EarthCruiser Overland Vehicles

[John E Davies]

Hey, what is the latest word on the new GM 6.0 liter gas V8/ Allison 6 speed drivetrain option? Will that be offered in the 4wd model? Will it have a real transfer case?

I love these rigs but I am never going to own one with a small diesel and dual clutch tranny. Thanks.

John Davies
Spokane WA

 

[SkiFreak]

Will that be offered in the 4wd model?

Not according to the Fuso website.

 

[lanceatm]

Not according to the Fuso website.

What they tell me is they have no plans to offer 4WD in the V8, the red tape for compliance is not worth such limited sales.
If the reintroduced FG was not performing well I guess that would change, the simple fact is it going great for the roll it was engineered for.

 

[lanceatm]

Trip down memory lane yesterday, truck from home getting winterised in our Bend work shop.
This truck has been cruising the earth for the last five ish years.
There is much to be said about production vehicles, one of custom builds are very difficult to have third party maintenance performed.

 

[aafd]

Hello to all you Earth Cruiser owners/user. I have a couple of questions. 1. How do you dump your gray tank? 2. What is the amp hour for the Lithium battery set up? How much solar power can the roof produce?
Thank you
The Cooks

 

[Howard70]

Hello to all you Earth Cruiser owners/user. I have a couple of questions. 1. How do you dump your gray tank? 2. What is the amp hour for the Lithium battery set up? How much solar power can the roof produce?
Thank you
The Cooks

Hello Cooks:

1. Grey Tank - Outlet has two caps - one accepts a regular garden hose and the other accepts a large diameter RV hose. Connect either hose & route to where you want the contents to end up. Then open the main valve from the grey tank.
"Where you want the contents to end up." depends upon various land management agencies, etc. Some places require you use dump stations, etc. All of that is up to you. The mechanism is easy.

2. I think EarthCruiser is offering several different amp/hour capacities for their lithium battery setups. I recall 360 or so as one option. We have the 540 AH AGM setup which gives us about 270 usable AH (keeping above 50% discharge recommended for battery life). With the lithium batteries you may be able to draw down much lower without shortening battery life - I think I recall 80% (you'll want to verify that). 360 x .8 = 288 usable AH with vastly less mass than the AGM setup.

3. We're on our 2nd EarthCruiser & have five 154 watt panels for a theoretical total of 770 watts. That maxes out the available space, but the company that produces the panels has some more expensive models with higher efficiencies so you might be able to get another 100 watts or so (check with EarthCruiser directly). Under optimal conditions 770 watts is more than needed, but we find every square inch of panel useful in the winter with short days, low angle sun and occasional snow on the panels. The EarthCruiser crew does a good job of assigning the panels to two solar controllers so that you can get full efficiency from many of the panels even though others are shaded.

Howard Snell

 

[gregmchugh]

Hello Cooks:

2. I think EarthCruiser is offering several different amp/hour capacities for their lithium battery setups. I recall 360 or so as one option. We have the 540 AH AGM setup which gives us about 270 usable AH (keeping above 50% discharge recommended for battery life). With the lithium batteries you may be able to draw down much lower without shortening battery life - I think I recall 80% (you'll want to verify that). 360 x .8 = 288 usable AH with vastly less mass than the AGM setup.

Howard Snell

The 50% discharge guideline for AGM batteries is something that has been around for a long time but it is something that doesn’t stand up when you look at the specifications of high quality AGM batteries such as Lifeline. Discharge up to 80% depletion does not really reduce the overall lifetime energy capacity of the battery. The total amp hours delivered over the life of the battery does not really get reduced much by discharging up to 80% discharge as long as the battery is brought up to full charge regularly. You can see this by looking at the Lifeline specifications for life cycles at various discharge levels. When battery space is limited it makes sense to discharge past 50% to get extra battery capacity. Using the 50% guideline you spend more up front for a larger battery bank and replace it less often vs the 80% usage where you spend less on the battery bank but replace it more often. Total cost of batteries over the same period of time does not change much.

 

[Howard70]

When battery space is limited it makes sense to discharge past 50% to get extra battery capacity. Using the 50% guideline you spend more up front for a larger battery bank and replace it less often vs the 80% usage where you spend less on the battery bank but replace it more often. Total cost of batteries over the same period of time does not change much.

Good point which makes sense. I wonder if an advantage to the larger bank could be those occasions when you aren't able to recharge as frequently as expected? Say you plan on using 50 stored AH / day and you desire 5 days without charge. That's 250 usable AH, or a bank of 500 AH with a 50% target or a bank of about 320 AH with an 80% target. Then something happens such that you'd like a 6th day without recharge. With the 500 AH bank you can have that 6th day by dipping down to a 60% discharge. With the 320 AH bank the 6th day would require about a 94% discharge. Is that "cushion" worth carrying an additional 150 lbs of lead around with you? That could depend on what led you to consider the 6th day without charging....

Howard

 

[gregmchugh]

Good point which makes sense. I wonder if an advantage to the larger bank could be those occasions when you aren't able to recharge as frequently as expected? Say you plan on using 50 stored AH / day and you desire 5 days without charge. That's 250 usable AH, or a bank of 500 AH with a 50% target or a bank of about 320 AH with an 80% target. Then something happens such that you'd like a 6th day without recharge. With the 500 AH bank you can have that 6th day by dipping down to a 60% discharge. With the 320 AH bank the 6th day would require about a 94% discharge. Is that "cushion" worth carrying an additional 150 lbs of lead around with you? That could depend on what led you to consider the 6th day without charging....

Howard

I guess it depends on what you are using to do bulk charging.

If you have a generator and don’t get enough solar charge then you can do an early morning bulk charge up to 80% or so with the generator and then let the solar handle the long period needed for the final absorption charge on AGM batteries.

On our GXV truck we have 720 AH of lithium and 1000 watts of solar and a 6,000 watt diesel generator feeding a 200 amp battery charger. Lithiums are still pretty expensive but it is nice to not have the long absorption charge times you need to have with AGM batteries to get them to full charge. We typically get enough solar charge to avoid running the generator unless we have several cloudy days or in the winter and then we can do a short generator run to get some added charge as needed since the lithiums don’t need to get to full charge. We used to travel in a Sprinter camper van equipped with a propane generator and a 40 amp charger and no solar and 220 AH of AGM batteries so we would need to do a long run of the generator when we were camped for several days and not driving. Daily driving would get enough charge from the engine alternator to avoid using the generator. We switched to a compressor fridge and were planning to add some solar to support the fridge but bought the new truck before we got the solar on the van.

 

[aafd]

Thank you all for the response.

KC

 

[lanceatm]

Baja 4000 Four EarthCruiser’s entered , looking forward to it.

 

[jerdog53]

Never knew such a thing existed!

 

[lanceatm]

Never knew such a thing existed!

Life is a daring adventure or nothing at all, so the saying goes.
Building trucks is fun, using them for what there made for is not bad either.

 

[lanceatm]

G`day All
Just got back last night from the Baja 4000 -
Total distance - 4808 Miles (7737 Klicks)
Trucks in our party -
EarthCruiser FX 2015 Fuso
EarthCruiser EXP 2015 Fuso
EarthCruiser EXP 2009 ( From Aus)
EarthCruiser EXP 2005 ( my truck)
Tundra with MOD 400 camper
Tacoma with MOD 300 camper

All tracks completed including the climb out of Mikes Sky Ranch.
Issues - blown fuse in CB.

Got back to snow......


Was lots of fun - Many thanks to our customers for making the trip even better than we could have hoped.

 

[Fugly]

Good roll up from the EarthCruiser mob...
Was Goldie with you ???