Hodakaguy's Vagabond Camper/Truck Build - Yes Again!

Hodakaguy

Adventurer
Curious about your experience with dust intrusion. I think a wedge camper would be a great fit for us, but dealing with dust from a previous pick up with a shell really sucked.

Interested to hear your views on this, it’s the one issue that has us looking at a FWC or a Khaya. Which leads us into payload issues with the Tacoma. Desert people need water capacity.

Yeah dust intrusion is real for sure. It can be addressed with careful plugging of gaps and holes though. While I like the FWC's still I really like the light weight of the Vagaond and wouldn't go back.


Hodakaguy
 

Hodakaguy

Adventurer
Heater vent mod time. The outlet of the Propex unit is on a swivel and angles out at about a 45 deg angle, unfortunately the hot air still manages to hit the aux battery box. My dad has been placing something in front of the battery to deflect the heat but it's time to fix it for good and fab up a permanent deflector.

Here you can see the heater outlet in relation to the battery.

20200104_102558-X2.jpg



First up measuring, cutting and welding. Starting with a scrap piece of metal plate.

20200101_123554-X2.jpg


20200101_124617-X2.jpg


20200101_130242-X2.jpg


20200101_132256-X2.jpg



One deflector minus mounting tabs.

20200101_132446-X2.jpg


20200101_132454-X2.jpg



Next up....cut out some mounting tabs

20200101_132735-X2.jpg


20200101_133338-X2.jpg


20200101_134923-X2.jpg



Tabs rounded, welded in place and the whole assembly painted. We will be installing the deflector onto the heater unit with Rivet Nuts.

20200104_102326-X2.jpg



Drilling holes and installing the Rivet Nuts into the heater box.

20200104_102854-X2.jpg


20200104_103018-X2.jpg


20200104_104909-X2.jpg



And bolted in place.

20200104_105415-X2.jpg


20200104_114654-X2.jpg


20200104_114703-X2.jpg



I ran the heater for about an hr on wide open to see how much heat transfer made it to the heater box, the deflector itself gets hot but the box itself stayed just warm to the touch around the deflector area. The solar charge controller stayed nice and cool which is what I was concerned about...perfect.

One more thing off the to do list.

Hodakaguy
 

Forum statistics

Threads
185,882
Messages
2,879,160
Members
225,450
Latest member
Rinzlerz
Top