U1300L Camper

CragMog

Member
Nathane and Victorian - FGS custom folded the drawers, had them powdercoated and then modified existing handles to fit. I don't know the brand. Best contact FGS Composites.
 

CragMog

Member
Weight - fully loaded with both passengers in, 190 litres of water, 360 litres of fuel, tools, recovery gear, food, etc, etc. we are at 6,850kgs or 15,000 lbs. The GVM is 7,490kgs so plenty to spare. Bear in mind, we are weekend warriors so fully loaded we go off grid for a week to 10 days max. The new camper and subframe with all of the extras, furniture, batteries, electronics, etc is about 400kgs (880 lbs) lighter than the old Binz box. Given that my walls are almost 2" thick and heavily insulated plus the extra weight of a full pop top it's not a bad outcome. Everything in the build is heavy duty so no real risk of offroad damage. Having said that, the old Binz box was very strong. I tested that!
 

Iain_U1250

Explorer
That's pretty good going, fullly loaded we are around 7800kg, but we have a bit more fuel, water and almost 160kg of batteries. It 's amazing how much stuff we end up carrying, I have round 250kg of tools and spares :) We keep on adding things until we hit GVM, then take out a little bit :)
 

Jostt

Adventurer
Weight - fully loaded with both passengers in, 190 litres of water, 360 litres of fuel, tools, recovery gear, food, etc, etc. we are at 6,850kgs or 15,000 lbs. The GVM is 7,490kgs so plenty to spare. Bear in mind, we are weekend warriors so fully loaded we go off grid for a week to 10 days max. The new camper and subframe with all of the extras, furniture, batteries, electronics, etc is about 400kgs (880 lbs) lighter than the old Binz box. Given that my walls are almost 2" thick and heavily insulated plus the extra weight of a full pop top it's not a bad outcome. Everything in the build is heavy duty so no real risk of offroad damage. Having said that, the old Binz box was very strong. I tested that!
Good job , I know Im maybe obsesed whit the kg, by my professional ocupation,but as much light you can keep your camper beter , by my point of view . there is many points to talk about, one I felt big difference is in the consuption of diesel, and another is the balance on the off and on road, whit coil springs instead of leaf this trucks dont love to much to be heavy, some of this trucks has rear bars on the axles, and it makes much more beter the fight whit the moviment on the road, at all there is a big effort to keep this truck light specially for the money side, many aluminium an expensive materials are required, On the rims for example is a good place to save a lot of kg, the original ones are very very heavy, enjoy whit your camper
 

CragMog

Member
The new camper is heavily built (3mm glass fibre each side of the very dense 40mm insulation) and has a lot more furniture. The difference between the new box and the old Binz box, including subframe, is about 800kg. I've used some of that with bigger batteries, extra water, bigger toolboxes, solar panels, etc. All good comfort stuff.

Josst, I agree. Lighter is always better, but.......these trucks do very well with weight as long as you keep the COG as low as possible. Being an ambulance I have anti-sway bars plus I added the Hellgeth Koni shocks. I also run my tyres at 65psi. They are giant balloons and contribute a lot to the rocking motion. Mine is stable without being too hard. As soon as I hit gravel roads I drop the tyre pressure and, of course, my speed.
 

Wyuna

Observer
CragMog, so what was the weight of just the shell, pop top and canvas???

I've just learnt today that i'm able to purchase a 4x4 MB Sprinter Cab 4.1T GVM MWB Single rear wheel chassis with the opened rear cab from new, basically the cab that the motorhome converters are able to buy for their conversions.

So, I'd like to explore this, a little more than building another camper on a Van Chassis.

cheers
 

Victorian

Approved Vendor : Total Composites
CragMog, so what was the weight of just the shell, pop top and canvas???

I've just learnt today that i'm able to purchase a 4x4 MB Sprinter Cab 4.1T GVM MWB Single rear wheel chassis with the opened rear cab from new, basically the cab that the motorhome converters are able to buy for their conversions.

So, I'd like to explore this, a little more than building another camper on a Van Chassis.

cheers

We loved our sprinter cab chassis. Do it ! 79B9B56A-8D37-44DA-B10A-38658FCA296D.jpeg
 

CragMog

Member
Hi Wyuna - this was a custom build and being for a Unimog I wanted the skins to be very tough. To make the walls as strong as possible FGS built both the outer and inner skins the same using a combination of glass fibre products. They specialise in composites so could build exactly what I wanted. You may not need quite the same level of bomb proof build and that will impact your weight. I also used 40mm aircraft foam for insulation. We have sloped side walls to keep the campers elbows in when weaving through trees or negotiating narrow tracks with rocky walls. As it turns out, having the side slope makes the side mirrors a whole lot more effective. Bonus! Having sloped sides meant we couldn't consider off the shelf panels. The roof, top of wall frame and edges are built to brush off reasonable sized branches. The framing for the gullwing door and hatches is glass fibre. Other than the subframe and spare wheel frame there is no metal. The walls cover the subframe so capture the metal withing the insulation. The result is very low thermal bridging. All of this adds weight, but it has delivered a very strong and very high quality outcome.

