DIY 4x4 Ambulance Overland Camper

my name is zach reinitz i am the owner of autarky expedition vehicles we build a four-wheel drive motorhomes right here in reno nevada we've been doing it for three years now and this is our latest creation so all of our vehicles are solid axle four-wheel drives the last two were built off the ford econoline platform we used uh lightweight shuttle buses for our first two they were a fiberglass shuttle bus we stripped all the front suspension off of them and converted them to four wheel drive we had a company in salt lake city called advanced 4x4 they have a long reputation for converting the econoline into four-wheel drive they helped build our first two then we continued to to do what we do and build them into campers that includes large off-grid solar systems big water systems all the luxuries to be off-grid for for weeks on end in primitive locations without without needing to come in for resources i've been in the the off-road industry uh for for years personally you know four-wheeling and exploring all the different local trails in our area and then when it came to my expertise when it comes to building the vehicles so i had a lot of time designing and constructing alarms and fire systems on a computer on cad design so i took a lot of my cad design skills into designing a new camper for myself i was tired of working a 40-hour week job i decided to build a camper for myself to go and explore we built our very first one about three and a half years ago we traveled over 3 500 miles around the us and canada testing the vehicle and understanding what it really means to to build out an expedition truck and and and to know what it takes to to be off grid and so we continued to to evolve from truck to truck this one is just league's better than our very first one we've learned a ton when it comes to solar systems when it comes to designing our water systems when it comes to choosing the right insulation and flooring materials and overall the overall platform that you start with this uh this diesel truck on the f450 platform uh it has almost a 28 000 combined gross vehicle weight rating and we're sitting only at about 12 500 right now fully loaded with water and everything and so it's way under its its total vehicle weight rating you could still tow another small trailer behind it if you wanted to but being within that weight rating and and understanding the the capabilities of the vehicle and building within those is very important and this truck is just a it's just a monster when you take it off-road it's it's smooth it's got more power than you could ever need the big diesel system with a dual alternator system that it has it was originally an ambulance so it had a large electrical package on it designed to support the existing electrical stuff that an ambulance uses we ripped all that stuff out but we still had a lot of the remaining engine components like the alternators to to assist with powering our existing solar system so we have a 200 amp alternator system with the two alternators pushing charge into our batteries whenever we drive we also use the coolant from the truck to heat our hot water system so having a big robust reliable diesel truck like this as your core backbone behind the expedition camper is always key so this is uh running the ford six liter diesel and it's been fully studded and built from the ground up we got the truck it was a used vehicle at 80 000 miles we stripped it pretty much down to the chassis we had the motor completely pulled we we stripped it all the way down to the block we had new performance heads put on it new turbo egr deleted we did all the bullet proofing so we had a couple different shops do it the first one was mcdiesels in reno nevada they did the the head job and they did um a bunch of the bulletproofing and then we took it down to desert diesel in phoenix and they continued to egr delete it and then tune the truck on a custom tune since those two shops have touched the truck it's been nothing but reliable we've driven it about 9 000 miles since since the finished job and we haven't had a single issue we average about 14 miles per gallon when we're towing our samurai which we did for about 8 000 miles of our last trip we averaged about nine but on its own it does pretty well about 1314 and you can easily cruise on the highway at 80 miles an hour you know very light throttle it's got plenty of power more than you'd ever need so starting off we have a it's an arb winch bumper it's got the hella rally eye front uh pencil beam lights in the middle got a smitty 17 500 pound winch has the baja designs s2 pro lights continue moving back the fender flares have been cut out and modified to fit the 41 inch continental mpt's the continental mpt's are fit on a custom 20-inch wheel those are made by first attack engineering it's a custom designed tire and wheel set up for this truck to get the correct offset to be able to fit it originally was a dually and it's been converted to a super single and that's through the use of these these wheels the fender flares were cut out it's a bushwacker fender flare that makes the uh the big round cutout when we get into the suspension on the front end we did a four inch suspension lift that's what also brought the truck up to allow for those tires front leaf springs were replaced with atlas they're custom made leaf spring