Overland Trucks

[Magoo]

Okay, so let's see how many views this forum gets...

So I've got a Nissan Frontier Pro4x. Love the thing. Recently, a buddy of mine turned me onto the idea of building it into an overlander. I love the look and concept of that, so I'm really trying to learn more about it. I don't know much about the brands that are recommended, and I was wondering if you folk could recommend a good brand of rooftop tent and a bed rack. I'm sure the little accessories I can figure out, but the rack and tent are important!

I'll need 2 person capacity, and I'm a beefy feller, at 6'3" 250#, so I'll need some length and strength.

Thanks, folks!

[mtaylor]

Most of the non ARB tents are made exactly the same. I had a CVT and loved it, I saw a few Tepui tents and they looked the same, and I have had a look in a Smittybilt one too. Mine was a 2 man. Most tents will get you 8 feet of length ish and the width will vary, mine was 4 feet wide.

An easy upgrade for your pro4x if you can find them is a second set of skid plates. You can stack the factory ones for some added protection, alone they are pretty flimsy.

I can’t find a picture with the tent on on my iPad, I’ll look for one for you on the computer.

Found one! It's on Putco bed side rails (made for something else, cut to fit, and bolted on) spaced up with some 3d printed blocks so my roll up tonneau cover still works, and the tent itself is bolted straight to some Thule cross bars. You can also see my Insain Fabrication front bumper, Calmini rear bumper, and Shrockworks rock sliders. In that picture it's on 33 inch tires with about 3.5-4 inches of lift.

[Rainmaker]

Im sure SETHZILLA! will be along shortly...

[Magoo]

That's a slick setup. I miss my longbed SV, but I moved from Texas to Colorado, and 4WD is a necessity our here. I reckon I might have to get one of those tall racks that extend over the cab since I got the little shorty bed...

[mtaylor]

A buddy had a setup like mine on a 5 foot bed, it’s certainly doable.

[mtaylor]

Hey look, they haven’t gone under yet. The one on my truck was a Bachelor.

https://cascadiatents.com/pioneer-series.html

Also, random word of advice-don’t buy anything from Calmini ever.

[Magoo]

Hmmmm. See, THAT'S the good insider info I'm looking for, as I really don't know what companies are what.

[mtaylor]

Stick with Nisstech and you won’t go wrong. I ordered from them a few times with no issues, and met some of their staff in Moab in a couple of my trips down there. Looking at their site, they do have a pretty slick looking bed rack that might be a good option.

[Magoo]

Oh hey, I can just drive down to Nisstec after work one day...

[SETHZILLA!]

My rigs have always been do everything trucks. Overlanding is just another word for camping to me.
The first 4x4 i owned was a big Chevy. She took us everywhere when we wanted to get away from it all.
Once we had some kids i needed something with a back seat so the Cruiser was built up into our family adventures swiss army knife.

Most of the Roof top tents will fit 2 people comfortably in them. We opted for the bigger model so we can have the kids up there too. When unfolded, ours is a king size mattress. The downstairs vestibule can hold a queen size mattress or 2 cots. Tons of room in there.
Random picks to just show off my rigs!

[mtaylor]

One thing that I encountered that has hopefully improved, it seems that many of the aftermarket suppliers for these trucks operate on the geological time scale with respect to shipping. My sliders took 8 months, my rear bumper 5 and my front bumper 9. My suspension parts were mostly used take offs and factory parts for other trucks, but the coil overs from Radflo (purchased through nisstec) took 3 months. The skis plates came in less than a week from the same guys who made the sliders oddly enough.

[Snowking63]

Let's bring this thread back.
If you want to build an "overland" rig there's a lot more to think about than just accessories to bolt on. If you want to be able to get past all the busy campsites and get into the spots most others can't you'll want to focus on building your suspension and power setup to make your rig reliable. But all that aside if you're curious about RTTs then I think I can chime in .

The first tent we had was a Tepui Hybox. We picked it up from REI for half off because it was used and the struts and hardware needed some work. The beauty about hardshell tents is they're very fast and easy to set up. When closed, it has a latch in the front and rear and pops straight up with 4 gas struts in all corners. With popping it up, opening the windows and installing the ladder it took about 30 seconds. The shell was made of fibergass resin and some steel or aluminum frame rails. It was super roomy inside for the two of us plus bags of clothes and it was advertised as not just a tent but also a cargo rack if the tent liner was unzipped. We had no problem leaving the mattress, pillows, ladder and about 6 blankets inside when we closed it. With everything inside, the tent shell was about 8" thick. Overall the tent was really fun for us and made camping so much less stressful. Later on we realized that style of tent had a recall because rivets were the only thing keeping the tent shell onto the bottom frame rails so people reported their tent flying off on highways. We've never had a problem even going 100+ in strong winds but we decided to contact Tepui anyway. They offered to send whatever softshell tent they make of our choice to us for free, so our Hybox got picked up and got destroyed.

We had a brand new softshell tent sitting in the garage but we were already spoiled from benefits of a hardshell so we picked up a CVT Mt Hood. The Mt Hood is considered top of the line in roof tents. It's entirely made of aluminum and its super modular so I can mount a couple of bikes, kayaks, solar or anything else to the roof of the tent and still be able to pop it up for the night. It's a lot slimmer than the Hybox so the low profile is nice but we can't leave anything inside besides the mattress when it's time to close it. Because it's a clamshell tent, it pivots off the 2 front hinges and it literally pops up in 2 seconds with the help of the 2 exterior gas struts. Keep the roof towards oncoming wind and you have comfortable quiet sleep. With the tent being so modular, I can mount an awning, lights, shower, and pretty much anything else directly to the sides, back or under the tent making the truck on my rack useless. I'll be fabbing up some low pro roof mounts so the tent can sit real low. Also, with a ladder on my rear hatch or a tire carrier we'd be able to climb in the tent from the back so we can leave our tent ladder at home.

By the way that new softshell tent we have is still sitting in the garage. I'll be posting it for sale on here shortly