My Favorite Truck Camping Upgrade Yet!

How's it going everybody? I'm Nikki Delventhal and these are my dogs Rodney and Camper Delventhal. For over three years we lived in a Toyota Prius but now we're in a 4x4 Sprinter and we're here to take you along on the wild ride. So fasten up your seat belts and let's have some fun. Don't forget if you like what you see like, subscribe, comment, share with your friends and turn on notifications. We would be so thankful. Good morning. Hello. No other way to wake up than a face full of camper booties. Okay, okay we're going. We're going. Good morning camper. Good morning Rodney. Oh you're so unamused. We've got two. Can't forget keys. We're gonna drop off our keys real quick just in case they want to get an early start. Do you guys know where we are? I know you love this spot. Let's go. You know where we are. You're so excited. Good morning. I brought you something. Hey puppies. Hi puppies. Just in case you want to get an early start. Thank you. Have you seen your pallet yet? No. It's pretty big. No way. My goodness it's like Christmas. So today all of this is getting installed. I'll talk about it later but we should probably get out of our pajamas. All right boys let's hurry up and get changed. I feel so good this morning. Don't like good people just give you so much energy. But also this is the first time I'm not officially stuck at the shop. We've got our primary residence and our recreational shared residence. So Camper and Rodney have been traveling full-time their entire dog lives and one thing that has been really important to us is making sure that their nutrition is top priority with as quality ingredients as they can get. Are you looking for food? We will just pick the best possible option available at the time wherever we are. So that's why I am so excited to announce today's video sponsor Sundays. So I'm all about ditching the kibble and feeding your dogs human grade high quality ingredients but it also needs to be convenient. As you've seen in the truck and the van we're really limited on fridge and freezer space so having an air dried or freeze dried option is really really important without skipping on quality. With options like Sundays it is so much easier to store but not only that you're skipping the refrigeration you're skipping the preparation and it's still that high quality ingredients. Oh my god he's still looking for food. It's right here. You can order it now and have it shipped right to your door and even better you can get 50% off your first order. All you have to do is go to Sundaysfordogs.com slash Nikki or use code Nikki at checkout. Good boys. You know it may seem weird that I decided to sleep in the truck last night but then again I was the girl who lived in a Toyota Prius for three years so small spaces are kind of my thing. Here you go Rad. One other reason that we decided to go through that to have the van here is because it's going to be so much easier for these guys when they don't have to take the truck off the lift tonight because this is going to be a multi-day project and probably my favorite thing we've done to the truck yet. Also I am so excited to get to work in there which by the way we are at Sierra Adventure Vehicles which you guys probably recognize from a lot of my videos. They are experts on everything. Vans, trucks, jeeps, off-roading, suspension, camping, you name it they do it. So let's get changed up and get in there. TJ ladies and gentlemen. We've also got Donovan. He's going to be doing a ton of the work today and Mike. He owns the place. Love it. And let's see we've got one more. Where is he? Matt was just over here. Is he hiding? Matt! Matt! We've got Matt. Hostess with the mostest. What's up baby? All right time to party. We're moving the truck in. It's officially starting. We're gonna pull her around and throw her on the lift. She is a beast. Over the next 48 hours we're going to be installing all of this, all of this, and this onto this and you're coming along with us. So let's get started. This is the before y'all. We're gonna replace all of this and I will explain why as we go. The first step here is we're just ripping everything off of the truck. Now although this system is good for daily driving and going to your grocery store, it is not good for the things we need to do. Now one thing is I could have went with a budget suspension but honestly it would kind of just look good in the driveway and what I've learned is that it could actually make your truck drive worse. Out with the old, in with the new. So we have gotten most of the removal done here. We have just a few more things to go but before we do that we're gonna take a quick lunch break and go check on the boys. We've also been having so much fun that I totally forgot about coffee. We could use a little pick-me-up. Let's get it for the crew. Hello boys. Oh you look so handsome. Hi Rodney. You guys ready to take a lunch break? So right next door from Sierra Adventure is the coffee shop. Oh oh. Thank you. It's so cool. They remember Pacific Crest coffee shop every single time. They go wild for the puppuccinos. All right, belly is fed. Now let's put it together. That's