they're made out of southern california we called them up and gave them our specs and they custom made us a spring the shock is a it's an icon 2.0 it's one of their standard shocks we also called them and had them custom valve it for the weight of the truck moving back to the rear suspension it also has atlas in the rear it originally had a air system that was supporting the rear we removed the kelderman air system it just had a squishy ride feeling and it wouldn't didn't seem like it would be reliable for long-term overland travel so we removed all that and converted back to a leaf spring setup we kind of matched the front end we did a larger atlas rear leaf pack with more icon shocks in the rear we also have a custom rear sway bar a hell wig front and rear with custom tie rod ends to match the height of the truck so that it can flex at full articulation we have a front custom roof rack it's all aluminum it only weighs about about 65 pounds but could probably easily support two or three hundred it's good for firewood and all that kind of stuff above that is a rigid horse 40 inch light bar the whole truck has been lined the fender flares all the outside trim it's in a bullet liner up on top the white thing you see is it's made by turbo cool it's a evaporative air conditioner so it keeps the truck cool it pumps water up to the truck up to the top from our water tank and then it uses a fan to just like a swamp cooler does and uh that'll keep the truck cool on on on even 90 degree days it does a great job and it uses very low power we uh we're actually a reseller of those so if you guys need any you can get in contact with us and then we also we have 660 watts of solar on the rooftop between two different panels two 330 watt panels we have a roof vent above the bathroom so you can vent out the bathroom and then there's a large dometic skylight up there it's also a hatch that you can open up and you can get onto the roof to clean the solar panels as well so these are they're just super heavy duty if you're going to be off-road all day long if you're going to be spending hours and hours doing true overland travel hitting the mojave desert trail um you know going through hundreds of hours of washboard roads you want a reliable tire that's not gonna pop on you that's not gonna degrade through through the tough terrain that you're pushing it through the continentals are just a proven reliable platform to start with uh they have a huge amount of traction and tread depth in them they're kind of like a mix of a mud train with a all terrain they do really good when it comes to both on-road driving as well as off-road driving they're quiet on the highway you can cruise at 80 miles an hour and there you wouldn't know the difference between driving on a regular all-terrain tire they are heavy but when you have a big uh 600 horsepower diesel it's not as big of a deal the earth roamer chooses to run the continental mpt on all their vehicles they've proven that it's been a great reliable tire for for years now [Music] this is behind our bathroom area our bathroom is in our pass-through so we're kind of a limited compact space here but we still utilized a small spot to be able to keep our all of our chemicals for our toilet we keep an extension cord in here some cleaning supplies some cords it's a shallow area that still good for a couple few things of storage tried to utilize having the door here and and still put some storage there so the original ambulance had all these nice heavy-duty doors we removed all of the the lights and then replaced that with bodywork and had it repainted but we didn't want to get rid of any of the doors so this one this is the only one that really is kind of jammed up by the rest of the the interior layout but there's still some space this is a battery tray this is for the um the original batteries that come with the truck the chassis batteries they're on a pull out tray [Music] i can slide out makes it easy to change batteries kind of cool [Music] all these doors are lockable which is nice nobody can get into any of them same key for all of them moving on we get to the house batteries instead of the chassis batteries inside here we have three battleborn 100 amp hour lithium batteries we have room for about another 100 amp hours if you wanted to expand it but there's really no need to you got plenty of power in here they're also wrapped in a starboard insulation material to keep them warm and then we have ventilation coming in from the interior of the truck so that at night your batteries don't get too cold either this is a 30 amp inlet so you can uh charge your batteries from an rv exterior source if you ever ran low which you really never ever do this is a big storage locker this one's great for camping chairs we keep our little fire pit in here a table it's pretty tall you could almost keep a pair of skis in there another great storage locker all of them are real heavy duty the doors are all insulated there's insulation material inside of the panels um you know it's built like a vault all right so here on the back we have a pair of max track style recovery traction boards for when you get buried down in the sand we have a four gallon roto pack extra fuel tank we carry an extra a little bit of four gallons of diesel in there we open the doors this is where we keep our spare tire as well as some storage so the 