Hi all, I've been on the group for a while, but haven't introduced our finished article to you - so here she is. F450 Lariat Antimatter blue, 7,3L Godzilla, with a bed custom made by Sherptek in Prineville Oregon. Arctic Fox 1150 Dry bath - both 2024 models. We ordered the truck with the snow plow prep and various upgrades, which takes our GVWR to 16500lbs, which should easily cope with the heavy camper. The wait was a year to have the custom bed built but it was really worth it. They did a great job. We picked up in in April and then had our first outing in her in June.
We currently live in France, but are selling our house and as soon as its sold, we'll be heading back to Portland to pick up the truck and camper, get a few final mods done to the electrics, and then we will be starting our grand trip from Alaska to Argentina (and back). It will take us a few years, but we are really looking forward to it - it will be a heck of an adventure - and it will be spending the kids inheritance!
Before anyone jumps on the gas vs diesel discussion, diesel in central and south America is MUCH higher in Sulphur than it is in the US and Canada, and will play havoc with the engine and emissions. Also DEF is almost non-existant in some C&S American countries. Gas (petrol to us Europeans) is pretty much the same everywhere, so it was an easy choice - especially when I read how much DEF the diesels are using! And the clincher for the diesel vs gas was the 800lbs weight saving when not having a diesel engine. That's a lot of extra carrying capacity.

 

Great looking rig! For your journey, I would go with the gas engine also.

Did the custom bed raise or lower the floor height for the slide-in camper?

 

I'm not entirely sure, as we never looked at a model including a bed. I'm told it is the same height, it is fitted flush to the chassis, so I would imagine it is within an inch or so of the stock bed height.

 

Beautiful rig. Everything looks good. Are you an experienced camper traveller? Tell us about your personal experience.
If not so much, be sure to take a couple shorter (1-2 weeks) runouts, say in the S.W. to approximate some of the territory you will see with the new set up. Issues will emerge. You can then take care of them in the vicinity of your home base.
We have the rig listed in my sig below and have been through the diesel craze. Even with the greatest ever diesel setup (2001.5 Cummins lashed to an NV5600) the noise (the 2001-02 Cummins was the loudest Diesel ever) and my wife not wanting to drive a 6 speed truck trans any more we are very happy with the 7.3L gasser and 10 speed automatic.
Do keep us in the travel loop once you get settled.
jefe de nada

 

Hi Jefe,
We have done a lot of camper-vanning in Europe, and spent a lot of time in the US (I used to live there many moons ago) and I've already driven the truck from Billings to Portland (via the central Oregon dessert), but you are quite right about the test runs. When I first collected the truck a year ago we had a major failure of the aircon, which took 12 weeks to fix - fortunately I could leave the truck with a Ford dealer and head back to France!! We flew to Portland for a quick test last month which went well. Our next trip, once we sell the house, will be around Oregon, so we can get some work done on the electrics and get some updates to the bed and to the crossfire tire pressure system. The electrics will be replaced by a Victron system with a decent inverter, lots of lithium, a converter for 220v in south America, and a decent B2B charger from the second alternator. I reckon we will be 3 weeks doing all that ! We will then hang around for a while before heading off - depending on when the house sells, head south for the winter to Arizona and Baja, or if it doesn't sell until next year, head north to Prudhoe Bay. Fortunately, buying a new camper and a new truck means we can call on lots of help from dealers in the area. I've joined a fair few FB groups and picked up some amazing tips (and some completely useless ones), so I hope that we are as well prepared as we can be - but there will always be something we forgot!!!

 

If the truck came with two alternators then the computer knows about both of them and runs one at a time, allowing the other to cool down. I wouldn't worry about trying to run a DC-DC charger off of one alternator. Connect it to the system via one of the batteries. The newer trucks have a BMS between the battery and the rest of the system (alternator and loads), so if you pull directly from an alternator it could confuse the BMS.

 

Nice rig!

 

Nice rig! I like that side storage.