WanderlustAV

$57,750 59,xxx miles This is a Roadtrek Nav6 or N6 Active model camper van. It was Roadtrek’s own promo model before my company modernized and upgraded it to a 4 season camper. https://www.motortrend.com/features/163-1212-travel-the-n6-active-by-roadtrek/ Featuring shoulder belted seating for five that converts smoothly into two full sized, comfy beds, a powerful drivetrain and storage galore, this is the rig to ride when you want a roomier experience without the bulk and footprint of a big class B or RV. On road manners are impeccable for a van of this heft with comfortable seating, cruise, icy cold AC throughout, backup camera, bluetooth stereo, wireless charging cradle and an overall smooth ride. The 5.4L V8 is felt and appreciated on the passes and has an impressive towing capacity. Load rated BFG K02 tires roll like butter over dirt roads in the Summer without singing loudly on the pavement and top of the line Blizzaks mounted on their own rims keep you on the road in the Winter. Load up the good stuff in the deep pantry storage and dual fridges. LED puck lighting, 12v and 120v outlets abound throughout the cabin. The two seater rear bench folds out to a very comfortable bed in two motions. Hit the button and up goes the electric pop top for tons of cabin head room and a great view from the bunk. More than ample rear storage and all this fits into a 20' overall length so you won't feel cramped and stressed when parking and maneuvering. A fun, versatile, reliable and safe rig at an incredible value. RVIA listed and insures as a Class B RV. Available for rental before purchase- try before you buy if you like! Rental costs partially refunded/credited toward sale if you buy. https://www.outdoorsy.com/rv-rental/missoula_mt/2012_roadtrek_n6-active_247881-listing?preview=true Purchase options include bedding and camp kitchen, can outfit to suit. If you fancy renting this rig out yourself, the Wanderlust AV name, logo, popular Outdoorsy rental account and training can be included with sale as complete, turnkey business. Nissan NV3500HD 1ton Chassis 5.4L, naturally aspirated V8 15 MPG, or better, depending on driving style, tires, etc. 9,500 lb towing capacity, factory hitch and tow kit with tow mode. RWD (4wd conversions and lifts are available from a number of shops) 4 wheel ABS and selectable traction control. Adjustable rear air suspension Dual front/side airbags. Cruise control. OEM front and aftermarket rear cabin AC blows ice cold. Meticulously, professionally serviced with full records and factory service manual. Overall build by Roadtrek. Key upgrades by Wanderlust AV include: Electrical 200ah of modern, self heating, lifepo4 house batteries. Renogy DC to DC alternator charging with MPPT Solar input. Renogy Shore power charging- 15-30a. Furrion marine grade receptacle. In cabin monitor screen. Renogy One Core X2 Power AGM starter battery. Extended capacity, high CCA. Positive lug upgraded to marine style. Brand new 12v outlets, pop top lifts/motors, major Roadtrek terminal lugs professionally replaced with marine grade power lugs. Cabin Eberspsacher gasoline fired cabin heater and fan. Top of the line, professionally installed by Thermo King in Missoula. This heater absolutely blasts and will keep you toasty and dry your gear year round. Dometic CFX3 45 12v/120v fridge. Removable, with cover. The perfect armrest. Deluxe pop top foam mattress with waterproof cover, slip cover. Covers for all windows. Pop top seal replaced, fiberglass cleaned and waxed, fabric reconditioned and waterproofed/UV protected. Pop top bug screens professionally upgraded to privacy mesh by Customm Upholstery in Missoula. Keyless entry professionally installed by Aspen Sound HEPA cabin air filter. Pass side mid captains chair removed. Perfect layout to still seat 5. Driver side chair can also be removed for Westy style layout. Waterproof front seat covers- durable and easy to clean. Fresh, professional detail by Attention to Details in Missoula. Mechanical Meticulous maintenance by Missoula Nissan, Scott’s EQ and Wanderlust AV. Full synthetic oil change with OEM filter every 3750mi/3mo. Expensive and common P0448 Evap code permanently resolved by running fresh air line from evap canister to air intake under the hood. Work performed by Missoula Nissan with all new OEM parts. Fleet grade brakes/rotors and new rear air shocks professionally installed by Scott’s Eq in Missoula. OEM Nissan bug diverter and aftermarket front seat swivel included but not installed. Sold by Wanderlust Adventure Vehicles, LLC in Missoula, MT.

Had to cut off the factory nut for the flimsy oem terminal clamp and trim the plastic cover but have a marine style clamp now.

