RV conversion

When they get tired of it, I'll take it off their hands. Nicely done.
 
Man turns truck into gorgeous RV via years of professional level work skills. Of course he did.


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If there were a kit for such a thing, I'd be interested in it.
 
That must have been an expensive road trip to Europe and Asia considering the cost to ship that RV from/to the US and then the high cost for gas over there. I'm not an RV'er so I guess I don't get what the joy is of driving a big hunk of machinery down the road for long trips and then paying +$6/gallon for gas. Seems like they could have rented a nice car or travel by rail and stay in nice hotels or rented homes for a lot cheaper.
 
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Seems like they could have rented a nice car or travel by rail and stay in nice hotels or rented homes for a lot cheaper.

Perfectly true, and that's the thing it took me a long time to understand. For people who enjoy a nice RV, it's not at all about economizing; it's all about the experience.
 
Don't forget the $171,000 that it cost on top of all the hours he spent building it...

+1

We have done something similar and it has been a two year project by a software engineer and electrical engineer couple, plus about $50,000. Parts that I thought hard (steel frame welding) turned out easy and parts I thought would be easy (interior woodworking) were hard.

Our motorcycle carrier is a lot better than his :) It can hold about 4 motorcycles and has a built in workbench.
 
Perfectly true, and that's the thing it took me a long time to understand. For people who enjoy a nice RV, it's not at all about economizing; it's all about the experience.
I'm going through that now with a summer vacation. I've already got transportation and hotels booked, but I was looking at replacing those with an RV (parked at a family lake place). The good news is there's no back and forth from the lake to the hotel. But living in cramped quarters, tiny shower, no 'free breakfast' (meaning grocery shopping), finding a place to dump tanks, other "logistics", as well as just driving the beast and not damaging it (driving near tree branches, etc). Sounds like I'm trying to talk myself out of it, doesn't it? DW thinks that if there is grocery shopping and cooking involved, it's not a vacation, so that's another factor, so adding a kitchen is a net negative for her, but I kinda like to just get informal breakfast and lunch, then go out to dinner.
 
Another nice thing about RV vs hotel is you know what has been done in the bed and when the sheets were last washed.

How many on here would buy a used mattress on craigslist for their home? These same people have no problem sleeping on a similar item in a motel room.
 
Another nice thing about RV vs hotel is you know what has been done in the bed and when the sheets were last washed.

How many on here would buy a used mattress on craigslist for their home? These same people have no problem sleeping on a similar item in a motel room.

NO Craigslist mattress for me, and I believe they don't allow sales of them according to a friend that had one to let go.

I've traveled on business (50% of year) since 1982 and never had any sickness/disease/bugs/etc from staying in literally 1,000's of hotel rooms. Am I lucky? Maybe, but one must know how to pick the right hotels as a starter.

Camping is a lifestyle and is quite a challenge and satisfying for those who partake in the experience. I would love to have an RV, but that lifestyle is not in DW's blood. :(
 
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I've traveled on business (50% of year) since 1982 and never had any sickness/disease/bugs/etc from staying in literally 1,000's of hotel rooms. Am I lucky? Maybe, but one must know how to pick the right hotels as a starter.....

One tip is to choose hotels that rent by the night instead of by the hour.
 
One tip is to choose hotels that rent by the night instead of by the hour.

Hmphf. If everyone can generalize RV travels as being cramped and expensive, I should be able to generalize all hotel stays as having bed bugs, soiled sheets and spy cameras.
 
Hmphf. If everyone can generalize RV travels as being cramped and expensive, I should be able to generalize all hotel stays as having bed bugs, soiled sheets and spy cameras.
The cramped/expensive thing isn't true? Well, maybe not the cramped thing, considering the size of those class A's I see everywhere, with those numerous bump-out things. But I can't imagine those being anywhere near "not expensive". Driving a van with DW and I 26 mpg and a full set of tires at $600, name-brand hotels for $80/night seems hard to beat. Especially when a campground with hookups (you tell me) runs $30/night. I love the idea of not carrying suitcases to the room, but thats a lot easier than doing the hookups and filling with water and dumping tanks. But I certainly understand it if you just like the lifestyle, then the cost is a distant second. For instance, Im not going to stop for the night end-up buddies with someone I just met at the hotel. That can not be said for the campground.

My RV rental idea I mentioned earlier just got removed from consideration since I decided to go cheap on the 4th of July travel, and spend the money on a European river cruise (my first ever river cruise)!
 
Very surprising when early in the clip the RV lined up for my local ferry. And an impressive build. Many features I would love in my more modest RV.
 
The cramped/expensive thing isn't true? Well, maybe not the cramped thing, considering the size of those class A's I see everywhere, with those numerous bump-out things. But I can't imagine those being anywhere near "not expensive". Driving a van with DW and I 26 mpg and a full set of tires at $600, name-brand hotels for $80/night seems hard to beat. Especially when a campground with hookups (you tell me) runs $30/night. I love the idea of not carrying suitcases to the room, but thats a lot easier than doing the hookups and filling with water and dumping tanks. But I certainly understand it if you just like the lifestyle, then the cost is a distant second. For instance, Im not going to stop for the night end-up buddies with someone I just met at the hotel. That can not be said for the campground.

I guess it is partly a lifestyle choice. We built our RV custom so we do not always need a campground with full hookups. It has 1100 watts of solar, a 4kW pure sine inverter, 9.3cuft compressor fridge, propane furnace, water heater, stove with capacity to carry 80 pounds of propane. It also has a full garage workshop on the same platform, which houses two dual sport motorcycles, a couple of mountain bikes, tools, and a built in workbench. On the roof of that is a 10 foot by 8 foot wide rack which holds a canoe, kayak and paddleboard. Sometimes we also pull our 17 foot trailer sailboat (when not going to the woods or desert).

Overall length is only 26 feet, including the 10 foot garage unit. Both the living pod and garage pod are removable using quick connect jackstands (stored under truck) and then you have a 20 foot flatbed truck to use for other purposes.

This is the camper on the truck, the garage pod is still in our garage getting final paint (this weekend!) then I have to do some final wiring on it.

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THAT is really cool! And you seem like the kind that enjoys the doing as much as the done...a perfect attitude for an active lifestlye. I bet your idea of hell is spending an eternity where you had to do nothing but accept umbrella drinks, with no access to even a screwdriver.
 
This is really interesting Fermion. Maybe show us what it looks like on the jack stands?


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This is really interesting Fermion. Maybe show us what it looks like on the jack stands?


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Sure thing. It takes about 30 seconds to install the jacks, then a minute or two to crank them up a couple inches and drive out the flatbed truck. I am quite proud of the jackstand mount....came up with it myself and made a fixture so I could weld up all eight exactly the same (4 for camper pod, 4 for garage pod).

Here is the camper pod on the jacks:

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Here is a close up of how the jack mounts were welded to the steel frame (they aren't going ANYWHERE!)

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