Living Unleashed

[NWOleman]

I struggle with this decision still. Box truck or school bus?!I have an awesome bus that has the running gear I want with the exception of gearing needing to be changed. So much more room in a box truck though.

 

[cadillackid]

I love box truck builds.. a buddy of mine has his box truck looking pretty much like a truck.. the back doors open to reveal a nice set of windows with screens for a full open back feel... he has 2 side doors on it that open up and theres windows on one side.. and an awning on the other side that opens up..





when its all closed up it looks like a regular old truck.. and so it parks easily anywhere delivery trucks do... loading zones? no problem.. conventions? no problem park where the trucks do.. he tends to be similar to me in that he likes to explore towns and cities... instead of hotels he of course stays in his 20 foot truck..



he got a shroud from a reefer and mounted his 12 volt split A/C condenser in there so it looks like a reefer but its not.. there are solar panels on the roof that arent visible from the ground...



he did create an interior transition from the van part to the box area and has a curtain up as the rear A/C isnt really designed to cool on the road.. his dashboard A/C cools the front nicely with the curtain closed...


he canabilized a van and added niceties like heated seats and power windows / locks, and nicer door panels rather than the bare bones cab it once was...


I totally love these box truck builds...

 

[baadpuppy]

I struggle with this decision still. Box truck or school bus?!I have an awesome bus that has the running gear I want with the exception of gearing needing to be changed. So much more room in a box truck though.

It isn't the easiest decision, and is one each person must make for themselves.

Ironically, while I was living in a travel trailer back in late 2004, I read an article about a guy living in a box truck, which put me on the path that eventually took me to skoolies, and now I have come back full circle.

Finding a longer box is harder, and more costly.

The basic vehicle itself is more costly. There are just too many people trying to use box trucks to make money for you to find a decent one for cheap.

Getting the right power train is about the same effort as for a skoolie. Mine is a 6.0L ford powerstroke, and I am happy enough with it for now. Mine is NOT my forever one, it is my learning experience one.

The taller interior is nice. No need for a roof raise. Depending on the platform, there can be a TON of under-body space. A nice flat roof (or nearly flat, some have a slight bow) for solar panel mounting is really wonderful.

Navigating private ownership of a formerly commercial vehicle is similar to the same for a skoolie.

Overall, I am happy with my choice this time. All the parts of a skoolie conversion that stumped me before are non-issues on this build, and I am able to focus more on the living space.

Good luck with your gearing!

Jim

 

[baadpuppy]

I love box truck builds.. a buddy of mine has his box truck looking pretty much like a truck.. the back doors open to reveal a nice set of windows with screens for a full open back feel... he has 2 side doors on it that open up and theres windows on one side.. and an awning on the other side that opens up..

I totally love these box truck builds...

Ahh, ideas for my next build. and some for this one.

I have learned a lot already from this build, and I know what kind of budget I want to set for my next build's platform (base vehicle), and what features I am willing to lose to get the "right" platform, and which ones I am not willing to lose.

Your buddy's truck sounds like an awesome build.

For anyone considering a box truck build, I highly recommend finding one with swing-out doors rather than a rollup door. The rollup door takes a lot of overhead space, and brings outdoors indoors (wet door = drips inside, just like any garage door does). That is my biggest regret on this build.

Thank you for the comments and ideas!
Jim

 

[baadpuppy]

Delays due to a side quest

So the property I am doing the build on, which is where I have been squatting rent-free for some time now, is going on the market soon. This property is owned by my parents.

My mom is here attempting to get all the work done to repair issues, paint walls, clean, pack the remaining junk, etc, and I have been helping her, which does take away from my build time.

Early this week, she hit me right between the eyes with a seemingly crazy idea.

One issue we have been having is that we are all packrats. Not quite to the hoarder level, but it is difficult to toss away something that could prove useful some day.

This makes it difficult to pack, as you are having to make hard decisions. And, as you do get things packed, where do you put it while you keep packing. Add in needing to empty rooms at a time for painting or drywall work, and it seems like no matter how many trips to the dump you take, the house is still just as full!

This is a 2 story 8 room + 1.5 bath house, with an attic and a cellar. There are also 8 outbuildings on the property.

This summer has been a big struggle to get things downsized and boxed up. We made use of the Uhaul u-box service to get 6 "pods" packed and moved to KY, where my dad and a team of Amish unloaded them into a 40' container, filling the container. We also filled a 7'x14' cargo trailer, including to the ceiling in most of it (7' ceiling), and I took that and a suburban load out. I could just drop the trailer and it is its own storage there, fortunately.

