GOve Vehicle build:
GOVE has ‘GO' in it to act as a constant reminder to get off my butt and GO, (maybe I should cancel my Dish subscription now). I don't see anyone with a similar plan (this big and yet fit in a container) so maybe I've missed something really important. Really long term goal is to circumnavigate, which is partly a side effect of all the places we want to go. See build parameter 1 for GO details. Not interested in debate about rent an apartment vs buy vehicle NOR about buying an RV in each area of the world. Those options have their own advantages and probably cheaper, but just not what we want to do.
You can find more concise and up to date build goals at post #50: http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...ehicle-Economical-build?p=1271718#post1271718
Original drawing:View attachment GOVEsuperdutyCamperWithHingedGarage.pdf
edit 10/15/12: Not as long, garage sits on edge of bed, with Phoenix popup built for a flatbed: View attachment GoveBuild-PhoenixCamper.pdf
Vehicle:
This will be our only home. My wife says she'll be considering the camper primarily as our bedroom and the outdoors our living room - I married well. I'm pretty stuck on BAT Big American Truck and while a debate on virtues of BAT vs the world would be interesting, let's do that on some other thread.
The build would be much simpler on a pickup bed or flatbed with extra fuel and pull a custom trailer. I could accomplish all my goals more simply and probably cheaper, though it would be more difficult to get it in a shipping container. However, my biggest concern a trailer (~40' long vs 28' single vehicle) would make everything else about the journey more painful.
Economical:
Build concepts / parameters (not really designs yet)
Everywhere I say ‘probably' means I really don't know what Ill do, I've read a bunch but have no actual experience with that choice. So for those with experiences I'm all ears.
1. Where are we GOing? It might be easier to describe where we won't go, but I'm not sure there is such a place. We are tired of the cold north (having lived in Eastern Washington all my life) So for now we will avoid cold. My wife and I have traveled and camped our whole life. I've tent camped at both -30F and 100F with 95% humidly, so any vehicle based camp will be luxurious. Like others we planned to sail around the world and prepared ourselves to do it. In the end wife did not like the open ocean and sailing didn't really take us to the places we wanted to go.
Hope to have this whole thing done by May 2013, and make our first trip to Baja (we love Baja and the desert SW) hopefully visit Overland expo too. We'll have a couple years in the USA with the rig, our house, and jobs; then we sell the house and most of our stuff, and retire to a life outside of the U.S.
Itinerary: We will spend significant time in places where we have connections. So, in 2-3 years we retire, drive to Baja for 6 months (a long shakedown cruise), drive to Alaska (or maybe not) ship from west coast or Anchorage and begin our slow trip around the planet in Asia. Explore China, Vietnam, and Cambodia. Spend 1 year in Thailand with friends (or Burma if we can). Head down the Malay Peninsula and ship to Australia and spend a year there. Back to Thailand/Burma for another year. That's 3+ years so far. Head west to India, back to China, Turkey, Spain, (and probably visit more of Europe) then Morocco, Ethiopia, Kenya. Spend 1+ year with friends in Kenya dividing our time between service in E. Kenya and in the Kenya's and Tanzania's national parks. Head south to S Africa and Namibia. Then either back through East Africa to Europe and ship to USA or ship from S. Africa to S. America and slowly make our way back to the USA. 6-10 years total. About 3-5 shipping container moves, and 2 or 3 ‘extended' ferry moves.
2. Basic design goals:
3. To keep the real lifetime cost down I intend to keep this rig forever. So it needs to be useful as a truck after it is no longer used as GOVE.
4. Undeveloped Country Issues. Everything should be hidden (enclosed) and locked. No place to ‘get on' the vehicle when it is moving.
5. Truck will be 2013 F550 chassis cab, diesel, 200” WB, dual alternator (357 amp), Crew cab (I have friends, well my wife does
. Anticipated Truck mods: DPF Delete, Air boost springs front and rear (probably “Air Lift” pretty cheap maybe too cheap?), air compressor (brand?), ARB lockers in front axle -no good options (IMHO) for the Dana 110 rear so will stick with factory limited slip dif, skid plates (brand), winch front/rear probably Warn 16.5 (even though that really isn't big enough, bigger winch is way more expensive and hydraulic or 24 Volt so I'll double or triple pulley as needed and carry extra cable), probably Rickson DRW to SRW w/ 2 spares and 285/70R19.5 and probably Michelin XZE2+ /XDE2+ tires, probably Bilstein heavy duty Shocks, Sway Bar upgrade (probably Hellwig), probably TrailReady full Bumper.