41 inch spare tire full rim full spare tire sits right here in the back it's pretty easy to grab slide out drop onto the bumper and pull down we also have some extra storage all around it i like to keep my tool bag in here inside of here is the whole solar system it's all tucked into the corner it's all nice and protected hidden away from everything so stuff's not falling into it when you put your gear in here we also have a tow hitch a fold away step so you can access your hitch it's pretty sweet yeah right now we have just a shade to block the windows but if we get rid of the shade that's the bed up there and when you're you could open the back doors have the bed folded out and be looking out the back too if you wanted to but we don't really do that you could so so back here we have uh our largest storage box back here in the rear it also houses our heater so we have a it's a sbar d2 diesel heater it actually has its own small diesel tank it runs off a it's a two gallon tank um this two gallon diesel tank will actually run the heater for for about a week uh with just that two gallons and then you can top it off with the roto pack if you need to you fill it up when you're at the gas station the fill up is right here as well so it makes it nice and easy and then you got a big storage for whatever you want to put in here you got tons of gear space which is always nice coming around to this side we have both of these are dedicated to water this one houses our gray water tank which is with inside of the body of the camper so when the heat is on and the camper is fully insulated around the tank the tank will never freeze this is the back of our kitchen unit coming and draining into the tank we have a little bit of storage around it we keep a hose in here kind of boring there coming up to the main water tank we have a 55 gallon water tank here it's uh vertically stored so that there's very little slosh when you're driving off road above it on top of that is an 11 gallon iso temp water heater uses coolant from the truck to heat the hot water it also has a 600 watt coil that it can use to to heat the water from the solar system as well we also have a an outdoor hand wash station which is pretty cool so you don't have to go inside when you get your hands all dirty working around in the fire pit these are the coolant lines that run up to the water heater they get rather hot when you're driving and the hot water from the tank will also back flow down the cool lines so at night it really helps to keep it helps maintain the tank from freezing we've been down to to 11 degrees is the coldest night we've been so far and we've had not even close to an issue of [Music] freezing so welcome to the interior we can start off with the kitchen unit we have a bamboo countertop stainless steel sink and a furion induction cooktop all of our cabinetry is lightweight baltic birch it's a really lightweight but strong ply material it's great to make cabinetry out of for expedition trucks all of our latches that we have are all made of metal they're stainless steel and they're a push lock system it's really secure we did a downswing opening door makes it simple you don't have to have extra hinges and stuff that break lots of nice storage up top keep all your kitchen stuff you can hear those latches when you shut them they click and they make a real nice sound you know they're secure when you come down here you got the same style latches in the door big under the sink storage our sink is pretty deep but it still allows for a lot of room underneath you can have your nice trash can under there and all your all your normal kitchen goods we have three drawers here these use a push and a twist system it's a double lock it's a marine latch they're uh dovetailed cabinetry a really nice high-end woodworking here everything is slow closed cabinetry so you're not banging anything around these ones are pretty pretty deep as well they go all the way to the back wall which is nice you got tons of storage here on this side we have two big locker drawers we keep our pots and pans in these ones these ones are huge you got you know three or four cubic feet of space inside of here you could fit a ton of stuff pots and pans all your groceries um we've we've gone and packed it for for a three month trip and we get everything that we need in here that we think we need and we still have space it's been it's been awesome compared to compared to any rv or or other travel vehicle that we've ever been in we have also touch lighting above the kitchen gets a nice shine down which is cool all of our lighting in here is made by a company called lumacoin they're made in germany they're a touch system you can run your finger around it to dim them to dim the light so at night you can run them all really dim so if you're kind of urban camping in a neighborhood nobody knows that you're there you can you can still have light but keep it so nobody can see it from the outside through the tent which is really nice you can individually control each light and you can really get it the way you you want and feel comfortable which is super nice lighting is always important so i'm five foot eight uh so you can't be much taller than me where you're going to hit your head so we can we can do a taller build with the taller box this this ambulance that we started with we were limited by the roof space so