About us:
We love climbing, skiing and being in the mountains. We want to have a place to stay other than the back of a pickup and eventually take some extended time off of work to ski & climb before our knees hurt and fingers ache. I’m an engineer & my girlfriend works at one of the big apparel companies in PDX.
The Goal:
Have snowy roads & light off road ability coupled with the amenities to stretch from a weekend trip to full time skiing & climbing without completely breaking the bank.
The Considerations:
Truck & Camper: Maybe the easiest option. However, buying a nice truck + a leak free Northernlite/Bigfoot camper that we were going to gut and remodel would not have been substantially cheaper from what we would have bought + a walk through for us was worth a fair bit of money.
Sprinter Van: Not 4wd without huge price tag, questionable dealer service network, narrow. Driving quality is nice, and we have driven my parents quite a bit & liked it.
AWD Transit: Living space is tall but skinny. AWD w/ options was still quite $$$ but would be our choice if buying a new van. Driving is pretty nice & we like the ford dealer network options better than Mercedes.
Shuttle Bus: More flimsy in our opinion, good footprint, generally no built in front passenger seats. Less than ideal access to storage from outside. 4x4 conversion possible, v10, 7.3 ,6.0, 5.4 pretty much all the ford engine options which is cool.
Box Truck: Usually work trucks, hard to find with the right mixture of rear doors, roof, pass through & on a ford chassis. I like them (GF doesn’t) but for the size we were looking at most of them sit above the wheels & have a really high center of gravity it appears.
Various 4x4 RV Rigs: Almost all of them are $$$ and most of them are converted already and we wanted to do that ourselves to our taste.
Ambulance: Nice box quality, but usually ran hard, too much exterior storage & we both dislike the ambulance style built ins. Quite a few 4x4 options though for pretty good prices.
ERV's: Ambulance box build quality, very little external storage (good), not ran that hard. Built on Ford e450 chassis, all the older ones I’ve seen are on the 7.3. Unfortunately DRW and rwd, but nothing too crazy to convert to 4x4. Cab amenities are simple and sparse but seemingly robust.
After lurking, looking, thinking, and planning for almost 2 years my gf and I finally pulled the trigger on a base vehicle.
The Choice:
2001 E450 7.3l v8 Turbodiesel ~110k Miles
Previously a Redcross ERV
DRW
Wheeled Coach Box
We drove it home ~600 miles last weekend. A little bit of shake sometimes when braking we are going to get checked out - otherwise the thing drives great!
To Do:
There’s a long list of small & large things. Here’s a sample: get everything out, put insulation & flooring in. 4x4 Conversion. Fill old holes in the bottom of the box. Add a side door & vent. Map out the electrical & move electrical box a bit. Replace rear door hinges. Decide on fuel source for the box. Then uh, you know, finish the rest...easy.
But actually our goal is to have an insulated an heated rig with a bed by January or so so we can stay in it up at Meadows during the weekends this winter.
Progress:
A couple of weeknight evenings of work and we've got it mostly gutted. It's actually amazing how solid everything was. Very impressed with the build quality of these things. Mom & dad came up to lend us some tools and a hand with some of the big parts we had to remove.
General Musings:
Was hoping the side door would have a more open space in the side to fit into. Too many ribs and cross members on the box. We are going to have to do some serious cutting & frame building with aluminum & probably will end up paying someone to do it.
At first I was worried about the built in electrical system but I think I'm in favor of it now - it's well laid out, labeled and has great wire organization. I am not an EE, but I think we'll be able to figure out switching in LED's for over heads, adding a fridge & heater line, into the existing infrastructure. It's definitely less complicated than a standard ambulance which is a plus in my book.
Thankfully, the neighbors on either side of us actually seem pretty stoked on it. Also hopefully some of the loudest parts are over (sawing off some bolts & screws) so we can work later in the evening because Work->Truck Work->Work Out is hard.
Questions we are thinking about.
We are thinking about leaving the diamond plate and building on top of it. Should we reconsider that?
Anyone know someone in PDX that we could do the side door aluminum work through?
Does anyone want any slightly damaged ambo style built ins?
Paint options? We want to paint it. Tempted to raptor liner it, but we're also not a huge fan of having texture on everything.
