yea i don't care for tent camping myself, regardless of location. i went with a few buddies a couple years ago to a camp ground, it wasn't even like in the real woods or anything, had a little building with showers and bathrooms to use lmao, but they slept in tents, i slept in my excursion when i had that retarded double 3rd row seat contraption i built that i still dont know what i was thinking. but screw that, super hot...getting bit by mosquitos, etc...i slept well in my good ol' excursion. they busted my *****, but i bet i slept better than they did! i do the camping while i'm awake. when it's time to sleep, i want to be indoors, or in my locked vehicle. LOL

I'm still trying to talk my friend into working a deal for one of the 2-3 e250's he has that were his grandfathers plumbing companies retired work vans. they need some work cosmetically but i want one of them to make into a mini RV (i think i already posted this in a post above) but yea. seeing your build/adventures just makes me want to do it more.

I plan to take a road trip to Anchorage at some point in the semi-near future (within the next 1-3ish years i'm hoping) one way or another. even if i have to go by myself if no one wants to ride with with lol. it shows ~4,800 miles from my house, and about 77 hours LOL. i'm assuming you can drive there lol, do you just have to go through boarder patrol when you go through Canada?

Either way, it's on my bucket list. i don't care, i'm gonna make it happen! we can finally meet up then, after what, 13-14+ years of "knowing" each other on the forums?! Then I can check out your fleet! lol

what's the longest road trip you've gone on? not longest like duration of the whole vacation, but longest distance? I think that would make for an AWESOME road trip, going through and stopping for a while in all those different states and Canada on the way there and back. I'd have to make sure my future van/travel vehicle is 110% in check before going that far! lol

 

You have a MW 428RQ, the exact same model I have and perhaps year (my chassis is 93, but the coach is 94)

I use 2 group 24DC batteries with a staggered connection - coach plus to one, minus to another and a disconnect to tie them together for boondocking or free them for charging. The converter in your unit charges the batteries at 3a/h and uses a simple zener to regulate over current, I installed a NOCO Genius 2 channel 10a/h per charger and mounted it to the fridge wall down low so I can see the red or greens while sitting outside and put the wires thru the passthru in the floor.

we have the same layout except your twim capt chairs in the living room are a flexsteel couch/bed in mine. opposite of that bed up top in the cabinet I put a 19 inch led tv that draws 8watts and a dvd player and put a power strip up in there and keep an inverter for when on batteries. in the master BR I put a 19 inch led tv/dvd player that draws 14watts total. on 2 batteries we can go 3 days before a charge.

Get your led interior lights from Dan at LED4RV, but dont get the 15mm bayonet base 1156/1141 replacements, go for the dual led strips. slightly more current but over 2x the light and the bayonet base festoons fail *a lot*. $275 of bulbs inside and half of them are missing panels...

do you have the onan emerald 4000 genset?

I have at one point failed every single control board in the unit, the fridge brow, the auto start HW and the genset VR. got all from dinosaur but the genset - I get that from flight systems in carlisle - right across the street from the fairgrounds.

the exhaust gaskets are a problem. I got a line on percy dead soft aluminum I wanna try next, the bolts are able to back out slowly and they blow out. I get 2 seasons per set and you can change 90$ of them from inside the coach but cyls 5/6 you need to get under. Just did the water pump in the big block section.

pm me is you have any specific issues, I have all the install and service manuals for this model - my previous owners kept everything. including the genset service/diag manual.

 

93 and up ford got the E4 right and this one is programmed to a T. It will go into OD and lock at 35-40 mph and it will lock in 2nd gear when pulling a hill. often I tap the OD cancel when descending to hold her back. Add another oil cooler in series with the one you have, this will give you 3. you can tow 3K behind it - I exceed that at times by using a car dolly - keeps tongue weight to near zero and for dead loads I use a WD hitch with 550lb spring bars. its not a lack of power, its the dang 8ft+ overhang behind the rear axle.

saw your caliper sticking problem, replace the hoses as well and the outside front bearing is insanely small, but wide - replace it and pack with high temp grease.

 

Yes it is a 93 chassis sold as a 94 model. It Does have the 4K gen set that works great. I do have a lot of plans but summer is going strong and not much time for projects. I do lock out O/D a good bit when needed it will hold it pretty well, at least better then I expected.

I really wish we had the couch on the curbside instead of the chairs but it'll work for now. I may try to find an RV couch to go there when I replace the carpet.

Brakes have been great since replacing jus.t about everything, next spring I plan to do the front hoses they didn't look bad but they are old.

The golf cart batteries it has installed have seriously impressed me with capacity!

 

Yes you can drive, you have to take the Alaska highway through Canada or you can take a ferry from Bellingham, WA. You need a passport and all that good stuff.

My longest trip, it's probably a tie between going to the Arctic Circle half way up the Dalton Highway headed to the north slope (as seen on TV "ice road truckers" ) Anchorage to Fairbanks was about 6 hours/450 miles one way, then Fairbanks to the Arctic Circle was 4.5 hours/200 miles one way. This trip was over 1,000 miles over a long weekend.

The other trip was from Anchorage to Glennallen to McCarthy (60 miles of dirt road one way) then onto Valdez and heading back to Anchorage overall that was good 900ish mile trip all said and done.

 

So my uncle borrowed it two weeks ago, brought it back on Saturday. He filled it up, dumped the tanks and cleaned it. I gave it a quick look when he brought it back and all looked good. Well tonight when prepping it for Fourth of July trip I plugged it in to run the fridge off shore power. As soon as I plugged it in the furnace fan turned on...uhoh! Yep he left the furnace on and killed the batteries..damn it! Hoping it will charge well enough over night and the place we are going has hookup so it should recharge during the trip.

