Expedition Camper by IrbisOffroad

[IRBIS]

Hi my name is Oleg and I live in Denver. I finally decided to build an expedition camper for myself. For those who don't know me I have a Toyota Off Road shop: Irbis Offroad. You can check out my website at irbisoffroad.com. The main idea for the camper was that it should be based on a Toyota and be very reliable, self-sufficient, and good on power. We tried to build it from the stuff we already had in the shop or the storage yard. I had plenty of 4 Runners and Land Cruisers and I understand that Land Cruisers would be the most reliable but the speed and gas mileage is not too attractive. After that I took a look at my shop truck. It is a 2001 Toyota Tundra with a 4.7 4X4 Automatic. That looked very promising.

I think that it will be a good start and I won't get into a discussion of the solid front axle because I was wheeling third gen 4 Runner for several years and it is strong enough and works for a comfortable expedition camper. Here is the 4 Runner I'm talking about.

It is a very nice vehicle and now my daughter owns it, so you might see it around CU Boulder. I know we have a few posts about build up Chinook campers and it gave me some ideas. That is what I had at my storage yard, a 76 Chinook. It runs and drives perfectly, all complete. It had a few minor damages in the fiberglass camper.

Sorry for the long first post, but I wanted to see how the pictures showed up. There is more to come.

 

[Seldom Seen]

I saw it 1st hand a few weeks ago but Oleg swore me to secrecy
I guess the cats out of the bag now

 

[Pskhaat]

Interesting

 

[sami]

quite brilliant really.. That's an underestimated platform..

I'm subscribing to this one.

 

[kai38]

Very cool. My dad had a Toyota Chinook when I was in high school in the '70s, I remember taking it to the drive in movies and getting a lecture from my dad about how those seats better not get put into the bed position.
We did a lot of family road trips & camping in it. I remember driving to Iowa from Texas with the back door open and the screen door closed for air movement. 4 kids two dogs in the back mom & dad up front.

 

[IRBIS]

Looks like the pictures are ok so I can continue. First we gutted out the Chinook camper completely. It had alot of stuff in it and to our surprise, everything worked including the heater, stove and charging system.

The wheel base on the camper compared to the Tundra was very different and the wheel wells were in different places. That is why I wanted to cut the bottom part of the camper, to make a completely flat floor inside and take the wheel wells out. Because of the height of the cabover piece I have to build some subframe underneath of the camper. That wooden temporary subframe is just to pre-fit the camper on the Tundra.

Here is how the original camper looked on the Tundra:

After the height of the sub-frame was figured out we built one from 2X2 square tubes and reinstalled the camper. As I said before I wanted to remove all the wheel wells, doors and holes from the outside of the camper. I like for the campers to be as smooth as possible. So we started cutting and re-did the fiberglass walls on the camper and made a flat floor in place of the old wheel wells.

To be continued...

 

[sami]

I'd love to see an old school paint job to go along with this truck.. Much like Toyota's flash back to the mini-truck with their Tacoma at the last SEMA show.. Keep the orange and brown stripes alive!!!

 

[ChuckB]

Oleg,

I have admired your work for a long while. I really like the work you did for Slee on the FZJ85 and also 60/80 conversion. I can't wait to see how this turns out!!

 

[18seeds]

ok this may be one of the coolest projects yet

 

[1speed]

Subscribing!

 

[DaveInDenver]

ok this may be one of the coolest projects yet

You don't even know the half of the quality things Oleg has built, we are lucky to have him here in Denver without a doubt.

 

[bmh]

That thing is friggin' baller! Nice work Oleg.

 

[Desert Dan]

Nice
it looks much better on a Tundra sized truck

 

[Dave Bennett]

Very cool idea!!! :drool:

 

[FurthurOnTheFly]

Ohhh! I'm keeping my eye on this thread!