californiay
New member
Hi All!
Long time fan of the site! My wife and I are prepping for a two year around the world trip with a target departure around the election this year. I'm in the middle of our build and I thought there might be a few people on the site that would be interested. Eventually I'm hoping to get a website started and follow in the steps of folks like Dan Grec, but hey, we need to start somewhere so here's our first post. I hope to hear from you!
The Route:
We are based in San Francisco right now. Our plan is to ship from the East Coast, most likely Jacksonville, down to Durban sometime in November. From there we are planning on touring most of southern Africa before taking the eastern route up Egypt. From there, we will head to Jordan and Israel, and then ship to Italy around Christmas 2021. After some R&R in Europe, we are going to be heading East through Turkey, the Caucuses, Central Asia and the "Stans", and eventually winding up in Kashgar, China. I can't wait for all the China transit fun..... From there, we're going to cross the Karakoram Highway into Pakistan before generally following the southern side of the Himalayas down into South East Asia. We will ship the vehicle back from either Singapore or Kuala Lampur I think, but that's a few years out so we'll see out things go.
The Vehicle:
We were lucky enough to actually snag a 1998 Ford E350 7.3L Cutaway with a School Bus Body from a fellow member in April 2019. They had picked it up from from a daycare and converted it to a more expedition ready vehicle. Probably the biggest highlight is that he had gotten the Ujoint 4x4 conversion installed, so it came ready to go with 35" MT Tires and a host of other upgrades. He had already done a lot of mechanical restoration too, with new injectors and glow plugs and a new transmission. The 7.3L is a legend for reliability and more importantly, it won't have issues with high sulphur diesel in developing nations. It's also got more headroom than your standard E350 Van without needing a pop top, and it's 78" wide so you can set the bed up cross wise, which I couldn't have done in a 72" van. I drove it across the country twice and it was a great set up for the summer. But I always intended on gutting it and making it a little more liveable for a two year home, so last fall I ripped out the interior down to the bare metal and have been restoring it since. Here are a few pictures of the before.
It was pretty sweet when I got it, but did have some issues. At the top of that list, the "roof deck" and exoskeleton you see in the pictures was unfortunately not made very well. I think the prior owner did the welds himself when he was apprenticing for a blacksmith shop. They didn't penetrate all the way through, and that rear tire carrier actually failed on me on highway 101 at 65 miles an hour. Fortunately, it didn't hit anything and just flew into a deep ravine, never to be seen again. But I can promise you, losing a tire on a freeway is not a good thing. I'm just glad it didn't kill or injure anyone.
Anyways, I'm part way through a completely custom build right now, and will be updating this regularly as I move through it. I have to run out the door at the moment, but I hope you all enjoy it. It's been a great project so far.
Best,
Reid
Long time fan of the site! My wife and I are prepping for a two year around the world trip with a target departure around the election this year. I'm in the middle of our build and I thought there might be a few people on the site that would be interested. Eventually I'm hoping to get a website started and follow in the steps of folks like Dan Grec, but hey, we need to start somewhere so here's our first post. I hope to hear from you!
The Route:
We are based in San Francisco right now. Our plan is to ship from the East Coast, most likely Jacksonville, down to Durban sometime in November. From there we are planning on touring most of southern Africa before taking the eastern route up Egypt. From there, we will head to Jordan and Israel, and then ship to Italy around Christmas 2021. After some R&R in Europe, we are going to be heading East through Turkey, the Caucuses, Central Asia and the "Stans", and eventually winding up in Kashgar, China. I can't wait for all the China transit fun..... From there, we're going to cross the Karakoram Highway into Pakistan before generally following the southern side of the Himalayas down into South East Asia. We will ship the vehicle back from either Singapore or Kuala Lampur I think, but that's a few years out so we'll see out things go.
The Vehicle:
We were lucky enough to actually snag a 1998 Ford E350 7.3L Cutaway with a School Bus Body from a fellow member in April 2019. They had picked it up from from a daycare and converted it to a more expedition ready vehicle. Probably the biggest highlight is that he had gotten the Ujoint 4x4 conversion installed, so it came ready to go with 35" MT Tires and a host of other upgrades. He had already done a lot of mechanical restoration too, with new injectors and glow plugs and a new transmission. The 7.3L is a legend for reliability and more importantly, it won't have issues with high sulphur diesel in developing nations. It's also got more headroom than your standard E350 Van without needing a pop top, and it's 78" wide so you can set the bed up cross wise, which I couldn't have done in a 72" van. I drove it across the country twice and it was a great set up for the summer. But I always intended on gutting it and making it a little more liveable for a two year home, so last fall I ripped out the interior down to the bare metal and have been restoring it since. Here are a few pictures of the before.
It was pretty sweet when I got it, but did have some issues. At the top of that list, the "roof deck" and exoskeleton you see in the pictures was unfortunately not made very well. I think the prior owner did the welds himself when he was apprenticing for a blacksmith shop. They didn't penetrate all the way through, and that rear tire carrier actually failed on me on highway 101 at 65 miles an hour. Fortunately, it didn't hit anything and just flew into a deep ravine, never to be seen again. But I can promise you, losing a tire on a freeway is not a good thing. I'm just glad it didn't kill or injure anyone.
Anyways, I'm part way through a completely custom build right now, and will be updating this regularly as I move through it. I have to run out the door at the moment, but I hope you all enjoy it. It's been a great project so far.
Best,
Reid
