Building an Expedition Truck: The Exterior

Front expedition truck - Romania - Terratrotter

After building on our expedition truck for 1.5 years, how does its exterior look like?

Driver's cab stripped down
Last month we had the driver’s cab restored in Romania. Although we ran into some issues with the timeline and some mistakes – which were fixed afterwards, we were very impressed with the end result. Especially since stripping down the cab revealed some unexpected rust issues. And did you even notice our 2 rear-side windows are gone? They did a great job closing those up*.
*Note: Behind the seats we will install cabinets, thus there was no point of leaving those windows in. They can only break.

The roof rack we brought with from Germany. Since we did not have time drilling the holes in the driver’s cab before restoration, we had to do it afterwards. We absolutely do not recommend it this way, especially without the proper tools and the manpower. This is not a fun job at all, but with sore muscles and a few new scratches as a result, we did manage to get the roof rack on there. (Thank you Elmer for the hard work!)

Left side of Expedition truck - Terratrotter

We also added a few more holes on the side of the living unit. We added a water filling cap and the outdoor shower.


Or did Elmer connect something else than water to it?
Expedition-Truck-Outdoor-Shower-Terratrotter

And on the chassis the original 30-year-old diesel tank was ready to be replaced. So we drove the Steyr once more inside a repair shop and had a new 300 liter tank installed. While waiting the old boss kept us entertained with his German songs, his travel stories in China and the stories about how he built his entire repair shop from truck chassis beams. What a fascinating character! It was definitely a kind of repair shop where they still know their way around any type of truck.

right side Expedition Truck Terratrotter

And what do you think of the new look?

10 thoughts on “Building an Expedition Truck: The Exterior
    1. Hi Richard,

      We used an old german army container called the FM2 Zeppelin shelter. If you click the link you find more information about this container and if you go back to our oldest build post you can follow every step of the transformation.

      Cheers,
      Nicole & Elmer

    1. Hi Richard

      Yes we have the 14.00×20 tyres. The Steyr 12M18 comes standard with 14,5×20 tyres. But we chose the bigger option 14.00×20 to reduce rpm”s and therefore better fuel economy (and for me Elmer, it was also for the looks.. yes I admit :-)!).

      Happy travels

      Elmer & Nicole

  1. Hi Guys,

    Just spent several hours reading through your entire website. Thank you so much for taking the time to compose such an interesting and informative site!

    I particularly enjoyed reading about your experiences with building the truck and camper, it is great to get such insight, especially when considering doing something very similar!

    Here is to wishing you many happy miles in your truck! I look forward to reading more of your stories.

    John
    Calgary, Canada.

  2. Hi over there,
    after lots of reading on your website i have got a lot of well need information and and cravings to build my own overland truck.
    A question that i have is, how muck did the hole project cost at the end inc.the truck?
    Great website and continuo the great work.

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