1-Year Review | Likes & Dislikes | Four Wheel Campers Hawk | Ford F250 | Bowen Customs Flatbed

foreign [Music] thanks for tuning in to another one of my videos uh this video is kind of an anniversary video in a sense uh it's been about 12 months since I've had the truck completed with the camper and the flatbed on and I just want to go through those 12 months and really do a review of the vehicle and let you know what's been working what hasn't been working things I want to change or things that I have changed on top of that I've been to a lot of fun places so far I've been to Colorado New Mexico Utah Nevada and California and obviously Arizona because that's where I'm from filming this actually from Arizona right now it's uh I think it's about 112 to 114 at home and only about 80 miles from home and I'm sitting in Upper 80s probably somewhere between like 85 and 90 degrees with a little bit of a breeze blowing so it's really great to have this to be able to get up and get out and uh I'm really surprised too this campsite's almost a ghost town so let's get into this let's take a look at the truck do a walk around and uh we'll go from there back to you in the studio foreign [Music] guys as far as review goes let's start with the truck um I decided to go with a brand new truck because at the time uh basically during the old Culvert period the uh used car market was insane and for the amount of money that I spent on a new truck it was only fractionally less money to spend on a used truck so that's why along with this one I'm going to go off of my notes here so uh Rider strike and all I got to read my own Knights notes so um basically this was a 2022 F250 4x4 with the super cab it's the XLT trim it was a 148 inch wheelbase I opted to get the 7.3 liter V8 Godzilla motor and it's got a 10-speed automatic transmission the options I chose from Ford were 4.3 electric locking axle got the factory skid plates I got the UPS fitter switches I got the additional 397 amp alternator plus an additional battery and that alternator feeds back to my uh um lithium batteries in the camper and also got the center console so I have two basically bucket seats with the center console in the middle and on the long trips just having that there and being able to put your arm up on it I kind of feel like it was definitely worth the money so so far it's been a great truck I have about 14 000 miles on it in my first year and I've taken two trips that were about 1800 miles and then most of the other trips are around Arizona where I'm usually anywhere between 250 to 400 miles so let's move on and take a look at some of the accessories that I put on the truck all right starting up front here I've actually gotten some pretty good compliments on this bumper um I went with this bumper mainly because obviously the factory bumper is garbage with uh for off-road and this that and the other and you got to have somewhere to put your winch in this that and the other but this bumper is from chassis unlimited I'm really happy with it at the time again back in 2021 when I ordered it 2022-ish it was about 1800 bucks maybe just a tad under 19 somewhere in that range obviously with inflation things might be a little bit different but I think as far as bumpers goes it's been fantastic it's been really strong haven't had any issues with it it fits my Smittybilt winch no problem and all the whole cutouts for the lights and everything are for all the different standard lights and everything so this is chassis unlimited this was actually obviously built in in size for a Ford F50 or a Ford series truck so it's been really great the other thing I got on here obviously was a Smittybilt uh Lynch It's a 12 500 pound winch I have not used it yet for Recovery I have pulled it out and hooked up to a tree and and pulled my line back in and kind of got my line kind of straightened out for the first time and and rerun onto the roll and hoping keeping my fingers crossed that I don't need to use it but obviously if I do I have used it and took it through its paces and whatnot uh Factor 55 link that I got these are really nice super high quality and uh haven't had any issues with that as well through recommendations of a couple other people that I met the shackles that I got I believe they're rated to sixty thousand pounds but those are from Gear America not super expensive you can go through their website and I think I actually ordered these ones off of Amazon lastly on the front bumper here I got my Baja design lights I got three different styles of Lights the center ones are actually the OES like you can use on the road legally those are like my fog lights and then on the outside I have one set of spots and then the outer ones are angled out a little bit and they're wides and I'll do another video that shows those they're all Amber I really didn't want all the crazy lights up on the rig and everything to me it's just kind of Overkill this gets the light out that I need and really lights things up and I've done a couple late night runs and having all of these set and having just the factory Ford headlights on high is more than enough so that's what I got for the front end been super happy with it let's go ahead and take a look at the tires and suspension now all right guys obviously I know this stuff but I'm gonna make sure I have it so I don't forget but onto my tires my wheels and my suspension here I went with the Neato 35 and a half by 12 and a half excuse me 35s by 12 and a half by 17 tires they've been fantastic so far they're not super noisy on the road I am just noticing I I do take a look at them every once in a while I've only gotten a few little chunks and I have hit a few pretty rough roads if you look at one of my earlier videos when I went out to the north rim there's a lot of just loose rock big rock on that road and everything and I'm really impressed with uh