Earlier this yearn, my wife and I did a 2 week 6k mile loop around the country to visit family in our Wayfarer converted Promaster. Besides having lots of fun, we decided on that trip that it was time for a van upgrade. The Wayfarer was our second van, our first was a diesel Westy. For those not familiar, Wayfarer conversions are super bare bones – basically a dry cabin on wheels. Our main use for the vans was as home bases for lots of foot-based outdoor stuff. We’re both avid ultrarunners and in the fall I switch to lots of upland hunting (mainly grouse in the northwoods). We let up in the winter but for the rest of the year we’re someplace in the woods nearly every weekend, and most of these destinations are a long way from Chicago, so we drive a ton (we averaged 18k mi a year on the Wayfarer). Especially as we’ve gotten older, we found ourselves getting an Airbnb for weekend outings more often. 10 years ago, I was fine running a 50 mile race in March then sleeping in a cold van without a hot shower but less so these days. Also, since we got the Wayfarer, we’d added two Brittanys to our family, and we really needed a little more room.
So our list of upgrades we were looking for were:
On the big trip earlier in the year we stopped in Reno (Pataguch outlet) and I saw a Sportsmobile 144” Sprinter conversion. I was reminded how much I have always liked SMB. When we started looking, I could see that this would meet all of our upgrade wants. Our plan was to find another van in the next year or so. A few weeks after we started the new van discussion, we took a day trip down to SMB Indiana, mainly to look at one of their demo 144s to confirm that this was what we were looking for. We rolled up just after they opened, and we met Chad. He graciously (we didn’t have an appointment) offered to show us around the rigs they had there, but he also immediately said “you have to see this one we got in last fall.” So before I ever stepped foot into the nice 144 they had, I met The Beast.
The Beast is a 170” 4wd 3500 dually, and after driving around a short Promaster for 6 years, it looked, well, like a beast. It was huge, blacked out, had a purposeful 12k lb winch on the front, and the Aluminess setup on the rear bumper that was on my dream list. Inside was also huge and, if our Promaster was a dry cabin, it was the nice Airbnb we had begun to get more often. My family had a 32’ Coachman RV when I was growing up, and many of my best childhood memories were had in it. But I also remember my dad saying how nice it would be to have one of the fancy Rialta VWs because you could go so many more places. So I was familiar with the “too much vehicle” problem, and I was concerned the Beast was too much. But everyone, including the dogs, were in love with it. It was also for sale for a shockingly good price. The POs had run into some medical issues and were trying for a quick sale. We looked at the 144 conversions and we agreed that if we could deal with the logistical issues (parking etc) the 170 was a much better solution for our upgrade list.
We debated for a few days (so much for the couple year timeline) and made an offer on the beast. After some back and forth, we agreed on a price. Then we bit our nails and annoyed the crap out of the SMB folks while the deal was finalized. We’re now 5 nights of camping and about 1.5k miles of travel in. So here’s the specs on the rig:
The bad
I’ll update this thread as we adjust the rig to make it more ours. When I was looking through the archives here, I didn’t see many (any?) other similar SMB rigs, so I thought this may be useful to someone in the future.
So our list of upgrades we were looking for were:
- Hot and running water
- A shower, outside was fine
- A storage place for a cassette toilet
- A place to hang out inside post-run/hunt that wasn’t on the bed
- More/ better storage
- All or 4wd to deal with sandy MI forest roads
- Solar to keep up with electrical usage while dispersed camping
- Maybe a secondary a/c for trips to the south in the summer
On the big trip earlier in the year we stopped in Reno (Pataguch outlet) and I saw a Sportsmobile 144” Sprinter conversion. I was reminded how much I have always liked SMB. When we started looking, I could see that this would meet all of our upgrade wants. Our plan was to find another van in the next year or so. A few weeks after we started the new van discussion, we took a day trip down to SMB Indiana, mainly to look at one of their demo 144s to confirm that this was what we were looking for. We rolled up just after they opened, and we met Chad. He graciously (we didn’t have an appointment) offered to show us around the rigs they had there, but he also immediately said “you have to see this one we got in last fall.” So before I ever stepped foot into the nice 144 they had, I met The Beast.
The Beast is a 170” 4wd 3500 dually, and after driving around a short Promaster for 6 years, it looked, well, like a beast. It was huge, blacked out, had a purposeful 12k lb winch on the front, and the Aluminess setup on the rear bumper that was on my dream list. Inside was also huge and, if our Promaster was a dry cabin, it was the nice Airbnb we had begun to get more often. My family had a 32’ Coachman RV when I was growing up, and many of my best childhood memories were had in it. But I also remember my dad saying how nice it would be to have one of the fancy Rialta VWs because you could go so many more places. So I was familiar with the “too much vehicle” problem, and I was concerned the Beast was too much. But everyone, including the dogs, were in love with it. It was also for sale for a shockingly good price. The POs had run into some medical issues and were trying for a quick sale. We looked at the 144 conversions and we agreed that if we could deal with the logistical issues (parking etc) the 170 was a much better solution for our upgrade list.
We debated for a few days (so much for the couple year timeline) and made an offer on the beast. After some back and forth, we agreed on a price. Then we bit our nails and annoyed the crap out of the SMB folks while the deal was finalized. We’re now 5 nights of camping and about 1.5k miles of travel in. So here’s the specs on the rig:
- 2016 170 4wd 3500 dually chassis upfitted by Fresno SMB (then) and sold in 2017. 56k mi. The PPO (we are the third owners) were some infamous Amway kingpins that clearly liked to spend money
- Cherry cabinets, grey marine vinyl floors (with cover carpets), tundra counters
- Full height shower with cassette toilet (no outside access – this is exactly what we wanted)
- Dometic double burner stove and sink
- Heat and hot water via Suburban propane furnace
- 23 gallons of fresh water
- 2 10 gallon grey tanks (one for the sink, one for the shower)
- Cummins Onan 5kw propane generator w 34hrs of use
- Dometic a/c
- Norcold fridge and separate freezer
- 2x200ah AGM house batteries
- 300w solar w exterior jack for adding portable
- 2800w magnum inverter
- Fiama awning
- Exterior 120 and shower (in addition to the shower hookup inside the back doors)
- Rear seating area converts to a king sized bed. I don’t even have a king sized bed at home. This is the dogs’ favorite part of the new van.
- Some sort of suspension upgrade, at least some lift. I don’t have any records of that so not sure what was done yet.
- Generally really nice records of the original build and maintenance done
The bad
- The POs were not handy and had other people do fairly routine things. As a result there are a bunch of things that need doing. Like the faulty moisture sensor on the Fantastic fan which would randomly close the fan (just fixed that a moment ago). The generator needs to be serviced etc.
- The POs were in MN, and the aftermarket stuff underneath (generator bracket, battery brackets, Aluminess hitch etc) is rusty. I am stabilizing these now and will replace as I get to it and need to service stuff.
- The van made a trip to AK in 23 and I don’t think it was used much after that. So lots of creaky things that are getting better as we’ve begun to use them.
- The Aluminess swing arm pivots are showing the issues that seem common to this era. Chad at SMB got them usable, but I suspect I am going to need to do a bearing replacement soon.
- It had a TV in the back. Already deleted that.
I’ll update this thread as we adjust the rig to make it more ours. When I was looking through the archives here, I didn’t see many (any?) other similar SMB rigs, so I thought this may be useful to someone in the future.
