank Mount

Onboard Air Inflation System

• Two internally mounted ARB compressors, switched at service panel on platform insert on driver side passenger door access.
• Air pressure system networked to each axle and ARB outlet on service panel.
• Four ARB couplings, two forward on winch tray, two aft on quarter panels.
• Four Staun Automatic Deflators

Onboard Cameras

• WolfBox 12-inch Rear View Screen
• Two 4k cameras, front and rear.
• Continuous loop/on demand recording functions.

Platform Insert System

• 48X78” Sleep Area
• Pull-out with Dometic Sink/Cooktop Insert
• Thirty two-Quart Drawer Fridge
• Driver side passenger door access lockable drawer.
• Platform locker with service access and additional storage.
• Loft with three Crashpad Storage Bags

Roof Rack System

• 76X54” Pioneer Platform by Rhino Rack, Flush Mounted
• ROAM 95-liter Rugged Case - Driver Side/Recovery Gear
• ROAM 95-lier Rugged Case - Passenger Side/Awning Room/Propane Heater
• Three NATO 10-liter jerry cans with mounts.
• Four Rototrax Traction Boards
• Shovel
• Mounted awning, lightbar and weBoost external antenna.

Wilco Offroad Hitchgate Solo Swingarm

• 180 degree operation clears liftgate.
• Also retains tankless water heater (in Pelican case) and LP tank.
• Class III Receiver with recovery shackle.

Winch/Recovery System
Zeak 10k lb winch with 85’ synthetic line, wired and wireless remotes.

Stock Equipment Deletions
Second Row Seating (No third row available on PPV.)
Running Boards
Undermounted Spare Tire Hoist

Notes:
Clean title in hand.

All gear and accessories shown and listed are part of this turn-key package except for the ROAM awning and awning room.

The WRōV seats two adults plus one small person in the front center jump seat.

The platform insert can be removed to restore second row seating.

All dashboard gear mounts are permanently installed RAM products.

Front seat covers are for preventative wear. Driver seat has fabric wear on the left bolster, and the passenger side is in good condition.

Paint finish is good with its share of desert/alpine pinstriping with blemishes on passenger side fender arches.

The WRōV is for the enthusiast who desires a turnkey, overland-ready vehicle. If you are looking for a stock Tahoe at Blue Book because you feel mods don't add value, this is not the truck for you.

Service History

Mileage	Service	Date
99771	INSPECTION	02/05/21
99976	GENERAL GRABBERS/BLACK RHINO RIMS	02/11/21
101895	OIL/FILTER	05/07/21
104252	REAR AXLE SEALS	05/28/21
107785	OIL/FILTER	09/01/21
114903	OIL/FILTER, XFER CASE, DIFFS	01/11/22
116384	TOYO OPEN COUNTRY A/T	02/20/22
117926	OIL/FILTER	04/15/22
122064	FRONT BRAKE PADS/ROTORS	07/03/22
124553	OIL/FILTER	09/13/22
124687	NEW STARTER	09/22/22
129575	ROTATION	01/01/23
130861	OIL/FILTER, XFER CASE, DIFFS	02/21/23
131818	REAR BRAKE PADS/ROTORS	04/09/23
132520	BATTERY WARRANTY	05/03/23
136115	OIL/FILTER	09/21/23

Asking Price: $29,000. Open to Offer
Call or Text Eric at 435-862-4168
utadvmoto@gmail.com
Located in Bountiful, Utah
ExPo Build Thread: https://forum.expeditionportal.com/threads/imnosaints-tahoe-build.222750/
Website: thewrov.com

 

[Todd780]

Beautiful build. Good luck with the sale.

 

[Imnosaint]

Beautiful build. Good luck with the sale.

Thank you, and thank you. I've appreciated your support.

 

[syn0s]

A printed user guide! Well done, that is so cool!

 

[gabrielef]

Exquisite example of a well thought-out platform.

So sorry for what you’re going through, and sincerely praying for a miraculous healing, so that you and your family can continue to adventure together for years to come.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Imnosaint]

A printed user guide! Well done, that is so cool!

Thanks! Another labor of love, but in reality most of our builds need something like this to translate our vision on to the next owner.

 

[Imnosaint]

Exquisite example of a well thought-out platform.

So sorry for what you’re going through, and sincerely praying for a miraculous healing, so that you and your family can continue to adventure together for years to come.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thank you, and thank you. I'm past my expiration date, so there's a miracle right there.

 

[zgfiredude]

This really pains me to see.....I have followed the build and enjoyed the documentation and thought. I know how much more effort went into this than many builds we read about. It's just spectacularly well done. The printed user manual is over the top cool!

