STravis Go Anywhere, Camp Anywhere Build

Haha I still can’t believe yall drill into the roof. But I need a roof rack up there and will have to suck it up and do it myself.

Just need to decide on which one.

 

Thanks man, they were handy to have this weekend. I need to get your rack cut out this week.

 

Dude, drilling holes is easy! Just go for it haha. I love cutting up and drilling holes in trucks. It's therapeutic at this point.

 

We got some more stuff done to the truck this last week. We got the aquor water quick connects installed and got the shower box and both propane tanks mounted up.


Then we made it out Friday and Saturday night to camp.







Next up on the list is the propex heater. I'll hopefully have some time this week to get it installed.

 

I know what you mean. Something about taking off or cutting up factory shit feels so good .

 

Yep! Chop chop!

 

I'm ready for it!

 

I've had a couple afternoons to work on the propex heater setup finally. My wife is worried the kids are going to freeze to death in our 50* low nights but it needed to get done sooner than later because we have some cold nights on the way. I ended up changing everything about my plans once I started laying everything out. I ended up building a shelf at the passenger rear for the heater and some other storage. The regulator is hard mounted to the outside of the camper and the intake and exhaust run out through the floor of the camper. All the internal gas line is hard copper and I have a rubber "whip" hose with quick disconnects for the external stuff.

 

Have you used that kind of heater before? I ened up doing the diesel heater route to prevent moisture buildup

 

I had a diesel heater in the past and it worked well, but I hated having to carry diesel and we had ours mounted in our old build out so we always had a hint of diesel smell if it spilled getting to camp.
I've heard these are a dry heat because the combustion process is external and exhausted out. We'll usually run the fan anyways to keep air moving because we oversized the heater. Hopefully we stay dry and warm.

 

Oh awesome, so it probably has a legitimate heat exchanger instead of just an open flame providing the heat.
Yeah the smell of spilt diesel can get old after a while

 

Correct, it's a heat exchanger vs. the traditional Mr buddy style heater. Should be plenty dry with the fan pulling air out as well, we will see though.

 

Propex is the manufacturer? I’ll have to look one up

 

Yes sir. This one is the propex hs2800.

 

Man that Propex is gonna be nice!

 

We got out and camped again last weekend. The camper is pretty dialed in how we have it set up now. We added some frontrunner flat packs for our personal storage stuff and they fit perfectly behind the couch back.
Also, the propex is awesome. The thermostat keeps the temperature pretty even all night and the heater runs pretty quietly, especially compared to the diesel heater.

 

I knocked out a little project this afternoon. I wired up a plug on the camper and on my roof box to power our starlink mini. This will be nice because everything just unplugs if I need to remove any component of it.
I need to get some more of the KC wire hider stuff to run the wires through but it works for now. The starlink works through the roam case in motion so it will live in there unless I need to aim it at camp.

 

Am I reading this right? So if I get a star link and throw it in my roam case, I’d never have to open the case to give it a clear view of the sky?

 

Correct, the gen 3 and mini dish have been approved in motion, and mine works through my roam case. I'm sure that it is not as fast as if it was oriented correctly but it worked well today on a trip to town. I carried a phone call and streamed a football game in an area that never has service to test it out and it worked.

 

That’s incredible. Great info

 

We had a little local 4x4 expo here this last weekend and we had my truck and one of our customers power wagons in our booth for the shop. The power wagon got runner up for best build and the tundra took best 4x4 build.

 

Congratulations! Very well deserved.

Is the person who drives the ram a wicked tall dude? How the heck does he reach the center latch on the roam case?

 

Tundra + 39's = Trophies. It's simple math really

 

He's probably 5'10"-5'11"". I have not seen him open the case yet so I'm not positive how he gets to it. I know it's got to be hard to reach though.

 

That's what I said!

 

Dude hell yes! Well deserved.

 

Update, it's easy to reach the center latch by standing on the slider.

 

Weird week with the truck. We drove to the hill country in Texas for Thanksgiving. The in laws ran out of room in the house so we had to sleep in our extremely comfortable king size mobile suite in the yard.


Then on the drive home we had a little overheating moment. In some stop and go traffic the dash beeped and lit up saying the truck was overheating. We pulled over, popped the hood and killed the truck. I didn't see anything weird under the hood and the hoses felt fine. I started the truck back up and the gauge dropped fast to normal temps as soon as the truck was running. We got back on the road and figured it may have been a fluke. The next 8 hours on the highway didn't give us any issues.
When I got back to the shop Monday I pulled the skids and I have some coolant crusted up in the water pump area. It looks like it has been leaking for a bit and maybe finally leaked enough to give me an air bubble that caused a spike in temp. I've never noticed any coolant pooled anywhere before. I cleaned it up and will see what the leak looks like over a short period before I get crazy about fixing it. It may be a job I pay somebody to do as I'm swamped at the shop.

Next up. Today on a 3 hour return trip home I got a tpms light. No big deal, pulled over, tried to find a leak and aired back up. This happened 2-3 times and every time I looked for a leak so I could throw a plug in the tire and be done with it.
After the last time I aired it up before making it home I found the leak...in the wheel. The black rhino wheel has an approximate 2" hairline crack on the inside of the wheel that is losing air quickly and apparently getting worse. That will come off tomorrow and I guess I'll be testing the black rhino warranty.

 

Do you think the wheel cracked from an impact?

 

Possibly, but today was 6 hours of highway and it didn't start leaking until about 3 hours in. I don't recall anything happening during the drive that would cause a crack.