Hodaka"Pops" Scout Truck Camper Thread

On to a new chapter and new adventures! We recently sold my fathers Revel as it hurt his neck and back to drive. We tried every combination of seat adjustments etc but just couldn't find a spot that worked. His Toyota on the other hand is comfortable for him to drive on long trips for hours on end so we decided to go back to a Camper that he can carry on the Tacoma.

We were looking for something more comfortable and warmer than the Drifter camper we previously had on his truck. We considered a Four Wheel Camper as we've had a few of those in the past but at 80 years old he has trouble lifting the top up and down on those. After looking at a lot of options we decided to search for a Scout YOHO camper.

The YOHO weighs in at 950 lbs so the Tacoma carries it well. No pop top means no setup and the foam sandwich construction makes for a very solid and well insulated unit. We set to searching and found a clean one owner unit up near Seattle so headed off to strike a deal.

Happy new owner! The truck has a two inch lift and the heavy Dakar springs installed in the rear. The setup sits nice and level wirh the camper installed. Here the tailgate is still installed for the trip home.




Some interior shots of the YOHO. The large side windows & upper skylight all open and have built in shades & bug screens. There is a Dometic compressor fridge, a two burner stove (which is huge so we will probably remove it and use a backpack stove instead to free up more counter space), a lithium batt bank, a sink with a 5 gallon pressurized water jug and a very cool marine stainless propane fireplace to keep you cozy at night.
















On the Ferry heading back to Eastern WA.




You can see the solar on the roof from the front angle.




The weekend after purchasing the camper we set off to the Hood River OR Antique fly-in and my father got to try out the camper. It worked great!








While we were in Hood River I took the Hack down the road to DIY Van and snagged a Maxxfan 7500 that I will be installing in the YOHO. The tiny factory fan/vent that came installed in the camper is almost useless and is super noisy....the Maxxfan will be a great upgrade!






More mods to come.....

Hodakaguy.

 

First Mod is to replace the rear window on the door with one you can actually see out of. Not sure who thought it was a good idea to use a window made of bathroom glass in a camper lol.

We found a replacement window with a built in shade on Amazon for $89. With the window in hand it's time for the installation.

Supplies used:

Note: The links below are my Amazon Affiliate links, I make a small portion each time someone purchases from Amazon using one of my links, at no extra cost to the buyer. I only provide links to items that I personally like and use myself. i use the money to put back into my builds and support making videos/posts. If you prefer not to use my links you can search for the same items directly off Amazon. Thank you for the support!

AP Products Slim Shade Window: CLICK HERE


The OEM frosted window.






New unit.




To remove the original window take a screw driver and push inward at each of the locking tab locations on the inner window frame. The screw driver will break the tabs releasing the inner frame. Once all the tabs are snapped carefully pry away the inner frame from the door.






Inner frame removed.




Remove the glass from the window then pry off the outer frame.



Remove any remaining sealant left behind from the frame.






Getting ready to install the new window. The frame comes with the sealant pre-applied and ready to install.








Window shade installed. It's a little tricky to hold the shade in place while you place the unit in the door.




Using some tape to hold the outer frame and glass in place while I install the inside frame.




The inside frame on the new window attaches via screws.




And done! Took about 30 minutes and now we have a usable window. Should have left the factory this way!












And it's not quite complete without an official Hodakaguy sticker lol.






Hodakaguy

 

Ventilation....or lack there of.

With the huge opening windows and a opening skylight as well you can get cross flow ventilation unmatched by most campers....but. When you close up the windows there is a serious lack of ventilation. The YOHO came with a small round powered vent fan that is super noisy and flows little air, it's basically worthless. Time to fix that! We planned on installing a Maxxfan 7500 from the time we purchased the camper. The 7500 flows a lot of air, it's super quiet, it's reverable, can be left open in the rain or while driving and has an automatic setting that will turn itself on/off based on the setpoint you program into the remote. I have the same fans in my van and love them!

Supplies used:

Note: The links below are my Amazon Affiliate links, I make a small portion each time someone purchases from Amazon using one of my links, at no extra cost to the buyer. I only provide links to items that I personally like and use myself. i use the money to put back into my builds and support making videos/posts. If you prefer not to use my links you can search for the same items directly off Amazon. Thank you for the support!

Maxxfan 7500: CLICK HERE
Sikaflex 221: CLICK HERE
Dicor Self Leveling Lap Sealant (2 tubes): CLICK HERE


Here you can see a couple things. One is the worthless small round vent fan on the left rear of the camper, the second is a bubble on the roof. The bubble is a delamination between the fiberglass/foam on the roof panel where the glue has failed, a defect from original construction. I noticed the De-lam when we were purchasing the camper but as luck would have it the De-lam is located right where I planned on installing the Maxxfan...perfect!




