How much off road can they handle?

[mudmony]

No off road capabilities, other the fire roads..ordered a new 2000 f250 extra cab powerstroke, just like fishpoet, silver and all, through a 9' Alpenlite on it with the kids and went to conquer the west..... no go, no bueno, and down right scary and trust me I will try anything and unfortunately I didnt listen to my peers

[tombodad]

I have a history in driving top-heavy wildland fire trucks (about 6k pounds high in the bed with a full tank) - sometimes in pretty nasty conditions. That being said, I am way more nervous with my truck and camper than I ever was with the fire trucks. Part of that may be the dually firetruck vs srw on my truck, but also the camper is just so darn tall. Flops side-to-side like crazy. The other aspect that not many have mentioned is the weight and sinking. Many times sand and dirt and snow that holds jeeps just fine, and may hold an unloaded diesel, are not gonna do well with an 11k lb truck/camper, especially SRW.

[LimaMikeMike]

Weight is not your friend. Look for a light narrow camper with not much rear overhang (FWC, Northstar Liberty or Freedom, Adventurer 80GS/SK, Lance 825/865) look at a pop up too takes weight away from up high.

Upgrade the suspension with quality bits, go slow and use common sense. A diesel fullsize truck is not the ideal offroader even unloaded anyway.

[Rovertrader]

This thread is a common question actually, and we are pondering the same issues but with two adults, and a 5&7yo. We have even considered a used Earth Roamer, but the cost and limitations are huge. I am close to trying a F350 drw as it is obviously oversized for serious trail work, thus gaining the stability from the drw vs. losing a tiny bit off road- though questionable as referenced above. Most all the brush trucks out this way use drw. Add a flatbed with an All Terrain Camper, which provides much more floor space, hence more layout options. They are light, and short when traveling.
Very frustrating situation, but the kids get scared on the more serious trails, the wife can certainly live without the hard core trails, and I would rather go more often even if less challenging.... Life is a compromise.

[jefe4x4]

Jeff,
This thread has been here a little while, but I thought I'd add my 2 pesetas. You already have the most important part in getting into a expo hardside: you're already an off-roader. I've learned over the years about things like:
purchase the lightest, and smallest full feature camper you can find. This is exactly what I got with the Lance Lite 165-S, 8'6" xcab. It is lighter than many pop up luxury campers. It is 4" less tall and 6" narrower than most so-called full size hard side campers and narrower than 1/2 the pop ups.
Get the most insulation you can for other-than-summer trips. this is the only thing I don't like about our Lance: not enough insulation. I have done some retrofitting of insulation.
loosen the tie-downs on rough roads.
install Lance centering brackets in the bed so the TC does not 'float' around. With these you CAN run the tie downs looser, off-road. If you get off-camber, with axles all twisted up, you will torque the frame and hence the bed and camper along with it and put tremendous torque on the tie downs. A lot of seasoned TC'ers miss this one and pull their eye bolts right out of the frame. Ouch.

Keep as much weight as possible down low in the truck and camper. Nothing on the roof. No AC. No canoes.

Carry drinking water in gallon jugs in a lower cabinet.
Whittle down the amount of stuff you carry. Every single time we go out we take less, to no detriment. Ah yes, there are only two seasoned/consenting adults to deal with and no pets, so space is not a problem.
I have been slowly working on the truck and camper to make it more off-road worthy and we have pushed the envelope pretty hard. I have found it will take a lot more side hilling than you would think. Maybe weight down low and my extra wide super singles on the back (33-15.50's on 12" wide wheels) giving a rear axle track within 4" inches of a set of dualies help with stability and weight carrying ability.

You probably want a winch. The rule of thumb is to get one with 1/2 again the pulling power as the weight of a loaded rig. Our rig weighs 10,300 loaded. Our winch is a 15,000 lb. Warn. Just remember, a winch is the 100% effort when you are stuck. After you've use the shovel, high lift jack, bottle jack, come-a-long, boards and brush, chains, the 100%-er is there, at the ready. Get a 30K lb. recovery strap, a few D rings, a piece of chain with slip hooks and a snatch block. Over my lifetime I've had maybe 400 sticks. Only one took more than 24 hours to self extract. Here is the front 'expo' bumper with homemade extra parts to repel large beasts:

I have worked on the suspension, adding 3" spacers on the front and adding another set of secondaries to the rear axle making the result more than a one ton, not in a legal sense, but in defacto carrying capacity. You can see the two thin and one thick springs above the main pack which only come into play when there is a load.

We've done some pretty wild things with this hardside: as long as I have camper clearance I'm good to go;
coming down a jeep road in the San Juan's, CO;

near the Racetrack in Death Valley:

more Death Valley:

Pinion Mt. jeep trail in Anza Borrego:

stuck in the sand in the Owens Valley:

In closing, I think it's kind of a Zen thing, where you "feel" every bump and contortion the TC feels. Thru experience you find out how far you can go.
Good luck in your quest.
regards, as always, jefe

[Redline]

Lots of good replies. While there are certainly limitations when traveling off-highway in a big, long, wide truck, the camper load is a much bigger concern/issue than the truck itself in my book. Just like all the other guys have said.

