- 20 hours ago
The core benefit of the Expedition Series by Rocky Mountain Builds is its innovative, fully detachable composite camper shell (by Bison Overland) combined with an off-road ready F350 Power Stroke chassis. This non-permanent mounting system allows overland adventurers to easily separate their luxury living pod from the truck bed using wireless Rieco-Titan electric jacks, preserving the vehicle for daily utility while keeping the composite camper shell safe and level at camp.
In this episode of New Jersey's Outdoor Adventures, Patrick catches up with James from Rocky Mountain Builds to tour this incredible heavy-duty flatbed setup. Engineered for serious off-grid RV life, this custom truck camper features a massive 10kW EcoFlow power system, 800 watts of solar, and dual-pane Arctic Tern windows. Built to handle rugged, remote trails without breaking a sweat, the F350 platform is upgraded with a premium Carli suspension kit, heavy-duty Method wheels, and custom aluminum tool boxes integrated right into the diamond plate flatbed deck.
Step inside, and you’ll discover a masterpiece that rivals top-tier luxury camper van builds and high-end trailer tours. The premium interior is meticu
In this episode of New Jersey's Outdoor Adventures, Patrick catches up with James from Rocky Mountain Builds to tour this incredible heavy-duty flatbed setup. Engineered for serious off-grid RV life, this custom truck camper features a massive 10kW EcoFlow power system, 800 watts of solar, and dual-pane Arctic Tern windows. Built to handle rugged, remote trails without breaking a sweat, the F350 platform is upgraded with a premium Carli suspension kit, heavy-duty Method wheels, and custom aluminum tool boxes integrated right into the diamond plate flatbed deck.
Step inside, and you’ll discover a masterpiece that rivals top-tier luxury camper van builds and high-end trailer tours. The premium interior is meticu
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TravelTranscript
00:26Welcome back to the show.
00:27This is Patrick with New Jersey's Outdoor Adventures YouTube channel.
00:31On today's episode, we meet up with James with Rocky Mountain Builds.
00:35He's going to give us a tour of their new Expedition Series truck camper.
00:38And this thing is pretty incredible.
00:40So join us for the tour.
00:43Patrick, thanks for having us back on the show.
00:45Here with our next build, we're calling this one the Rocky Mountain Builds Expedition Series.
00:50And this is a very serious rig indeed.
00:53As you can see, this isn't like our normal stuff.
00:55This is not a camper van.
00:57This is a truck chassis camper.
00:59The truck in question here is a 2019 F350 Power Stroke.
01:03Really powerful truck.
01:05It's got a nice aftermarket Carly suspension kit, BFG tires, method wheels, flatbed conversion.
01:11And sitting on this thing is a composite camper shell that we built out in the interior to be absolutely
01:17stunning.
01:18Can't wait to get into it.
01:19But first, let's show you the outside of this thing.
01:22On this truck, we also have a nice AFN aftermarket front bumper with a 12-ton winch on the front,
01:29just in case you get yourself into trouble.
01:31Mounted to this custom flatbed is this composite camper shell.
01:35This thing has arctic turn windows all around.
01:38The windows are great.
01:39They're dual pane.
01:40They have screens and also sunshades as well.
01:44This Rotopax is actually for a diesel heater mounted inside.
01:48So it's an auxiliary heater.
01:51Right here is our alternator charger.
01:53This is hooked up to an EcoFlow 10-kilowatt power system.
01:58If you come around the back.
02:01On a rear bumper, we have mounted some traction boards.
02:06A little bit of rear access storage.
02:12This is our 50-amp shore power hookup.
02:15We got our water city fill port right here.
02:20Rear access outdoor shower.
02:28Coming around this way.
02:29We do also, in addition to the city water fill port,
02:32we have a gravity fill port, just in case.
02:35These are drains for both the freshwater and the gray water tank.
02:39And then this ladder to get to the roof is pretty neat.
02:42There's just two pins you pull out.
02:45This folds down.
02:47It's a little bit of a step, but if you want, you can get up to the roof like this.
02:53And it is pretty high up here.
02:55There's a lot of roof real estate on this thing.
02:57We have 800 watts of solar panels,
03:00a 120-volt green air conditioner and heat pump.
03:04And then there's room.
03:05There's a max air fan as well.
03:07A area for a Starlink Wi-Fi system.
03:10And room for an additional storage system, such as like a Thule ski box.
03:16One really neat thing about this build is that this truck camper shell
03:19is completely removable from your flatbed truck.
03:22The truck is not married to this shell, which is convenient
03:26because when you're not going camping, you can still use your truck
03:29as a normal flatbed truck and drive it around as needed.
03:32It's also nice if you ever upgrade your truck in the future,
03:35you can still use the same shell later on.
