This is one of the best videos explaining how someone put a box together. Its all the little details that make a difference in the end, like the washers. Thanks for taking the time to do this Gary!
Excellent video Gary it's certainly the most Informative video of a composite habitation box being assembled that I've watched. Thanks for sharing and keep em coming
Great video Gary, it really took me back to my build and I am with you it’s not beyond the capabilities of a competent DIYer. Five years on ours is bone dry, bomb proof and warm as toast.
Thanks Phill, To be honest if it was not for out chat at AO and your ongoing support I would not have gone down this route and I am really really glad we did. You played your knowledge forward and this video was my bid to do the same. Thank you for all you help.,
And Phil's truck has a mosaic shower room floor.... Excellent work and filming there Gary, sorry it has taken me so long to view this! As I have said on numerous times before, this is THE way to build a box, very well proven over the past years, top work. Brian.
Great video. Thanks for sharing. I had a box built for me with a similar structure including a marine ply layer. I had some minor leaks initially which I addressed pretty quickly. However, getting the moisture out of the plywood in the sandwich was close to impossible and it eventually (5 years) started to delaminate. Many of the commercial construction companies (Unicat etc) put no wood in their sandwich.
I was with you from the beginning, I waited for each new episode and it is not my business why it is as it is. But I am very happy that this is how you are stronger and we have fainty material and some information. Thanks for this. I also started construction myself, except for a camper based on a small Polish bus, admittedly a different character but knowledge is never enough, so I'm waiting for the next episodes. And good luck. Greetings from Poland
Thanks, this is really interesting. I had been planning on welding a steel frame hab box together but after seeing this it appears that composite panels are probably going to work out cheaper, quicker and easier than I expected.
Great video with great detail. My concern is these panels seem to be over engineered thus giving you a great deal more weight than would be necessary. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for the info! This is probably the route if I gonna design my own shelter. What is the total weight of the box? And did you make a flex frame under it?
Best tip if using a similar chassis for overlander builds is not to have twin / dual rear wheel as when on ruff rocky ground you'll blow the tyres out with rocks or boulders jamming between them
Our 1997 Ford CF8000 ExpeditionVehicle has duals. We summer around remote mountain lakes, winters on isolated Baja beaches. We trundle through swamps and across rivers. We ramble along rough forest tracks searching for no cellular signal. We are happiest beyond the pavement. We hear your rumors about "rocks! destroy! duals!"... but reality proves otherwise.
Hi, great video and the first I have seen showing home construction of the box. Can you please post some photos of the aluminium caps that you had made for the corners and rear 45deg panel?
@@FekingWindyOutside thanks for the heads-up! Who doesn't love a Vario! The amount these guys have spent on conversions over the last few years must be eye watering!
Weight limits - the truck gave us huge limitations in built up areas due to most city’s having 10t limits all through them. It was one of the biggest issues we had on our overland trip to Mongolia. It got to the point we used to have to just ignore them and face the fines when we got caught. I felt we missed a lot of culture because of this. Size - this is hard to explain, when your driving through a small inhabited area. the truck can give your a feeling of be very obnoxious. For example we drove though a village in Ukraine because we took a wrong turn. There was no turning around. We just had to drive past these tiny houses towering high above them, people would come out an watch us struggling to get round tight bends while smashing large branches of trees, I just felt like a right nob. Costs - not just fuel costs, tool costs are greater as everything is bigger, service costs, The big one was shipping costs. Our sprinter is about half the cost to ship than the DAF. Your paying thousands to ship the ground clearance on a Daf. Parts availability - I can’t believe people are not concerned by this. I personally have purchased what I believe are the some of the last available parts of the truck. Some parts are now simply not available. What you going to do if they fail overseas? Comfort - I personally did not enjoy driving the DAF. It’s loud, slow , noisy, I felt fatigued after a few hours behind the wheel. The sprinter feels no different to a older car. Disaster management - can you mr partner manage you vehicle in the event of you falling ill? I fell out of a truck recently and broke my ribs, so my partner had to do everything for a number of weeks. She can drive the sprinter, change a wheel, reach the engine bay, access the garage etc etc if your other half can’t do these then your at a massive disadvantage. What I miss from the DAF - the elevated driving position. the lazy off-roading, meaning you just plow blindly through anything without a care in the world. but I think that’s about it.