This old F350 has seen numerous off-highway miles over the past 16 years, most of it relatively lightly loaded (recovery gear, tools, fuel) never enough weight to hurt it's performance. A camper would be a different story.

[bob91yj]

IMO you are going to reduce the usable life of ANY slide in camper taking it off road. My SunLite pop up is actually designed for a mini truck, it's lighter and narrower than most slide in's. Opening the camper door for the first time after traveling down a dirt road is always an adventure....what did I forget to secure adequately, what rattled loose, did the lock on the 'fridge door hold, is the roof air laying in the middle of the floor? To date, my camper has held up better than expected, a shattered jar of pickles laying in the floor is the worst thing I've found.



I had grand ideas about how I was going to use this set up. The reality of it has limited it's use. If I'm covering a lot of ground off road and camping along the way, the Jeep and a tent usually get the call. If I'm base camping and it requires some light/moderate dirt road travel to get there, I'll take the truck/camper and tow the Jeep (either flat tow or in a 24' enclosed trailer).

The only real abuse the truck/camper get is chase truck duties for the Baja 500/1000. It's still mostly pavement travel, but when I do get in the dirt I travel at the fastest possible speed (often times a fast walk), cringing at every rut/bump along the way. The camper is loaded HEAVY for these events. The couch/bed space gets loaded with tools/parts etc.



So far (3 years) it has held up to the task without falling apart.

If you decide on going with a slide in camper (hard side or pop up), I'd set your expectations for off road capabilities low and be happy when it outperforms your baseline. Would I buy another slide in...yes, without a doubt. We are happy with the comfort/convenience of ours. Mine would be a little small for your plans. Just enough room for two adults and two Boxer dogs in ours. Adding our grandson to the mix when he's old enough will be interesting...the dogs aren't going to be happy about losing their bed!

[jefe4x4]

Redline,
You made my case with the pic of your F-truck. See the way the frame is twisting and taking the bed with it? I see a lot less of that with my Dodge as the twisting is transfered more to the suspension, but when it does flex, and it does, I take precautions to make sure the tie downs don't get undue torque. The frame of my camper is still rigid and I'd like it to stay that way.
I live in the same town and have talked to Gary and Monika Wescott (Turtle Expedition) and followed their exploits for the last 35 years. They may be the original Expo camper people. They have tried every version of campers from hard sides to pop ups and now use a frame mounted, 3 point attachment system on their custom made camper box. Since it's frame mounted you could not call it a truck camper anymore. If the box was removed there would be no 'pickup' use of the truck. It is one sweet purpose built rig. Everything they have done to 'make-it-work' has come through the school of trial-and-error, and hard knocks. They took a Ford 3/4T P.U. with short, skinny little AT tires on a trans-Siberian trek some years ago and found they needed MUCH bigger tires and clearance, like the ruskies use on their Trans-Siberian winter trucks. They also found that the weight and top clearance savings by using a 4Wheel camper was not worth the leaking, frigid, wind-blown agony. You'll notice now that they have huge tires on an F-550 chassis and completely weather-proof box. I am simply in awe. However, I'm simply not in their league, money wise. I had to do it on the cheap and incrementally.