if you're a short guy this this one's great for somebody that's about five foot five foot eight or shorter um for me it's super comfortable when you wear your shoes too yeah for mike it's a bit of a bit of an issue so um as we move over to the dinette area this is a in couch mode as we call it right now you can take these handles you can pull it all the way out and it drops to a nearly king-sized bed i could do that here in a second underneath me is storage so if i pop out of here i pull a cushion out we have the same push lock latches big storage bays behind all of our seats this is where we keep all of our clothes shoes that kind of stuff hidden underneath the other one there's another one you got another big storage latch here the heater pipe passes through there but you still got plenty of room to fit lots of clothes another good gear so these are made out of a vinyl it's a marine grade vinyl you could pour red wine on it spray it and wipe it right off and then the floor is actually also a vinyl material this is actually a marine product you see it in boats pretty often it's super easy to clean it doesn't stain it doesn't scratch it has a layer of insulation built into it another great product for an expedition truck 32 inch lg tv we have rgbw strip lighting all the way around that's fully adjustable you can change the color underneath the bed here you can pop the table head off and then you got these big storage drawers those are my wife's when we travel sure she puts the majority of her clothes but they're pretty big you get a lot of space it's like having your your dresser at home and those lock into place when you shut them so that you can't just pull them out super easily and then the table also helps to hold them in place this is a purchase product this is a marine product i found it on boat outfitters or one of those exact same thing on the other side we got another big storage bay and it's the same thing underneath the bench if we want to see it all this one's got nothing obstructing it another big storage bay in there there's the light control you have a power station you also have a 12 volt charging station so you got your usbs here which are kind of sweet and then you have the controls for the lights behind us which is a fully touch control panel which is kind of sweet so you can change the colors and then down here on the other side of the bench we have another usb charging station um we have a usbc a couple outlets here and then some cup holders so right now i'm standing in the shower you got your shower head your shower nozzle ready to take a shower when you're ready to take a shower you can shut off the rear of the truck and i can shut you off and i am in the shower stall so these are made by stowet industries uh they make these custom vinyl shower door panels they have a squeegee when you shut them so it squeegees the water off which is pretty cool you can actually custom order these to the to the height and length that you want so we custom built this whole shower panel and then we ordered these doors to our specific dimensions we have a fully stainless steel shower pan this was all hand tig welded um it's connected these walls are made of starboard it's a it's a marine kind of plasticy material super waterproof very durable super easy to clean we've got another little coin touch light in here as we face this way we have a five gallon thetford uh it's called a curve it's there it's one of their portable toilets it's a super easy unit to use it's got an electric flush and a side flush handle and then above the toilet we have a vent with a light so you can shut yourself in do your business nobody'll smell your business it vents right out above you yeah when you shut this thing up you turn that on nobody has any idea what's going on in here open the door we have the full pass through this takes you to the front of the truck um you know it's not huge but it gets the job done you can crawl through get in your driver's seat and you're ready to rock um up front we have a uh there's a full android touch screen android 10.0 uh head unit it connects to a rear backup camera we have all of our light controls it actually ties in our alternators to our house batteries and there's a button right here so if if our trucks chassis batteries ever get too low we can actually tie the chassis batteries to the house batteries with a push of a button and we can jump ourselves off our own truck batteries or off our house batteries without having to get out jumper cables it's pretty sweet and then other than that it's a pretty basic f450 interior we removed the big center console in the middle that had the ambulance part so that you could make it an easier pass through so that's nice good to go so this is our little control area we uh we have our controls of our solar system here so you can monitor your where your power's at and your inverter load you got your ever important fire extinguisher and then this is a isotherm frigerator it's made by the same company that makes the water heater a really good product marine quality product all stainless steel it only runs on about i want to say maybe 15 watts when it's uh when it's under full load and then when it's already cooled down it it draws a couple of watts to stay cold it's a great refrigerator it's got a little freezer inside of it it even comes with a tiny little ice tray