New Four Wheel Camper owner

[chnlisle]

Goldmine camp is on the San Juan River near Bluff Utah. Might be headed there first week in August.
Heres the lat & long:
37.242133,-109.629843

[Northern Explorer]

New Lights

I got this idea from reading this thread over at the Wander The West forum.

I decided to replace the 12-volt incandescent bulbs with 36-LED cards.



I decided to do this for two main reasons. First, less amp draw means the battery will last longer between charges. I’m not sure what the amp rating is for the original incandescent bulbs, or for the led pack, but the web site that supplies the led packs claim them to be 900% more efficient. And second, the led packs give off much less heat. This is important because of the way the sidewall material sits up against the lamp when the roof is in the down position. There have been occasions when a lamp has either been left on accidentally or the switch has been bumped into the on position and a hole was burned into the sidewall material.



There are two different choices in color output. Cool White and Warm White. I wasn’t sure which one I was going to like so I just ordered one warm white bulb. There are a total of 4 bulbs on the inside of my camper.

This picture shows the original incandescent bulb on the left and the warm white 36-led card on the right.


Even after the comparison I still wasn't sure if I liked the color output or brightness so I ended up ordering one more warm white led pack and two cool white led packs.

Here are some more comparison photos I took after the shipment arrived.

Incandescent on left...Cool White on right


Cool White on left...Warm White on right


I decided to put both Cool White led packs over the countertop area and both Warm White led packs over the couch area.


In summery I would say that the Cool White appear to have a light spectrum resembling fluorescent lights and the Warm White appear to have a light spectrum more closely resembling natural (or at least incandescent) light. Neither one is as bright as the incandescent bulbs that came with the camper, but the cool white appear to be slightly brighter. Either the Cool White or the Warm White would be sufficiently bright enough to light the inside of the camper considering it is such a small space and there are four lights.

One thing I noticed was that the second Warm White led pack I ordered has a slightly different light output then the first.

Original order on right...second order on left


This could probably be avoided by ordering all of the led packs at the same time thus insuring they are made in the same batch.

One more thing to consider. The shipping was the same when I ordered one led pack as it was when I ordered three led packs.

[kcowyo]

And so the fun begins....

[chnlisle]

You're gonna love'm.

[Northern Explorer]

The internet that is. Truck Camper Magazine

[Northern Explorer]

My camper came equipped with an exterior light but I wanted to add one that could be switched on from the inside. I added something similar to my Fleetwood Neon when I had it. It comes in handy for viewing critters and other things that go bump in the night.

The first thing I looked for was a place to mount it. I decided to mount it underneath the cab over bed. Then I had to figure out a clean way to run the wire. The driver’s side ended up working out the best.

I pulled out this drawer to take a look inside


and found this unused coil of wire.


Four Wheel Campers has listed that all campers come pre wired for a furnace, refrigerator, power roof vent fan, solar panel and electric water pump weather you order these options or not. I don’t think this wire belongs to any of those. My best guess would be that it’s for an optional stereo. So my initial plan was to use this wire. The problem is that the wires are not hot and I couldn’t trace back all the way to see where the other end is in order to hook it up to the fuse box. I ended up just running fresh wire, which really wasn’t a problem anyway.

I plugged into the location marked stereo on the fuse box.


Front of fuse box with cove removed.

The fuse box itself has to be pulled out slightly in order to access all the wire connections.

Now for the light.

I purchased a fog light that I thought would look good in the location that I picked out. In hindsight this should have been a floodlight but the fog light should be fine for the limited use that I have planned for it.

One modification was required. Normally the head of the bolt sits inside the light housing and the nut is on the outside. This wouldn’t work on account that the bolt would have been sticking up into the area where the slide out bed sits. I purchased a carriage bolt and lock nut and cut the bolt to just the right size. I also had to make an adapter out of a large wooden dowel rode so that the backwards-facing nut wouldn’t crush the light housing.

Carriage bolt location under the slide out portion of the bed.


Wooden adapter


Put together


Final results (side)


Final results (front)


Location of switch

[Northern Explorer]

A couple of updates

Hoppy RV levels

Takes the guess work out of RV leveling.
Marks indicate how many inches are required to raise or lower RV.
Self-sticking adhesive back.
Screw holes available for permanent mounting
They come 2 per package.

I picked them up at Walmart.





Fan-Tastic vent
I could have ordered a Fan-Tastic vent as an option from Four Wheel Camper. At the time I didn’t think I would ever need it. Then we decided to go to North Caroline for our summer overland trip. A little airflow in the camper should really help on a hot July night down south. There are three choices in fans. Model 4000 R, Model 5000RBT and Model 6000 RBTA. I went with the middle of the road 5000 RBT. I’m not sure what model Four Wheel Camper provides as an option.

The installation was super easy. The camper is already wired to accommodate the powered fan. I just had to remove the vent that came with the camper and drop the new vent fan in place. The hardest part of the whole job was removing all the caulk and putty gasket that held the original vent in place. I was even able to reuse the interior frame that came with the original vent. The interior frame of the Fan-Tastic vent would have needed to be custom cut in order to fit the thickness of my roof.



The only thing that I need to be careful about is the height of the dome. It sticks up a couple of inches higher then the dome on the original vent in order for there to be room for the electric motor.




And yes I've been out camping. This is a picture of our likely camping spot for the U.P. Overland outing that upcruiser and I are organizing.

[Jacket]

Beautiful!

[T.Low]

That's one sweet unit. Congrats and well done.


I agree 100% with the set-up break-down time issue. It just increases the mobility factor. So many times we drive and stop for hikes or rides, then end up driving till we're tired and just want to hit a clearing, park, and go to sleep. Thats why I ordered a pop top for the van.

Sweet rig. If I ever get rid of the van, I will get a FWC for my pick-up. (heck, if I find one for $700 I'd get it too!)

[Prybry]

You mounted the levels on the outside of the camper... could you also mount them inside the truck some where so you could identify a level camp spot while driving the truck? I suppose they would look kind of hokey right on the dash!