Anyhow almost totally packed to head up north, you guys will enjoy the event we're going to, pictures and videos to follow! With all the family going I'm taking my travel trailer and the motorhome to make 48 feet of fun.

 

quickest way to break something is to loan it out

 

Nice motorhome Russ!
I've been wanting to get back into camping, and have some plans to start truck camping this summer with my F-150. (stay tuned to my build thread for more updates) I used to have a small dome tent years ago that I used once before it got lost in the move to PA 10 years ago. Now I'm married and my wife's idea of camping is a hotel where she can see trees out the window. Definitely not an outdoorsy kinda girl! But she's not going to stop me from camping myself so we're good!
My dad and his wife just bought a small Jayco travel-trailer to camp with since they like to take their dog with them when they travel. I saw it last weekend when they were up for a visit. Pretty nice!

 

Had a great trip! Our good friend had us out to his place up by the Mat-Su Glacier. Every year for the 4th of July he has a parade, flyover and the best part flys cars off his cliff. The night before includes running the cars and anything else they want to around his oval dirt track. There was 7 of us 4 in the motorhome and 3 in my travel trailer and it was perfect. Weather could have been a little better but hey it's AK and you work with what you got.

Motorhome now has about 69,300 miles. We will be adding to those in the next few weeks also with a bunch of family coming into town.










The van we sponsored to go off the cliff

 

In the Quad riding world we call those 'inverses' and the objective is to properly perch the machine off the jump and land way way down parallel with the terrain and of course, survive.

The first few times you do it, its one of the more unnatural thing you will ever do but its actually quite a smooth landing...

there are so few surviving bull, brick or aero nose F-series here in the rust belt, some might be mad at ya for the F250...

 

The F-250 had a story attached to it, it was a drug dealers that was seized by the troopers and sent to auction. It had mis-matched VIN's on it and could never be titled or registered again in AK. It was a decent truck before it went. Luckily up here without the use of salt there are still a lot of bull,brick and plenty of areo trucks, a lot are still daily drivers.

 

Next year ask them to add tannerite and a detonator

 

There aren't many Aerostar's left in the rust belt either. By watching it approvingly, that makes you guilty by association

 

updates! any new mods/updates to the interior?

 

No mods or changes but a few issues when I took it on the longest trip so far.

So over Labor Day weekend I headed to Fairbanks,AK which is about 380 miles or so one way. The plan was to park at a friends shop and plug in and use that for "base camp" when there, then head out to Chena Hotsprings which is about 60 miles out of Fairbanks.

The week before we left we tried to be as ready as I could. My dad took it to fill the propane and when he was parking it in the driveway after doing so he backed into his explorer with the MH. This caused pretty good damage to the drivers rear corner. I have not had time to do any repairs and didn't before taking the trip either.

Headed out Friday around 3pm, I'd put new wipers on thank god as it poured rain for about 40 miles coming out of Wasilla. After that I tried to maintan 65-70 mph and didn't really run into any areas I couldn't do that. Outside Denali Natinal Park we had to come to a very fast stop due to Moose crossing the highway and the brakes worked!!

Made it to my friends place around 9:30 PM, so about 6 1/2 hour drive with one stop for a little fuel, which was super over priced in Nenana,AK so I only put 20 gallons in. That night I plugged into shore power and everything worked perfectly and slept great.

Next day decided to hit the store for the things we forgot and head out to Chena. Arrived at Chena and tried to find parking. Once I parked after making a round in the lot we changed into swim suits and headed into the resort. As we are walking away from the MH I see this trail of fluid. Then I realize it was coming from my MH! Turns out it was Transmission fluid and after crawling under it, the front seal had leaked. I had the same thing happen with my Excursion so I was not SUPER worried but it did make enjoying myself hard. We spend a few hours there and decide its time to head back into Fairbanks..another 60 miles. So I check all the fluids and everything looks fine so I decide I'll take it easy and try not to get it real hot.

As I'm starting to back up this old guy comes running up and knocks on my window. "You have a flat tire!" He says...NO WAY I'm thinking. Sure enough the drivers side outside dual is flat! I decide to pull outside the main parking area into a nice paved level area to change it, after all I brought a floor jack, breaker bar, sockets, air compressor, tire plug kit..ect I can fix this! I start inspecting the tire, that is a year old BTW and I can't see a thing wrong with it. I decide to air it up and find the issue. Turns out the Valve stem failed! Crap! Have to swap it out with the spare that I've never even looked at..uhoh. Turns out the Spare is a brand new A/T E rated tire only 2 years old..okay we'll be fine. I get the jack out and quickly realize my jack can't lift the weight of the MH!!! So being SUPER pissed at this point I decide to make a RISKY move. I took some fire wood from the box on the back, drive the inside dual on to it never then jacked it up as much as my jack would handle. Then we quickly removed the outside dual and put the spare on and luckily the inside dual didn't move much.

Made it back into Fairbanks and went right to AutoZone and bought a 20 Ton bottle jack and extra oil and transmission fluid as I had none. Then rushed over to the Walmart tire center and was able to sweet talk them into replacing the valve stem after they had closed for the day thank god!

At this point I'm pretty discouraged with the whole trip and the MH, get back to my friends place and decide we may take another highway home, the longer way which I've never been. Decided we might dry camp one night since we had the generator if needed. So I decide to try firing it up...the starter Solenoid died and it wont start..WTF!

So we stay at my buddy's place and head home Sunday cutting the trip short. Luckily we made it home without issue and now the MH will be winterized and put up for the winter. I have a laundry list of things to fix before she's ready for next season.

I didn't take a ton of pictures but here's a few.




"The cookie jar" restraunt in Fairbanks is a MUST DO when in town.













Rolled 70K on the way home


The overnight temps were chilly, but the furnace kept it 70F inside no problem!




Overall, I now have a story to tell haha