Everlanders Origin Story and the most asked questions. (700 Subscriber Thank You)

well can you believe it we just passed 700 subscribers we started this channel just to have some video to share with friends and family and to show our progress and we've been overwhelmed with how many of you have tuned in and showed support and had so many great questions about your own builds yeah like Kara said this channel was originally just for friends and family to show how the project's been going and I never really intended to make a YouTube channel or a series out of it and that's why it started sort of halfway through construction the chassis had largely been reworked and and done over before I started doing any of the videos and so you missed out on everything prior to the aluminum frame videos so as a thank you for 700 subscribers we thought we would give you a back story and tell you guys about our origins and why we decide to build this rig yeah so we both grew up with lots of outdoor activities hiking and camping and trips in through the woods and such and soon after we got married we went on our first camping trips together but these were in my bachelor mobile and cheap Walmart tent and we pretty much just stayed at little campgrounds near where we live here and that was all fine and dandy but it became evident that I needed more creature comforts so on one long weekend when we were driving up north to one of our favorite camping spots we saw a tent trailer for sale and we bought it for just over a thousand dollars and we dragged that thing home and fixed it up it needed a little bit of work it had been rolled in a windstorm but we redid the supports and the canvas and we dragged that thing 10,000 kilometers from our home in the prairies up to Alaska and back in three weeks and this was our first long-duration camping trip that we had done together and we were instantly hooked at that time we were pretty avid bloggers wannabe landscape wildlife photographers and so Alaska was perfect for this yeah the problem with long trips like that is that the weather is unpredictable you know you can't get a forecast for three weeks and especially in the mountains and so we'd end up in the rain more often than not and setting up wet canvas pop-up trailer up and down for three weeks gets old after a while and additionally Kerry needs a bathroom option as she pees many times in a night yeah that's right and going to the outhouse in bear country was not so much fun and even less fun for Jason because he had to come with me and hold my hand not that I mind the bear is just I like sleeping yeah so we bought a hard-sided travel trailer and we wanted something that was still pretty small so we could remain nimble and still get into the remote places that we like to get into so we bought this little Keystone 19 foot trailer and it seemed ideal at the time we took that thing all over Western Canada and through the western states Colorado Oregon no no Washington Oregon Colorado Utah Arizona Montana you thought we were pretty hot stuff world travelers yeah we did and then while we were camping out in the Canadian Rockies one year we met a young couple named Franken Isabel who had shipped their Volkswagen minibus from Switzerland Canada they had driven from Halifax to BC and then they were on their way to the Yukon and then to Central America so we followed their blog as their trip progressed and we learned about this whole over landing culture and we had been doing a version of over landing but we didn't even know what this was called let alone that there was a whole genre vehicles associated with it and so we've started to modify our big trailer to be as self-sufficient and meant for boondocking yeah as much as they could anyway rebuilt the roof which was originally very thin cardboard almost and so I rebuilt it with proper plywood so that I could support solar panels and we installed big solar panels big inverter big batteries and and that did for a while but I found that the build quality of these types of campers just isn't up to the task of over landing and the rough roads that we tend to drag it through so both our tent trailer and the big Zeppelin trailer had a dedicated yogurt container where we kept all the squeeze that fellow to the cabinet's while we were driving on the rough roads yeah so we decided to sell our camper and start saving for our own expedition vehicle we knew we wanted an overland rig but it seemed like a lofty goal so in the in term we just saved money and we went back to our roots of tenting and backpacking and one of our camping trips that we are on we were just talking about what would be the perfect rig for us what would that look like and we felt that we wonder big truck because we want to tackle some of northern Canada and in general we like the idea of a class-five f-550 sized truck with a rugged camper box on the back and once we got home we started googling different options and we came across turtle 5 and that was pretty much exactly what we were talking about so we drew some inspiration from them for sure yeah the empty chassis weighs about 12,000 pounds on it f-550 and everything is very commercial and heavy-duty during our research I had seen many other people building their own Overland vehicle and having problems with suspension failures or the chassis not being able to handle the load for various reasons