Thanks for all the details, very helpful to understand the process. This seems pretty heavy, I frankly would not want any wood at all as eventually it gets wet and rots. Is the SikaFlex really necessary? I would think polyurethane glue (e.g. PL300) would be plenty strong, as its used to glue windsheilds in cars. I used it to make a motor mount..
9:08 into the clip you can see aluminium beams running transverse on the truck chassis to support the floor. This is a bit unusual though. Normally a rigid subframe is spring mounted between the box an the chassis to compensate for deflection in the chassis. These chassis are really flexible and I’m curious to know how they overcame this problem. I’m always keen to see new ways to overcome old problems.
Hi Guys, With a "c" section chassis as is found on the bigger trucks you do get a significant amount of flex and this adds to their offload performance. However the sprinter is a box chassis and is far more rigid, I took some very crude measurements and I think that there is only about 12mm of twist from front to rear. This is also in line with another builder I know that took slightly more comprehensive measurements. These were all done with a naked chassis. so to compensate for the small amount of flex the rearmost ally beams are fixed rigidly and the front is mounted on rubber mount that should allow for 10-20mm of travel. Bearing in mind the Sikaflex will stretch something like 400% before it fails and the end grain surface that its bonding is unlikely to fail. I suspect I could have got away with nothing, to be honest.
Great video full of useful info. Thanks Gary. One question: on the floor panel you said one side of it was 15mm instead of 5mm ply. Is that on the 'outside ' or inside?
Hi Gary, thank you so much for your video, I have watched so many and this is the first that gives you a candid talk through and gives me the confidence to take this task on. Have you any information about how you connected this to the truck, are you using fixed or moving connectors etc. Thanks Ed
Hi, With a "c" section chassis as is found on the bigger trucks you do get a significant amount of flex and this adds to their offload performance. However the sprinter is a box chassis and is far more rigid, I took some very crude measurements and I think that there is only about 12mm of twist from front to rear. This is also in line with another builder I know that took slightly more comprehensive measurements. These were all done with a naked chassis. so to compensate for the small amount of flex the rearmost ally beams are fixed rigidly and the front is mounted on rubber mount that should allow for 10-20mm of travel. Bearing in mind the Sikaflex will stretch something like 400% before it fails and the end grain surface that its bonding is unlikely to fail. I suspect I could have got away with nothing, to be honest.
Good grief. 2003, we acquired a 1997 Ford CF8000 commercial truck to convert to our concept of an ExpeditionVehicle. Our commercial 'dry-van' box is three paces across by seven paces long. This is a commercial-rated 'million-mile' combo. In less than a week -- while selling everything -- we completed our conversion and hit the road from Oregon with the vague goal of 'south'. After nearly two decades full-time live-aboard, we consistently hear of want-to-be overlanders getting bogged in the building instead of the traveling. Appalling.
![Noob To Max With DRAGON REWORK In Blox Fruits [FULL MOVIE]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LnBMOinoOvA/mqdefault.jpg)
This is one of the best videos explaining how someone put a box together. Its all the little details that make a difference in the end, like the washers. Thanks for taking the time to do this Gary!
This was exactly what I needed! I am building a box for my lmtv and was having trouble finding a panel manufacturer.
Excellent video Gary it's certainly the most Informative video of a composite habitation box being assembled that I've watched.
Thanks for sharing and keep em coming
Glad you enjoyed it
Great video Gary, it really took me back to my build and I am with you it’s not beyond the capabilities of a competent DIYer. Five years on ours is bone dry, bomb proof and warm as toast.
Thanks Phill, To be honest if it was not for out chat at AO and your ongoing support I would not have gone down this route and I am really really glad we did. You played your knowledge forward and this video was my bid to do the same. Thank you for all you help.,
And Phil's truck has a mosaic shower room floor....
Excellent work and filming there Gary, sorry it has taken me so long to view this! As I have said on numerous times before, this is THE way to build a box, very well proven over the past years, top work.
Brian.
Great video. Thanks for sharing.
I had a box built for me with a similar structure including a marine ply layer. I had some minor leaks initially which I addressed pretty quickly. However, getting the moisture out of the plywood in the sandwich was close to impossible and it eventually (5 years) started to delaminate. Many of the commercial construction companies (Unicat etc) put no wood in their sandwich.
Well done. I think the first video of a self build box with lots of detail. Keep it going and thanks for your time.
Awesome, thank you!
