An off-road micro RV build named SaraTerra

[SCwood]

awesome! we just sold our '03 a year ago. they're tough trucks...ours had 145k miles and was in our ownership for 15 years. never let us down aside from a dead battery because we left the lights on. not sophisticated, not great at any one thing, but it could go just about anywhere we needed it to.


make sure you re-pack the front wheel bearings every couple years if its 4WD, and its probably time to look at the idler arm and pittman arm assembly in the steering. i'd also be certain to get new leaf packs for the rear axle...ours had softened up considerably at that age and would hit the bump stops a LOT with any serious luggage in the back. with your use the leafs will almost certainly be overwhelmed full time.

best of luck, looking forward to seeing what you do with it.

Nice rig! And thanks! Sadly ours isn’t 4wd but we did lift the back 1.5” so hopefully that takes care of any sagging issues

[Scotter]

Nice rig! And thanks! Sadly ours isn’t 4wd but we did lift the back 1.5” so hopefully that takes care of any sagging issues

Thanks! we miss it but made some great memories with it.

a 1.5" lift should be perfect, carry on sir!

[SCwood]

Time for an update!

A little while back we started building the first slide out. It’s a 1/2” steel frame filled with 1/2” foam insulation and skinned in 3mm birch.







For the “slide” portion of the slide out we went with 1/8” UHMW plastic instead of actual slides since heavy duty ones are so expensive. It’s basically really slippery plastic that slides well.



And there you have it!


Here’s the video of building the slide out


Then the xterra broke a little bit. But let’s not talk about that...


The next step was to give the slide out something to slide out onto. Spent a lot of time thinking about how to do this and in the end we settled on making a new bumper that swings around to support the slide out. Well, at least part of a bumper. We’ll finish it once we get the kitchen slide out built.

[SCwood]

More progress! After getting the slide out supported we needed to make sure it slid straight and figure out some way to lock it in place. We settled on just some simple wood guides screwed into the floor and then some bolt latches lock the slide in place both in and out.




Up next week as sealing off the sides that were left open. There wasn’t much clearance so we used hinges the make sides that hinge up and out of the way when not in use. I’m still considering redoing these because you have to slide the slide almost all the way out, deploy them, and then slide it back in. I might make something removable to go in their place.



Here’s the video for that


Then we started the kitchen! It’s basically a box that slides writhing the first slide out. Then when deployed the top folds up and the sides fold down into countertop space. We’re planning on building storage in the middle and the front of the box will actually be a table that you can remove and put wherever. More to come!