with how these tires are holding up I usually when I get off road my whole rig when I'm really really weighed down first mile of a trip I'm about 10 400 pounds so anywhere between you know upper 9000s and low ten thousands when I'm rolling so when I get off pavement and I go to air down I'll typically put my front tires at 25 psi and my back tire is at 30 and it's more than enough or it's where I need to be to be comfortable on the roads really mitigates a lot of the washboards and uh takes care of a lot of the smaller bumps and really makes for a super smooth ride and then on top of that the wheels I chose these are the methods standard 315s it's a 17 by eight and a half inch wheel and I got it in sort of the matte black look just a really great wheel and again all the things I like about this stuff is just it's really been durable and holding up the only small thing I don't like about these rims is it has a little bit of a recessed area in here so if you do go through a water crossing or if you do clean your rig or you get a heavy rain sometimes you'll just get a little bit of water that pools in there again first world problems but um otherwise it's been really great and then on the suspension I went with the Carly Ford Super Duty two and a half three and a half inch leveling kit I think it's called their Mountaineer kit and it came with uh leveling it's leveling it out of packs adjustable track bar front rear shocks sway bar drop brackets and then one last thing I did add to the back and I'll do some b-roll on some of this stuff as well is I added some Timber and suspension helpers just when they got the camper and everything on the back of the camper just visually it's going to squatting just a little bit and it's still squats just a little bit I don't know if down the road I'm going to get add a leaf helper or something like that but it's more of an optical thing than a travel thing everything runs perfectly I've hit some pretty gnarly stuff and and dropped off some some little edges in this that and the other and I don't have any issues I haven't really caught anything on the back end it's more of just uh you know looking like I'm just you know weighted down just a touch in the back but otherwise been super happy with um all three project our products and uh actually I've noticed too that a lot of people are running the Nito tires so if you're out there shopping around take a look at it see what you think all right let's take a look at the flatbed now okay guys moving on to the flatbed I uh selected Bowen out of Arvada Colorado uh mainly two main reasons made in USA and I found them at Overland Expo and um talked to him and I talked to or tried to call some of the major manufacturers of flatbeds at the time that make them usually for the farming and Commercial Industries and they weren't quite getting the vibe of uh what I was talking about needing a flatbed to put a camper on so uh the fact that Bowen and Overland Juniper Overland were both in the Denver area and at the time Juniper was a distributor for four-wheel camper it just made sense for me to take my truck to one area and get both the camper and the bed put on and I just want to say too even though Juniper is no longer a distributor of four-wheel campers the folks at Juniper and Brent and his crew over at Bowen were really great they worked with each other and you know when Brent needed the truck to get some measurements he had it and then some sometimes he would take it over to Juniper and Juniper would put either on the tires or suspension or bumper as things came in it was kind of a crazy time when all the pandemic stuff was going on so parts were coming in you know every once in a while so kudos to all you guys for helping me out on that kind of stuff so with the flatbed it's a flatbed the flatbed itself from here back is a six and a half foot standard flatbed and I ordered it with two rear drawers and a sliding drawer in the back and I'll do some b-roll and all this stuff and then the one upgrade that I did is I did the Ford garage the Ford garage is approximately 18 inches wide it's got some some supports and everything on the inside that give you a clear moving space of just over 15 inches let's say 15 and 3 8 but it has Gold Wing doors good locks on it growing doors on both sides and then instead of doing a standard drawer underneath here that most flatbeds do this with this garage area I have this lower area down here where I can put trash I have my twin ARB pump right here so this is where I air up from in my hose I can reach all four tires no problem and I got a bunch of gear in here I had I have done another video that just talks about uh the garage and whatnot so if you want to see that check back on my list of videos and I kind of do a walk through of all the different stuff that's in here uh like they said the seals and everything on the on the doors are fantastic I get a lot of dirt and everything on the outside but the inside of the drawers stay great so this back door right here I keep all my uh recovery gear in here and a couple extra pairs of shoes and I also keep Just a Spare um a gallon five gallon bucket of uh motor oil for my truck just in case I need it or somebody else on the road needs it let's take a look at the other side okay moving around to the driver's side of for the flatbed and here's the other the second rear drawer on this side I keep mainly stuff in here for my shower and water and things once I get the campsite this tree I actually stand on for when I use my uh outdoor shower from uh four wheel camper we'll get into that later uh keep a little tent on this side uh hoses and the whatnot to either fill up water and or this drain hose for gray water a couple little uh cheap uh clamps in here and then I keep a hammock over in here as well and then here is where they designed and put in the fuel fill it's a gas truck