Our MTVR camper:

[MTVR]

Looking good! Nice work.

The drawbridge is a good idea. It seems to expand the real estate quite a bit while extended.

What is the interior height?

6'8"...

 

[Mullaney]

With all that space on the back - and maybe just for the trip across half the country - it might be fun to have a sign that says "I may be slow, but I am ahead of you!"

Definitely a nice build. I can't wait for you to get moved, settled in and get pictures of the Camo paint job.

 

[MTVR]

With all that space on the back - and maybe just for the trip across half the country - it might be fun to have a sign that says "I may be slow, but I am ahead of you!"

Definitely a nice build. I can't wait for you to get moved, settled in and get pictures of the Camo paint job.

...or something like this:

 

[MTVR]

Took care of a few minor projects today. Almost got the generator mounted.

Took advantage of a couple of dry hours to paint the hubs and muffler heat shield flat black. They had faded to a light grey. Looks much better now.

 

[MTVR]

Had a break in the rain and got the generator mounted. Another big step for us- it will be nice to have electricity on this trip...

 

[MTVR]

Had another break in the rain, so we changed the gear oil in all six planetary hubs. No signs of any hub problems...

 

[Elijah95]

That oil appears dark, I just changed mine on all 6 hubs again and before fixing an issue I ended up with burnt oil in 2 hubs and excess shavings. It looked like yours initially, gradually growing darker until burnt.

Since you plan to log lots of miles on your truck, and fluid is real cheap in comparison, I’d recommend changing it maybe every 5,000 if you’re feeling generous, or convert to a synthetic to help deal with thermal breakdown at high speed/load.


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[MTVR]

It may just be the camera or the lighting- it looked fine in person...

 

[MTVR]

Well, we may have finally found something that doesn't work on our MTVR- the 12-volt power port.

I seem to recall that at least one member has been through this before. If it's more than just a fuse, it's not getting fixed before our trip. Is the step-down converter fused on both the 24-volt side and the 12-volt side?

 

[MTVR]

Well, if it wasn't broken in before, it sure is now- we did a little over 2,000 miles in four days on our way to Texas, almost all of it wide-open on the limiter at 2,100 rpm and 66 mph. I didn't calculate the fuel mileage, but off the top of my head, the 4.5mpg figure sounds believable...

 

[Kbarnes0]

Well, if it wasn't broken in before, it sure is now- we did a little over 2,000 miles in four days on our way to Texas, almost all of it wide-open on the limiter at 2,100 rpm and 66 mph. I didn't calculate the fuel mileage, but off the top of my head, the 4.5mpg figure sounds believable...

Rad. So you made it without any hiccups? We are moving to East Texas by the end of the year hopefully from Tacoma. Our M1090 dump truck (25k lbs empty) has been consistent at 5.25 mpg. Seems with the size of your rig you are fine if you can get close to the 5mpg.

 

[MTVR]

Rad. So you made it without any hiccups? We are moving to East Texas by the end of the year hopefully from Tacoma. Our M1090 dump truck (25k lbs empty) has been consistent at 5.25 mpg. Seems with the size of your rig you are fine if you can get close to the 5mpg.

Absolutely zero- not so much as a check engine light. We didn't even have a spare tire.

I checked planetary hub temps, tire temps, and diff temps at every fuel stop, and they were all good...

 

[MTVR]

The M1090 has 275 horsepower and a top speed of 58 mph? That might make the trip a little more of a challenge. The MTVR has 425 horsepower and a top speed of 66 mph, and we were down to 45 mph on some of the mountain climbs with our hazard lights on. I'm assuming that you wouldn't even be able to do that.

And speed limits are 75 mph for much of the trip (and people go even faster than that). Even if you're able to go 58 mph, you're gonna have people flying by you at 80-90 mph- you may need to have your hazard lights on the whole way...

 

[MTVR]

Bring a case of Red Bull- that helped.

 

[MTVR]

...and the cannonball guys are right- it's not your maximum speed that kills your cross-country times- it's your minimum speed- you're doing 0 mph at your stops. The clock keeps ticking, but you're not getting any closer to the finish line. Stretch out your fuel stops, and make everyone pee at every fuel stop, even if they don't have to go.

Our first day of 435 miles was supposed to be an easy day, but it took us hours longer, because of a flat tire on the U-Haul truck that took an hour for them to replace, and because my wife, daughter, and I were all getting hungry and having to go to the bathroom at different times, and because we were refueling the vehicles at different times, and because we were refueling when we got down to half a tank.

Our second day was even worse- we made less than 350 miles. We needed to average over 500 miles a day to make it to our new home by Thanksgiving.

So on the third day, I put the hammer down- we refuel BOTH vehicles every time we stop. EVERYONE pees at every fuel stop. We eat on the road. We still refueled when we got down to half a tank, but these changes got us about 550 miles on the third day.

And on the fourth day, I simply decided that we were making it the rest of the way on that day. Since my wife and I were fully-focused on driving the two vehicles, we had our daughter navigating. She made an error that added 100 miles to our day, but that was okay, because we got to see some stuff that we would not ordinarily have not been able to see. We did 750 miles in one day on that last day.

 

[MTVR]

I would resist the urge to carry anything in the M1090 for that trip- any weight you add, is just gonna make the hills suck even more than they already do.

We did not use our MTVR to carry any cargo. It carried 360 pounds of tire chains, fire extinguisher, emergency triangles, tire chocks, and stuff like that, but otherwise the only weight was our camper box, which was kind of a given...

 

[Elijah95]

Just a little information, you were only utilizing 380+- hp during your trip in standard 0-2 ton on road CTIS settings.

If you want to feel the additional power, turn CTIS off on the rocket switch, and while in 7th gear throttle down, touch the 15 ton mode on CTIS. You’ll hear the turbo spool a good bit harder and you’ll start gaining speed


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[MTVR]

Just a little information, you were only utilizing 380+- hp during your trip in standard 0-2 ton on road CTIS settings.

If you want to feel the additional power, turn CTIS off on the rocket switch, and while in 7th gear throttle down, touch the 15 ton mode on CTIS. You’ll hear the turbo spool a good bit harder and you’ll start gaining speed


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I was aware of the power reduction, but I didn't know the exact numbers. We used the 2-7.1 Highway setting the whole way.

We had enough power to get the job done, and I didn't want to stress anything any more than we already were, so I avoided using the 7.1-15 ton Highway setting.

 

[MTVR]

I thought I had already made a post back around Thanksgiving stating that our MTVR motorhome project is going to be on hold while we focus on getting our new ranch sorted out, but I guess I dropped the ball. My apologies to anyone checking this thread for updates.

I went back through all 13 pages and corrected a few typos (I've been typing this whole thread with my thumbs on my phone), but other than that, we are going to be on hold for a while...

 

[MTVR]

Let's see if I can post a few pics from our move to Texas, just because: