THE BEST BUDGET CAMPER PROJECT M FOUR WHEEL CAMPERS FULL REVIEW

all right welcome back everybody thank you for watching another video just came through the grand tetons now i'm at yellowstone national park and i'm out here with project m from four wheel campers now if you haven't heard of a pop-up camper let's have a closer look at this guy here and maybe at the end of the video you might want to purchase one of these guys for your next camping or cross country trip [Music] now the project m is a topper camper meaning that it doesn't have a floor so it's quite different than the other two models that foil campers offers they have a slide in and a flap it but this has no flooring which means that you have complete control over the living space on the inside now before going inside i'll give you guys a walk around on the outside and then we'll jump inside let's begin with the pop-up camper right now it's down because well i'm not in it when you go to sleep it goes up this is where your bed is at right here and it opens up to king as we're going to see in a little bit you just undo these latches and i'll give you a close-up of those in a little bit but the major advantage of this is when you're on the freeway you're not wobbling around you're not unstable like some of the class a's b and c rvs out there or some trailers so you're very stable and when you're in national parks and they have very low branches hanging in most of the time you can get through with these so major advantages to the pop-up camper is lower center of gravity all right guys i think that's probably a class b rv look at the size of that thing look at the length and that's an advantage but for me probably a disadvantage because if there's no rv stall then you can't find somewhere to park something like that you have to have the stall to put it in and there's not that many of them available whereas a four-wheel camper fits in a normal parking stall now another disadvantage is taking tight turns in national parks really difficult also consider off-road capabilities you just can't take that off-roading and that's why i really like formal cambers because you maintain the versatility of your four-wheel driving and you can put all of the comforts in here as you can in there all right so four-wheel campers has three different models to choose from the project m is the least expensive because there's nothing in there it's up to you to make this bed how you want to make it and it's also a topper meaning that you're going to maintain your tailgate and all they're going to do is they're going to use these tabs right here to jack it up they're going to slide the bed under it and they're gonna drop it right on top of the bed and this is a topper so the topper is either clamped or bolted on to the rails of the truck now the other two versions the flatbed version they remove the bed of the truck they install a flat bed and then the camper goes on top of that one the other version the sliding version they take out the tailgate and then the entire camper just slides in the back now those are more expensive but they do have a lot more amenities but i think this is where the jam is at project m now four-wheel campers also has the ability to attach multiple accessories on the outside of the rig they have different track systems that they use so right now you got a couple of roto packs out here a shovel and an axe but you could do snowboards skis surfboards whatever there's also a different track system on the top there you see there's some racks up there so multiple uses for different track systems up there there's also on the roof two vents which we're gonna have a look at and 130 watts of solar that we're going to see in a little bit they also have these killer led lights so there's one on this side and one on that side they are so incredibly bright at night they probably fill up about 180 degrees right around your camp area so very useful all right so we're on the driver's side now and this smaller one though is an emergency hatch or escape hatch if you will come standard with the project i'm on the other side we'll have a look at it but it's a longer window so you can install that or have it totally flat or there's also a utility window that swings open and you can kind of reach in and grab what you need to let's have a look on the other side all right there is a look at the longer window and i'm telling you right now on hot days it feels really good to just slide that thing open and have the vents pull all that hot air out but again you can go with the utility window that opens up so you can reach in and grab your things and that seems like a great idea so you don't have to go up and down with that tailgate there or you can just have it totally flat all right let's get into how to pop up the top first thing you got to do to open up the top is to take off these clamps there's three on the passenger side three on the driver's side and it's as easy just coming up here one finger it and then pull it down now for some reason it gets stuck up there or when you go to reclamp it like it's too tall all you got to do is just yank down on this thing and then this will reach back over now these clamps may start to spin off a little bit so if you think you need to tighten it down more just give it a couple of turns get it back up there and clamp it down all right so i've got all six clamps undone and what i'm showing you here are the gas struts or hydraulic struts i don't know what you want to call them but there's two here and then two in the front that are going to help you lift up the top so it's basically you get in and you push up these hydraulic struts are going to help you lift all right before going inside here is a quick size reference i'm about five foot five and i would say to use another size reference if you golf and you have a men's driver that's about 45 inches that comes right about to the center of my chest so as i'm moving around in there if you're