right. Starting with control arms. Nice. Being able to get in there and get my hands dirty with these guys is invaluable to my learning. Honestly I feel like I feel so much more confident but also let's say down the road I am having an issue I can know exactly what part needs to be touched on. If someone has to come out and save me, things like that without having to go back and forth with photos and videos like I have in the past and it can get really frustrating. Also if you think about it most people don't know what these car parts actually look like so when you get under there you won't really know if it is having a problem or not unless you know what it looks like originally. Nice. Here you go sir. They do this for all their customers. Upgrading a fabricated radius arm is going to be such a good idea if you're doing your suspension. For one it is a ton stronger. 18.9 for factory. 41 pounds. More than double the weight so it's more than double the strength I'm guessing. So in addition to being stronger, fabricated radius arm gives you two more benefits. One, adjustable alignment which is going to help you in drivability and the second is tire clearance for bigger tires like a 37 plus. That's what we're doing. I'm so excited. Next up, the coils. So this is the old, this is the new. You'll notice that there is less space here and it's taller so we're going to get a level higher truck but it's also going to be a smoother ride for off-roading. It is going to feel so good. Next we have shocks. So you can see the factory shock here on the right, the king shock on the left. King is the best shock on the market and you can see in the difference in size you've got a larger diameter shaft here plus you have all this extra fluid that travels back and forth. So what happens on these factory shocks is there's not enough fluid for a really serious off-roading condition and the fluid will foam up sort of like a milkshake. And then basically it stops working. Dampening stops. All of it stops and eventually can break so let's not do that. Next up we do have to switch out the brake lines because we now have more height. This is also a stronger line as it's stainless steel and braided. Now it's time to install the track bar. So the factory track bar is not adjustable. So we have taller coils. The axle will swing out of center with this track bar. The new track bar is adjustable. So Donovan's going to measure the length of the track bar based on a table for your lift kit. Adjust the length and then set this jam nut to hold it in place. Once we got that secure we put on the Trojan sway bar. This allows for more articulation and a better on and off-road ride without sacrificing control and stability. On that note I think we're gonna call it for the day. We'll see you guys in the morning. We'll see you guys at the van. Bye Hazel have fun at your first day of school. Thanks for helping with the truck. Hazel is Mike's daughter and she is the coolest. Thanks you guys. Just kidding I'm locked in here forever. All right now we're free. All right we'll see you later. Bye guys. What a first day. Hi boys. Yes we're gonna get some exercise both of us. Something I need to get better at is when I'm working really hard is to not forget to eat because it is like 5 p.m and we forgot both breakfast and lunch so let's just make this easy. We're gonna drink some Hever. Yep that'll do the job for now. Also what's really great about this area is not only is there a coffee shop and the shop but there's also a gym right next door so we can just buy a day pass get our shower get our workout and this whole parking lot is set up on a so we can run the dogs. Oh yeah and that's a restaurant. It is so nice that we're not gonna have to leave. plans for a workout before dinner but feeling a little light-headed after that run. It is my goal to not have to leave here at all until the truck is done but we have one little dilemma. I am extremely low on food. Seriously all we have is nuts, coffee, this bigger. We're definitely going grocery shopping tomorrow. The only downside to this is it's definitely been in my van since the day I moved in. Oh wow okay. Camper are you tired? Camper is so pooped from that run. We got some ear movement so we know he's okay. Watch this. Camper knows. You hungry? He is tired. Oh look who's up. He knows it's dinner time. Rodney. A little bit of this and we'll turn this off. I don't know if I even want this in a tortilla. I think I just really just don't. It's actually delicious. Wow that's what I call cooking. If I cover it up the dishes don't need to be done. Gym bag, water bottle, brush your teeth. Oh are you kidding me? These are your favorite. I could do this. I could do this. All I want to do is lay down but you guys know staying on top of my knee health and Hi boys. Hi. Oh I see him jumping down. Hello. Hi. You guys want to go outside? I'm right here. Go potty. Come on guys go Oh man you guys I'm tired. It's an early to bed night. Like before the sun goes down probably. Whoa look at that sunset. Protein, protein, protein. Oh okay nothing like a little improvising. This will just have to do. Oh boy here Free. Go potty. The coffee from