I'll be tapping into the LED light wiring to power the fan. Here I'm disassembling the light to gain access to the wiring.






Laying out the location to cut in the hole for the fan. The hole will remove about 95% of the De-lam.






Here I've taped a bag to the ceiling to catch debris while cutting the hole.




Here I've drilled a hole in each inside corner to get a start with the jigsaw.








I used a round file to round the inner corners of the hole, you don't want sharp edges as they cab cause cracks.




The remaining portion of the Delamination is visible now.




I couldn't have picked a better cut line, the edge of the hole exposed the wiring for the light and didn't even knick it! Sweet!






Here I'm making a pencil line where the fan base flange will set so I can sand/prep this area for install.






Time to fix the Delamination. I'll be gluing the De-lam back down with Loctite EA E-30CL structural epoxy.






Here I'm Injecting the epoxy into the void then clamping it down solid to cure for 24hrs.










24 hrs later and the roof is like new again.






Screw holes for the fan base drilled.




Lightly sanding the mounting surface.




I'm using Sikaflex 221 adhesive/Sealant to seal the fan base to the roof. 221 stays elastic and holds up extremely well to vibrations etc.










Here I'm filling a syringe with some 221 to apply around the edge of the fan base.










Red Caps are great for re-sealing open caulking tubes.








Marking the inner trim ring depth so it can be cut to size.










Wiring spliced in.




Trim ring installed.




Several days after installing the fan base I'm applying Dicor lap sealant as another layer of added protection and to keep UV off the Sikaflex 221.






















And inside.
















Last step was to mount the remote. I used 3M safe release adhesive strips to mount the remote holder to the wall near the bed, easy reach if you want to change the fan in the middle of the night.












Hodakaguy

 

Fridge clearance.

The door on the fridge hits the window frame when you open it, so you end up having to slide the fridge over away from the wall. But the next time you go to use it the fridge has worked its way back against the wall again and you have to slide it back once more. Time for a fix.




Fridge removed to gain access to the wall.




I'll be installing these rubber bumpers on the wall to rest up against the fridge and push the fridge out a bit.




A bit of Sikaflex 221 will keep the bumpers in place and reinforce the screw in the fiberglass wall panel.




I measured the fridge and installed the bumpers where they would not come in contact with the air vents on the fridge.








At this point I test fit the fridge and it was just on the edge of clearing...a bit more clearance would he nice. To gain the extra bit of clearance I applied adhesive felt pads to the side of the fridge at the locations where the rubber bumpers will rest. Perfect, about a 1/4" of clearance now between the fridge lid and the window frame...and the fridge is locked in rock solid!












Hodakaguy

 

Project Overkill! - Stronger tie down points.

We have our YOHO on a 2012 Tacoma which uses the plastic/composite bed. The OEM tie downs just don't give us a warm fuzzy feeling as they are small and only attach into the plastic/fiberglass itself. When tightening down the straps you can see the tie down points flex with the bed....time for a fix.

I decided to make some tie down units that will be stronger than anything we will ever bolt to them. My tie down brackets utilize the lower OEM bolt that secures the bed to the truck, the bolts go through the bracket and directly into the frame. Then I added two more bolts that go through the side of the bed like the OEM tie downs except with larger bolts and a lot larger backing plates. My father tig welded the shackles onto the brackets and they were ready for paint.

We utilized material we already had around the shop, which turned out to be 3/8" steel (larger than needed) but we already had it so Bob's your uncle!


OEM tie down point. This just won't do.




4" wide by 3/8" thick flat bar. Overkill but it's what I have on hand so it will do!




Pieces cut to size.






Here I'm getting ready to bend the flat bar into shape and wanted to make a quick gauge for the bend. I removed the bolt holding the bed onto the frame and bent a piece of tig rod into shape.








Laying out the bend points.






I planned on heating the strap with a torch and making the bend in my vice buy my Oxegen regulator failed right as I was starting....dang! Well I have access to a large press so I packed up and headed across town to bend them on the press.

Starting the bend.








Checking the bend...nope more to go still so back in the press.






One done....and two done.






Test fitting.....fits perfect.




Drilling holes.








Making sure I got the hole drilled in the correct location. Yep, still fits perfectly.




Rounding the corners. Once marked I use the Portaband to remove most of the material, then over to the sander to give it the final touch and clean it up.












One side assembled and ready to weld.