We love climbing, skiing and being in the mountains. We want to have a place to stay other than the back of a pickup and eventually take some extended time off of work to ski & climb before our knees hurt and fingers ache. I’m an engineer & my girlfriend works at one of the big apparel companies in PDX.
The Goal:
Have snowy roads & light off road ability coupled with the amenities to stretch from a weekend trip to full time skiing & climbing without completely breaking the bank.
The Considerations:
Truck & Camper: Maybe the easiest option. However, buying a nice truck + a leak free Northernlite/Bigfoot camper that we were going to gut and remodel would not have been substantially cheaper from what we would have bought + a walk through for us was worth a fair bit of money.
Sprinter Van: Not 4wd without huge price tag, questionable dealer service network, narrow. Driving quality is nice, and we have driven my parents quite a bit & liked it.
AWD Transit: Living space is tall but skinny. AWD w/ options was still quite $$$ but would be our choice if buying a new van. Driving is pretty nice & we like the ford dealer network options better than Mercedes.
Shuttle Bus: More flimsy in our opinion, good footprint, generally no built in front passenger seats. Less than ideal access to storage from outside. 4x4 conversion possible, v10, 7.3 ,6.0, 5.4 pretty much all the ford engine options which is cool.
Box Truck: Usually work trucks, hard to find with the right mixture of rear doors, roof, pass through & on a ford chassis. I like them (GF doesn’t) but for the size we were looking at most of them sit above the wheels & have a really high center of gravity it appears.
Various 4x4 RV Rigs: Almost all of them are $$$ and most of them are converted already and we wanted to do that ourselves to our taste.
Ambulance: Nice box quality, but usually ran hard, too much exterior storage & we both dislike the ambulance style built ins. Quite a few 4x4 options though for pretty good prices.
ERV's: Ambulance box build quality, very little external storage (good), not ran that hard. Built on Ford e450 chassis, all the older ones I’ve seen are on the 7.3. Unfortunately DRW and rwd, but nothing too crazy to convert to 4x4. Cab amenities are simple and sparse but seemingly robust.
After lurking, looking, thinking, and planning for almost 2 years my gf and I finally pulled the trigger on a base vehicle.
The Choice:
2001 E450 7.3l v8 Turbodiesel ~110k Miles
Previously a Redcross ERV
DRW
Wheeled Coach Box
We drove it home ~600 miles last weekend. A little bit of shake sometimes when braking we are going to get checked out - otherwise the thing drives great!
To Do:
There’s a long list of small & large things. Here’s a sample: get everything out, put insulation & flooring in. 4x4 Conversion. Fill old holes in the bottom of the box. Add a side door & vent. Map out the electrical & move electrical box a bit. Replace rear door hinges. Decide on fuel source for the box. Then uh, you know, finish the rest...easy.
But actually our goal is to have an insulated an heated rig with a bed by January or so so we can stay in it up at Meadows during the weekends this winter.
Progress:
A couple of weeknight evenings of work and we've got it mostly gutted. It's actually amazing how solid everything was. Very impressed with the build quality of these things. Mom & dad came up to lend us some tools and a hand with some of the big parts we had to remove.
General Musings:
Was hoping the side door would have a more open space in the side to fit into. Too many ribs and cross members on the box. We are going to have to do some serious cutting & frame building with aluminum & probably will end up paying someone to do it.
At first I was worried about the built in electrical system but I think I'm in favor of it now - it's well laid out, labeled and has great wire organization. I am not an EE, but I think we'll be able to figure out switching in LED's for over heads, adding a fridge & heater line, into the existing infrastructure. It's definitely less complicated than a standard ambulance which is a plus in my book.
Thankfully, the neighbors on either side of us actually seem pretty stoked on it. Also hopefully some of the loudest parts are over (sawing off some bolts & screws) so we can work later in the evening because Work->Truck Work->Work Out is hard.
Questions we are thinking about.
We are thinking about leaving the diamond plate and building on top of it. Should we reconsider that?
Anyone know someone in PDX that we could do the side door aluminum work through?
Does anyone want any slightly damaged ambo style built ins?
Paint options? We want to paint it. Tempted to raptor liner it, but we're also not a huge fan of having texture on everything.