so it seemed like going a little overkill was the right choice and the turtle 5 seemed to be a good template to follow so it took us about six months of looking to find the exact chassis we wanted it's a f-550 2003 f-550 with a 7.3 liter international turbo diesel ZF 6-speed manual transmission manual two-speed transfer case and of course it's 4x4 when we bought the truck it had a knuckle boom crane on it and as the years went by we saved money continued saving money and researched the components that we outfit the truck with and in the meantime I used the truck delivering odd jobs of all kinds just work that I could get after we had saved some money we had the engine completely rebuilt and sourced a remanufactured transmission just as a precaution then with the help of some good friends we removed the deck in the crane and pulled it into the garage for some wood your work yeah the first winter I used wire wheel and air chisel and we stripped the frame rails and all the suspension components right down to bare metal and we acid etched and painted the whole frame and all the undercarriage with por-15 which is an amazing rust inhibiting penetrating coating and then we found a custom fiberglass body kit that was made for baja race trucks and that had flared fenders and that allowed us to tuck the 41 inch npt 81 s under the front with a you know add-on fender flares or we're requiring a crazy suspension lift so we went that route they wheels are custom made by Rickson and they converted our original dual rear wheels to super singles which allows us to maintain our original gross vehicle weight rating while going from a dually to singles so the aesthetic design of the truck is a funny topic we wanted the box to have a bold stance but we knew making the cabin out of composit panels would be limited to flat surfaces and we really didn't want to look like a u-haul truck so I stumbled across this picture of a military boat that's what inspired a lot of the stealth fighter jet shapes and perhaps the color so I tried roughing out the shape he's in pink styrofoam and cheap diecast model of f-350 and that's what we came up with as a starting spot and then I got right into CAD and we used SolidWorks and designed the shape of the box and it had the the right shape to have that industrial service body look a little bit aggressive little bit strong a little bit military a little bit of mystery hmm and that's exactly what we wanted so from there we went and got into looking at composite panels and so I sourced as many samples of composite panels as I could get here within reason and started doing testing for adhesion with glue surface prep how they handled paint durability delamination problems and so on and we decided against a foam core product because the the skins candy laminate fairly easily if you rivet something to the outside for example and then pull on it you'll be laminate the skin from the structure so we went with a honeycomb cord product see him perform the best for us and I wish it was a foam core or foam injected honeycomb but I couldn't get any of the manufacturers who deal in that - to work with me or take me seriously so ours is hollow honeycomb on fiberglass skins but it seems to be working fine for us but if you can find a form injected honeycomb that's definitely the way to go so one of the things I wanted to talk about in this video is probably the most frequent comment I get on YouTube and on forums and that's how we've mounted the box to the frame and what the yellow stuff is in the photos so I'm gonna answer that here that yellow channel is a chain guide for guiding big two-inch industrial chain on giant sprockets and it's used in industry in big machines it's made from UHMW or ultra high molecular weight plastics and I bought it at a local plastics supply place they sell all kinds of sheet plastic and so on and it just happened that I could find a channel that was the perfect dimensions to fit over the frame rails perfectly and after I got some recesses for the cross members and countersunk some holes for the rivets it sits flush and tight and it doesn't move at all so that's the the yellow stuff and then as far as fastening the front of the cabin is fastened to the frame using these perches and polyurethane body mounts for trucks and I have two bushings on each perch and of course there's one perch on each side of the truck one on each frame rail so the rear of the cabin is held down with a pneumatically powered clamping pivot mechanism and that allows the frame to twist underneath the box without transferring any of that articulation or flex into the box which the composite panels wouldn't like and the way it's designed I have over six inches of travel where the frame could twist six inches which is twice what it could possibly do and not transfer any of that deflection into the box and then when we're on the road on pavement we air up those pneumatic pots and they pull down on the box with 7,000 pounds of force and it keeps it solid to the frames so it should be pretty obvious by now that we aren't going for a super fancy pearl clear coat granite countertops hardwood flooring rig here it's purely functional durable off-road utilitarian and that's that's the primary focus yes and one important thing to note about the build is that it did take a lot of time this was several years of effort and we I only built the