I notice the 9' Alpenlite mudmony above seems to have a heavy camper with a basement, probably 1200 lbs. heavier than mine. This set up is doomed to fail, off-road. Also, bob91Y with the AC on his little camper; doomed.
We all come from a different vantage point and experience. I was a hard-core jeeper (small j sometimes) since 1965. When we became a family, I switched to larger, family size camping/jeeping rigs. We made a lot of 'way-out-there' trips in those rigs. After the kids were grown and in stage two (1. out of the house. 2. out of my pocket), I bought a pickup to flat tow my rock crawler, then bought a car trailer to haul the jeep. Then, as I was getting older and softer, laying on the ground in the snow or dust at the end of a day's crawling held less appeal. Enter the hard side camper. This is where I started to use the physics of jeeping and apply them to a wondrously improbable off-road, hard side truck camper. The physics of a 1800 lb. white box on the back of a short bed pick up made no sense at all. But, therein lain the challenge. Never shying away from a challenge, I went for it.
All of you that have posted above come from your own personal perspective based on experience. Mine is different.
I already had a leg up, so to speak, as the Lance Lite has tinky little holding tanks: 18 G. fresh; 11 G. Gray; 12 G. Black. This is a good weight-savings if going off-road and we can go, unrefilled/undumped for 5 days (with our Honda 2K genset). More if we pour the dishwater outside and take fewer or shorter showers: even more if we use our portable shower enclosure (it's like a tall, narrow tent) and put the outside shower water on the ground. The only thing we cannot do is extend the number of days of the black water tank. When it starts to come up thru the shower drain, you come to the knowledge that it's non-negotiable.
I set out to:
1. Stabilize the truck to haul the load.
2. Get movable heavy stuff down low.
3. Reduce the weight and bulk of what you take in the camper.
4. Increase the amount of recovery equipment you take. It's O.K.; weight is down low. Once you've been to the frame in this 10,000 pound beast you'll know why.
I did want to add that I have anti-sway bars all around, a power loc rear diff, and an after market power steering brace. When I first got my camper I thought I had made a big mistake since it swayed and wobbled all over the trail. After many suspension upgrades, like Rancho 9K's rr, non-adjustable shocks up front, that problem is gone. I now 'play' with the air pressure when off-road, just like jeepers, running differing lower pressures depending on the surface. This saved us over and over in places like the endless rocks and sand of Death Valley. I would say the three principal failure points folks who have tried to off-road their campers and wound up pulling it apart are;
1. Failure to fine tune (and have adjustability) the suspension's ability to take the load smoothly over any terrain.
2. Failure to adjust the tie downs to the requirements of the current terra firma and the torquing of the bed/frame.
3. too much weight up high. air cond., stuff loaded on the roof, heavy stuff inside the camper stored too high.
The case: I have a good friend who off-roads his hard side. He has the right truck, the right sized small, lite camper, BUT he has a large roof mounted AC, a couple extra propane bottles, a couple large plastic containers with heavy stuff in them like firewood, all 11 feet up. He has pulled all four of his eye bolts through their moorings on the camper box, and it's only a couple years old. A shame.
Another thing I've found is to 'go with the flow' when off-road. In a lot of ways, 'resistance is futile' so I keep things looser, even disconnecting one side of the rr anti-sway bar. I find I get more sway, off-road with the sway bar connected than not, just like the jeepers have found. Connected, if the wheel falls in a hole, it tries to pull the whole rig down into that hole with it. Disconnected is also good as it transmits the torque to the suspension and less to the frame. No air bags. Air bags along with coil springs tend to have an unrelenting problem: recoil or rebound. Even if heavily shock controlled, and I have a used set of air bags I'll give you, there is no getting away from the recoil. (The, "Boinga, boinga, oinga of life") Big, dumb, heavy, clumsy, rusty old leaf springs with all their built in friction are the best for a big heavy rig. They hit a bump, barely respond, and just say, "Huh, what happened?" I've also installed Stable Loads to engage the secondaries sooner. I must say, they really do stabilize the load, one of the few things I've ever bought that worked 'as advertised'. My camper guides keep the box from sliding sideways on the rubber matt transfering the tipping torque sheer down low.
About the only thing I need to do now is to fashion a 3" strap connecting the front bulkhead of the truck bed around the camper to the other side as a 'slide out keeper' like a limiting strap for going up steep grades (so the camper doesn't "slide out the back.....jack").
In the end, a built-up, for off-road, hard side truck camper may not be for you. But, I have stayed at it and molified most of the shortcomings down to an acceptable level. It's similar to the old addage: "Jeeps are not bought, they are built". The good part is: I have incrementally paid for all this; it's all paid for; and works like I thought it would.
regards, as always, jefe

[bob91yj]

I understand the limitations of my set up. I'm somewhat amused that you throw a "doom" prediction on my arrangement based solely on the roof air, yet you have 3' more camper sticking up in the air when my roof is down and 800 pounds give/take.

A little thought went into the roof air addition. The roof of this camper is designed for a roof air...in 2001 when roof air units were heavier. Being designed for a mini truck, the roof is smaller/flexes less than a full size truck model camper would. The Coleman Mach unit I installed is smaller/lighter than most, designed for a pop up. It runs on a Honda 2Kw generator. Is there potential for the roof air to cause premature roof failure...you bet there is! Is it worth the risk for my use...you bet there is! We live in SoCal, not unusual for us to be in 100*+ temps now and again. I'm getting old, my doc says I'm fat, roof air isn't nice to have it's required!

[jefe4x4]

Bob,
You are right; i don't know how much sway you get out of having an AC on top of a pop up. I thought your assessment was right on. My little Lance is about 15" taller than an Apex 8 in the down position. Most of that weight is air and lighter than the metal sissor hardware in the sides and roof of an Apex. My brother has the Apex and he likes it. I like it. I noticed your sig file. Hmmm?
In fact, Fat City was the one who built his rock racer a few years ago. It's still my favorite rock racing rig my bro (John Reynolds aka: JR on the Pirate page.) I use my CJ8 as a chase rig for him on occasion and was actually his spotter on the 1999 Warn Rock Crawling Championship at the Hammers. It is loaded with every eventuality (like the interior pic of your camper) including another spare, parts, 25 lb.CO2 tank, and an on-board, high frequency welder. I like your stretch unlimited. It is the new classic in the Scrambler heritage.
It seems we've trod a lot of the same trails.
regards, as always, jeff reynolds