Ski Bum Truck V2.0, F450 Rough Road RV

In reply to SVreX (Forum Supporter) :

Floor is 12'2 inside, not including the cabover. 7'6 ish interior height. It was a custom box, so weird sizes. I think its ~8' tall overall, I have a lot of insulation in the ceiling.

Hey Java!

Not truck related, but Reconkid #1 is up in your neck of the woods. 
 

How's life?

In reply to Recon1342 :

Life is good! Where is he located?

Great weekend. Other than breaking my ass sledding....

How all good times start

How it looked when we showed up Friday night.

And Sunday morning.

That's a propane tank by the front tire :)

Added a little table on the side of the truck, pretty slick unit from Expedition Upfitters. Should be perfect for a quick BBQ or just drink spot.

The drive down got interesting. 1/3 of the way down I come around a corner and see a car stopped... Stuck. Trying to turn around. Park and walk closer and there is a Subaru well stuck in the ditch behind them too. Fun.... They had been spinning in that area for awhile, it was POLISHED. walk back tot he truck and get the Maxtrax (which was freaking amazing in snow....). A 5 point turn later car one is aimed back down hill. The off camber of the road was freaking the lady driving out, but keeping the pass side in the deep fresh stuff she got around the Subaru. Next try.... Drag Subaru out of ditch. Going uphill was a no go, I just spun and slid towards the ditch too.... Chained up, drove around him and tried dragging downhill, no go. Ditch was getting deeper. Last ditch effort was 4 people pushing, I dug down to gravel on the drivers side and we built a maxtrax bridge on the pass side.... Somehow that worked.... One pic my wife took when it was all over.

Maxtrax bridge he could dive on to combat the polished snow and camber....

In reply to java230 :

He's in Everett.

Wall of text incoming, but there is a good brain trust here......

More question on these wheels and tires..... I need new fronts.

Question 1: Can I NOT use the runflat/beadlock insert? They are a TRA -15 degree bead profile. 

Question 2: Can I get these beads seated if I try to mount them myself? The two piece wheel leads itself to getting the tire on, but I am not sure about seating such a beefy tire.

Some data I found on Google for Rim profiles: "regular" rims are 5 degree taper, half size are 15 degree simply to help mount the tire with the steel belts in the sidewall is my understanding.

Between the stiffer sidewalls and the higher pressures they don't have retention issues.

But I do stupid (Rutted/holed FS roads) with mine.... I am sure that stresses the retention..... I am highly doubtful I can get the beadlock out and back in myself..... I have an email out to hutchinson to see what/if they will say.

Next, Its been raining like a MFer and the electrical gremlins are back......

One thing I know for sure, my sealing of the roof marker lights must not have worked..... It was raining out the headliner last time we were in the snow. So I will get those resealed this weekend.

However, speakers were making their berkeleying noises again..... And Right run signal indicator is glowing again....

IDGAF about the turn signal, but the speaker noise (just loud static bursts) freaks the hell out of my dog. So one either either tries to jump in bed with us at night, or if hes alone, destroys E36 M3.....

So I am thinking, something is shorting to the speakers.

So either at the headunit/under dash, which could be windshield leak, or perhaps in the door? Windshield is original (2208 150k miles). Or cowl drain, but according to the forums that should show up on pass floor, and I have no obvious water anywhere....

Only thing I can think in the door that has power all the time is the power lock. The truck had mice at one point..... Maybe a chewed wire in the door that is shorting to the speaker when water gets past the window seal?

OR bad connection at the door jamb? Wires have bent enough times to crack insulation? (seems unlikely)

OR its under the dash somewhere......


Any other thoughts before I try to tear this thing apart? BTW electrical gremlins suck.

Well I had a REALLY long day yesterday......

On the way home from Whistler BC, i noticed the power steering went out, at first I thought something locked up and I couldn't steer left, but nope it was just HARD. 

OK PS pump quit, well then I see the temp is pegging (steepish windy road). Crap, lost serp belt. Try to milk it a long a little and its at 260.... Shut it down and coasted to the shoulder, and remember that I have hydroboost brakes.....

Bad spot to pull over, whip up google and look pull offs, there is one about 5 miles up..... Well this should be fun, or blow a HG.

About 1/2 mile up the road and there is a pull out for a view point!!! Shut off and coast in. At least we are in a safe spot.

Pretty spot to break down?

Jump out and check, belt is off, well I have a spare, so ok. A little looking on how to get it off..... I cant even get my hands behind the shroud, like I have the cuts to prove it from getting stuck.

OK from the bottom, Hmmm, That tensioner looks odd, pulley is floppy. Crap. 

2 hours on the phone with AAA and I have a tow scheduled, but I am in BC, call BCAAA.... Get name of tow company, google says 2 star reviews.... Great. Call them, maybe around 9pm, (its ~10am at this point.....)

OK start calling shops, 20+ called, no one will work on it. Well ok..... Note the closest town is ~20 miles. At the same point my wife finds a shop (Shout out to Sammy at Whistler Automotive!!) who says we get it there, he will do it, orders the parts. 

Well OK.... I find a napa, they say they have the part. I have time to kill, I obviously wont get to the shop today (plus I cant ride in the tow truck, and have 100lb german shepard with us.....) lets see if I can get a taxi to come out here. With taking my credit card in advance they were willing to come out....

So I have an hour (and thank god there was cell service in this spot!) A quick Youtube and I find you can remove the top half of the fan shroud, and access through the fan.