truck as we could afford it we didn't want to take on a lot of debt so we would just save up some money and buy something for the truck the first time that we took out the truck was for our 10-year wedding anniversary and we went camping up north and all we had was an empty box and a bed yeah we actually had plastic tubs or chests with our clothes and gear and kitchen stuff and so on and we'd stack them in different configurations as we needed if if there is a kitchen cabinet if we were cooking for example we'd stack them all up and you know if we needed to sit on something we rearranged them and it was like a Lego modular interior yeah and but slow and steady we added other amenities slink we have the angle fridge freezer added solar the d5 heater for the engine and the d2 inside forced-air cabin heater and and what else we have the sink and the pressurized water mm-hmm kitchen dinette and seating and so on and my favorite the composting toilet another comment we get a lot probably 90% of the people who asked for a tour will ask why doesn't have any windows yeah and in the beginning we had every intention of putting windows in you can see on our little model here we have a window with a potted plant but high-quality windows with double plain pink glass would cost us a couple thousand dollars so when we were building we just prioritized other things that were more important like doors and roof vent and solar but the longer that we use the camper without them we found that we actually enjoyed not having windows we were able to stealth cap quite easily and we didn't have to worry about curtains or waking up to the 4:00 a.m. Sun up north in the summer and also with the addition of the Macs air vent we had very good ventilation and we found it wasn't necessary yeah another benefit I don't need to worry about dragging the sides of the truck through the forest and having a tree limb go through our window so at this point the truck is still very much a work in progress I can always cut a hole and put in some windows if we find quality windows at a good price but it's a lot easier to cut a hole than uncut a hole so I'm leaving that for for when the time is right and we've got other projects that are taking priority that that we need you know we've just finished our solar sliding rig in the other video and that's excellent because four panels was more than enough in bright sunlight on on bright weekends we'd have no problem for a weekend but when you're going for three or four weeks and you have two weeks of rain and sleet your batteries are ten percent lower every day and so having all eight panels will give us two times nothing which is just enough hopefully and during the prime solar collecting hours of the summer when it's you know we can pull in over a thousand watts I can run the air conditioner non-stop which is excellent because some hiking trails we like to go on don't allow dogs and so we can leave the dog in the truck and go out on a hike and not worry that he's getting too hot in there mm-hmm and the other thing is we're really excited about our new off-road suspension system gary Wescott from turtle expedition was kind enough to give us the designs for his off-road springs and we had an outfit in california custom build these and they should be here in the next few weeks so that's good to make a night and day difference over the stock suspension that we've been enduring until now and that's a perfect example of a big-ticket item that took priority over windows to peak outside yeah and one final thought when you take on a huge project it can be very daunting and one thing that I remembered during this build was some good advice I had been given by the Swiss couple we talked about earlier I asked them how they were able to save enough money to go on such a huge adventure and Frank said to me that when you have a goal in mind it's easy to save so we just kept the goal in mind of having our own camper perfect for what we wanted and we put our efforts towards that and now we have this awesome camper and we're really excited to share our adventures with you yeah and I've got a bunch of other little projects on the go that I've been filming in parallel but they're just little little projects that aren't finished or I can't finish them until spring so I've got little odds and ends that are filmed but I'm waiting to post those until I can put it all in one video as one cohesive project so stay tuned for that and if you have any other questions that we didn't answer in this video please leave them in the comments below and we will answer them on our 1,000 subscriber video so thank you so much to everyone who has subscribed and if you haven't please do so and if you like this video give it a thumbs up you

Channel: Everlanders

Views: 48,242

Keywords: Overlander, everlander, earthroamer, turtle v, turtle expedition, f550, DIY camper, vanlife, 4x4 camper, diy, self built, alaska, travel couple vlogs, travel couple videos, travel couples on youtube, travel couple channel, travel couple montage, everlanders camper, everlanders adventures, everlanders tour, everlanders build, everlanders android auto, everlanders air conditioner, diy camper shell for truck, full time rv living, self built rv, rv life, overland expo, diy rv build

Id: 7_NlZw3lk3A

Length: 19min 10sec (1150 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 28 2018