My dad working his magic with the tig torch.












All welded out.






Final test fit.




Fabricating the backing plates out of 1/8" steel.






Backing plates drilled and test fit. Ready for paint and final install.




Drilling the holes in the bed for the side mounting bolts.






Here using a reemer to clean up the inside and outside edges of the holes.






Applying Anti-sieze to the stainless bolts that will go through the sides of the mounts.




Mounts installed and bolted in place. You can see the size difference between my backing plate and the OEM tie down backing plate.






Custom front mounts installed and ready for use!
















This setup is exponentially stronger than the straps that the camper will be held down with......Project Overkill Complete!

Next up I'll be installing bed braces on the rear of the bed that will also double as camper mounts. Stay tuned.

Hodakaguy

 

Time to update the rear hold down points.

For the rear I ordered the Total Chaos bed stiffeners, they are very well made and tie into the frame with the bed bolts like the mounts I built for the front. The braces came well packed and ready to install with all hardware.

Supplies used:

Note: Some of the links below are my Amazon Affiliate links, I make a small portion each time someone purchases from Amazon using one of my links, at no extra cost to the buyer. I only provide links to items that I personally like and use myself. i use the money to put back into my builds and support making videos/posts. If you prefer not to use my links you can search for the same items directly off Amazon. Thank you for the support!

2" BoatBuckle G2 Straps: CLICK HERE
SikaFlex 221: CLICK HERE
Tailgate camera: CLICK HERE
Bed Stiffeners: CLICK HERE
De-burring Tool: CLICK HERE
3M VHB Tape: CLICK HERE
Snap tie Mounts: CLICK HERE
Braided Split Loom: CLICK HERE




The OEM rear tie down point, shown next to the new bed stiffeners.






Build quality is top notch.






Here I've bolted the brace in place and I'm drilling the three new mounting holds down the side. You remove the OEM tie down and the bed hold down bolt, both of these locations will mount through the new brace.




With the tail light removed you can access the back side of the holes that were just drilled.




Using my de-burring tool to clean up the edges of the holes.




Painting the bare metal edges of the holes.




For extra rust protection I added a bit of Sikaflex 221 around the holes on each side of the metal.








Brace bolted in place. The mounts fit perfectly and will offer a much improved solid anchor point for the camper.












Next up.....Upgrade the tie down straps.

The auto retracting straps that come with the camper are 1" straps and rated for 466 lb working load and 1400 lb break strength. I'm sure they are adequate and I haven't read anyone having any issues with them but a bit more margin of security would be welcome. I ordered some 2" straps that have a 833 lb working load and 2500 lb break strength. These units are super easy to install, just unbolt the original units and bolt these in place.




New vs old.






The metal on the ratchet mechanism/frame is substantially thicker on the 2" than 1" unit.






Out with the old and in with the new.
















Next up....Backup camera.

The back up camera on the Tacoma is built into the tailgate so once you remove the tailgate your left without a backup camera. We could remove the unit from the tailgate and make a mount for it but it's a pain to swap back and forth. To fix this we ordered an aftermarket plug and play camera that we will mount onto the camper, this setup will make installing/removing the camper quick and easy as we just have to unplug/plug each camera in.

The new camera arrived with a license plate mount.






The license plate is right below the entrance to the camper and it would just be a matter of time before a miss placed foot takes out the camera. After looking over the camper a bit I decided to modify the existing bracket and mount the camera directly to the camper itself.

Here I'm bending one side of the mount, I added an offset into the mount to clear the edge of the corner piece on the camper.








With the bracket bend into shape I cut off the opposite side of the mount and painted the bare metal edge.






Applying 3M VHB tape to the mount.








We are mounting the camera off center and under the lip of the camper, just to the right of the propane storage locker.








i ran the wiring through some braided protective loom then used snap ties to secure the wiring to the camper.












The wide angle camera works great, the camera is slightly off center so the guidance lines may be off a bit.




An the camper is now secure with stronger straps and stronger tie downs. We now have a much better warm fuzzy feeling hauling the camper around.












Hodakaguy

 

Time for a mattress upgrade!

The 3" mattress that came in the YOHO is waaaaaay to firm for our liking, making for an uncomfortable sleep. We ordered up a 5" Gel/Memory Foam mattress in Medium Firm and set to work installing it.

Supplies used:

Note: Some of the links below are my Amazon Affiliate links, I make a small portion each time someone purchases from Amazon using one of my links, at no extra cost to the buyer. I only provide links to items that I personally like and use myself. i use the money to put back into my builds and support making videos/posts. If you prefer not to use my links you can search for the same items directly off Amazon. Thank you for the support!