So, to mom's seemingly crazy idea: she wants to buy a box truck, 20+ foot long, that we can load as we go, then drive to KY, and use as storage there until they can finally unload it, then sell it on to someone else.

That is what most of my week has been involved with. First the search for trucks, then going to look at a lot of trucks. And eventually buying one and driving it back to the property.

She ended up with a 2002 International 4300, with a DT466 engine, Alison MD2000 series automatic transmission, with a/c and cruise control, and an air ride seat. hydraulic brakes, so no air tanks to deal with. The seat has its own little electric compressor under it. It drives nicely. Build sheet says 73MPH is the top speed. Driving it home, it got about 8.5MPG with a fair bit of stop and go traffic, and 61mph on most of the roads. The box is 22' long. There was no loading ramp, so they guy took one off another truck and put it in the box to make things easier for us. Also, no lift gate. We did get a 60 day temporary tag, so things are good on the registration front. GVWR is 25,500 lbs.

We need to peel the company info and DOT stickers off, and put on private not for hire on there to deter any attempt at commercial enforcement. We also need to add a trailer hitch receiver (so I can tow my minivan and drive it back after taking mom home to KY), and wire that up. The rear lights are inboard of the frame, and really hard to see unless you are directly behind, so we want to add a set farther out from the centerline. Nothing major, just minor upgrades to make the trip safer.

So now you know why my progress slowed to a crawl this week.

Jim

 

[cadillackid]

Ahh, ideas for my next build. and some for this one.

I have learned a lot already from this build, and I know what kind of budget I want to set for my next build's platform (base vehicle), and what features I am willing to lose to get the "right" platform, and which ones I am not willing to lose.

Your buddy's truck sounds like an awesome build.

For anyone considering a box truck build, I highly recommend finding one with swing-out doors rather than a rollup door. The rollup door takes a lot of overhead space, and brings outdoors indoors (wet door = drips inside, just like any garage door does). That is my biggest regret on this build.

Thank you for the comments and ideas!
Jim

my buddy quickly found out how leaky rollup doors were.. he ended up repurposing doors from a junked semi trailer.. the size was close.. he had to cut them down height wise.. hinges from the semi trailer got used...



so you could swap out your door.. having a glass window / door inside of the actual trailer swinging doors helped alot.. he gained back a couple inshces in space by gong to swinging doors from the rollup.. then used that space to put the rear window / door..



we talked about wondering if getting a reefer truck would make a buold any easier as its pre insulated... reefer trucks often get sold at a decent discount when the reefer unit fails out.. it seems if a truck is a bit older already and the reefer unit dies theyd rather unload the truck rather than replace the reefer...

 

[Kentucky Dreaming]

Nice looking truck, Jim! I might be interested in it when y'all get back here. A pass through from cab to box would make me more interested. My 2 mutts need room to move around on trips.

Anyway, good luck on your simultaneous move and build.

,

Marty

 

[baadpuppy]

we talked about wondering if getting a reefer truck would make a buold any easier as its pre insulated... reefer trucks often get sold at a decent discount when the reefer unit fails out.. it seems if a truck is a bit older already and the reefer unit dies theyd rather unload the truck rather than replace the reefer...

Around here, I can find lots of reefer box trucks for sale. Only problem is, almost every one of them was a crab truck, and the rest of them were seafood trucks. I don't know about you, but I have no intention of being the one to learn the experiential way whether the smell of seafood can be eliminated from one of these things. Also, most of them around here tend to be short (10-12 foot box), which was definitely not enough room for me.

The other question that comes to mind is how good a condition that insulation would be in. Would it have any moisture issues or mold issues hidden inside?

Interesting to think about, but I think I'll stick to the "rip it down to the bones and rebuild it how you want it" approach personally. :biggrin:

My original hope with a box truck (and one I intend to do with the next one) is to have swing open doors on the back with a second wall hidden inside like you describe.

My next box truck will not be a cutaway van. And it will be a minimum of 22'. The next time, I plan to have a real budget too, instead of having to scrimp by with it all. But, I am happy enough with the existing project.

Jim

 

[baadpuppy]

Nice looking truck, Jim! I might be interested in it when y'all get back here. A pass through from cab to box would make me more interested. My 2 mutts need room to move around on trips.

Anyway, good luck on your simultaneous move and build.

,

Marty

Marty,

If they ever decide to sell it, I will make sure to point you towards it in case you're still interested when that time comes.

