New hunting shelter.

[Marc]

Well I finally convinced my wife that we should get a camper for the truck. We've got friends that go camping all the time and she figured it would be fun, so we started looking around on the Internet and purchased one the following day. It's an Adventurer 76r import camper. It fits on the 1/4-ton trucks. I had to get air lift bags installed on the rear shocks for stability and had to have the belly bands custom made as they don't factory fabricate them.

It's my first camper and I've got to say I'm really impressed with the storage space for such a compact unit. This camper has a propane fridge, stove, oven, and furnace. It's got a 10-gallon water tank and sink. The only thing it doesn't have is a shower and a toilet. I'm not to concerned about that as my nylon tent didn't have these features either so I'm sure I wont miss them.

This unit sleeps 4 people. It's got a bed over the cab and two couches fold down and join to create another bed.

Marc.

http://www.huntingbc.ca/photos/data/500/3camper1.jpg

http://www.huntingbc.ca/photos/data/500/3camper2.jpg

[Gateholio]

Looks great!!

I got acamper this year (basicaly for free- I traded some stuff I didn't need) But yours is way slicker!

Campers are so nice in that you can just spend an hour mounting the thing, and then there is minimal set up when you get to were you want to go...So you can do what you want to do.

LIKE HUNT!!! :)

[Fred]

Marc, make very certain that your trucks GVW is high enough to cover the use of your camper. The ICBC inspection thugs have been known to yank people off of the road for it not being in line with their usage. Even tourists were not immune in the southern Okanagan a couple of years ago.

Other than that, colour me jealous! ;-) Fred

[Thunderstix]

Looks pretty nice Marc! I bet you can't wait to track mud and deer blood into it!

[Blacktail]

nice lookin unit Marc


As fred said ya gotta watch the ICBC idiots

I know of a guy that had his unit on the truck and was towin a trailer and got pulled over by the DOT

the told him to drop the trailer or drop the camper he couldn't have both
Also some of the newer trucks don't have the GVW for older style campers
which are heavier
Your truck is an older one and the newer unit should be a lighter one so it should be OK;-)

[sealevel]

Happy for you that you have a camper you now need a trailer.Your wife will really love you when you stuff a stinky mulie in it.

[Marc]

Like Blacktail said I think the older rangers were built to handle a bit more weight and with the air bags installed on the rear springs you don’t even notice the weight of the camper on the wheels. These campers are fairly light. This particular one only weights 1140lbs that is light when we talk truck campers. Most of them are in the 2000lbs range.

The center of gravity on this camper is situated towards the front so not all the weight is put on the rear axels.



I spent the night in it last night reading hunting articles and put the furnace on to test it out. I heard the furnace come on about 3 times as I’m a light sleeper and was extremely comfortable.



Marc.

[Ken the Kanuck]

It will look very good filled with carcasses. Nice buy.

Ken

[Fred]

Go to an Agents and check your GVW anyway Marc. It is better to be safe than have some beauracrap ruin your holiday for you. :roll: Fred

[Barracuda]

It isnt what your truck can handle for weight that they go by, it is the factory issued gvw that is the weight capacity. you can insure a vehicle for more then the factory issued gvw but that doesnt entitle you to operate said vehicle on public highways if you exceed the factory issued GVW. If you are to follow the letter of the law any excess above the GVW issued from the factory is a no no and could result in a fine or tow or what have you. Just run over the scales for a looksee. .
On the other hand, out of sight out of mind. if it doesnt look heavy on you rig then I doubt they would give it a second look.

By the way it looks really nice:grin:

[heybert]

Marc,
if you don't mind me asking, how much did it cost you? I have a Dodge Dakota and looking into getting a camper for it.

[Marc]

heybert they are not cheap by any means a new one with the options that were inside mine would cost $17,000 new from the factory. Mine was a 2003 model in exceptional shape and it cost me 12,900 plus taxes on the road. I think a Dakota would be a better truck to haul the weight of this type of camper in my opininon.

This camper weighs 1140lbs, my ranger just meets the standards if I leave the water tank empty and the wife home :)

Marc.

[longhairmtnman]

Nice set-up Marc. A buddy has an early 90's ranger and put a late 80's camper on it. He had an extra leaf added, and the springs re-arced. $350.00. Truck handled it fine after that. Your's looks pretty level from the photo. If the truck doesn't 'look' like it's overloaded, they leave you alone. One thing he did change was to move up a load range in rubber, mounted on a pair of steel rims. (he has the same wheels you do)

[heybert]

Thanks for the info Marc. Unfortunately, with the weight capacity of my truck .................I can't leave the wife at home:):) :razz: !!!

[rock]

That looks like a very nice rig , my father owns one similiar to yours marc, we had to put over loads in because hes never home long enough to take it off. I myself built my own but its not as fancy as yours does have a heater and storage and sleeps 2 in comfort. The one thing about the newer ones is the heater is assisted by a fan, which is fine even if you have 2 batteries youll find in really cold weather the battery will not last long. Ive put conventional heaters in a few campers to compensate for this late season problem, like I said Ive built a few camperets in my life I dont do many but usaully people are pretty happy with the looks Im kind of in the metal trade, I just figured I would let you know just in case you had cold weather in mind for a couple weeks at a time. Enjoy your new toy...