which is kind of cute so the bed you just grab the handles and slide it right out it locks into a pin on the right side there grab that mattress and pull it down almost a king size bed it's free floating over the dinette system we use 80 20 aluminum as our support and then we have a birch bed frame system the matrix the mattress itself actually has a quarter inch ply of wood built into the bottom of the mattress so it also helps support it over the slat system so you can be pretty heavy and still not have an issue here and they got plenty of room um me and my wife have a big two-person sleeping bag it's like a big double bag and we just throw it on top of this we've also done like a sheet set up and just blankets like a normal bed pretty comfortable because this one folds up it was nice to have the sleeping bag that we could stuff away and then fold the bed up for the day so now when you get down you got the bench seat to step on it makes it real simple you're not about to come out of the bed and break your head open it's pretty comfortable set up to close the bed you gotta you gotta reach and grab it which isn't too bad it'll fold up and do it shape you can grab the bed close it right up put it back into couch mode for the daytime this is our heater vent that's where the heat comes in from the sbar d2 we have the heater control up under here it's a thermostatically digital controller you set that thing at 65 degrees at night and even on a like i said i think it was almost 11 degrees our coldest night we were still roasting in here in our sleeping bag it was too hot we have a ton of insulation inside of the walls uh we use a product called 3m thinsulate and we have about an r15 value inside of the walls and the roof and the floor so it's a true four season camper it does great in hot and cold weather this is our turbo cool air conditioner that we talked about or the evaporative cooler it can also be used as a vent you can exhaust or blow forward you can do either way which is nice so when you're cooking you can use it as an exhaust vent to get all your stuff out this is our big skylight that we have it's a dometic product it also has a bug net that you can shut to keep the bugs out which is pretty sweet and then for night time it has a a nightshade which is pretty sweet too and that's the interior pretty much that's most of it we have our little our little coat rack over here and our full-size mirror your prep station make sure you look good before you hit the trail and this this specific design doesn't have a closet so it's nice to utilize the the hook systems so so yeah [Music] howdy friends i hope you enjoyed that rig walk around um i think we can all all agree that that was not a minimalist overlander so when it comes to outdoor ethics there's no bigger impact that we as backcountry travelers have on the landscape than in the vehicles that we travel in and the first rule of backcountry vehicle travel is stay on the trail now when you have a 12 ton camper or even a fairly small vehicle with just a regular trailer the consequences of going off the trail can it be at least a minimum leaving ruts damaging the ecosystem or getting stuck and needing recovery and that often makes things worse still so to avoid all that my tip today is get out of your vehicle and scout the road ahead on our first trip last spring um i had the trailer on the back of the coma and we were trying to go up this narrow road which according to google earth looked like there might be a campsite well there wasn't a campsite there and um much less we couldn't get the truck up there so i did i waited too long to go scout scouted ahead came back well we have to turn around so i had to back the trailer up into some bushes and then ended up having to drive through the stream to get out which isn't great you know it certainly wasn't tremendously damaging but it was bad for him to say the least later on in the season i was pulling the trailer and did scout ahead on a narrow trail in the nightingale range i stopped at a place where i knew i could turn around without getting off the trail and walked all the way down through a rocky section to another turnaround point we had to do some crawling to get through but at least i knew i'd have a place to turn around if things got worse further on okay that's all i've got for you today if you want to learn more about outdoor ethics and motor vehicle travel check out treadlitely.org let me know in the comments if you had similar experiences or any other outdoor ethics tips happy trails [Music] hey so this vehicle is for sale if you want to find information on all the specs on the vehicle you can go on expeditionportal.com and we're one of the featured classified ads if you also are interested in a custom build you can go ahead and give us a call anytime our website is autarkyev.com and all of our contact information is listed there

Channel: All-Terrain Family

Views: 117,095

Keywords: rv, vanlife, van life tour, van life build, 4x4 camper truck, expedition vehicle 4x4, expedition vehicle build, expedition truck, expedition vehicle life, expedition vehicles for sale, truck camper, expedition vehicle tour, overlanding, expedition vehicle, 4x4 camper, overland 4x4 camper, off road camper, tiny house, tiny home, camper tour

Id: p-VIGtuSEAY

Length: 30min 9sec (1809 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 03 2021