4x4 Element Camper Project 2" Lift & Tiny Home Festival

Good morning everybody. So today is a very exciting day because little Leeloo here, the little Hodna element I've had for about five years now, is going to get the first major upgrade that it's gotten since I've had it. The plan is to build this little rig into a micro overlanding vehicle. Going to get a two inch lift in the front and an inch and a half lift in the rear of the car. Also going to be adding some heavier duty springs. Probably saw the jump cut. Couldn't say that right this morning for some reason. Plan is to be able to put a rooftop tent on this rig as well as build out the interior. So that's why we're doing the springs as well. I'm getting this done in Denver. So I'm heading to Denver bright and early this morning, and then over the weekend I will be attending a tiny home festival in Denver as well. I don't know what that's going to look like. That's more for the tiny home tour side of the business. I'll be prospecting potential brand partners and also seeing if anybody there would like to do a tour later on. We actually stopped doing tours at tiny home festivals, like at the festival itself, mainly because it just didn't look as good. And if we're able to line something up in the future, we will. Worst case scenario, maybe I could film a tour there, but the plan is to be back Sunday for date night and house of dragons. I'm actually pretty excited. This will be a multiple night trip in the Element. I will be staying at a hotel this evening because the that I'm taking the Element to to get the lift done, they will be holding on to it overnight. I'm actually going to be filming the lift. We are working with a brand partner on this video. This video is sponsored by Element Driven. So they are a company that has a lot of custom modifications for the Honda Element. When I first purchased this car, I had no idea of the secondary market of the Honda Element, like how people were converting them into campers. I just wanted something reliable, something that was solid and had enough room to store all the outdoor gear. You know, just a very versatile vehicle. But Element Driven is sponsoring this video. They did send this lift kit for free in exchange for shooting this video. So if you are interested in any type of Honda Element gear, be sure to check them out. But I have a very long drive. I'm about to plug in gotten a hotel and I am heading to the Colorado Tiny Home Festival here in Brighton, Colorado. So the goal is to get a lot of photos and videos for tiny home tours and hopefully the Element's done today. I'm very excited to see it. I've got a lot of logistics to figure out. The plan right now is to film at the Tiny Home Festival, get a call from the Element people, top edge, then get a lift to the car, snag the car, go back to the festival, film some more, and then back to the hotel. It is very hot in Denver right now. It's getting about up to 103. And I was just going to try sleeping in the Element, even though it might be a little toasty. But the issue is if I did do that, then I would have all my gear with me. I didn't think that went through. But waiting on the lift right now, heading to the festival. Alright, so this is the Colorado Tiny Home Festival and I will show you some of the rigs. Got here a little bit early. One, to beat the heat a little bit. It's supposed to be over 100 today. And also, once everybody gets here, you can't really get too much video. Like it's just about every rig is just swarmed with people, which is that's why the festival is here. But also just making contacts with tiny home tours, meeting people, kind of hanging out with the community. So I'll show you some of these rigs. So to be honest, there's a sweet spot with these festivals when I'm doing this for tiny home tours. Right now, everybody is probably just exhausted from talking to everybody yesterday, taking their chill time, having their coffees. But I need to get some footage before everybody else shows up. So there's like this half an hour, 45 minute gap to where I'm actually able to get the filming done, which makes it a little difficult. But it seems like everything that you do, whether it be tiny home stuff or any type of custom work, there's always that balancing act that you got to get figured out. But as you can see, lots of cool skoolies. This one is in the process of being built. So he just has the shell done, insulation, a little bit of wiring. This one's really cool. A couple retired hitting the road. You have everything from the skoolies to custom builds like that to the overland vehicles, lots of camper vans, some renovated Airstream. It's not an Airstream, I believe it's a Spartan. And then you have the traditional tinies. But let me see if I can get some footage before everybody gets there and it gets too hot. So just giving you a little example of what these tiny home festivals are like. Typically they'll have pictures of the build, the process. I'm just going to show you the electrical back here. Typically people will have stuff like this open, so people can check it out and how they did it. This particular rig has a backup generator as well. It is a raised roof school bus. John Luke on the tiny home tours team has a bus similar to this, so I sent him a photo just as motivation, just to see how the process works. I was chatting with the owner and he was talking about how fortunate he felt to be able to pull this off, the place to do it, how much work it takes. And it's good for people to hear that and see that. So this is the interior. As you can see with the dark and the light and stainless mix. It's a bus designed to my particular style. I like the dark, I like the stainless, but people are able to come into these places and get a really good idea of design ideas. They can talk to the owners, talk about the process of getting it done. If they enjoy having a bathroom, if they enjoy their