WASURF63's New ATFlippac

[WASURF63]

Just got back from a little road trip to Prescott and look what I picked up!:wings:
It was a cold, clear, windy day and the crew at AT did a stellar job on the install. What an awesome team you have there, Mario!

Many thanks to Rex, Travis, and John. You guys are all hilarious, but most important, very hard working, professional, and thorough as well.
Good to meet the guys from OJ next door that stopped by to chat and take some pics too. Thanks for the lunch invite, but I was already a bit behind schedule in making sure I got back up here to work on time in Washington.

For any of those curious about the fuel mileage comparison between the unloaded Tacoma (trip down) vs the Tacoma w/ATFlippac (trip back) here's what I logged on the trip to and from Prescott...

Unloaded Tacoma: WA & OR States @ 65mph 18-19 mpg avg
(trip down) CA & AZ States @ 70mph 18 mpg avg

Tacoma w/ : AZ & CA States @ 70mph 16-17 mpg avg
ATFlippac OR & WA States @ 65mph 17-18 mpg avg
(trip back)*

*On a side note: I did have two 13-15 mpg fill ups driving in heavy winds one day on some long, steep, uphill grades.

The ATFlippac and Tacoma longbed combo is spacious inside. I camped very warm and comfortably on the way home. Thanks to Martyn and Mario at Adventure Trailers for all your knowledge, great help and providing me with an awesome product! I'll definately be back for more gear.

Although I will not likely take the time or effort to start a mind blowing build thread like TacoDoc or Travis @ Safari Pacific, I will post some build progress photos from time to time as this rig starts to transform / grow up.

Regards, Walt Bagnall

 

[Corey]

Walt, glad to see you got it finally.
Great looking setup.

It will be harder to spot you now without the rack and roof top tent setup, so honk if you see me so I can stop to check out your setup since it looks more stealth.

The hit in MPG was not to bad at all.
I gained around 1 to 1.5 MPG back after having the new BajaRack installed.

Looking forward to seeing more pics of your setup and trips in it.

 

[Rexsname]

Glad to see that you made it home OK and also glad to see that the fuel mileage didn't take too much of a hit. Except for installs I haven't spent much time in/around the Flip-pac, how is the mattress? Did you sleep in any windy conditions?

REX

 

[elcoyote]

Glad to hear you had a great trip and made it home safely. It was a pleasure to have you here at our new shop in Prescott for the install of your AT Flippac. Your Taco is a well built platform, now with the shell, it'll be very cool to watch how you personalize it to suit your needs. I am particularly interested to see how you set up the interior for your surfboard collection. Let us know if we can help you in any way. Here's a pic of the Proud Papa!

 

[Gear]

Very Nice. Should I say Perfect! I like the the Win door on the passenger side, the long bed, and of course the Expo White helps. Keep posting photographs.:drool:

 

[Dave Bennett]

Congrats! :ylsmoke:

Make sure you get the rain fly (well worth the money IMO, especially for Washington) and get after the bedside storage boxes with some serious application of black RTV silicone to seal out dust and water ingress - you'll get water inside from the wheelwells/underside if you drive through standing water with unsealed boxes. I left the 3 drain holes at the front/bottom of the composite bed open to allow anything that does get in a way out. Water/dustproofing of these shells is a custom process and should be approached with good attention to detail on those boxes, the bed rail/shell interface, and the window frames.

 

[mountainsoul]

Very nice indeed. I think the Taco DC Longbed makes a near perfect combo with the Flippac.

 

[calebwat]

Nice I love the window on the side that is exactly what I am going to request on my AT Flip Pac when I order it next summer. In the NW if I don't want to pop the camper in the winter I wanted the option of some ventilation with it closed. Perfect!

 

[calebwat]

I also really like those rims! What are those?

 

[WASURF63]

Glad to see that you made it home OK and also glad to see that the fuel mileage didn't take too much of a hit. Except for installs I haven't spent much time in/around the Flip-pac, how is the mattress? Did you sleep in any windy conditions?