Still a 27F but a nice upgrade all around. Cost a pretty penny but worth it with a discount. 4yr warranty, real high CCA and low risk of draining the starter when parked with the dome lights or radio on, etc. I have one of these in a diesel and it'll cold start that engine in -40 F using a momentary glow plug switch. Only annoyance with these X2 batteries are the terminal posts. The posts just seem extra tapered and slick compared to normal batteries. They are high quality brass but, because of this I guess, never seem to get along with factory clamps. Not the worst thing as most factory terminal clamps could use an upgrade anyways. I typically go with marine style.

Replacing the sliding door step. Of course, I'm going to reinforce it properly beneath so it doesn't just crack again. Anybody know why there are so many vent holes, glands, etc. in this space? A lot of road noise comes up through here and I'd like to dampen it but don't see the point of applying sound deadener if all these holes and vents serve a functional purpose and need to be left intact. I suppose I'll just put the dynamat on the new step.

What's in there currently?

Absolutely insure it as an RV if at all possible. Far better rates and coverage for the money. I've supplemented with a Goal Zero Yeti 1500x for hunting trips and ski days where I needed more juice than the house battery was going to provide. When underway you can charge it with the N6's inverter and/or you can use portable solar with it. It's not a bad move to just add a portable power unit v. rebuilding the FLA battery system to lithium. You end up with some redundancy, portability and the inverter in the goal zero or similar is going to be way more efficient. Downside is it takes up more interior space. If you want to add solar, this might make a case for upgrading the electrical system as many b2b chargers have mppt built in.

The Roadtrek build was designed to plug in to shore power so if you're using campsites with power, worksites, friend's place, etc. it ought to be a great fit. If you want to boondock you'll need to be very careful about power usage or upgrade the system. Modernizing the electrical system is pretty expensive and is a decent amount of work that requires some proper electrical knowledge. Not necessary to open that can of worms if you're plugging in but know that you can't use all features of the van as built off it's house power, or at least not for very long. You've probably though of all this, but before buying one of these now decade old rigs check for rust, mold and for mice/rodent damage. Tires over 10yo should be replaced. Starter battery might be near done. Same for house batteries (NAPA has good, drop in replacements). If it wasn't regularly driven I'd also budget to have all fluids swapped. If yours has the black trim/running boards that's a less preferable trim to whatever else Roadtrek used later. Anyways, lots of good info in this thread here- good luck!

I had a shop do fresh brakes and rotors for me not quite a year ago. Went with the heaviest duty "service" option, which I believe is coated. Anyways, the braking is now excellent on my built out NV3500. Only downside is the service duty pads squeal a lot. The shop said I'd have to swap back to OEM to get rid of the squeal which sounds like a waste of good pads. Just something to watch out for; brake upgrade is definitely worth it but noises where they don't belong always bother me personally.

Here's where I ended up installing a Renogy IP67 rated dc-dc charger. Aside from the TrippLite inverter/charger, which is still original to the Roadtrek build (and charges the lifepo4 bank just fine when the dip switches are correctly set) the rig's electrical is now updated. I used the existing Roadtrek installed breaker on the starter side and the Renogy recommended ANL fuse on the house battery side. Doing it again, I would put manual reset breakers on either side so you have a way to cut power from the house banks and starter batt when needed for service. I also don't like having to carry spare ANL fuses, not that it's likely to ever be an issue. The Renogy gear had been fine and performed well in the more harsh install locations but the bluetooth connectivity is awful. The charger will pull up every time on the app but the battery bank may or may not. Not fun having to pull the batts out from the undercarriage to troubleshoot when it's actually just the crappy Renogy app/BT connection that's the problem. My batteries are the self heating model that need the BT module plugged into the com ports, it might be better if the battery has the BT built in but I'm not sure. The BT connection and app itself provide good insight to the batteries however.

Circling back to update here. @JGAN you are correct or, If the alt is smart, it doesn't require any wiring to work with the Renogy 50a charger I ultimately installed. *the Wagan model was DOA and was sent back.

Rear ac/heat is just that one vent I believe. I supposedly have #0, was the build used to sell the model, and it has the grey vinyl and black running boards. Yours is probably a later model, what year chassis? It'll be hard to figure out the evolution of this rig since Roadtrek was apparently going under while building it, few were made and Roadtrek didn't record anything about them. The shower/hose on mine only connected to city/shore water as far as I could tell. Maybe Roadtrek realized how useless this was and cut it out of the later models? Chrome runners have got to be better than the black trim. None of my black trim/running boards was installed proper. Where's the shore power located on the N6s with the chrome runners?

Mine has the same rims as AdventureMartens and it's 50psi front, 80 psi rear. I run K02s in Summer, Blizzaks in Winter. Once you bring them up to those pressures and/or go through the TPMS reset if needed (hope you don't, it's kind of a drag to do) you'll have a bit of wiggle room before the TPMS warning light illuminates. Mine seems to come on below 70psi. My N6 is actually built on a 3500HD so 80 psi in the rear + 3500HD suspension is wayyy to stiff. I like the front at 50 and the rear at at about 65 for normal driving (still too stiff imo), a bit lower on the rears if on dirt for a long time.