Jim

 

[nikitis]

I dunno seafood may be a feature for me. I enjoy seafood. :biggrin:

Have you gone to a ritchie bros auction? They have mad amounts of penske trucks for sale, and it's easy to bid low and win one of those they have so many of them.

 

[baadpuppy]

I dunno seafood may be a feature for me. I enjoy seafood. :biggrin:

Have you gone to a ritchie bros auction? They have mad amounts of penske trucks for sale, and it's easy to bid low and win one of those they have so many of them.

I had not heard of Ritchie Brothers before, and I really appreciate you letting me know about them. I will definitely go that route next time.

Nearly 3 months since there was an update. What's that phrase? Man plans, the universe says "hold my beer"?

In our last installment, my parents had bought a 22' International T4300 box truck to try to finish moving the last of their stuff to KY from VA, and I was spending all my "free" time assisting with that.

We got a tow hitch installed by a local welding shop:


So we had a November 19 deadline to hit, as that is when the dealer temporary tag would expire. We also ran into a new problem, which our family tends to call the 'blivet' problem. This is basically when you try to put 10 gallons of manure into a 5 gallon container. In other words, this huge truck is too small for all the stuff.

Even being brutal and saying "ok, all that stuff over there can go to the dump", there was still too much. Mom finally made the difficult decision that there would have to be a 2nd trip with a final load.

Original thinking was to use a u-haul for the second trip. However, with the timing of things the new plan is that I will drive my suburban out to the farm for christmas week and drive the empty 22' box truck back after christmas, and hire the same laborer to help load the rest of the stuff into it. Then, in mid to late spring, I would take my minivan out to get mom again, and bring her to VA to make any final decisions, and supervise the final cleaning of the house and listing with the agent, likely in the March time frame. She would want that trip to be super short so she can get back to KY and get plants into her garden. She was not happy to miss an entire growing season.

While I was at the welder getting the trailer hitch receiver installed, I discussed my own box truck with the guy, and he was interested in working on it for me. I will be taking it to him hopefully in late december or early january, once I have nailed down exactly what I want him to do.

My budget is already blown at this point. My time got usurped to help my parents with their problems, and so I have made nearly no progress on my own build the last several months. I have vanspace 3d and I am playing with it, hoping it will help me provide decent plans to the welder. I will be in KY for a week for christmas, and plan to focus a lot of my free time on that software.

Our work office has been being remodeled for nearly a year now, including building a new server room which I designed. The whole project has been plagued with issues, which I really can't say too much about for legal reasons. But much of my energy has been spent working on that project and regular work stuff for the past year, and the rest went to help mom and dad with their needs.

I expect to make some small amount of progress this weekend. I intend to get the back wall closed in finally, including mounting the new rear door.

I do have a someone I can pay to do hard labor for me, which is a huge benefit for me, but unfortunately he is not really good at problem solving or helping out in other ways. Still, I have managed to get good advice here, and from other skoolie friends offline, and from some online resources to help with a lot of those issues.

Once I have the 22' box truck back here, empty, I can start loading all the things we staged up in the garages. Once the garages are empty of my parents' things, I can use them for staging and building for my truck. Sadly, none of them are large enough to pull the truck inside.

One of them is a perfect space to work on the electrical wall though. Basically, I will lay out a sheet of plywood horizontally across 2 solid wood desks. Then I will start putting the electrical system components on it and rearrange them to suit, trying to make it as compact as possible but not so compact that things do not fit. Once I have a fitment plan, I can cut the plywood down to size, mount the items permanently, then just take the whole sheet into the truck and mount it to the wall where I want it.

As for the November trip to Kentucky, well, that's a story for another post.

 

[baadpuppy]

The Mini Nightmare Before Thanksgiving

So as I said before, we had a deadline of November 19 to get the truck to Kentucky before the tag expired.

We planned to tow my minivan behind the truck on a u-haul "auto transport", which worked reasonably well to be truthful.

So trip day arrived, and we were still loading things. Our day labor guy had not done some things he had been told to do, but we caught that and loaded that stuff. We rented the trailer, got the minivan loaded on it, strapped and chained it down, triple checked we had everything and locked up the property, and hit the road.

I wanted to stop for fuel before we went too far, and also to pick up some drinks and snacks for the road. This was the first time towing with this truck, and so I was being gentle with it. Frankly, I was suprised at how much the DT466e had to work to get up to speed. But considering that the only other time I drove that truck, the back was empty, it should not have surprised me so much.

