Four Wheel Campers: A review

[oly884]

Four Wheel Campers (www.fourwh.com) provide an excellent solution for those that are looking for an upgrade from tent or topper camping, but still want the off road capability.

I purchased mine in May of 2006 and it was delivered at the end of August 2006. School started up so I’ve only been out a couple times, but it has provided some excellent times already.

They are light (mine is 550 lbs.) have low drag, thanks to the pop top (I still get 16-19+ mpg on the interstate), and provide excellent shelter from the elements. It has a low center of gravity that really helps with those off camber situations, and the frame is made of aluminum and is designed to flex with the bed, so no worrying about cracking the frame.

The owners of Four Wheel Campers are great guys, incredibly helpful, and stand behind their product 100%. There is also a similar camper to this, actually created by one of the previous owners of FWC. Their company name is All Terrain Campers (www.allterraincampers.com), and they have the same level of customer service, great guys.

On to the pictures!

Here’s a picture of the front of the truck with the camper on it. As you can see, the profile of the camper isn’t bad at all:


Here’s a shot of the rear:


I apologize for the following pictures, the camper was off the truck and was at my work:

Here’s the camper with the top popped:









There’s 6 feet of head room on the inside. I'm 5'8" so it’s plenty for me:


Here’s a view from outside looking in:


Four Wheel Campers provide a lot of useful extras on their campers:
Solar panel (50 watts):


View of part of the couch:


Couch bed:


Storage under couch:




16,000 BTU heater. It provides enough heat to easily keep the inside at 70°F with it -10°F or colder:


Here’s a really bad pano of the queen size bed pulled out. It provides more than enough room to sleep 2, or 3 comfortably:
[img width=800 height=266]http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y86/oly884/Truck/Untitled-1.jpg[/img]

Updated Pictures 3/24/2007

Here's a pic of the camper ON the truck, with the top popped:


And the rear:


I also have an Engel 45 in the cab of my truck that is accessed fairly easy from my camper:



Here's some MUCH better pictures of inside the camper, click on the links to get a bigger picture:




This thread will be updated from time to time as I add to the camper or get more/better pictures. Feel free to ask any questions that you may have.

[marko3xl3]

Very nice, how much?

The press also wants to know if your future plans include adding on a self contained portable hole?

BUT, on a serious note...I heard you did some custom work to it? I might be wrong though. Either way, SWEET

[oly884]

Very nice, how much?

The press also wants to know if your future plans include adding on a self contained portable hole?

BUT, on a serious note...I heard you did some custom work to it? I might be wrong though. Either way, SWEET

Well, the total cost of the camper, shipped up to me was $9,950. A steep price, but it was almost $1000 to ship it up here. To be completely honest, it was 100% worth it.

Yeah, I've done some custom work, but I'm almost done with the first round of it and I'll get some pictures of it.

[oly884]

Update: I got myself a stove at Bozeman RV and installed it today.

Here are some pics:

Here's the, soon to be, location of the stove:


Popped off the side panel to see the compartment for the 20 lb. propane tank with outside access, along with the connection to my heater. This is going to be were I'm going to tap into the stock line to give the stove it's juice:


Here's the stove, stainless steel, oh yeah:



After some cutting, the stove dropped right in:


A bit of plumbing:


And VoilÃ*!:


The left burner puts out 7,200 BTU's and the right burner puts out 5,800 BTU's. The stove is designed for RV's and campers so the regulator does the best job to minimize any CO production. Clearly when ANY combustion is going on there will be CO production, after all we don't live in a theoretical world. So, for safety reasons, I open a window and the roof vent to ensure that I'm not going to die while cooking! The camper comes with both a CO meter and a propane meter so I have some means of knowing whether it is safe.

If it gets REALLY cold, and I need to warm up ASAP, I can crack a window and the roof vent, kick on the heater, and the both burners to get a whopping 29,000 BTU's of heat!!! That'll heat up the camper in a jiffy!

[oly884]

So, after camping this last weekend I've found a couple more things to do, just "a couple"



First off, I need some cabinets. I have a lot of crap that just lays on the floor right now, and it's a PITA to pack and unpack.

Propane, I found that the combo of stove and heater likes to suck the propane down. Granted I still could get about 3-4 days of use in cold weather (it hit 18F on saturday night). I think just carrying another 20 lb tank would suffice.

Water. I bought 2 of the 2.5 gallon jugs and it did me just fine. Between cooking, drinking, and washing dishes, I use about 2.5 gallons per day. I'm thinking about a 15 gallon water tank would give me enough water to deal with for a long time. I may even do a UV disinfection so I can grab water from nearly anywhere.

Those are the big things right now that I need to get working on. Once those are done, I'm SURE I'll find something else to do.

[garrett]

very cool setup! i gotta be honest, i wasnt really fond of it when you first got it, but it is definitely cool. beats the heck out of setting up a tent by yourself LOL.

good to know that you still get good gas mileage, that was my first thought when seeing that on your truck.

[oly884]

Yeah, it's not the most attractive modification that one can put on their truck. However, function over form wins, hands down.

Once you get out camping and realize that you can move camp in 5 minutes, it becomes really nice. Then the fact that weather has pretty much zero impact on camping.

[slosurfer]

Nice setup, I have always thought that those were a great option to have and still have great mobility with your truck. Good job on the add ons also.

[Tofer]

looks like it sure beats a tent

[jrallan26]

David,

For everyday use, do you remove the camper or leave it on? BTW, thats an awesome option..