wondering how big something is or how far apart something is use that as a size reference let's get inside all right to open up the hatch all you got to do is undo those two latches there now i've already done that so it's just resting on the tailgate so you just reach in you undo those two latches swing it up and undo the tailgate and this is what the inside of project m looks like ah my backyard awesome anyway time to push this thing on open let's push that top up so here is the rear latch all you're going to do is push on not the latch area but this thing right here is going to relieve some of the tension where the latch is in and then you're just going to pull this back using this provided portion here you don't want to push on this portion here you want to use this here so let me show you what that looks like all right there's your latch right here here's your push point so i'm just going to push on this thing here that's going to relieve some of that tension slide the latch back and now this is going to sag and now you're just going to kind of push up there you go all right the last step in securing the rear is to take this strap wrap it around this knob and button it back out the top and 100 of the time i've done this the strap is hiding behind this section so just give it a pull the arms on the outside are stopping it from collapsing so you can reach in there pull that strap on then just push this shut now you can do your wrap move around the knob and button at the top just like that let's do the front okay so now we're looking at the front this is where the bed is at and the first thing you're gonna do is unbutton your push rod and then you're gonna get two pushes remember you don't wanna push on the roof you wanna push on the provided kind of push points so this is basically your push rod you're gonna push with one hand that way and then push up with this hand and it helps to start off with just a little bit of leverage in here get it going just a little bit lift open that flap let me show you what that looks like all right so here's my push rod it's going to go this way right going to push this way here's my push off point going gonna push it up this way so this way and then this way i'm gonna raise that flap up just a little bit got it here comes a push-up this way flawless and there you go you can see as compared to before where it was just the aluminum framing like this it pops up to that tall all right so now look at all the space that we have let me show you the difference between top down and top up okay so once you have everything popped up and tucked away you got to remember to take down these bungee cables otherwise you will give yourself a clothesline it's also very important to remember that when you're going to break everything down before you start breaking anything down you have to reattach the two bungee cables because you can see how it's pulling in on both sides if you break it down without having them pulling in there's a chance that the soft side might go out that way instead of pulling in this way so remember to reattach those two bungee cables before you start pulling down the top and speaking of up top there is one vent here with no fan and this one does have a power fan and it looks like this is one of their older dometic fans i think they switched over to the max fans which are way better but if you're gonna do something like this i would suggest getting two power fans one to push air one to pull air and set them as far apart as you can so you get good air circulation but basically what happens is you get your variable speed here that's going to be your push pull button and then this is a manual opener i think some of the new max fans have remote control but whichever just remember if you're going to get one of these get two power fans all right guys let me go over the layers that kind of make up the soft side of the pop-up here so this is an optional layer it's called the thermopack and i'm glad i had it because it got down to 32-35 degrees at night and it was very comfortable so that's the first layer it's velcroed from the top to the bottom and that's the first layer it's optional otherwise standard you got a layer privacy layer here then just a clear window here maybe it's windy you still want to look outside that's there then of course you can take this down and now you have your mesh to let wind in now on this point of letting wind or air in it's really good to have especially if you're running two vents it really helps with air circulation so this is a winner now also on the roof is 130 watts of solar panels by renegy and is connected into this battery box here and basically this is pretty similar to what jackery and blue eddy and companies like that have it's got a battery in here a charge controller and an inverter that's how you got these two usb ports here here and the cigarette adapter and uh i haven't had it drop i don't know below 80 percent it's also hooked up to the car's alternator so it's charging all of my electronics this dometic refrigerator which is awesome by the way look at that i think it's great uh and still haven't had it dropped below 80 percent it's a good addition now as a side note if you didn't like this battery box like maybe you think it's in the way you can have it pre-wired for solar so that you can figure out how to wire your inverter and your charge controller all on your own on your batteries and some of the other standard items you get are some l-track and what you can use these for are holding things down right just like this so here's where i have my cam shower and basically the way that it's a ratcheting strap and you push in and you can change them to how much space you need and on the other side a little bit more you see some l track here here's where i have my water storage these are aqua bricks i highly recommend these if you want to do at home food or water storage this has been great it also has a spigot that comes with the set so