The minivan is a 2018 Chrysler Pacifica, curb weight of 4,330 pounds. The auto transport apparently has an empty weight of 2,210 pounds. So I had 6,6540 pounds being dragged behind the loaded box truck. GVWR was 25,500, and I forget what the actual GCWR was, but I do remember thinking we were unlikely to hit it when I read it in the build sheet.

With 576,000+ miles on the engine, I was trying not to put my foot into it very much, and I was thankful to be starting out in an area with no serious elevation changes.

After a few miles, I stopped and checked all the chains and straps and lighting again, then hit the road again.

About 20 miles later, a light changed rapidly, and I had to really stand on the brakes for the first time. There was a cloud of smoke that blew past us, and caused me a bit of concern. I could see wisps of smoke from underneath via the side view mirror, so when the light changed I found a place to pull over safely and check underneath.

Both rear brake areas were smoking. One showed evidence of some kind of grease leak. Nothing was too hot to touch, and there were no flames, so I decided to take it to a shop a few miles up the road, and kept my speed down as I did so.

The shop sent a guy out to look at it after I explained the situation and that we were on our way to KY. At this point, we were already 3 hours behind our schedule, and just having more and more delays.

The tech said it was definitely the brakes that had smoked, but that everything looked fine, and that there was plenty of surface left. This was in early november, so I can't really remember if it was pads or shoes, rotors or drums. I think drum brakes. Hydraulic for sure.

He indicated there was no evidence of brake line leakage (yay!), but that the grease on the one side looked like differential grease. He checked the diff level and it was fine. His opinion was that there was a minor leak in the inner hub bearing/seal (I am paraphrasing from memory from a stressful event, so might have that wrong). He thought things were ok, and that the smoke was just burning off some minor leakage, and that we should be fine to drive to the international dealer some 60 miles further along the path.

They were kind enough to not even charge for checking that for us!

So, off to the international dealer we went. We got there, and by then had not had any new smoking evidence, and things were starting to feel settled. They sent a couple of techs to look at it, and basically said we were all good, but that in the future we would need to get one of the seals replaced, but just check it for any excessive leaking.

They wished us a safe trip, and were also kind enough not to charge for checking things for us!

So, finally, we were off. I stopped on the edge of town and topped up the tank and grabbed drinks and snacks, and we hit the road.

The trip to KY is typically 12 hours each way. I have reached the age where I like to break that down and overnight about halfway there. My mother was with me, so I knew we needed to do the overnight some place with accessible bathrooms all night long, so that basically meant a gas station. So, we went to a Sheetz near Hagerstown, MD. This turned out to not be the best decision we ever made. It was after dark when we got there. I found an out of the way place to park that was not blocking access to the underground tanks, and we tried to get ready for the night.

It turns out that this particular gas station is a favorite hangout for local high school kids, and some kind of event was going on for that school that weekend. homecoming game perhaps? In any case, there were a lot of tricked out vehicles in and out when we got there, with people being a bit rowdy, but then around 8 or 8:30 they went away.

We camped within the minivan atop the auto transport. In retrospect, I would have removed the vehicle from the transport to make life a lot easier for us, but we did not think of it until later.

Around 11:30 or so, we were awakened by a symphony of modified exhaust systems. I pushed a blanket aside and peaked out the window to see every single pump had a pickup truck at it, with the rears facing towards us, and someone inside pumping the accelerator pedal for maximum volume. This went on for about 5 minutes as hordes of tricked out vehicles poured into the lot. People parked where ever they wanted, blocking any ability for vehicles to get in and out of the place, and were standing around in small groups just having a good old time. loudly.

Around midnight, a cop showed up, and blared on his PA something about keeping the noise down and not being too rowdy. Things did quiet down, and about an hour or so later, most of the vehicles were gone, and we got to sleep until the next morning.

Saturday morning was not too bad. Breakfast and bathroom visit with Sheetz, then back on the road with coffee in hand.

I was way more comfortable with the whole rig by this point. I was not surprised to have difficulty with the mountains, especially on I68, but it was not as bad as I expected. It did way better than the bus I drove through there in 2019, but there were still places where it was a crawl. I kept an eye on the temperatures, and just took the attitude of "we'll get there when we get there".

We stopped at the West Virginia welcome center on I68, the one that overlooks a prison, for a bathroom break and a chance to stretch and destress a bit.

I checked the straps on the auto transport for the first time since that first stop the day before. NOTE: ALWAYS CHECK AT EVERY STOP! One of them let me ratchet it 4 clicks, which made me frown. The other one let me ratchet it 10 times before I stopped to see wtf? was wrong. The strap webbing had slipped to the interior of the tires and was clumping down onto the hub on that side, and was about to slip off the inside of the other front tire. Yikes! I had hit 85mph downhill not 30 minutes before, and the vehicle was not secured on the trailer!?! I berated myself as I sat down to fix the issue.