So, a year later here, I finally installed a Wagan Tech 40 amp dc to dc charger. I wanted to just stick something in the engine bay near where the old battery isolator was and it was basically this or a Redarc. Wagan indicates: "If your vehicle has fixed voltage or temperature compensating alternator (standard alternators) installed, leave the Ignition Override cable (BLUE color) open. If your vehicle has smart (variable voltage) alternator installed, the Ignition Override cable must be connected to the vehicle’s ignition. The 40A DC to DC Battery Charger will only operate when the vehicle’s ignition is turned on." Turns out the NV has a smart alternator, or that's what I'm reading in the attached from the FSM- "Adjustment range of power generation variable voltage control" -so I suppose I'll connect that blue wire. Anyone else have to connect to ignition for their dc-to-dc charger and know a convenient spot to hook in?

Nice work @AdventureMartens! Appreciate the write up too.

Agreed, it's a lot of work to put in upgrading the entire system and wire size may limit the inverter size to boot. I'd much rather build a fresh electrical system myself than try and revamp an existing but, compared to the costs and risks associated with a new van, my horror of owning a Sprinter and the low miles on this very reliable Nissan, the project remains tempting even for a 2012 model. The battery tray is very straightforward- put a jack under it, unbolt two threaded rods and lower. Mine had 2x 6v FLA batts wired in series. They were NAPA batteries and I returned the cores and purchased fresh ones which dropped in great. Going to 12v in parallel lets you double the amp hours in that tray but, again, you'll need some further upgrades to net the full capacity with the lifepo4. 12v AGM is probably the easy way out of this but the cost will have you considering the lithium, imo. I think flexible solar panels would be ideal on this rig, let us know how that install goes.

The Renogy self heating batteries have been working out well overall. I installed these in the fall as a drop in replacement with no other mods just to see how things went for the Winter. Long story short- lifepo4 works as a drop in but requires a lot of downstream upgrades if you want to get full functionality. The existing battery level readouts will not function and the charging profiles won't be quite right as they are designed for FLA/AGM voltages. If you want full functionality, plan to also replace the Shur Power 1315-200 with a DC to DC charger and the Tripp Lite with a new inverter/charger as well as the control panels. Alternator charging has been working but with potential limitations. I didn't install the Renogy bluetooth unit to monitor SOC on initial install. Instead, I plugged a voltage meter into one on the 12v cig outlets just to get a ballpark. This is not very accurate when there is any load on the system and also due to the fact that a .5v difference in a lifepo4 SOC is huge compared to FLA/AGM. Based on the voltage readout the system is charging from the alternator to about 13.2-13.3v or 70-90% That doesn't seem possible given the spec on some of the charging components but, if that turns out to be accurate, this may not be a bad thing as it could significantly extend the lifepo4 lifespan based on the 80/20 or 90/10 percent rule. Will be installing the bluetooth unit soon and curious to see the "real" SOC figures. Shore power was disconnected when I chopped off the running boards and has not been reconnected so stay tuned for Tripp Lite/shore charging info. My guess is that the Tripp LIte will charge the Renogys with the proper settings but we'll see to what SOC.

Try local upholstery shops. I had one replace my ratty bug screens with this much nicer stuff. They did a pretty ugly job of sewing it and took forever, but it works. Based on that experience I would look around for a more skilled shop that backs up their work for a full replacement. Or, if the main fabric isn't toast, try cleaning and applying 303 fabric guard.

These are great for the front seats if you're looking for something waterproof and durable. Not the most comfortable. https://www.covercraft.com/us/en/sku/SS3434WFGY/ For the mid swivels, I think I found a few generic covers for this style but nothing that was a direct fit. How's the platform working out? The heavy aluminum and carpeted plywood platform that came with mine didn't fit or stow safely-. I modified it to be safe and only travel with it in the sleep position. Added a mattress so it's pretty comfy up there now, if not a bit tight around the toes, and provides a place to store bedding.

I don't think you'll have a problem venting the diesel stove/heater thru the wall. Cut the hole, vacuum the burrs up, paint exposed metal. (and let it completely dry/cure before continuing) Insulated pipe. Talk to me to me about how you mounted that fiamma.

I went with an Eberspacher/Espar Airtronic M2 B4L heater. Mostly bc I found a local place that installs and services this brand in many big rigs and reefers. Would have preferred to install myself but I don't have a garage to fit this beast in and the install was reasonable enough. ( I'll also be glad to have a shop that can competently repair and fetch parts if needed) The M2 B4L does cost a pretty penny v. the Webasto STC2000. It's been a great heater so far, probably overkill for a regular or high roof van but I like the output level for an uninsulated pop top that goes winter camping in Montana. Still figuring out the Easy Start controller and getting a handle on the electrical usage of the unit but happy to have a cozy, dry van to camp in.