if you're looking for water storage to take on the road get these they're three gallons they're lightweight they're very easy to use love them but what i wanted to show you was the fire extinguisher in the corner and also standard with the project m comes the uh smoke detector and i almost forgot to mention my favorite accessory in cabin because outside the led lights are amazing but they got four strip led lights inside so there's two in the rear one here two there and then two over the bed three and four and they're just touch activated so to turn them on you just give it a quick press like that and then quick press to turn them off and then if you want to adjust the brightness quick press turn on and you just long hold and it increases the intensity or decreases the longer that you hold it love these all right having a look at the passenger side window very easy to operate it's going to flip this latch open and then from here you can decide if you want the window to open and have the screen shut or you can have the whole thing open and let all of nature in so let me tell you about this window right here prior to starting this adventure i thought to myself well i've driven vans and big trucks before but never with a camper so i started to ask myself what's the visibility going to look like how easy is it going to be to navigate out and inside and outside of parking stalls and uh with the truck mirrors and this little window back here along with a backup camera no problem navigating it was awesome well all right this is pretty much what it looks like when you shut it down for the night now when you want to get out you got these two gas struts or hydraulic arms whatever you want to call them on both sides and you got these latches you got to pull them both at the same time and when you're ready just give it a push and that will open now i don't recommend just throwing the tailgate shut i would get out and then lower it slowly because those cables you don't want to just have that i mean that's a heavy tailgate doing that over and over again is probably going to damage them all right let's take some quick measurements okay so we know i'm five foot five and i'm standing comfortably in here and i was able to sit comfortably on both the refrigerator and on these ledges here so let's see inches from the floor of the bed about 81 inches and this is a six and a half foot bed so from ceiling popped up down to the bottom the bed 81 inches all right so let's have a look at how wide these ledges are and what the usable space in between here is so that's going to be about maybe 13 and a quarter yeah 13 and a quarter and that leaves you from ledge to ledge right around about 46 inches and then if we measure the ledge all the way to the ending here about 67 inches here but then it angles in a little bit but this is the usable space well i got these two things sitting on here my aqua bricks so really maybe uh maybe usable 73 inches all right then lastly what is the usable space from the bottom of this to the bed and that's probably going to be around maybe maybe 21 inches 25 to 21 inches depending on the bed liner i guess that you pick up but there's a rubber mat in here so there could be a little bit more but not much all right so this is the pre-installed shelf that my aqua bricks are on here and i just want to get under here and show you where it bolts on to the rails of the bed so here's one bolt point attachment point and there's another one up there all right now we're going to measure the mattress length from side to side remember i'm five foot five and i can fit in there just fine um i didn't have to ever extend it to a king ever because they can open up to the size of a king so from coast to coast just about six feet 72 inches and then of course we're gonna go from front to back and that's coming in at just about four feet 48 inches and i should note that there is a little bit of a dip in the back it's not flat all the way but it can be very comfortable to kind of cozy up to so from the front to the back here of the mattress in its current configuration four feet 48 inches let's open it up all right so the way this works is we're going to lift up the bed platform by the way that's made of aluminum as well so we're just going to lift like this and then pull out and then once it's down it's going to slide on these rails all the way like this right and then you got a stop here and then a stop here then you know you got your full length all right once you got it looking like this we can pretty much just push this entire thing backwards quick note make sure you have the smaller pieces on here as you pull it because you don't want the smaller pieces to fly back there but once we have this we can just kind of give it a push as far as it can go and then these individual pieces fit in sideways like this but you can actually just use that to push all the way back and you slide that over second piece goes in like that looks like we're doing tetris all right this thing's in like that last piece all right let's see what the measurements are all right we already know from a side to side it's gonna be six feet but let's see how far this is gonna run out all right so from the back to the front like 81.5 inches it's a lot of space let me show you the view all right so what does that leave us here so from the mattress to the ceiling [Music] uh maybe about 29 inches now it's also important to remember that yeah it might be 29 inches from the mattress the ceiling but you got the push rod there so you got to watch yourself because i have banged my head on like the sides before like trying to get up so be careful all right so here is the view from the very back so spacious and to reverse the curse you pretty much have to lift this platform up and then slide it backwards you can't just lift it like this because it's already locked in so you have to kind of come up from underneath and lift it up it's pretty cool you can see the uh the aluminum