Keep pushing the expiration date, and enjoying each moment as I believe you are. Praying for you and the family as you work through this.

 

[Imnosaint]

This really pains me to see.....I have followed the build and enjoyed the documentation and thought. I know how much more effort went into this than many builds we read about. It's just spectacularly well done. The printed user manual is over the top cool!

Keep pushing the expiration date, and enjoying each moment as I believe you are. Praying for you and the family as you work through this.

Thank you. The support found here means a lot to me. Still pushing through. This is the best worst thing that's ever happened to me making each adventure a peak experience.

 

[Imnosaint]

FWIW - the backstory of the purchase of this Tahoe, from my book, Forget That I'm Dying

While waiting for my second colonoscopy, I was perusing used car ads on my phone looking for my next overland build project. Overland is what we’re now calling car camping, costing more than room service at a five-star resort, and the build is taking a stock SUV and turning it into a support system. I had just sold my previous build, forty-five minutes from the time it was posted, sight unseen, to a buyer in Southern California who flew out the next day, cash in hand, and drove it back to the Golden State. I knew it was going to happen. Shout-out to the all-powerful interweb for getting my trusty Nomad out there for many to see and follow its build. I called it the Nomad because it was technically a wagon with only two seats, though it was really a 1998 Mitsubishi Montero. I was done with the build a couple of years previous and the time had come for a mashup of sorts; sell the Nomad along with the tugboat, my ‘15 Silverado that we used to pull our travel trailer. The Nomad lacked the power to tow and the Silverado lacked the four-wheel-drive to overland, so I was on the search for something that had it all. And what should pop up on my search but a 2015 Chevrolet Tahoe PPV at a car lot near my home in Bountiful, Utah. This is the perfect platform for an overland build, the details of which I’ll spare you because that’s not what this book is about. Suffice it to say, my wife, Mindy, took me to the car lot right after I recovered from the colonoscopy, including a biopsy, to check it out. I was still squishy, but that rig was going to be mine.

I drove it the next day, with sharper wits and reflexes and much less moist; the Tahoe checked all the boxes being a retired police pursuit vehicle with beefed up everything. It took me another day to sell the Silverado, and two days later, February 5th, I was back on the lot, cashier’s check in hand, behind the wheel for one last test drive before I took it home. I turned its wonderful LS V8 engine over and was listening to its deep rumble when my iPhone vibraphoned with a call. I didn’t recognize the number.

“Hi, this is Eric,” I said, my anticipatory tone indicating it really wasn’t a good time, but I’d been waiting for an important call about the benign results of my biopsy. The first results were, so it followed that these would be, too.

“Eric Young?” asked the voice.

“Yes,” I said. It’s funny now that I think about it, because he didn’t ask for my birthdate, blood type, mother’s maiden name or the last four digits of my social security number. He was certain it was me, the right Eric Young.

“This is Doctor Doxey, I’m the one who performed your colonoscopy and biopsy a few days ago,” framed as an interrogative as to whether I recognized that this was indeed Dr. Doxey.

“I really hate to tell you this way…” This way, I’m assuming, being over the phone, due to COVID-19 protocols and such. “Um, are you sitting down?”

My first thought was of course I’m sitting down. I’m behind the wheel of my new…, and my second thought was, oh, ********.

“That’s a terrible way to start this conversation, Dr. Doxey,” I said.

“The results are back from the lab on the biopsy, and I hate to tell you this way, but you have stage-four lymphoma.”

 

[Imnosaint]

All I remember hearing was lymphoma, and my thoughts immediately turned to a student of mine who recovered very well from his non-Hodgkin's lymphoma; the very picture of health. Then, in my assumed connection between my lymphoma and its occupied real estate, my colon, I figured it must be colon cancer, a line of thought that took very little time.

“Can’t you just take it out?” I said, the idle of the Tahoe droning away under the new noise in my head that would never be exhausted. I knew I had a tumor in my colon. I saw a picture of it nine months previous from that colonoscopy where the results came back, “most likely benign.” And now I knew that same tumor grew considerably since then and was bleeding, because Dr. Doxey showed me a picture of it three days ago. I’ve had an unruly growth before, a bone tumor on my right femur that was removed after it decided to invade said femur and the muscles in my thigh shortly before the Livermore High School track meet. So, in that incredibly short time I was ready to hear about the surgical procedure, even readied myself for the horrific news that I’d be toting a colostomy bag, even though I had simply defaulted to what I call a thought-rut, something I do before I get all the information.

