Hello Wander the West folks!
After a few years of cruising the forums and hoping to pickup a truckbed camper, my wife and I snagged a late 90s Roamin' Chariot this fall and are looking forward to years of fun with the little unit. We found ours in eastern Washington and it came basically stock with a solar panel and single deep cycle battery system installed as well as a few pieces of reflectX that can be zipped into the window screen areas for insulation.
We built a plywood/2x4" platform underneath it to bump it up for fitting in our 2006 Tundra DC (vs. the 1st gen Taco it came out of) and tossed some 2" rigid insulation underneath between the platform frame for some bonus warmth. I've just added a Chinese diesel heater (Vevor 2kw) unit to it as well as some velcro-on 2" rigid insulation to the outsides of the footwells/underwings in the last couple weeks to prep it for winter camping and ski trips.
We just got back from its first real winter outing and were pretty darn happy with how it all worked out. The little diesel heater sipped on fuel (2.5L running 8 hours or so) and kept the camper warm enough to wear normal clothes (plus it's dry heat). Here's a picture of the rig from up in BC:
I'll continue to update this page as I tweak or upgrade things and can toss some pictures up of the diesel heater install when I pull the camper back out of the truck in a couple weeks.
Thank you all for the inspiration and the community of creative tinkerers!
After a few years of cruising the forums and hoping to pickup a truckbed camper, my wife and I snagged a late 90s Roamin' Chariot this fall and are looking forward to years of fun with the little unit. We found ours in eastern Washington and it came basically stock with a solar panel and single deep cycle battery system installed as well as a few pieces of reflectX that can be zipped into the window screen areas for insulation.
We built a plywood/2x4" platform underneath it to bump it up for fitting in our 2006 Tundra DC (vs. the 1st gen Taco it came out of) and tossed some 2" rigid insulation underneath between the platform frame for some bonus warmth. I've just added a Chinese diesel heater (Vevor 2kw) unit to it as well as some velcro-on 2" rigid insulation to the outsides of the footwells/underwings in the last couple weeks to prep it for winter camping and ski trips.
We just got back from its first real winter outing and were pretty darn happy with how it all worked out. The little diesel heater sipped on fuel (2.5L running 8 hours or so) and kept the camper warm enough to wear normal clothes (plus it's dry heat). Here's a picture of the rig from up in BC:
I'll continue to update this page as I tweak or upgrade things and can toss some pictures up of the diesel heater install when I pull the camper back out of the truck in a couple weeks.
Thank you all for the inspiration and the community of creative tinkerers!
