-
Featured
- #961
- Joined
- Apr 13, 2022
- Messages
- 130
- Reaction Points
- 449
- Location
- SF Bay Area
- Current Ride
- 2022 F-250 Tremor
- Current Ride #2
- 2005 SMB 4x4
Figured I would write up a brief overview from my camper shakedown trip. We drove ~3400 miles from the SF Bay area as far south as La Ventana, BCS, MX and back. This included a mixture of CA highways, Mexican highways (if you want to call them that), dirt roads, rough trails, some 4x4. We camped all but 5 nights out of 32. In general my wife and I both like the livability of the camper compared to the van. Having a permanently set up queen bed, dinette, and toilet were big hits. I still miss a few things about the van, but I'm moving on. Here's a few high level thoughts on various items:
Bison Camper shell: Overall worked well. A few small leaks around canvas to deal with, the roof actuators lost programming on lower limit, and a pretty intense thermal bridge on the aluminum channel used to attach the canvas at the top and bottom edges. Putting aside some of my petty gripes on some perceived quality issues, it seems to be a pretty solid shell. It got a lot of shaking and bouncing around and no sign of structural issues.
Bowen Customs flatbed: Well laid out and very functional. I love the rear slide out drawer with lid that doubles as a table. I had some initial quality issues with it immediately after having it installed but worked through them all. Overall I'm very happy with it and Bowen seems to be knocking it out of the park in the flatbed market right now.
Vice Customs cabinets: Layout, construction and quality is all good. Only conflict we both missed during design is that the lower door of the toilet compartment hits the camper door handle when the camper door is closed. Not a big deal at all and doesn’t impact functionality, but just something we both missed during design. I definitely can recommend Dustin at Vice Customs.
Airhead toilet: Works as advertised. Wife and I are both generally happy with it.
Induction cooking: I’m a big fan now! I use a small table top version instead of a built in. It boils my water for morning tea in just over 2 minutes. It is not impacted by wind when cooking outside (which is really the only place I cook) which is awesome. Draws ~170 amps (@ 12volts) on high.
AC Electric water heater: I’m also a big fan. I installed a 1.5 gallon electric water heater. The size & location is working very well (very short runs to faucet and outside shower). It heats to temp in about 7 minutes. I installed a thermostatic mixing valve to the outside shower set at 100 deg F which also worked great. A very short initial burst of cold water until it was at a constant 100 deg.
Water system: The ShureFlow pump is the noisiest pump I’ve ever had!! It was embarrassing when camped near others. Others I have owned haven’t been exactly quiet, but not this bad. I just bought a Seaflo pump that gets good reviews and will give it a try. Should be nearly an exact swap out dimensionally. My drinking water filter system worked well. The water always tasted great through those filters (cartridge and UV).
Electrical in general: I purchased a complete Victron / Battle Born setup direct from Battle Born Batteries. 4 x 100 amp hour batteries, 3000 watt inverter, solar and DC/DC chargers. 350 watts of Renogy solar panels (from Amazon) on the roof. I never went below 70% capacity. Couldn’t be happier!
Autoterm diesel heater: Unfortunately it had an electrical issue the first night and I didn’t really need it for the trip so just let it be. I checked it out yesterday and it appears I had a bad 25 amp blade fuse that came with the heater. The fuse melted but didn’t blow. That concerned me and I just pulled both fuses out for the remainder of the trip to prevent a fire. I’ve never had that happen with a fuse, but I put a new fuse in and ran it through its paces yesterday and all seems fine now. The vented fuel cap on my small diesel tank leaks a lot so I need to get that addressed. Think I’ll vent the tank with a hose and put a non-vented cap on.
Awning: I love the Taruca 270 awning! It has great coverage and held up very well to some pretty good wind. The built in LED lighting on two of the arms were perfect for cooking or beach parties after dark. It is very well constructed.
Bed: The Sedona RV Mattress from Matress Insider combined with the Froli sleep system were a winner. It was so nice to have a permanently set up queen size bed with N/S sleeping arrangement.
Fans: While it never got really hot on this trip, we did use the three Caframo Sirocco II fans I installed inside. So nice that you can point them in any direction needed and they move a little or a lot of air depending on speed. It’s “that time of life” for my wife where hot flashes come and go constantly so she really appreciated them.
Reading lights: I installed reading lights next to each of our pillows. Just inexpensive Amazon lights but they are great EXCEPT using my HAM radio seems to trigger them on / off / on / off …. Totally bizarre as they are on completely isolated electrical systems. The RF is somehow strobing them. Otherwise, they were great little reading lights with dimming and a red light capability.
