Longshot270's build, travel and tinkering thread

[Longshot270]

Had a fun trip to Rockport for Memorial Day weekend and got some interesting mileage notes. Got the usual 16ish on the way down and 18.3 mpg on the way home thanks to a good tail wind and keeping the speed around 70 mph.

Also caught and released the largest stone crab I’ve seen in years.

 

[Longshot270]

New years beach trip was a success. The batteries barely got a dent running two fans off the inverter, pump sprayer makes a great shower but the 2 gallons goes fast, cast iron is still the best for cooking over a hot burner and don’t forget the citronella candle. Luckily zote soap works for a while. Cooper adventurer street tires also did well in the beach sand. There are places I would have put the truck in 4x4 with KO2s that I didn’t with the Coopers.

 

[Longshot270]

Retired the little home built camper and jumped into an Aliner. After adding better solar input, mud flaps and an inverter for boondocking, we took it to a nearby park for an initial shakedown overnighter. Found some things that need to be changed like replacing an LED light fixture that shines in your face at night, a water hammer arrester for the 12v water pump, and revamping cooking and clothing storage. Overall, not much has been needed to be changed so fast, just minor tweaking to the trailer itself. Next trip will be a little longer 700 mile road trip.

 

[Longshot270]

Two more trips done with the new Aliner. Out to mother neff state park after hearing it’s a good year for wildflowers. Also found the small water hammer arrestors help smooth out the water pump pulses.

Then out to Kickapoo cavern SP to do a little bit of hiking and to watch the bats fly out of Stuart cave. Realized after arrival that our site did not have water or electric. Water wasn’t an issue but I had forgotten my solar panel and the C24 deep cycle was really only good for the first night. Spent yesterday adding a 30 amp charge controller to the internal wiring of the trailer so I could simplify the solar charging instead of clipping to the battery itself. Turns out “Solar ready” meant solar only ready for a particular brand that has their wire harnesses reversed.

 

[Antique Overlander]

Finally got to try the inverter box and stainless steel grill during an overnight New Years trip. Both worked better than expected. Ending voltage was about where I expected for the light load of our trailer and the grill didn’t collapse into the mud.

Very nice! I'm guessing the wire inlet provides plenty of air circulation ?

 

[Longshot270]

Finally got to try the inverter box and stainless steel grill during an overnight New Years trip. Both worked better than expected. Ending voltage was about where I expected for the light load of our trailer and the grill didn’t collapse into the mud.

Very nice! I'm guessing the wire inlet provides plenty of air circulation ?

I never got around to testing it in higher heat. The rest of the year we were seeing how many different state parks we could camp at. Then the following January upgraded to the Aliner and the batteries got moved into the camper as a second battery bank.