Great video Gary - thanks for sharing ! Look forward to seeing the next one
I was with you from the beginning, I waited for each new episode and it is not my business why it is as it is. But I am very happy that this is how you are stronger and we have fainty material and some information. Thanks for this. I also started construction myself, except for a camper based on a small Polish bus, admittedly a different character but knowledge is never enough, so I'm waiting for the next episodes. And good luck. Greetings from Poland
Thanks, this is really interesting. I had been planning on welding a steel frame hab box together but after seeing this it appears that composite panels are probably going to work out cheaper, quicker and easier than I expected.
Glad I could help
Great video thanks very much - plenty of good info.
Top video Gary. Look forward to seeing her soon.
Always a pleasure, cheers for sharing your knowledge 👍🛠😊
My pleasure!
Great info . Looking forward to a progress update ....
Great wealth of detailed information's thank you
Let's see some more content! Love the videos
Really great overview, thanks
Excellent video, thoroughly enjoyed it. Thank you.
Great info! Thanks for sharing. When are you going to let us see the final product?
Great video with great detail. My concern is these panels seem to be over engineered thus giving you a great deal more weight than would be necessary. Thanks for sharing.
Based on this video, the entire rig is over-engineered.
Might they be thinking too much?
Great walkthrough video! Thank you!
what happened to you guys, no updates, your domains expired....?
Thanks for the info! This is probably the route if I gonna design my own shelter. What is the total weight of the box? And did you make a flex frame under it?
I'd be interested to know how heavy those panels were???
Best tip if using a similar chassis for overlander builds is not to have twin / dual rear wheel as when on ruff rocky ground you'll blow the tyres out with rocks or boulders jamming between them
Our 1997 Ford CF8000 ExpeditionVehicle has duals.
We summer around remote mountain lakes, winters on isolated Baja beaches.
We trundle through swamps and across rivers.
We ramble along rough forest tracks searching for no cellular signal.
We are happiest beyond the pavement.
We hear your rumors about "rocks! destroy! duals!"... but reality proves otherwise.
Would you recommend building a box over the alli box you had on puddles?
What have you done ref mounting the box to the chassis? To stop twisting
Hi, great video and the first I have seen showing home construction of the box. Can you please post some photos of the aluminium caps that you had made for the corners and rear 45deg panel?
Will do
This was mega helpful thank you.
Glad it was helpful!
Fancy seeing you here!!!
@@urbanarkoverland it’s almost like I’m half way through building a massive box.
Hello. How much box weights empty?
How's this progressing? It would be great to see an update!
Check the Facebook page you will be surprised with what they ended up with.
@@FekingWindyOutside thanks for the heads-up! Who doesn't love a Vario! The amount these guys have spent on conversions over the last few years must be eye watering!
@@robertsulley yes I've only recently stumbled upon these guys, really like the content and also gives me inspiration for a future build, maybe 🤔
Nice video, keep them coming!
We will!
How did you join the box habitation to your van cab? you’re able to walk through from van to habitation ..
Have you done a video on your reasons for selling puddles and down sizing, and new truck choice?
James Standen nope that’s next on the list
Weight limits - the truck gave us huge limitations in built up areas due to most city’s having 10t limits all through them. It was one of the biggest issues we had on our overland trip to Mongolia. It got to the point we used to have to just ignore them and face the fines when we got caught. I felt we missed a lot of culture because of this.
Size - this is hard to explain, when your driving through a small inhabited area. the truck can give your a feeling of be very obnoxious. For example we drove though a village in Ukraine because we took a wrong turn. There was no turning around. We just had to drive past these tiny houses towering high above them, people would come out an watch us struggling to get round tight bends while smashing large branches of trees, I just felt like a right nob.
Costs - not just fuel costs, tool costs are greater as everything is bigger, service costs,
The big one was shipping costs. Our sprinter is about half the cost to ship than the DAF. Your paying thousands to ship the ground clearance on a Daf.
Parts availability - I can’t believe people are not concerned by this. I personally have purchased what I believe are the some of the last available parts of the truck. Some parts are now simply not available. What you going to do if they fail overseas?
Comfort - I personally did not enjoy driving the DAF. It’s loud, slow , noisy, I felt fatigued after a few hours behind the wheel. The sprinter feels no different to a older car.
Disaster management - can you mr partner manage you vehicle in the event of you falling ill? I fell out of a truck recently and broke my ribs, so my partner had to do everything for a number of weeks. She can drive the sprinter, change a wheel, reach the engine bay, access the garage etc etc if your other half can’t do these then your at a massive disadvantage.