BTW there are about the same number of authorized Ford SuperDuty repair centers around the world as there are for Mitsu.
6. I'd like a 3' water crossing depth. I know there is a transmission vent that needs to move; what else? Any F-550 people out here who've made the updates to get this thing in 3 feet or so of water? Seems like there is a LOT of electronics in the engine compartment, so probably cannot go much deeper than the top of frame. I notice electronics under the driver's side ‘step'. I'd guess this truck could never be run deeper than 3' of water.
7. (edit: 10/14/12 I've changed my mind, filling a propane tank is hard, replacing tank is ok. Diesel appliances are expensive so propane will also help with build cost. We WILL have propane and an extra large locker that, hopefully, will handle any bottle using the correct adapter)We'll have NO propane; it is too hard to get internationally. Diesel (hot water, furnace and stove top) and electric (refer, convection microwave, supplemental heat, A/C, electric fry pan). Electricity generation: Gasoline Honda Eu3000is generator, and dual truck alternators (equivalent to ~4000 Watt). Electricity will be stored in (probably) 4 x GPL-30HT Lifeline AGM batteries. Additionally we'll have gasoline powered cook stove for emergency use and when we get annoyed with diesel stove top. At this point no solar, see my final point.
8. Fresh water. I'll carry 100 gal plus whatever is in the camper (32 Gal on the Cuchara) But how to filter / purify the drinking water. Seems like a lot of options and we will need a purification system. I read the water purifying thread http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/82484-Water-purifying/ good stuff. Something like what Hackney or JRhetts did but simplify and not sure about usability and global replacement of the UV light in the hackney rig. So I lean towards some sort of multistage filtering with the best stage only used for drinking water.
9. The camper to truck interface is a problem and is something I'll have custom built. If I cannot get the camper builder to ‘fill-in' under the ‘wings' of the camper (i.e.: have the camper left and right walls extend down to the top of a flatbed ) then I'm planning utility style bed with lots of storage and lots of fuel. I've read the entire discussion on “pivoting frames and mounting campers” – twice. Still don't know what I'll do. But suspect it is a not good idea for a backyard mechanic to attempt any pivot solution. I like what westyss did http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/48351-out-with-the-old-in-with-the-new/page4 and so far talking to a local shop they are recommending something similar. Likewise ford upfitter info says to spread the weight over the entire frame and the spring systems do this. Planning to finish (paint) the bed with truck bed liner inside and out - funky but practical and very “E”.
10. Storage box/garage. At this point probably build a box across the entire back (so 7' long) attached to bed that swings open in order to get in the camper – kind of a hassle but if built right should be tolerable. Box/garage will hold 1 Honda CRF250L motorcycle (already own), Honda Eu3000is generator, and 2 mountain bikes. None of these items will fit anywhere else. Generator will be configured to run in the box when ‘swung' open. I'll use an electric winch and pulley system to load the motorcycle. Loading winch probably warn cordless PullzAll http://www.warn.com/utility/pullzall/cordless.shtml Box serves as a shoe locker for Dhackney if he ever visits.
11. Fun stuff we'll carry: Honda CRF250L, 2 Trek Dual Sport bikes (these are the first 3 items we purchased, and they are fun so far!), either solid or probably collapsible kayak or maybe none.
12. The Camper. 7'wide, 9.5'+ long, pop-up, sturdy, pleasant interiors. (update 10/15/12: went with phoenix camper 7'x10' is actually a bit less long overall now.) At this point we are thinking Hallmark Cuchara XL (wood construction) or maybe CC (all composite).
Does anyone make a flatbed, pop-up, 7' wide, side entry camper with a roof 2 people can walk on?
13. Steal all the good ideas I can find on this site and anywhere else. I'm going to end up with a cross between westyss out with the old in with the new” and carlyle's Alaskanabego and Hackney's BEV.