yesterday. Should we just drink this one? I know you're so excited. Good morning. Good morning. You took your weight so patiently. All right. Puppy coffee. Good boys. Thank you. And now we can get to work. I'm so excited. Morning update. All right so while we were all slacking off Donovan pretty much finished the front which I'm so excited about. We have a few more steps to go and then this afternoon we get to test it out for real. I am so excited to see what this baby can do but on that note let's keep working. While we were snoozing he put on the upper and lower steering stabilizers. These are great options for off-roading to help keep your steering wheel from bumping when hitting a rock or something. He also did the diff guard which protects the front differential from hitting a rock. Here we're welding the mount for the limiting straps to the frame of the truck. If you're not sure where the limiting strap is it prevents the axle from bottoming out on your shocks. Again something for off-roading. Disconnecting the battery right now. Disconnecting the batteries. You know what that means? It's time for the fun part. You're a cool dude but not that cool. Does that officially complete the front? The front is completely done. Oh yeah. Let's get those tires on there. How good did these look? Serious question. So this is much heavier than most of my tires. Is there a like rhyme or reason or a trick to getting these on if I ever do have an issue when I'm off-road? Or it's kind of just muscle it? Kind of but if you use your legs. So if you sit down get up on one knee get your other one underneath. Oh that is smart. I feel like I should try that so I have confidence. Oh step one. Sit down. Get it underneath your legs. Okay one knee. This is challenging dude. All right. No I could do this. I could do this. So you get it under one knee here and then you just kind of get it on it. God you're strong. My muscles are so sore. Oh my god okay I'm gonna try this. I'm gonna stop being a little baby. This is like life or death here. I'm alone. I'm alone. I have to be able to do this. Okay and then scooch forward. Scooch forward. There you have it. Thanks for the tutorial. I think it's really important sometimes to just have the confidence that you could do your own work. So I purposely will ask to get involved as long as it doesn't slow us down too much. Sometimes it does so then I step back. Oh yeah by the way in case you're wondering what this sexy lineup is it is the BFGoodrich KM3 mud terrain tire. They're 37s. Oh so sexy. And we have Vision wheels. These are the Manx. I mean look how good that looks. Oh yeah I'm either gonna paint this black or there's a cap that goes over it and this I'm really excited about. It's for quick deflation. Now we're gonna flip this baby around and do the back. Let's get to work. We removed the original hitch to replace with the Carly Trophy hitch which allows for a full size fair tire up to 38 inches and is a class 5 rated. We also pulled the old leaf springs and shocks and dropped the bump stop which means it's time to put in the new. These leaf springs are an HD variant to support the weight of my current camper and bed build out. And again the King shocks but these are built to Carly's specifications. I feel like as we're filming all this everything looks super simple but it's actually a very time consuming and tedious process to do each of these things. For instance the leaf springs will take anywhere from like three to four hours. So yeah I gotta give these guys a lot more credit for their attention to detail and their patience. Oh look who made it perfect timing for the fun part. Hey you guys you know who Justin is. Maybe you don't. This is Justin. All right all we have left is to put the tires on they're already mounted and do the alignment. Then we can have some fun. This looks so good. All right you guys ready to send it? Let's do it. Woo! Donovan we love you. Thank you so much. You're a superstar. Mike is definitely driving because not only does he know all of the roads around trucking but he does monthly off-road courses so yeah passenger seat we go. Here we go. Oh man I am so stoked. For the sake of time and fun we're just gonna go ahead and jump right on over to the trailhead. Made it. Now cue the badass music because things are about to get times a million. You guys that's a wrap. That was amazing. Mike thanks for taking us out. If you're in truckie, Sierra Adventure Vehicles. Highly recommended. We love them but uh yeah moral of the story. Carly suspension, the tires, the whole thing exceeded my expectations. It works really well. I definitely had the most fun. Yeah that was sick. Thanks so much for being here guys. You guys we love you. I can't even talk I'm so excited. We'll see you next Friday. Have a good one. Bye. Say bye. See y'all. There's so much dust on here you can't even see what's going on. All right moment of truth. Is the camper still a camper? Oh still in one piece. This kind of went flying a little bit. Look at that. Nothing's broken. Justin that building is one of a kind. Just saying if you need a new builder we got one. Luke I am your father. And she emerges from the ashes.