What I miss from the DAF - the elevated driving position. the lazy off-roading, meaning you just plow blindly through anything without a care in the world. but I think that’s about it.
@@gazoutdooradventures exactly the things i feel about my truck, I'm thinking of down sizing a bit as well. Thanks for the detailed response
Gary, I’ve found that Acetone removes Sikaflex very efficiently when wet
Don't use acetone on sika it will affect the cure of the adhesive. Use sika cleaner.
Gaz, I was referring to cleaning your hands. Nada mas.
Sorry my bad
Acetone will shut down internal organs aswell
How is it going now Gary?
Can you tel me what you used for the windows and doors??
Thanks for all the details, very helpful to understand the process. This seems pretty heavy, I frankly would not want any wood at all as eventually it gets wet and rots.
Is the SikaFlex really necessary? I would think polyurethane glue (e.g. PL300) would be plenty strong, as its used to glue windsheilds in cars. I used it to make a motor mount..
What's happened to your build reports?...up until now it has been very interesting....
what is the total thickness of the walls, ceiling and floor
Thanks
Can I also ask if you have mitred the angled rear panel?
Hi.Any idea on the rough weight of your box?
Hi, have you weighed the vehicle?
Hay 👋🏼
Not seen you since you finished in Ukrainian or whereever you was 👌
where can I find the final build video?
I am your fun from Nairobi Kenya.
I'd love to know if you offer training.
Patrixk from NEw Jersey outdoors ????
Another question sorry. Did you put the composite box directly onto the chassis or did you build a steel subframe for it to sit on?
9:08 into the clip you can see aluminium beams running transverse on the truck chassis to support the floor. This is a bit unusual though. Normally a rigid subframe is spring mounted between the box an the chassis to compensate for deflection in the chassis. These chassis are really flexible and I’m curious to know how they overcame this problem. I’m always keen to see new ways to overcome old problems.
De Wet Groenewald Ahh yes, missed that, thanks. I am aware how the big boys do it, just wasn’t sure if that was required on a Sprinter chassis.
Hi Guys, With a "c" section chassis as is found on the bigger trucks you do get a significant amount of flex and this adds to their offload performance. However the sprinter is a box chassis and is far more rigid, I took some very crude measurements and I think that there is only about 12mm of twist from front to rear. This is also in line with another builder I know that took slightly more comprehensive measurements. These were all done with a naked chassis. so to compensate for the small amount of flex the rearmost ally beams are fixed rigidly and the front is mounted on rubber mount that should allow for 10-20mm of travel. Bearing in mind the Sikaflex will stretch something like 400% before it fails and the end grain surface that its bonding is unlikely to fail. I suspect I could have got away with nothing, to be honest.
Mongolia 👍
Yer that was it 🤓
Great video full of useful info. Thanks Gary. One question: on the floor panel you said one side of it was 15mm instead of 5mm ply. Is that on the 'outside ' or inside?
Hey Adrian, we decided to have it on the outside,
@@Just-Escapecom thanks. 😊
Hi Gary, thank you so much for your video, I have watched so many and this is the first that gives you a candid talk through and gives me the confidence to take this task on. Have you any information about how you connected this to the truck, are you using fixed or moving connectors etc. Thanks Ed
Hi, With a "c" section chassis as is found on the bigger trucks you do get a significant amount of flex and this adds to their offload performance. However the sprinter is a box chassis and is far more rigid, I took some very crude measurements and I think that there is only about 12mm of twist from front to rear. This is also in line with another builder I know that took slightly more comprehensive measurements. These were all done with a naked chassis. so to compensate for the small amount of flex the rearmost ally beams are fixed rigidly and the front is mounted on rubber mount that should allow for 10-20mm of travel. Bearing in mind the Sikaflex will stretch something like 400% before it fails and the end grain surface that its bonding is unlikely to fail. I suspect I could have got away with nothing, to be honest.
Could you translate your meaning for the word "rebate?"
Good grief.
2003, we acquired a 1997 Ford CF8000 commercial truck to convert to our concept of an ExpeditionVehicle.
Our commercial 'dry-van' box is three paces across by seven paces long.
This is a commercial-rated 'million-mile' combo.
In less than a week -- while selling everything -- we completed our conversion and hit the road from Oregon with the vague goal of 'south'.
After nearly two decades full-time live-aboard, we consistently hear of want-to-be overlanders getting bogged in the building instead of the traveling.
Appalling.
you talk to much