14. And my final ‘thang'. money=energy.
I don't have plans for solar, everyone seems to want it or have it, but I don't see how it fits. I'll try to stay a-political. For the power you get it seems very expensive and not reliable. If I need only 100 watts per day for a week (well really 50 watts for 24 hours or 100 daily amp hours) - I can add batteries to easily accomplish that goal. If you only need to keep some lights on and a fan you can get by with 50 watts per day (100 Daily amp hours) and can avoid a generator, and solar might make sense, but the number people who can use that little energy is small. (edit 5/17/2015 now that I've had the rig for 2 years 100 daily amp hour is WAY more than I typically use, if I use fans, LEDs, phone/camera chargers, and refrigerator it is more like 20-40 amp hours per day but with microwave or A/C and usage easily jumps over 100 amp hours per day)
In broad generality I find that the more expensive something is the more energy was required to produce it. So the people who spend the least on their vehicle have probably consumed the least amount of energy too. It takes 4-6 years of daily usage to recover the amount of energy that was used to build a solar panel. Since most solar panels are made in China and assuming a 20 year life on your vehicle at 1/4 time usage, then for the entire life of solar power on an expedition vehicle you'll be burning Chinese coal. How is that ecological?
Another issue with Solar is it produces too little power to fully charge the AGM batteries and partial charges are hard on AGM battery.
GOVE has ‘GO' in it to act as a constant reminder to get off my butt and GO, (maybe I should cancel my Dish subscription now). I don't see anyone with a similar plan (this big and yet fit in a container) so maybe I've missed something really important. Really long term goal is to circumnavigate, which is partly a side effect of all the places we want to go. See build parameter 1 for GO details. Not interested in debate about rent an apartment vs buy vehicle NOR about buying an RV in each area of the world. Those options have their own advantages and probably cheaper, but just not what we want to do.
You can find more concise and up to date build goals at post #50: http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...ehicle-Economical-build?p=1271718#post1271718
Original drawing:View attachment GOVEsuperdutyCamperWithHingedGarage.pdf
edit 10/15/12: Not as long, garage sits on edge of bed, with Phoenix popup built for a flatbed: View attachment GoveBuild-PhoenixCamper.pdf
Vehicle:
This will be our only home. My wife says she'll be considering the camper primarily as our bedroom and the outdoors our living room - I married well. I'm pretty stuck on BAT Big American Truck and while a debate on virtues of BAT vs the world would be interesting, let's do that on some other thread.
The build would be much simpler on a pickup bed or flatbed with extra fuel and pull a custom trailer. I could accomplish all my goals more simply and probably cheaper, though it would be more difficult to get it in a shipping container. However, my biggest concern a trailer (~40' long vs 28' single vehicle) would make everything else about the journey more painful.
Economical:
1)Achieve our desired level of comfort and destinations, as inexpensively as possible but try to avoid unnecessary entanglements with the other 2 “E” Ego and Ecological (but see my last bullet point below).
2) Use ‘off the shelf' components, avoid custom build as much as possible (ergo: I'm not going to buy a vehicle that requires a lot of sound deadening or new seats)
3) KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) and
4) Slow travel is cheap travel, so when we find a cheap place we like we'll stay put.
2) Use ‘off the shelf' components, avoid custom build as much as possible (ergo: I'm not going to buy a vehicle that requires a lot of sound deadening or new seats)
3) KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) and
4) Slow travel is cheap travel, so when we find a cheap place we like we'll stay put.
Build concepts / parameters (not really designs yet)
Everywhere I say ‘probably' means I really don't know what Ill do, I've read a bunch but have no actual experience with that choice. So for those with experiences I'm all ears.
1. Where are we GOing? It might be easier to describe where we won't go, but I'm not sure there is such a place. We are tired of the cold north (having lived in Eastern Washington all my life) So for now we will avoid cold. My wife and I have traveled and camped our whole life. I've tent camped at both -30F and 100F with 95% humidly, so any vehicle based camp will be luxurious. Like others we planned to sail around the world and prepared ourselves to do it. In the end wife did not like the open ocean and sailing didn't really take us to the places we wanted to go.