“I’m afraid it doesn’t work that way,” he said.

I’ve since read through the Colonoscopy Procedure Report, February 2, 2021, and at the very bottom it says, “Pending biopsies will consider surgical consult versus endoscopic ultrasound etc.” The lab results nixed the idea of pending, but I wasn’t completely misguided in my surgical thinking. Hoping.

“Surgery isn’t going to cure this lymphoma. Let me call you back in a little while to get you connected with a good oncologist so we can get started on a treatment for you.”

I killed the Tahoe’s V8 and stared out the windshield to the sales office, stunned at the turn my life had just taken, even though sitting there I understood very little of it, other than this certainly wasn’t the time to be buying a new overland project. I walked the keys back into the sales office and said I had to process some news I’d just received. I went home to break the news to Mindy.

She was upstairs in her office hard at work when I came into the house. Knowing she’d have a thousand questions, I thought I’d get more information, so I sat down at my Mac before going upstairs and googled lymphoma, when my iPhone vibraphoned again. This time I recognized the number.

“I have you set up with Dr. Whisenant at the Utah Cancer Center. They’ll take good care of you,” said Dr. Doxey.

I’m looking at my Google results, at least the first half-dozen of over 63 million results.

“Can you tell me what kind of lymphoma?” I asked. And there was a pause, a long one.
I’m not sure if it was because of what he was about to tell me, or if it was that just then he realized how he ************ up this entire process of patient/doctor communication, or because he would rather let Dr. Whisenant tell me. Every silent second amplified the noise in my head and thought-ruts dug like rats.

“You have stage-four mantle cell lymphoma.”

 

[Imnosaint]

I’d never heard of mantle cell lymphoma. Chances are you haven’t either. I type those letters into the Google search box: m-a-n-t-l-e c-e-l-l l-y-m-p-h-o-m-a. She’ll want answers. I want answers. <Return> The screen loads with a half- dozen hits out of two hundred thousand.

“Mantle cell lymphoma is a cancer of white blood cells, which help your body fight infections. You may hear your doctor call your condition a type of "non-Hodgkin's lymphoma." These are cancers of the lymphocytes, a specific type of white blood cell.” -WebMD.

“Mantle Cell lymphoma is typically an aggressive, rare form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) that arises from cells originating in the “mantle zone.” MCL accounts for roughly six percent of all NHL cases in the United States.” -Lymphoma.org

“MCL has a poor prognosis, even with appropriate therapy. Usually, physicians note treatment failures in less than 18 months, and the median survival time of individuals with MCL is about two to five years. The 10-year survival rate is only about 5%-10%.” -Medicinenet.com.

“Something, something, something… and they’ll give you a call Monday to set up an appointment,” said Dr. Doxey. “Feel free to call me with your questions. Good luck. I’m so sorry.” And honestly, I wish he said, “Whatever you do, don’t Google it.” This was Friday. This was the median in my life’s timeline; before MCL/after MCL. This was when hours would move at a variety of completely different cadences to the temporal context before MCL, and this coming weekend would be their absolute slowest.

I climb the stairs of our 157 year-old home and walk into Mindy’s office. She’s on the phone on her headset, flanked by two large monitors, bouncing back and forth between them with her mouse. We had both been working from home since the previous March, Mindy before then when she landed a job that allowed her to work from home even before the pandemic. I had since turned into a virtual teacher. I sat on the couch near her workstation and waited for her to finish the call. She disconnected and looked at me and I told her about the results of the biopsy, completely unaware of how she’d be hit by that news. Those ripples radiate and rebound fast and the ground leaves our feet; disruption of a temporal sort. After several moments of letting this shift sink in we started making phone calls to our kids, one of which was a Zoom call with three of them. I tried to treat breaking the news as a bad news/good news disclosure. I said that the good news was that the girls were going to outlive me. We have two Golden Retrievers, Ginger and Maryann, sisters from the same litter who were eight years-old. I thought it was a great thing since I believe one of the greatest injustices of nature is living longer than one’s dog or cat. Mindy slugged me. She didn’t appreciate it at all. I’m not sure the kids did either.