The Truck: Overall worked great. So glad I spent the money on the suspension upgrades. Rough trails / off road were quite smooth. I wish my center of mass wasn’t so far back and high, but that’s the nature of the beast. My van was much better balanced in that regard. With ~3400 miles travelled over many types of terrain, different speeds, and different weather / wind I averaged 10.7 MPG which I’m actually pretty happy with (7.3L gas engine).
That's the highlights. Here's a few truck pics from the trip. I sure wish I was still down there!
Bison Camper shell: Overall worked well. A few small leaks around canvas to deal with, the roof actuators lost programming on lower limit, and a pretty intense thermal bridge on the aluminum channel used to attach the canvas at the top and bottom edges. Putting aside some of my petty gripes on some perceived quality issues, it seems to be a pretty solid shell. It got a lot of shaking and bouncing around and no sign of structural issues.
Bowen Customs flatbed: Well laid out and very functional. I love the rear slide out drawer with lid that doubles as a table. I had some initial quality issues with it immediately after having it installed but worked through them all. Overall I'm very happy with it and Bowen seems to be knocking it out of the park in the flatbed market right now.
Vice Customs cabinets: Layout, construction and quality is all good. Only conflict we both missed during design is that the lower door of the toilet compartment hits the camper door handle when the camper door is closed. Not a big deal at all and doesn’t impact functionality, but just something we both missed during design. I definitely can recommend Dustin at Vice Customs.
Airhead toilet: Works as advertised. Wife and I are both generally happy with it.
Induction cooking: I’m a big fan now! I use a small table top version instead of a built in. It boils my water for morning tea in just over 2 minutes. It is not impacted by wind when cooking outside (which is really the only place I cook) which is awesome. Draws ~170 amps (@ 12volts) on high.
AC Electric water heater: I’m also a big fan. I installed a 1.5 gallon electric water heater. The size & location is working very well (very short runs to faucet and outside shower). It heats to temp in about 7 minutes. I installed a thermostatic mixing valve to the outside shower set at 100 deg F which also worked great. A very short initial burst of cold water until it was at a constant 100 deg.
Water system: The ShureFlow pump is the noisiest pump I’ve ever had!! It was embarrassing when camped near others. Others I have owned haven’t been exactly quiet, but not this bad. I just bought a Seaflo pump that gets good reviews and will give it a try. Should be nearly an exact swap out dimensionally. My drinking water filter system worked well. The water always tasted great through those filters (cartridge and UV).
Electrical in general: I purchased a complete Victron / Battle Born setup direct from Battle Born Batteries. 4 x 100 amp hour batteries, 3000 watt inverter, solar and DC/DC chargers. 350 watts of Renogy solar panels (from Amazon) on the roof. I never went below 70% capacity. Couldn’t be happier!
Autoterm diesel heater: Unfortunately it had an electrical issue the first night and I didn’t really need it for the trip so just let it be. I checked it out yesterday and it appears I had a bad 25 amp blade fuse that came with the heater. The fuse melted but didn’t blow. That concerned me and I just pulled both fuses out for the remainder of the trip to prevent a fire. I’ve never had that happen with a fuse, but I put a new fuse in and ran it through its paces yesterday and all seems fine now. The vented fuel cap on my small diesel tank leaks a lot so I need to get that addressed. Think I’ll vent the tank with a hose and put a non-vented cap on.
Awning: I love the Taruca 270 awning! It has great coverage and held up very well to some pretty good wind. The built in LED lighting on two of the arms were perfect for cooking or beach parties after dark. It is very well constructed.
Bed: The Sedona RV Mattress from Matress Insider combined with the Froli sleep system were a winner. It was so nice to have a permanently set up queen size bed with N/S sleeping arrangement.
Fans: While it never got really hot on this trip, we did use the three Caframo Sirocco II fans I installed inside. So nice that you can point them in any direction needed and they move a little or a lot of air depending on speed. It’s “that time of life” for my wife where hot flashes come and go constantly so she really appreciated them.
Reading lights: I installed reading lights next to each of our pillows. Just inexpensive Amazon lights but they are great EXCEPT using my HAM radio seems to trigger them on / off / on / off …. Totally bizarre as they are on completely isolated electrical systems. The RF is somehow strobing them. Otherwise, they were great little reading lights with dimming and a red light capability.
The Truck: Overall worked great. So glad I spent the money on the suspension upgrades. Rough trails / off road were quite smooth. I wish my center of mass wasn’t so far back and high, but that’s the nature of the beast. My van was much better balanced in that regard. With ~3400 miles travelled over many types of terrain, different speeds, and different weather / wind I averaged 10.7 MPG which I’m actually pretty happy with (7.3L gas engine).
That's the highlights. Here's a few truck pics from the trip. I sure wish I was still down there!
