P.J., the custom Wrangler Rubicon expedition motorhome

[Tucson T4R]

I'll have more feedback after our Colorado trip. I ran the fridge, all the lights, and the inverter (with nothing attached it still pulls 3 amps) for 36 hours and I only got the battery voltage to drop from 13.1V to 12.9V. So I tried the microwave again after having sucked on the battery pack for 36 hours and it ran fine and the voltage only dropped to 12.4V. Now topping it back off and packing for the trip on Friday.

I agree on the cost. You have to hope the prices will drop as more volume gets out into the market. One would hope anyway. But at a life rating of over 6000 cycles it should be the last battery pack I have to purchase. That's a lot of camping trips, even for me.

[mhiscox]

Well, I just got back from another camping trip in the Jeep and, basically, there's nothing to report. Everything works fine now; all of the equipment worked as expected and the design proved competent with two of us eating, sleeping, reading, etc. in the cabin. As I've said before, the XV-JP is perfect for one person, with loads of space and storage, but it's proving to also work well for a couple. Not to be indelicate, but really the only time that it's not good is if the person in the top bunk needs to use the toilet at night. If, through a good bladder or other arrangements, you can work around that, two people can sleep just fine.

I'll soon have my hot water heater from Europe, so I'll post up about that on the build thread, and I also go back sometime later and add to the build thread with some pictures and details of the "furnishings." But now that it's working as expected, they'll probably be little reason to post up about my future trips, as we've already got plenty of photos of the XV-JP nestled in the Northwest trees.

However, if there are questions or comments, please post them up and I'll be sure to respond.

[mhiscox]

I've absolutely no idea why he did so, but I just noticed that a couple months back, Matthew Scott posted the EarthRoamer video of the Scott Bradey driving the XV-JP over sections of the Rubicon Trail several years ago.

It's in the "Vehicles/Campers section of the Portal, but probably easier to just click here:

http://youtu.be/D-hHWqM2pSQ.

If you haven't seen it already, it's kind of cool.

[Every Miles A Memory]

Very Cool!

[Ford Prefect]

My father just did the Jeep Jamboree across the Rubicon Trail.

He has a 5" lift on his jeep and said the trail is now so badly dug out that it bashed the crap out of his rock rails, and all of his bash plates. He is not one to ever touch rocks with those either, pretty good driver if I do say so. So I really doubt you could get an XV-JP, or really any stock jeep on that trail. He said there were a couple Unlimited jeep rubicons with 2" lifts and each one of them had smashed up something on every painted surface and one did damage to his hard top.

He also told me that he over heard several of the guides talking, and they said that this year was the worst they had ever seen the Rubicon Trail.

Shame too many people get out there without a clue, but they buy bigger tires and bigger engines and bigger axles and just floor it until they destroy the trail and get over the rock. I remember seeing a video of a LARGE group off WWII CJ2A's on that trail, and they were just going great on it. Never again I suspect.

[mhiscox]

The Northwest weather been spectacular in recent weeks, with even the Oregon Coast having an unusual amount of sun. So I drove the XV-JP out this weekend to Sunset Beach, north of Seaside, Oregon, one of the relatively few places where vehicles are allowed to drive on the beach year-round (excepting a couple of dedicated less-than-tranquil OHV areas).

It was great, with few people compared to the summer, and a clear blue sky. Windy, though. (Duh.)

On beach 1.jpg

The reason to post up about this trip is that it was the first test of putting the tent up without attaching the bottom edge to the cabin. It's not hard to put the tent up in full batten-down-the-hatches mode, which involves attaching about twenty snaps which are backed up by wide, grippy Velcro strips all around the bottom; there are also full flaps around the outside perimeter to keep all the rain flowing down the outer cabin walls. When put up as designed, it takes three or four minutes and is very weather tight.

Yesterday's experiment was to see how it worked to just raise the roof, zip the panels together and throw the flaps over the edge, spending less than a minute on it. The bottom line is that it worked very well. Just that quick, simple effort was enough to keep out all of the flies, sand and wind.

On beach 2.jpg

Faithful readers will note that the tent isn't as taut and tidy as it usually is, but it didn't look too shoddy, and given how quick it is to do, I expect to take this approach a lot in the future.

untitled (3 of 3).jpg

It probably won't surprise anyone that the Jeep worked great in this application. Got there, opened the windows up, fixed some lunch, sat out in the Pico chair using the Jeep as a windblock, took a nice nap on the sofa, sat out some more, drove a ways up and down the beach. A really nice day.

BTW, the orange Maxtraxs don't live on the hood. I just set them there to have them out of the way, but in a spot where I couldn't drive off without them. They go on the roof forward of the roof rack, but I haven't got the mounts made yet.

BTW II: One of the people who came up to look at the truck was a guy who congratulated me on the choice of the DuraTracs. Turned out he runs a tire store and has put DuraTracs on four of his vehicles. He said he thought they were the best tire ever for this sort of thing, and while I don't have enough experience to know if he's right, they continue to impress me. They worked well on the sand, but the best thing is that you don't seem to give up anything in pavement performance to run a pretty aggressive all-terrain.

[HMR]

Thanks for the great pics and info!

[Ford Prefect]

Thanks for the great pics and info!

X2

[AeroNautiCal]

That really is a lovely 'escape capsule'.

[Every Miles A Memory]

Glad to see you're getting a chance to get out and use the rig Mike!!