Hope to have this whole thing done by May 2013, and make our first trip to Baja (we love Baja and the desert SW) hopefully visit Overland expo too. We'll have a couple years in the USA with the rig, our house, and jobs; then we sell the house and most of our stuff, and retire to a life outside of the U.S.
Itinerary: We will spend significant time in places where we have connections. So, in 2-3 years we retire, drive to Baja for 6 months (a long shakedown cruise), drive to Alaska (or maybe not) ship from west coast or Anchorage and begin our slow trip around the planet in Asia. Explore China, Vietnam, and Cambodia. Spend 1 year in Thailand with friends (or Burma if we can). Head down the Malay Peninsula and ship to Australia and spend a year there. Back to Thailand/Burma for another year. That's 3+ years so far. Head west to India, back to China, Turkey, Spain, (and probably visit more of Europe) then Morocco, Ethiopia, Kenya. Spend 1+ year with friends in Kenya dividing our time between service in E. Kenya and in the Kenya's and Tanzania's national parks. Head south to S Africa and Namibia. Then either back through East Africa to Europe and ship to USA or ship from S. Africa to S. America and slowly make our way back to the USA. 6-10 years total. About 3-5 shipping container moves, and 2 or 3 ‘extended' ferry moves.
2. Basic design goals:
- Needs to fit in a tall style shipping container (which is 92” (7.6') wide inside and 9.5 feet tall, 38 feet long.) RoRo isn't for us.
- Roads are narrower elsewhere in the world – so this complements shipping container requirement.
- That means 7' wide pop-up camper, NON-dually. May need to remove A/C unit to fit container.
- About 130 Gallon of water, 140Gal Diesel for truck fuel, separate 35 gal diesel for camper heat, water, stove and 35 gal gasoline for generator and motorcycle.
3. To keep the real lifetime cost down I intend to keep this rig forever. So it needs to be useful as a truck after it is no longer used as GOVE.
4. Undeveloped Country Issues. Everything should be hidden (enclosed) and locked. No place to ‘get on' the vehicle when it is moving.
5. Truck will be 2013 F550 chassis cab, diesel, 200” WB, dual alternator (357 amp), Crew cab (I have friends, well my wife does
. Anticipated Truck mods: DPF Delete, Air boost springs front and rear (probably “Air Lift” pretty cheap maybe too cheap?), air compressor (brand?), ARB lockers in front axle -no good options (IMHO) for the Dana 110 rear so will stick with factory limited slip dif, skid plates (brand), winch front/rear probably Warn 16.5 (even though that really isn't big enough, bigger winch is way more expensive and hydraulic or 24 Volt so I'll double or triple pulley as needed and carry extra cable), probably Rickson DRW to SRW w/ 2 spares and 285/70R19.5 and probably Michelin XZE2+ /XDE2+ tires, probably Bilstein heavy duty Shocks, Sway Bar upgrade (probably Hellwig), probably TrailReady full Bumper.BTW there are about the same number of authorized Ford SuperDuty repair centers around the world as there are for Mitsu.
6. I'd like a 3' water crossing depth. I know there is a transmission vent that needs to move; what else? Any F-550 people out here who've made the updates to get this thing in 3 feet or so of water? Seems like there is a LOT of electronics in the engine compartment, so probably cannot go much deeper than the top of frame. I notice electronics under the driver's side ‘step'. I'd guess this truck could never be run deeper than 3' of water.
7. (edit: 10/14/12 I've changed my mind, filling a propane tank is hard, replacing tank is ok. Diesel appliances are expensive so propane will also help with build cost. We WILL have propane and an extra large locker that, hopefully, will handle any bottle using the correct adapter)We'll have NO propane; it is too hard to get internationally. Diesel (hot water, furnace and stove top) and electric (refer, convection microwave, supplemental heat, A/C, electric fry pan). Electricity generation: Gasoline Honda Eu3000is generator, and dual truck alternators (equivalent to ~4000 Watt). Electricity will be stored in (probably) 4 x GPL-30HT Lifeline AGM batteries. Additionally we'll have gasoline powered cook stove for emergency use and when we get annoyed with diesel stove top. At this point no solar, see my final point.
