When you’re dropping 70k on a truck, it’s nice to know that it meets all your needs.

I think he means that he wants the vehicle to also be able to do road trips in rural areas where there aren’t recharge points. 

Quigley doesn’t do Sprinter conversions.

Agreed!  Especially since there are companies out there that make solid front axle brackets for Sprinters already (though I realize, probably not for a Super Duty axle).

In my opinion it’s not *clearly* sitting on the Super Duty chassis.  It’s clearly sitting on Ford axles, but swapping axles is a LOT easier than swapping frames to something that it wasn’t designed to fit underneath.

My guess is that it still has the Sprinter chassis and powertrain underneath and that it’s simply solid axle swapped (in addition to the bed swap). The exhaust is way too small to be from either a gas or a diesel Super Duty in my opinion. Looking at the rear photo, there also appear to be some ‘adapter blocks’ for the…

Yep, it’s like a light duty bus transmission, but it’s definitely stout.

Yeah, I saw that video after I commented. It’s built within the 6 speed case *size*, but it is a 4 speed as you mentioned. Still, can’t be any worse gearing than the 4L80e I’m currently running (2.48:1 first gear).

Now to figure out how to put a non-stock transfer case behind it and still have it work. And also to…

Also, the Silverado Hybrid was not really a Hybrid in my opinion.  42V battery system and it had start stop with a tiny bit of take-off-assist... but otherwise really just a gas engine.  It was a stepping stone, though.

That’s not a bad idea... mind you the Tahoe Hybrid had a 6.0L for some reason. But it is a newer generation truck than mine so it’s not exactly a direct swap even so. That said, it could be a great starting point and give me even more features (6 spd vs. 4 spd trans, 6.0L vs. 5.3L, for example).

I need to look into how…

I definitely wouldn’t want to go full EV since I sometimes end up far away from civilization for some of my trips.

Not yet sure.  But I like the idea of the 2 mode transmission.  IDK if the volt drivetrain by itself would be enough to power a 6000lb truck at highway speeds.  I do drive my truck to-and-from offroad destinations.

I work in the EV industry as a design engineer too. I’ve been toying with the idea of making my purpose-built offroad truck (mostly rock-crawling) hybrid or electric powered once I get the overall suspension performance where I want.  This is deepening my want to do that.

I prefer acetone for preparing surfaces to be welded - good habit to be in. God forbid you accidentally grab the chlorinated brake clean and end up with phosgene poisoning.

I love this face shield, I buy replacement plastic for it when it gets too scratched up to see easily.

Definitely wear safety glasses as well.  The face shield in my mind is more to prevent the cutoff disc exploding from lodging in the rest of your face, so if it does make it through the first layer, it’d be good to…

It’s more of a suggestion, not a command. 

I design parts for electric vehicle applications, design for manufacturability and inspection are 40+ hours of my week lol.

Awesome background information, thanks for sharing.

I would also imagine that the flat surface also gives a nice Datum for periodic and first article inspection of the body panels as they come off of the tooling, as well. Yes?

I wouldn’t be surprised if in 2020/21 there’s a bigger engined RST option. I have to imagine they’re not going to stick the 5.3L in the Escalade/Denali, so they’ll probably update the 6.2 for these luxury trim vehicles or come out with something in between the 5.3L and the 6.6L gas engine that’ll be going in the 2020 …

Which is also probably why they listed the windshield cleaning one...