[ruger#1]

hey Marc , for the furnace, have a solar panal put on the roof,those fan asisted furnaces suck the life out of your batteries . the solar panal will keep them charged. my father has one on his camper and likes it . i still have the old gravity fed furnace, takes longer to warm up, but it still works, nice unit you bought.

[oldtimer]

Nice lookin rig Marc !! having had a smaller truck in the past one of the best things I did was go to a stiffer sidewall on my tires. ( 8 ply if my memory is correct. ) sure cut down on the side sway of the rig. Mike

[Marc]

Thanks for the response guys.

Oldtimer, I’ve got heavy load tires on it that I can crank up to 50psi max for heavy loads. I’ve also got a set of the firestone air rite lift bags that takes the strain off the springs and supports the weight on the axel. It makes it a lot easier to try and balance the camper as you can adjust both sides individually.

I’ve been crunching numbers trying to find out how much energy I’m going to require for extended periods of time away from home. I’ve been playing on a solar panel website and figuring my Amp-hours/day and it looks like I’ll either need a 75-80W solar panel or a generator to replenish my battery consumption from the previous evening, that’s figuring that the furnace fan is going to run for 5 hours a day. I’m leaning towards the solar panel but it’s going to cost around $700.00 for the panel alone so it probably wont get installed till next year if I can manage to scrape up the cash by then. I did find a two stroke generator for less then $300.00 that supplies 1000watts of energy with 10 Amps of current but it would be to noisy to run at night and I’d still have to drag gas in to run it.

During the day I’ll be out hunting and the furnace will be shut off till we get back to camp and I figure by the time supper is cooked the camper will be heated up again. I plan on using thick blankets and only heating the camper enough that my face doesn’t get cold while I sleep.

Had it out for the long weekend, got to work out a few glitches and learned a couple of things in the process. The fridge in the camper uses ammonia as a cooling agent and it likes to be totally level or the ammonia will pool and won’t cool the fridge properly. Once I got it working right the fridge was 2 degrees C and the freezer was down to –15 degrees C. Got to try out the oven and the stove, man what a difference from using the Coleman white gas stove. I’m not used to having everything available at arms distance. No running to the cooler, or filling and pumping up the gas. I’m thinking of heading out again this weekend to maybe do a little trout fishing and do a bit of pre season scouting for deer/bear.

Marc.

[ruger#1]

marc if your going to turn off your furnace in mid october or november you will have problems with your water freezing up. you might be able to get away with a smaller solar panel, a power inverter, and a batterie charger, it might be a little cheaper. shop around for a solar panel. i will keep my eyes open.i always have my nose in the papers looking for new toys. all you need is a panel that will keep your batteris topped up. sir used to have a 2 stoke charger that would charge your batteries in 2 hours. very hard on the batterries.

[greybark]

;) Hey Marc , That is a nice unit. Enjoy and goog luck !!!! One suggestion - Install a rug on the floor . It is easy to cut and fit and will provide a warm footy compfy zone (extra insulation). The rug should be short and tight knapped so you can sweep it . At the end of the trip you can take it out and hose it clean , Your Wife will see the nice and clean rug and will asume the rest of the camper is likewise . Then you can slack off on rest of the unit.:lol:


REMEMBER -- Keep Your Fingertab On --

[Marc]

marc if your going to turn off your furnace in mid october or november you will have problems with your water freezing up. you might be able to get away with a smaller solar panel, a power inverter, and a batterie charger, it might be a little cheaper. shop around for a solar panel. i will keep my eyes open.i always have my nose in the papers looking for new toys. all you need is a panel that will keep your batteris topped up. sir used to have a 2 stoke charger that would charge your batteries in 2 hours. very hard on the batterries.

The furnace I've got in this small rig is a 9000 btu unit and the fan is 1.8 amp so it shouldn't be as hard on the battery as most 12000 btu furnaces. The other thing I plan on doing is plugging it into the truck when I heat the truck up in the morning so it will give it a 10-20 minute charge as the truck is warming up. The second option I was thinking about was having a battery charging on the back of my truck while I'm out hunting using the camper hookup and a couple alligator clamps for the battery that way all I'd have to do is either swap the battery at night or just use jumper cables and put them in parallel.

Most of my hunting with the camper in the near future will be done on the Island, so the evenings don’t get that cold. The coldest temperature I’ve seen here since I moved to the Island in 2003 is –10C and that was January I think. I’ll probably go with a 30 Watts panel and add another 30 Watts to it when I get the money.

Marc.

[ruger#1]

if you do that then, you might want to get a deep cycle, your lucky where i hunt its so cold in the mornings that my moustach has frost on it, by mid day you have to hunt in a tee shirt.