Water inlet just runs to the little hose in back correct? I don't see the point in relocating that. Does your inlet supply the faucet? Shore inlet location is tbd after getting my bumper replaced early next year. I'd like it driver side and up and out of harm's way. Heavily considered pass side (behind slider of course) for a short run straight into the electrical area but it's so cramped in there already that I think driver's side is going to be best.

CEL threw P0448 a little while ago. Van drives on dirt often. I looked into it under the van and can definitely see the issue with the vent location. I wanted to hear how Nissan is approaching the issue so I took it to the dealership. They don't seem very aware of anything, would not discuss the issue with me and want $140 to "diagnose" the issue I already clearly explained to them, including showing them the bulletin on it. I'm going to go ahead and let them do that just to see what they say; I always try to go with factory fixes before diy. Has anyone found the factory recommended repairs (assuming they will want to replace tube assy-filler, canister, etc.) to be durable? Update. Dealer recommends: SES REPAIR FOR P0448 FUEL TUBE (17221-1PA0C) CANISTER (14950-7500A) VENT VALVE (14935-JF01C) FILTER (14953-1LA0A) TOTAL PARTS AND LABOR $1350 They find this repair to last maybe 40k or so. Sounds logical enough although I'm not sure why the filler tube needs replacing v cleaning. I'm definitely going to move the vent hose to a cleaner location alongside this repair, great recommendation @Bamps. No sense in paying that all over again.

Thanks y'all! 50-60a of charging sounds like a sweet spot for the stock alternator. I don't think I really need a dc to dc charger but the isolator that's currently in there pulls some juice in order to stay open and thinks it's feeding FLA house batts so that's gotta go. I am way into large/dual alternator charging of lifepo4 batteries. Not going to get into that with Roadtrek's existing wiring but I'd be all over an upsized alternator if this was my own build.

Does anybody know how much the van draws off the alternator? i.e., max amps if you got the ac/heat, etc. all running I need to replace my Sure Power 1315-200 with a DC to DC charger since I upgraded to lithiums and was trying to sort out the right drop in replacement. @JGAN what did you end up with in your setup? Also V8 here.

@AdventureMartens my van was ironically imported from Canada to the US, lol. Decided to go ahead and start the process of making the van a proper winter rig/ski and hunting chalet. First up, winter appropriate batteries: cleaned up the rusty tray, deleted the FLA hold downs and repainted w. rust converter and enamel Tossed the poorly crimped Roadtrek terminal cable. Had a nice gentleman at NAPA solder me up a pair of proper ones. I previously tried to get a Battle Born in there but it sadly didn't fit. 2x 100a Renogy self heating lifepo4 fit magically. These have 2x RJ45 on them. One puts them in/out of shelf mode (much appreciated as installer), the other is for com and linking the batts. I can run a cat cable between them and add a Bluetooth module for monitoring. Other Renogy product does the same and will all feed wirelessly to an app. Very neat for a personal van but trying to avoid this tech and stick to hard wire and easy physical readouts to keep it simple for rental clients. little reflectix wrap just to keep them from getting totally nasty. At long last, I chopped off those gawd awful running boards and the stupid inlet box. Deleted the low hanging grey water tank and piped straight to ground. *Noticed some lower body rot where Roadtrek did a total shit job of tacking on hangers for the grey tank. These people just drilled into and welded onto the van willy nilly for the conversion- no proper prep, no paint, nothing. Lifetime non-Roadtrek customer here. Hit it with rust converter for now, will follow up with cutting and replacing when I figure out what I want to put in this space. Reflected on the irony that there is now ample space for a much larger battery tray and array and that my careful hunt to fit these two 100a batts into the existing tray was probably needless. ? Winter tread: scored some dodge ram alloys that fit great and wrapped them in new blizzaks. I know everything costs more these days but folks wanted a small ransom for 4x steelies, happy to have chanced upon these. Love that the running boards and stupid inlet box are gone, missing the extra lift from my big K02s, van looks kinda weird to me at stock height. Next up- relocate shore inlet with proper marine grade fixture. Figure out how I'm going to properly charge these sweet batteries with the van's existing system and how to get a physical readout on SOC. The existing gear thinks the batteries are FLA/AGM so I'm thinking it won't charge these Lifepo4s and will always display them as full. Renogy has robust BMS, "smart" battery as they say, so there's no risk here but I want to get full advantage of the doubled amp hours and treat the batts right.