Here are the weights, some measured, some guessed:
•2 x Side Walls – 61 each
•2 x Front/Rear guess – 30 each
•Roof without solar including Maxair fan – 121kgs
•Subframe – 269.5kgs
•Floor and spare wheel system guess – 150kgs
•Furniture, toilet, counter tops guess – 200kgs
•Electrical, plumbing, tanks, Eberspacher, Elgena, filter, batteries – 200kgs
 

Wyuna

Observer
Thanks Cragmog for the reply,

I'll be contacting FGS on monday to have a chat, as i like the concept of the slide slope, pop top and the Gullwing door and as a bonus they are in QLD and not a far drive from Brisbane.

The Chassis design of the Sprinter Cab, looks like a direct fix without a need for a unimog style subframe, i have to get my hands on the latest body builder manual to check on that.. but that will save weight.

It's easy to add weight on these builds, i'd ideally like to keep the same size wheel diameter on all four corners, that the 4.1 t offers over the 4.49 version does with the super single tire, i'll have to find my old weight spreadsheet from my last build and see where i end up weight wise.

I love my Maxxfan Deluxe on my current camper, works well with the Westabo Ventilation function on my diesel heater, although need build will most likely include two Maxxfans for better performance.
 

CragMog

Member
Camper at Eurimbula NP.png

Solar: My carefully crafted solar calculations didn't account for parking in the shade and not moving for 6 days. My plan was to use excess solar to heat the water system. Turns out hot showers every evening are really nice so why not just run down the batteries. Wilma only got to use the kettle a couple of times. For the rest we used the Coleman dual fuel stove. We worked a few of the days so charged 2 x laptops, 2 x iPads and 2 x iPhones. Ran two of the three fans constantly and of course the National Luna 74l fridge. On the last day I got down to 54% which is as low as I ever want to go with AGM batteries. There is no doubt that power corrupts and I found myself wanting more than the system could deliver. In full sun it's not a problem, but in the shade it struggled.

Air flow: I still haven't put in the windows as I'm first trying to figure out number and dimensions. Having a large window over the dinette would be nice, but my real need is air flow while in bed. Although the windows in the pop top were all open, there's no air in the back corner. I used the Sirocco fan on mid-speed and that worked, but noisy. Who has fixed the airflow problem and how?

Compact: Dimensions are 5.8m x 2.25m x 3.1m (high) so it's not a small truck. We decided to explore some of the tracks in the national park. Not Mogworthy from a 4x4 perspective, but certainly narrow and overgrown. Lots of scraping of paint and camper, but I could make it comfortably between trees, under branches and through tight corners. The angled in sides worked well going between trees where the roots on the one side tipped the camper up pushing the other side very close to the other tree. I guess taller, wider and longer would still have worked, but just have been more difficult to navigate.
 

Roverchef

Adventurer
For ventilation I use the little solar powered "fart fans". No wiring...you just have to cut holes. I'll try and find some pics for ya.
 

CragMog

Member
Just back from another week on the Queensland north coast. FGS are going to build me two windows so that I have cross draft across the dining area. Across the bed I switched sides so that the fan in the rear corner blew straight onto my face. Kept it at low speed and it was very comfortable.
I crawled up “Big Sandy”, a sand dune north of Yeppoon. MOG behaved very well and I was thankful for the taper in the side walls as there was lots of overhang. While travelling through the Eurimbula track I managed to hit a tree with the LHS top corner of the roof hard enough to chip a piece out of the glass fibre bump rails. Nothing that can’t be easily fixed and no further damage other than lots of bark marks where I brushed branches aside. Taller or wider would not have been great.

The thick walled insulation plus the insulated canvas kept the camper very cool inside. I now heat the water while driving. The first time, so from cold, it took just over an hour to heat the 10l Elgena. After that it was typically half and hour and easily done just using solar. Hot water for showers and washing up is something I can get used to.
 

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Iain_U1250

Explorer
The main reason why we have so many windows is for cross flow. We also have two of these fans. We have vents in the ceiling as well.

Unimog Photos-05709.jpg
 

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