Dissassebly begins, Remove a coolant line, prop it up high on the hood, a couple wire harnesses, and 3 vacuum lines. PS resi and lines and bob is your uncle fan shroud off.

Well thats no good.

$150 taxi ride later I have parts (and more socket extensions.... You need 12" or more). Install parts and new serp belt, re route belt, and I cant get it over the tensioner. OK, try the old belt again, maybe its stretched or I have the wrong one. Nope. Same. Reefing on the tensioner with a breaker bar, nothing. Berk. 

Hang on, this tensioner is tensioning the wring way!! Apparently there are two.... One pivots the opposite way of the other....Its used to tension the AC belt. But looks exactly the same except a tiny arrow engraved in the end. 
BERK. At this point  dont even have time to get back to the parts store before they close..... 
 

Well my wife is trying to help (and keep me cool....) she has the genious idea, and asks if I can just swap the pulley. Well its threaded!!

Old tensioner, new idler, DONE.
 

Re-installed, and made it home before 10pm. LONG DAY.

In reply to java230 :

Here's to wives who save us from ourselves!

Long expensive day but hell yeah to a super helpful spouse!!

Well played, and now you know you can just carry a spare pulley and it works for both!

She is the best. Made me lunch and walked to the grocery store and bought beer while I was in napa. I'm blessed!

In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :

Yes! But apparently the tensioner splits too. I think I'm going to replace all the idlers and a new tensioner and keep this as a spare. 

I'll take suggestions on what else to fix while I'm doing it! 

Just wanted to let you know that I remember when you first posted this and it's been on my mind ever since. Even though I am a flat lander I love skiing and in the next few years I also plan to start ski bumming. Not sure what the vehicle is but I spend a lot of time researching and changing my mind between some sort of bigfoot trailer, slide in or Class C. For now I am thinking a trailer like that I can use the truck to get to the slopes. 

Time to start going back to see what page I left off on to get caught up!

In reply to Enyar :

Yay!! Skiing is awesome.

I've been thinking, If we didn't have the kid it could be smaller for sure. 

I run into a fair bit of ppl in mini vans. Super stealth 

In reply to java230 :

All caught up! I think I last left off around page 24 or so. Great thread.

I have an 1 year old now and there are plans for another. I'll have to keep thinking about the best vehicle for us. I'm thinking a fiberglass trailer that I can leave at the campsites and then use the truck to shuttle to the slopes. Are there other forums people like you post on? I follow a few FB groups and it seems tricky to find camping near most resorts and no one posts things like what youre doing here. How do I learn these secret spots??

In reply to Enyar :

Whew ! Lots to go through!!

Most camp sites close down in the winter, thats the hard part. The ones I end up at seem to be where employees live full time in the winter, otherwise its resorts that allow camping/have camping locations themselves. 

There are a couple FB groups, but generally the resorts that kinda turn a blind eye are kept pretty hush hush. Very hard to find info on.

Just spent a couple weeks at Wolf Creek and was amazed/impressed/jealous of all of the different and unique and wide-range of 4x4 camper setups that stayed in the lots.  Everything from murdered out F350s and $$$$ slide ins, an EarthRoamer to econolines to sprinters to even a 4x4 converted HEARSE!  The ski bum stoke is alive and thriving in Colorado.  5' dumping of powder helped draw them out too im sure, but still.  Was  cool to see how many different ways there are to 'skin the cat', so to speak. 

In reply to golfduke :

That's awesome! Pow does bring everyone out. Lots of different ways to to it for sure. Always fun to see, I like the custom ones, everyone does it a bit different.

Well I need to get this front end figured out..... And I need tires, like now. I can see steel 

Do I run 19.5 tires without the inserts or try to find some 20" that I can make work, brodozer duals or super single are the options it seems.... 

In reply to java230 :

That sucks. Was driving through a whiteout today and it made me think of you for some reason. Pretty sure my little half-ton gained a couple hundred pounds in ice weight...

In reply to Recon1342 :

Yeah.... My fault I guess, but the closest alignment place is a couple hours away....

I hate that icey goop! 

Alignment done. I don't know what knocked it out (or if I did it really bad with my DIY version) but it had about 1" of toe in..... They did not find any suspiciously worn parts.

Two new front have arrived. My FedEx guy was awesome this time.

I was worried about getting the beads seated, but it was no issue at all. Two piece wheels are handy! I will ahve to final torque the bolts on the truck, I couldn't get it to stop trying to spin, even with my wide standing on it!

But we have been using it a lot!!

Long time no update, we have been in summer mode for awhile now. Although its still cold, having house on wheels is nice.

New puppy happened too.... Hes a terror.

Had some great fun on the single track, until we hit snow!

Then we cracked a radiator on the way home.... Thoughts on OE vs Mishimoto? 

I cant pinpoint it exactly, but I assume its between the plastic end tanks and the alu fins....

I went with a Mishimoto unit in my 7.3 and couldn't be happier. My plan was to make my own aluminum tanks for the original rad if a reasonably priced alternative didn't exist.

In reply to Azryael :

Thank you, they are the only ones in stock, and I'm getting mixed reviews. It seems to me it's better than plastic tanks though

My thoughts are with an aluminum rad at least you can have it welded or scuff it and use epoxy in a bind. The plastic end tanks make repairs troublesome.

Also not sure I've ever posted in here but man do I like your set up. 
 

In reply to 1SlowVW :

Very true. Jb weld repairs are doable on all alu 

Thanks for the kind words!