8. Fresh water. I'll carry 100 gal plus whatever is in the camper (32 Gal on the Cuchara) But how to filter / purify the drinking water. Seems like a lot of options and we will need a purification system. I read the water purifying thread http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/82484-Water-purifying/ good stuff. Something like what Hackney or JRhetts did but simplify and not sure about usability and global replacement of the UV light in the hackney rig. So I lean towards some sort of multistage filtering with the best stage only used for drinking water.
9. The camper to truck interface is a problem and is something I'll have custom built. If I cannot get the camper builder to ‘fill-in' under the ‘wings' of the camper (i.e.: have the camper left and right walls extend down to the top of a flatbed ) then I'm planning utility style bed with lots of storage and lots of fuel. I've read the entire discussion on “pivoting frames and mounting campers” – twice. Still don't know what I'll do. But suspect it is a not good idea for a backyard mechanic to attempt any pivot solution. I like what westyss did http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/48351-out-with-the-old-in-with-the-new/page4 and so far talking to a local shop they are recommending something similar. Likewise ford upfitter info says to spread the weight over the entire frame and the spring systems do this. Planning to finish (paint) the bed with truck bed liner inside and out - funky but practical and very “E”.
10. Storage box/garage. At this point probably build a box across the entire back (so 7' long) attached to bed that swings open in order to get in the camper – kind of a hassle but if built right should be tolerable. Box/garage will hold 1 Honda CRF250L motorcycle (already own), Honda Eu3000is generator, and 2 mountain bikes. None of these items will fit anywhere else. Generator will be configured to run in the box when ‘swung' open. I'll use an electric winch and pulley system to load the motorcycle. Loading winch probably warn cordless PullzAll http://www.warn.com/utility/pullzall/cordless.shtml Box serves as a shoe locker for Dhackney if he ever visits
.11. Fun stuff we'll carry: Honda CRF250L, 2 Trek Dual Sport bikes (these are the first 3 items we purchased, and they are fun so far!), either solid or probably collapsible kayak or maybe none.
12. The Camper. 7'wide, 9.5'+ long, pop-up, sturdy, pleasant interiors. (update 10/15/12: went with phoenix camper 7'x10' is actually a bit less long overall now.) At this point we are thinking Hallmark Cuchara XL (wood construction) or maybe CC (all composite).
Does anyone make a flatbed, pop-up, 7' wide, side entry camper with a roof 2 people can walk on?
- Need roof sturdy enough to walk on when up and down. We are photographers and roof access is really important through a roof hatch.
- Probably roof rack though we don't have plans to use it. It would be nice to know we could.
- All Diesel and Electric
- (Relatively) private head.
- Wet bath is fine
- Cassette toilet.
- Someone who will work with us on diesel requirement, battery, 12v, and other issues a typical camper buyer wouldn't think about.
- Air conditioning.
13. Steal all the good ideas I can find on this site and anywhere else. I'm going to end up with a cross between westyss out with the old in with the new” and carlyle's Alaskanabego and Hackney's BEV.
14. And my final ‘thang'. money=energy.
I don't have plans for solar, everyone seems to want it or have it, but I don't see how it fits. I'll try to stay a-political. For the power you get it seems very expensive and not reliable. If I need only 100 watts per day for a week (well really 50 watts for 24 hours or 100 daily amp hours) - I can add batteries to easily accomplish that goal. If you only need to keep some lights on and a fan you can get by with 50 watts per day (100 Daily amp hours) and can avoid a generator, and solar might make sense, but the number people who can use that little energy is small. (edit 5/17/2015 now that I've had the rig for 2 years 100 daily amp hour is WAY more than I typically use, if I use fans, LEDs, phone/camera chargers, and refrigerator it is more like 20-40 amp hours per day but with microwave or A/C and usage easily jumps over 100 amp hours per day)
In broad generality I find that the more expensive something is the more energy was required to produce it. So the people who spend the least on their vehicle have probably consumed the least amount of energy too. It takes 4-6 years of daily usage to recover the amount of energy that was used to build a solar panel. Since most solar panels are made in China and assuming a 20 year life on your vehicle at 1/4 time usage, then for the entire life of solar power on an expedition vehicle you'll be burning Chinese coal. How is that ecological?
Another issue with Solar is it produces too little power to fully charge the AGM batteries and partial charges are hard on AGM battery.
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