03:38To get these turnbuckles off, simply remove the pin in each corner.
03:43You pull up on this lever right here.
03:50The jack or the turnbuckle comes right off, just like that.
03:57And then the best part is these Ryko E-Jacks are wireless with a remote.
04:05To lower them, you simply press a button.
04:12As you can see, it's starting to move.
04:16And essentially what we're going to do is we're going to lift this whole thing up.
04:20Alright, so at this point, I've got all four of my lift jacks touching the ground.
04:26And I'm going to carefully pop it off the truck.
04:31There is a button on the remote that lifts all four jacks simultaneously, which is convenient.
04:38Now, this is a good simulation of a campsite because this ground isn't perfectly level.
04:44So I'm just going to be careful.
04:48Just like that.
04:51And we have liftoff.
04:54So, now you can see she is completely detached from the truck.
04:59And at this point, I can hop in the rig and drive it up from underneath.
05:04And then I can lower this down so it's stable and not blown in the wind after that.
05:09So we'll go ahead and pull the truck out so you can see.
05:30Now that we got the camper off the truck, might as well show the flatbed.
05:34So this is a custom-designed flatbed.
05:37It's got these aluminum storage boxes.
05:40There's one in each corner.
05:42To open these, simply press these buttons.
05:45You got a little bit of storage on the outside of your truck for, I don't know, stuff for recovery
05:50gear, things like that.
05:51But on the back, we have some traction boards as well.
05:57This flatbed has a 14-gauge steel diamond plate decking on top so that this truck is still useful even
06:04when you're not using your camper.
06:06All right, time to get this thing back on the truck.
06:08So basically what I'm going to do is I'm just going to back her right up under there, line it
06:13up as straight as I can.
06:14And then just do what I just did in reverse and put those fast gun turnbuckles back on and she's
06:20ready to rip.
06:44Once you've got the truck lined up pretty good, it doesn't have to be perfect.
06:48There's a little bit of wiggle room.
06:50But it's time we can lower the shell right back down onto our flatbed.
06:53So this truck is equipped with a really nice Carly suspension kit.
06:57We've got airbags in the rear.
06:59And it's kind of neat because they actually have a remote for the airbags too.
07:02So I'm going to start by pumping up our PSI in our airbags.
07:06Because then the rear of our truck is going to come up a bit.
07:09So I'll do that right now.
07:19And you can see the truck is going to start coming up just a little bit.
07:30And while that's filling up, I'm going to take back out my Ryko Titan E-Jacks.
07:35And I'm going to start lowering this shell down.
07:38So I'm going to stand where I can have a good angle on the whole thing.
07:41And once again, I'm just going to go slow and careful.
08:08Crank that on.
08:10Do the same thing on the other side.
08:12And I'm just going to plug back in our alternator charging as well.
08:15These are quick detach as well.
08:17So you can leave these at home.
08:19You can also just lift these up all the way and drive with them on the truck.
08:23All right.
08:23Next thing, I want to show you the inside of this thing.
08:25So to get in, we have this aluminum scissor step mounted to L-Track.
08:30That's right here on the side.
08:31Let me just open the door and we can come on in.
08:37This door does have a little hook here.
08:39So if you want to keep it open, you can hook it on right here and it won't blow in
08:43the wind.
08:47We do also have a Fiamma F45 awning right here to keep your entryway shaded.
08:53So coming on in the build, you'll first see a dinette in the rear.
08:59This is quite a loungy dinette.
09:02This is actually a genuine leather upholstery.
09:05Our client who wanted this thing has very elevated tastes.
09:08This is a solid walnut table on a lagoon table mount.
09:13You can see we did some fancy brass inlays in here.
09:16So it looks really slick.
09:18You might notice a bit of depth on the wall paint.
09:21That's because we actually used Roman clay to treat the walls.
09:26These are those arctic turn windows I mentioned earlier.
09:29So like I said, they have both a sunshade and also a screen.
09:35So when you open the door or when you open the window, you won't be letting bugs inside.
09:40All around the top, we got overhead storage.
09:44Cabinet construction here is using ultralight plywood.
09:48Our faces are veneered and walnut.
09:52Inside our overhead cabinetry, we're using really high-end cabinet stays or lid stays, apologies.
09:58This is our controller for our EcoFlow 10 kilowatt power system.
10:02You can see your 120 volt wattage.
10:05You can see your DC wattage and your input.
10:09So on this, we have solar, alternator charging, and shore power charging.
10:16And a big battery bank.
10:17So you're going to have a hard time running out of battery in this build.
10:20We also have our freshwater tank gauge in there as well.
10:24All the doors on this have nice cabinet latches too.
10:29So everything is going to stay shut and not open up while you're driving around.
10:34Right below me is actually a nice little drawer.