so and everything's super clean the welds and everything they do on these flatbeds are fantastic and then this is then the driver's side Gullwing door and the driver's side side of the Ford garage fire extinguisher in here a lot of my tools I have a uh just some shocks for my wheels and then an extra thing I decided to do in mine is I put an additional 35 gallon fuel tank in and then I got a couple different chairs because you can never have too many chairs actually you can but I do and just tools and I still probably have only used oh 55 60 of the space so I really have enjoyed it so far I think it's a really good flatbed you get what you pay for it's an American-made company Brent and his team are fantastic and uh it's just a really high quality product I can't recommend it enough so if it fits within your budget I think you should go ahead and take a look at bone for sure I would say for me the only thing that I've had struggles with is just because I'm not a super fabricator guy or this that and the other on these two on either side they have some reinforcement uprights on either side and they pre-drilled it to accept Riv nuts and if you try to use a normal Riv nut a little handheld machine it's really difficult to sort of get in there and get your arms back and then get a good squeeze on that thing to put the riv nuts on so Brent if you're listening or watching you guys you might want to think about either every other hole or whatever but maybe including the rib nuts ahead of time in there or possibly doing threaded inserts pre pre-threaded before you guys go to Power coat those that that's the only thing I've had so far with the flatbed as an issue and again it's a pretty small issue otherwise everything's been really great the seals work real fantastic all the switches and the locks and everything have been really fantastic and the overall quality of the flatbed has been phenomenal let's take a look at the rear drawer thank you all right let's take a look at this rear sliding drawer it's one of probably the one of my favorite features on the flatbed itself comes with the same latches on all the other drawers I haven't had any issues but obviously get a lot of dust and dirt built up in the back of your of your rig when you're going down Dusty roads but have yet to have any problems with the locks [Music] so this door is a full 60 inches deep it's 24 inches wide it's about five foot or five foot excuse me five inches tall and can really fit all the items that I was wanting them when I was planting this whole build to store back here basically so one of the newest items that actually fits back in here that I use quite a bit now is uh this little squeegee setup here with extending pole I use it 100 for my solar panel on top of my camper before I pop the roof and then I'll occasionally use it on my windshield because it's got a little abrasive side if I get some pretty good bug strikes and I'm cleaning it at the gas station so that's in there this ladder this is a little Cobalt ladder I got from uh Lowe's I like it because it's really low profile and it's less than five inches tall so it fits in there well as you can see I need a little bit of help getting up to my turn buckles on the truck so it's perfect for that for me um Carrie does the four spikes that came with the Fiamma awning I hardly ever use these spikes but I just haven't around just in case I need them this is the top to my aluminum kitchen table that I use I put it out almost every time I just wanted to show you guys kind of how that folds down in there these are the legs that go with that table they fit in here really well I keep two hiking poles in here as well and then the last thing I have in here is my clean waste portable toilet it's one that if it's really cold or accliment weather I can drag it inside the camper and use it or I can use it without the catch bags and powder and just find myself a nice place with a good view and dig myself a hole in Gold traditional old school in here so those are the items that I put in here when um the tray is in use or when the camper is in use I like it a lot the drawer slides on it are fantastic go in really nice everything closes up really good and it's been a fantastic door so I would say again probably one of my favorite features about this I'll show you in some b-roll it does because I wanted the drawer it does bring up the height of the fat flatbed by five inches so if you imagine if you didn't do a drawer your your bed height would be down here a little bit more and if you want to have less space between the bottom of your overhang of your four-wheel camper and the top of your cab you might want to opt for not having this drawer but I would say it's a fantastic extra space for all these bigger items that you don't want to necessarily carry inside your camper or inside your truck so that obviously gives you a little bit extra room in your truck but if you have a gigantic truck and it's not an issue maybe consider not getting the drawer all right that's everything for the flatbed let's go talk about the camper foreign [Music] the last couple items I want to talk to you guys about are the up top roof rack that I got and uh the exit track uh traction boards and the we boost so far all of them have been great the um up top roof rack is really high quality I have no issues with the powder coat on it all the bolts and and nuts and everything holding it together I kind of did a check on them about uh six months in and everything was in great shape and just did a check on them a couple weeks ago and everything is in great shape the exit track boards I have not used them yet but so far they've been great uh dramatically less expensive than the exit track so if you're looking at boards um they're actually a really good board they're really high quality and I just found them to be pretty good the only problem