REX

Rex,

The mattress is "very" comfortable. My comparisons would be to the Autohome "Maggiolina-Grand Tour" and "Columbus-Variant XL" RTT models I have owned in the past. I would rate the Flippac mattress slightly better than the Maggiolina Grand Tour and much better than the Columbus as far as comfort goes.

My first night in the ATFlippac was out in the Mojave during 40+ mph winds that didn't let up all night.:Wow1:
It became kinda hairy and I couldn't get any sleep with everything flapping and twisting really hard. I made a break for it during a short pause in wind gusts, closed the lid, and bailed into the bed of my truck to ride out the storm. Thank god for longbed trucks.

 

[WASURF63]

Walt, glad to see you got it finally.
Great looking setup.

It will be harder to spot you now without the rack and roof top tent setup, so honk if you see me so I can stop to check out your setup since it looks more stealth.

The hit in MPG was not to bad at all.
I gained around 1 to 1.5 MPG back after having the new BajaRack installed.

Looking forward to seeing more pics of your setup and trips in it.

Thanks Corey. I'll keep my eyes peeled for your rig as well.

 

[WASURF63]

Glad to hear you had a great trip and made it home safely. It was a pleasure to have you here at our new shop in Prescott for the install of your AT Flippac. Your Taco is a well built platform, now with the shell, it'll be very cool to watch how you personalize it to suit your needs. I am particularly interested to see how you set up the interior for your surfboard collection. Let us know if we can help you in any way. Here's a pic of the Proud Papa!

Thanks again Mario, for the great experience there in Prescott.
Look for the interior of my ATFlippac to be highly influenced by TacoDoc's build with some twists of my own to suit the Tacoma longbed platform and surfboard storage. Rest assured I'll be picking your brain (and Martyn's) again in the future.

Cheers, Walt

 

[WASURF63]

Congrats! :ylsmoke:

Make sure you get the rain fly (well worth the money IMO, especially for Washington) and get after the bedside storage boxes with some serious application of black RTV silicone to seal out dust and water ingress - you'll get water inside from the wheelwells/underside if you drive through standing water with unsealed boxes. I left the 3 drain holes at the front/bottom of the composite bed open to allow anything that does get in a way out. Water/dustproofing of these shells is a custom process and should be approached with good attention to detail on those boxes, the bed rail/shell interface, and the window frames.

Thanks Doc.
I ordered the rain fly right from the beginning. PacNW outings most often involve some sort of sogginess for sure. Thanks for the advice on water/dustproofing. I can see daylight through several areas from inside the bed, mostly in the tailgate and rear hatch areas, that will need some weatherproofing.
I've just noticed two leak points (minor gaps) after some heavy rain today. Both front corners where the bottom edge of the canopy meets the top edge of the bed are letting water drip in.
I will definately pay attention to sealing up all the points of water/dust entry that you mentioned above.

Gracias:sombrero:

 

[WASURF63]

I also really like those rims! What are those?

A.R.E. 16 x 8 Mojave teflons.
I've run them on one other rig.
They don't hold up to rock rash so well, but I still like them.

 

[Bikeman71]

this is my first post to the site, but I can't resist on this one.....I saw you driving home on highway 99 between Bakersfield and Visalia. I almost ran off the road as I saw you driving in the opposite direction because I have a 2008 white Taco crew cab long bed with black wheels......and an AT Flip Pac on order. I should be making the same trek to Prescott sometime at the end of June. I've started building the storage/sleeping platform for the bed....I started with a drawer that has 60" drawer slides. I should be at a point to take pictures and send along ideas by this weekend.

Right now I'm gearing up to ride in the Garmin-Transitions team car for tomorrow's stage of the Tour of California from Visalia to Bakersfield.....the ultimate dream for any cycling fan.

Brent