structure here so just get up under here okay once you got it over that hump push it back in let me show you the view from up there and on most nights this is what it looks like still so spacious almost forgot two important measurements let's see how tall this is with the top down and then with the top up let's hook it on there let's see if it'll stay about 91 inches i used to pick mangoes okay put the top up [Music] about 114 113 inches [Music] now after living in project dam for just about a week now i do have some small tweaks i would make all right the first thing i would maybe modify and not completely change is the sizing of the holes in this mesh here because i know there's some people out there that are really insect phobia so it would be nice to have an option for smaller holes now i didn't have any problems with bugs coming in and i understand that bigger holes mean better airflow but maybe there should be an option for people that are a little bit freaked out about bugs then of course as i mentioned earlier i would go with two power fans not just a vent and a power fan again the goal is to have one fan pushing and the other one pulling so you can have better airflow and that's going to keep you cooler on those hot days and then the other thing i would change on the roof are the solar panels right now it's wired for 130 watts of solar power i think they've updated that to 200 but i want more than that so i'd probably just get the pre-wire package and then get the specs on how much weight you can put on the roof and install my own solar another cool modification might be to move the emergency hash slash escape hatch and put it to where this pass-through window is here because if you dive out there you're diving into danger but if you could open this up and then slide open the window in the back of the truck then you can escape whatever it is you're trying to escape and then this battery box it's kind of in the way like when i think about the flow of how i want to organize things i feel like it's getting in the way so i'll take this box and then move it to the front of the bed area here that way you have the whole front portion or back portion of the bed to do your organizing and on that subject i would also remove these pre-installed shelves i also kind of feel just like the battery box that they kind of interrupt the flow of how i would want to organize things so how would i organize this six and a half foot bed well to start with i'm lucky because i'm five foot five i can actually build a false floor up just a little bit so i would have a divider going right down the middle and then i would score it off right here at both wheel wells and then i would have separate compartments making three compartments on this side three on that side and then they would be removable so i would have access to those six compartments from the inside then really i think what i would do is remove both of the windows and then just build shelving from the bottom all the way up to the top so that you're maximizing the space on the inside and then the other thing i would do is install an awning on either this side or the other side because sometimes you're going to hit a campsite with absolutely no coverage having that awning there to pull out and keep you cool is a good thing you know i might just keep one window on one side and that would be the utility window though not this one that way i could build my cabinetry in a way where i would have access to it on the inside and on the outside so that way maybe if you're cooking you don't have to go up and down on the tailgate and if you needed some privacy for a shower you can use the hatch here as a shower curtain surround this is about an inch oh it's just getting some clips some spring clips or some clamps and then you just let it up and you just clamp right around the sides let me show you what it looks like all right so i've started my pack up process and i've noticed it's a little bit dusty in here and the reason i'm mentioning this is i think with the other two models the flatbed and the sliding those have floors so i think they seal up a little bit better so depending on where you go you might get a little bit dusty in here and there are things you can do to help mitigate that but it's not too bad right now let me show you around okay here is a good representation of what you could expect if you pick up a project m so this is where my aqua bricks were sitting and you can see right in here is pretty clean then on the outsides is where the dust settled all right so what are my final thoughts on the project m well i am one billion percent impressed with this topper coming up over the grand tetons i got caught in a hail storm my name was coming down i think the pieces of hail were about the size of marbles just raining down it was incredible then i got to my campsite there was a thunderstorm 20 mile an hour winds heavy rain no damage and no leaks second thing is because it's incredibly lightweight your vehicle is going to maintain its responsiveness on the road i felt safe at all times finally the thing i really like is you are in total control of this living space on the inside like when i sit in there the amount of possibilities that race through my mind are just endless and i think you're gonna think the same thing too all right so i hope you enjoyed your up close and personal look at four wheel campers project m now if you're in the market for a camper and you don't think project m is for you don't worry because four wheel campers has two other models available they have their sliding version and a flatbed version so be sure to head on over to 4wheelcampers.com to check it out guys thank you so much for joining me on this incredible journey i'll catch you in the next video you

Channel: KIMO365

Views: 747,923

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Id: _gckab2tneQ

Length: 25min 30sec (1530 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 30 2021