I had with them and you'll see in some b-roll footage here is the the little clips that go up there that kind of lock them in place those will come loose a little bit so I've had to zip tie them down to make sure they don't twist open and then rattle up luckily one of them came off and the boards kind of flipped up in the air because a lot of air is coming up off the front of the roof rack there and luckily the uh the little clip thing landed on the roof and couldn't slide out from underneath the rack so I didn't lose it there and then the last thing I want to talk about is the we boost antenna it's been fantastic so far and uh I've had some good success with it again um it doesn't take you from zero bars to five bars but if you have one bar maybe two bars it'll definitely get you three and if you have three bars you'll definitely get four and sometimes five so um it's been a good investment and when I've been out and needing a hot spot or being able just to get online to where I can either check into Gaia or check some emails or just check some weather conditions it's been great having that as an addition all right back to you guys in the studio all right the last thing I want to talk about is the camper itself I've had it for about a year and this video kind of just focusing on external stuff I'll do a second video where I talk about some of the internal stuff that I've have in the cab of the truck and then on the inside of the camper but for right now exterior wise I haven't had any issues with the foil camper I mean it's built really well all the hinges all the doors all the vents all the lights and everything have been working really well um really have uh really enjoyed it I think the only thing that I wish there was an actual hack form maybe there is is somebody knows of a hack leave it in the comments for me but when you do have the door open and hooked up on the uh the hook here to keep the door from from blowing close but if you want to let's say close that door at two in the morning you literally have to get out of the camper come all the way down come around to the inside and and then hit this little bad boy right here so I'm trying to see if there is a hack where I could uh possibly drill a small hole through the door and put some kind of something around this so I can actually do a pull on something that would allow that to get out of the way and then somehow flip this out of the way but again total first world problems it's not a really big deal all this stuff's been great like I said the down lights work fantastic if you're camping with other people or if you're camping and you go out at night if you put your down lights on it just puts out enough light so you can see what's going on I've really enjoyed the LED lights if you're considering or not considering getting them I think they're a pretty good addition you can price them against some of the other companies that you know have the extending pole lights that you can do or the whatnot but I normally put my table and I gotta cook kind of right off the end of the camper right there and that back light there shines down when I'm cooking and it adds Perfect Light I did put another set of of lights on the back that just for in the middle of the night you know if something goes bump in the night or some animals you can kind of flip those on and or not necessarily when you're backing up because obviously you'd have to get into the camper and turn those lights on but one little Hack That I Found for those lights are if I'm sitting over here underneath the awning or kind of out front where I like to do my fire pit kind of off the front tire of my truck I will turn on those back lights and let all the bugs and everything dance around back there and that really reduces the amount of bugs that are around me when I'm enjoying my fire pit so other uh anything else I really haven't had any issues with it it's worked out really well I would like to try to find a solution for the Cotter pens on the stairs I know there was a company there for a while that was making a bar that went across here that you could just sort of hook your stairs on and just gravity held it into place but I don't know that they're making those anymore so if anybody knows of a company or knows of a kind of a quicker way of getting the stairs on it's really the only thing that I fumble with is getting the uh the pins lined up and getting them through there and getting them done again it adds maybe 45 seconds to my setup so it's really not the biggest problem in the world but it's just something that if there is an upgrade or something I like to mess around with that's something I'm always looking to do there so I appreciate you guys watching this video um in the next couple weeks I'm gonna do a full rundown of the interior of the truck and the interior of the camper and go through those as well again if you want to see some more info on the Bowen flatbed and the things that I keep in it there's another video that I made of that so check out that if you guys have any questions for me please leave them in the comments I get back to everybody as quickly as I can if you like this video like it if you're interested in hot Campers or just interested in the videos that I'm making please hit subscribe so that way you'll get notified it'll also come into your uh from your subscriptions feed on your list of videos so appreciate it you guys get out there and have some fun and we'll talk to you soon [Music] thank you [Music]

Channel: Uncle Dougie Camp Boss

Views: 15,456

Keywords: FORD, F250, Super Duty, f-250, Godzilla, 7.3L, Four Wheel Campers, FWC, Truck Camper, Truck, Camper, Bowen Customs, Bowen, Flatbed, Hawk, Likes, Dislikes, Overlanding, Dispersed, Camping, Review, One, Year, 1-Year, 4x4

Id: 1pe4KNC81S8

Length: 23min 51sec (1431 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 18 2023