A very friendly guy parked beside us stopped and hit the ratchets with WD-40 for me, while his beautiful pitbull "helped" by licking my face and insisting I pet her and tell her what a beautiful dog she is. I am grateful to both of them, because it did help me destress over the situation and focus on getting it fixed.

I did check everything at every additional stop we made, but there were of course no further problems related to that.

Here we are at that rest area:




Back on the road, we managed to do alright. Cruise control worked really well, even when it had to slow down a LOT for the hill climbs.

We did stop at another WV rest area. The dog needed to stretch after a while, and it was a good excuse for us humans to do the same.

Here we are at a WV rest area along I79:



Our truck looks so small between all the working trucks.

We stopped in Sutton for some food and fuel. We wanted Wendy's, but their parking lot was NOT designed for a truck. I was able to squeeze through and not hit anything, and their rear parking area happened to have only a small concrete curb between it and the next business which had an empty lot, so I just drove over it slowly, and parked with the tail of the trailer in the wendy's lot and the truck in the other lot while I went in for food and mom walked the dog again.

Then we went to the gomart for fuel because it was something like 22 cents a gallon cheaper than pilot. It turned out they had a set of pumps for commercial use, and no trucks there, so we got to use one of the super fast pumps. I did not realize I had pulled in backwards, but the people inside just shrugged it off.

I did some cussing about all the construction. I swear WV hates drivers. Who starts a construction zone slow speed area at the bottom of a downhill area? Who ends it at the bottom of an uphill area? Do they not understand how gravity affects heavy vehicles? And why do they have to block a full lane when there are no holes in the pavement and nobody working, nothing but cones to keep you from using the whole road? And why have they been working on the same sections since before my first trip out there in 2017? Beautiful state, but I truly hate driving there.

Once we got past Charleston, we got onto an area where the construction was finally finished. It was some of the roughest road we traveled in WV, even though it was recently completed. However, we were sufficiently out of the major hills by then that the cruise worked great.

The rest of the trip calmed down once we got into Kentucky. I was able to set the cruise for 70mph and just let it do what it wanted on the hills. The worst part was the last mile or so before the farm, as it is a super narrow road that is also super steep, and a storm the previous day had left some down trees that had been cut up and tossed to the side but still had pieces left. This was the first time I really worried about the engine, because the RPMs were higher than I wanted just to hit 25MPH, and the temperatures were climbing. Fortunately, we got to the top and could let off enough before anything hit a danger point.

Overall, the truck impressed me, and I quite like it. However, I do not want to be the one paying for the fuel for it. It got 6-8mpg on that trip.

There were no issues getting a tag for it, and it should be unloaded by a small amish crew (seriously, it's mostly the kids) this weekend, and be ready for me to drive it back after christmas. I am hoping for better fuel economy, and I am glad it has cruise control.

I was there the week before thanksgiving, and it made no sense to make another trip just for thanksgiving, so we all had our thanksgiving a week early.

I drove the minivan back from KY to VA, with much better fuel economy (27mpg average). When I got to the midpoint, it was only 3pm, and it did not make sense to stop for the night, so I pushed on through, and got home around 8pm or so. I hate dealing with night driving, but I was sufficiently awake and caffeinated to deal with it, and it was nice to be in my own bed that night.

I am not as young as I once was, and I cannot bounce back from these marathon trips the way I used to. It wasn't many years ago that a 12 hour each way trip was nothing for me. Some times I would drive out, spend a day there, and drive back, all in a 3 day weekend. Not anymore. I am looking forward to being able to drive my home at any pace I want, and take as long as it takes to get to any destination. I am also even more thankful than before for the 13/14 mpg average that my little box truck gets.

Jim

 

[nikitis]

Likely your pinion seal is leaking.

It's about a $800 repair if you take it to a shop. Depending on how bad it's leaking can determine if you need to get it done.

The question comes as to "Why" is it leaking? If your drive shaft has too much vibration it can cause it to leak, which can point to an unbalanced drive shaft. Or it could be bad carrier bearings. I went through this with my Bus, and I replaced the Carrier bearings and pinion seal for $1500, (Best to do both at the same time cause they gotta take the drive shaft off anyway.) and the problem went away. If the leak is ever so slight, you can just occasionally put in Rear diff fluid and just make sure it's full. If your slack adjusters are covered in grease, it's probably time to get it replaced.