We ended the Zoom call and sat there, Ginger and Maryann looking on, sensing the shift in our collective anxiety. Priorities began taking voices in my head like untuned Italian tenors, everything from what to do with the rest of my career to what to do with the rest of my life with my family. The tenors were flanked by the Russian male chorus of uncertainty, the loudest, most tone-deaf one reprise was, how long do I actually have? I think it’s reasonable to have an answer to that question, though I’m not sure knowing the answer would result in anything different than the panic we’ve been feeling ever since. I’ve had the grace and good fortune of marrying one who balances well with disruption. I do not. On cue we broke the silence in the room and started on a bucket list, filling the air between us with places and people we want to go to and see, the top of which has been—for years—to walk the Camino de Santiago. Being a full year into the COVID-19 pandemic, The Walk would slide down the list a ways since no one was going to Europe and it was quickly replaced with a family reunion with our kids; get everyone together somewhere isolated and beautiful, off the grid and away from civilization. And Glacier National Park. I’m not entirely sure why Glacier, since I was just there the June previous with my daughter Addie on a motorcycle trip, but I wanted to take Mindy there. I wanted her to have that same feeling I did on the shore of Lake McDonald early in the morning, the water like glass, one of those puny human moments for which we’ve learned to travel.

 

[Imnosaint]

There’s a space we occupy as travelers nestled between won’t-it-be-great-when and this-is-it. It’s an active tense of real versus ideal, a place we’ve spent time on, like trails, double-tracks, lakes and oceans over the years we’ve been together. In all this adventure we find places that deliver us proportionately to that space, like any national park, on the water off the central coast of California, the land of giant redwoods, the edge of the Colorado Plateau; big earth, puny human. There are some man-made things that help me find the same perspective: the Golden Gate Bridge, the World Trade Center, the Channel Tunnel, the Hoover Dam, the Eiffel Tower, the battlefields of northern Europe, and even solid rocket boosters. These are all places and engineering feats that shut my mouth and open my senses, where scale is as elusive sometimes as color. Try to fit scale to something as transparent as the wind and admitting defeat is more difficult. My brain thinks it has it dialed in and the light changes, or another contrast or scope obliterates my original references, or I’m blown off my motorcycle and left to sort it all out again only to find out how insignificant I am. I wish I could just let it be. Some of us humans are embedded with a primordial drive that tries to make sense of things including our relationship with the environment, and when that relationship is diminished on the human side, far be it for us to admit our own insignificance. I believe admitting it is the key to peace. I’m puny and I’m fine with that, right up until the mantle zones on my blood cells became occupied.

As bucket lists go, we weren’t writing anything down, not that we needed to since we’ve had these conversations before. One conversation that we needed to have that early afternoon, though, was with her parents, who are now also my parents. I’ve lost both of mine due to complications with, yes, cancer. Mindy’s folks were waiting like us to hear the results of the biopsy, always good to check in but never overbearing. This news wasn’t something to break over the phone and since they only live a mile or two away, we made the drive up the hill to Bountiful’s bench where we found them at home. Unless it’s Sunday they’re almost always home. They’re both ninety one years-old, but they don’t look nor act a day over seventy. We found them in their respective La-Z-Boy recliners, unreclined, and took our usual spots in their living room and told them about the results of my biopsy. We were joined by Mindy’s brother and his wife. This is a close-knit family with all the siblings living within thirty miles of the home in which they grew up and regularly visited.

While we tried to explain what mantle cell lymphoma was, that my lymphoma was at a stage IV and was very aggressive and incurable, I sat there and watched my mother and father-in-law process this information. My sister-in-law is a nurse and she was able to parse out and simplify what we were trying to explain. They were rocks as the gravity of my results began to weigh into their understanding. It was clear where Mindy got her deeply calm disposition in the face of such a mortal uncertainty. Neil and Karma Fabrizio were probably going to outlive me now, I thought, like Ginger and Maryann, but I knew it best to keep that thinking to myself. Though she’d have to get up from the couch to slug me, again, that wouldn’t have stopped her.

We’d soon discover that conversations like this one would evolve their own predictable template, going from diagnosis to treatment to the next big thing, and since we had no clue yet about treatment, our talk turned to what’s next in our future, which, despite having created a short bucket list, I could no longer see. All the plans and imaginings that ruminated in my noodle before Dr. Doxey’s phone call had vanished behind the wheel of that Chevy Tahoe.

Sitting there in the Fabrizio household living room in a long silent pause, Mindy broke the lull and reminded me that I had liquidated all of our previous overland trucks and now we needed one to take us on our new bucket-list adventures, so that afternoon we went back to the car lot and picked up the Tahoe.

 

[gabrielef]

“I’m not crying, you’re crying!”

So well written, thanking for taking the time to let us strangers peak into your courageous fight in the trenches.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Imnosaint]

“I’m not crying, you’re crying!”

So well written, thanking for taking the time to let us strangers peak into your courageous fight in the trenches.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thank you, again. What good is a story if it's not shared?