10:38We had a little bit of extra space.
10:40So we figured why not turn it into an extra storage bit.
10:45Right here is your sink.
10:49There's a removable cutting board that reveals this faucet.
10:55So it's kind of convenient.
10:56You can still have a flat surface when you're not using the sink.
11:02Wherever we have a room for a tip-out tray, do that.
11:07And then your cabinet underneath.
11:11There's room here for some overhead cabinet storage too.
11:18And next we have a nice big old stand-up shower.
11:22This thing was tough to make.
11:25We see we put this nice beautiful curve.
11:26It really draws the eye in from the outside.
11:28Again, we just got this beautiful walnut wood everywhere.
11:33And so this has a tam door.
11:36Tambor style sliding door.
11:39There's a light in here.
11:43Handheld faucet or shower head.
11:47Hot water, cold water.
11:48And a Leveo dry flush toilet.
11:51We also have a beautiful custom-made shower pan.
11:54And this nice slate finish inside the shower wall.
11:57So it's very striking.
11:59Really impressive in person.
12:02Right here is where we can cook.
12:05We got our induction cooktop.
12:06Dual burner.
12:08We have our refrigerator.
12:1012-volt refrigerator right here.
12:13More drawers.
12:16We use solid surface countertops.
12:19So they're nice.
12:20They don't care about vibrations and movement.
12:23They're not going to crack on you.
12:24They have a really high-end finish.
12:26And they're really just good for this use case.
12:29Then we just have a beautiful Ziya tile backsplash right here.
12:34In these cabinets above, there's more storage in here.
12:37There's an outlet back here as well.
12:41And in this side, we actually have a microwave.
12:46And right above here is a max air fan.
12:49And right here is that Gree 120-volt AC and heat pump.
12:55What I'm standing on is actually really interesting.
12:58Our client is from Oregon.
13:00And he actually was able to reclaim some hickory floorboards from a historic home.
13:06And really wanted to use them inside this build.
13:08So what we did is a French herringbone, just custom hickory hardwood floor.
13:14And so that was a bit of a feat for us.
13:16But we think it turned out beautiful.
13:18And it is, again, just another very unique feature about this build-out.
13:24Finally, you come up in here.
13:27You can see there's a nice big room for a queen-size mattress.
13:32Again, there's four more Arctic-turn windows throughout.
13:36On the side here, we have storage.
13:39A bed shelf.
13:40And there is an outlet hidden inside there as well.
13:46Our ceiling, we used a construction with some walnut wood slats.
13:52Just super pretty.
13:53Draws your eye down the whole length of the build.
13:56We used 12-volt puck lighting.
13:59They're nice, soft white.
14:02And we have recessed lighting all throughout the build.
14:07Including some accent lights on the toe kicks.
14:12The final cool feature to show you about this build-out is this whole dinette actually converts into a second
14:17bed.
14:18And I'll show you how that's done.
14:20So this table, first, we're going to remove it.
14:24So I'll just loosen that up.
14:26Take that off.
14:27I'm going to put it aside for now.
14:30And then just deconstruct this.
14:37Now, as you'll see, we have some wooden edges right here that this table is going to sit on.
14:51And then you've got yourself a nice big extra bed if you have more than just yourself and a partner
14:58sleeping in the over cab bed over there.
15:01Next, I just want to show you our EcoFlow power system.
15:05It's just located right beneath the cushions here.
15:11EcoFlow power system is really nice because it's very compact.
15:15You don't need a whole lot of space.
15:17The batteries stack on each other.
15:19So we have two different 5-kilowatt batteries here.
15:23And the EcoFlow power system right here is an all-in-one.
15:26Your inverter is in there.
15:27Your solar charger is in there.
15:29Your DC-to-DC charger all packed into one system.
15:33So we can condense it down into just this one little box here.
15:37So that concludes this tour of this custom truck camper.
15:40We hope you guys enjoyed it.
15:41We really spent a lot of time, really big effort on this truck camper.
15:47And we just think it turned out amazing.
15:49This truck camper chassis is something new for us.
15:51Something we'd love to do more of.
15:53We had a really fun time with this build.
15:55A little bit about us.
15:57My partner and I were based in Salt Lake City, Utah.
16:00We pride ourselves on handmade, fully custom campers.
16:05Just like you see here.
16:07We like to spend a lot of time on attention to detail
16:10and making sure we can pack in a lot of features
16:12that you, the client, might want to meet your specific needs.
16:17If you want something like this or something a little bit different,
16:21our links are in the description.
16:23Patrick, thank you so much again for having us on the channel.
16:26We hope your viewers enjoyed this one.
16:29And we got more builds in the pipeline.
16:31So we hope to see you guys next time.
16:32Thank you so much.
16:33And we'll see you guys next time.
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