FDW 5" Mattress: CLICK HERE
3M 90 Glue: CLICK HERE
Electric Bread Knife: CLICK HERE


The stock YOHO Mattress.




Removing the original mattress from the cover. The cover is well built and we will modify/re-use this cover with the new mattress.




New vs Old. You can see that the fire blanket on the OEM mattress is coming unglued. I'm betting they are ordering mattresses, removing the fire blanket, cutting the foam to fit and re-gluing the fire blanket back into place.




Here I'm doing the same process I just described, I've cut open the fire blanket so I can remove it to cut the foam to size. The fire blanket will be re-installed and the seams glued back in place with a bit of 3M 90 after the foam is cut to size.




Using the old mattress as a template I traced the outline onto the new mattress.




An electric bread knife works great for cutting foam and leaves a nice clean cut.




Our cat kept wanting to attack the knife blades lol, had to keep her out of the way.






The new mattress is 1.75" thicker than the old unit.






With the mattress cut to size and the fire blanket re-installed it's time to get out the sewing machine and modify the cover. The cover is made to fit the stock 3" mattress and needs to have some material added to it to accept the new 5" mattress. We could have just put the new mattress in a new zip up RV mattress cover but the stock cover is very nice and matches the interior so we decided to modify/reuse it.




The bottom of the cover is vinyl, we will rip out the stitches and add the new material between the vinyl bottom and the upper cover.






Separated.




Cutting some filler material out of outdoor grey duck fabric. The solid grey should work well in this application.








I used seam tape to secure the new material to the vinyl bottom, this holds it in place and you sew right through the tape. Works sooooo nice!






And sewing it all back together.












And the cover back on the new mattress.












Unfortunately I started and ended on the front side of the mattress instead of the rear and ended up with a couple spots that bunched. Is what it is....Dang! Still new to this sewing stuff but it's fun learning. Luckily it will be covered with the sheets.




The new mattress is a LOT more comfortable than the original unit, well worth the upgrade!

Hodakaguy

 

Scout YOHO Fridge Hold Open Mod.

When opening the lid on the fridge the bed cushion keeps the lid from being able to stay open on its own, resulting in having to hold the lid open with one hand while loading the fridge with the other...not the most convenient setup. Time for a fix!

Supplies used:

Note: Some of the links below are my Amazon Affiliate links, I make a small portion each time someone purchases from Amazon using one of my links, at no extra cost to the buyer. I only provide links to items that I personally like and use myself. i use the money to put back into my builds and support making videos/posts. If you prefer not to use my links you can search for the same items directly off Amazon. Thank you for the support!

Door Stop: CLICK HERE
Adhesive Felt: CLICK HERE

Here's a photo of the stock setup. The cushion is close to the fridge, a limitation of maximizing space in such a small camper.




I'll be using this metal door stopper as the fridge door catch. The arm is 4" and the unit is nice and sturdy, it has indents that keep the arm in the up or out position....perfect!




Here I'm removing the end of the arm that holds the rubber foot. You could leave it as is and it would work the same but I prefer the more finished look that cutting it off provides.








Next I rounded the edges and painted the bare metal.




I added a piece of self adhesive felt to the back side to give the fridge door something soft to contact. The arm contacts the plastic door itself and not the seal on the door so there is no worries for damage.






Mounting up the new door catch.




And mounted! The unit looks great (Well in my opinion anyways lol) and is out of the way until needed. It's easily engaged with one hand (See video below) and is Waaaaay nicer than having to hold it open manually.






















Here's a quick video showing the fridge door in action both before and after the mod.




Hodakaguy

 

Just returned from a family road trip through NV. We had a great time chasing history, hunting ghost towns and soaking in all of the amazing views. We also jumped into CA a bit to check out the ghost town of Cerro Gordo. Soooo much to explore out there!

Waaaaaaay to many pics to post here. I have all the pics posted and arranged by day on my Facebook travel Page, feel free to join and follow along: Here's a few pics from the trip.


















Hodakaguy

 

Awesome write up! Thanks!

 

Nice write-up!

 

This is cool. When we lived in the southwest, we were dead-set on a wedge camper but now we're in the PNW, a hardside camper like this has us rethinking things.

I always appreciate your build writeups here and on ADV Rider and am always inspired by your attention to detail. Thanks for posting.

 

Very neat projects, I appreciate your detailed writeups and photos.

 

I went from "Dude, chill" to "WOW that's all there is to the OEM!?" in a hurry. Nice work!

 

this thread just made me late for a meeting. wow!!