particular toilet, the composting toilet is really that easy. The owner of this bus, him and his wife, I believe they are retiring. So this is their retire travel explore vehicle. A little tv up there as well. And it's just a really cool build. And people get to come in, like I said, they get to talk to people, they get to get an idea of what it's like even driving these things. Like what to look for for engines, all that good stuff. And once they're done with this rig, then they can just go off into another rig and talk to the other owners. See if they might want a camper van. Skoolie. There's a couple cargo trailer conversions here too. A freaking wagon, you know. So that's the draw to tiny home festivals and it makes a lot of sense. I mean for me personally, I wouldn't have done a raised roof school bus if I didn't go to the Texas Tiny Home Festival on the way picking up my bus and meeting Wes in person for the first time and seeing his raised roof school bus. When I saw his bus, that's when I made the decision to go ahead and take a leap and try it. Alright, so this particular tiny home is the Veterans Community Project. I'll link the original video we did about four years ago. This is a really cool project. They are housing homeless vets. So this entire unit is built specifically for vets. And just to give you an example, the bed is low to the ground for if the veteran happens to have a nightmare. Won't fall out of bed. So they really built this and designed this for veterans in mind. Homeless vets and they're going to have a family unit coming fairly soon. We're going to have somebody head out and document that family unit. We won't show the actual family living in the tiny home, but one of their staff will walk us through it, how they designed it, their project, and then links for donations and all that good stuff. So it's a super cool project and I'm excited to see the next iteration of that project. So this is an example of a traditional tiny. This is actually one that a couple lives in. He does woodworking, so he built this just so they could have something on the road other than an RV. They have a loft up here. So that's their bedroom. Big old TV up there. Very beautiful build. So he is just a carpenter full-time on the road instead of getting an RV. This was a better option for them. As a lot of you know, I had an RV for a little bit and when it comes down to build quality, when you do it yourself, it's definitely a lot better. Their bathroom is back here. This is a shower. Looks like they have an incinerating toilet, which I'm seeing a lot of people transition to. They have a washer and dryer. Beautiful kitchen area. I assume that's pantry, fridge, little prep area, and then hangout area with their couch right here. Thankfully, they have a mini split. Like a lot of people that came to this festival, because it's so hot in Denver right now, if they didn't have a mini split, they did not come. I think yesterday got up to 103 here. Crazy stuff. But this is an example of one of the traditional tiny homes. I think this is the only one of someone actually living in their traditional tiny. A lot of builders here. So we're actually going to see if we can coordinate a tour with Tiny Home Tours for this. They're going to be in Colorado for a little bit. And that's another side of networking at tiny home festivals. You get to meet people that are going to be traveling around in their tiny home and try and coordinate a tour with them. So very cool build. Could definitely live in this thing. And the drive angles on everything should be the same as OE, because we lowered the differential, we lowered the driveline, we lowered everything up front the exact same amount. So you should have, I mean, there really should be no issues. Cool. Yeah, I'm excited to see what she looks like. a city with all that traffic and all those people. I don't know if I'm just becoming an old curmungeon or something. But man, I love being out in the country, just with the neighbors that I know, hanging out and doing my own thing. But overall, I am very glad that I made it to Denver, both the lift of the element as well as going to the tiny home festival with the lift of the element. I am glad I took it to a mechanic. It took the shop two and a half days to get the lift done. And the reason for that is for my element, the aluminum bolts that connect to the front of the vehicle, they were all seized and the mechanic had to spend a lot of time getting those out. I think that's just taking this thing back in the backcountry is just really dirty and dusty. And he had a hard time with that. So it took a little bit extra time. The lift kit itself, he said everything went in smooth. He was very happy with it. And being that it took him so long to get that done and the issues with the aluminum bolts to the metal on the frame of my car, I am very glad I did not attempt to do this myself. This car would not be put back together in a very long time. But like I said, he really liked the lift kit. Thanks to element driven once again for sending that over to us to get this done. I am getting very excited about turning this little thing into my camper whenever we hit the road this fall. Sorry, I had to readjust my camera there. It's going around and turning the camera is going crazy. I am very excited to get this completely done as my little mini camper. There's so many cool attachments and add-ons that you can do to these elements. And I'm 90, 95% sure this fall into winter when Linnea and I head out of Colorado, this will be my main rig. I probably won't get one of those mini buses back, just go smaller, better miles to the gal and just convert this little guy or this little gal into just a micro camper. When it comes down to the tiny home festival, another aspect to my trip here, I am very glad that I went to that tiny home festival, made some awesome connections for tiny home tours. We got a lot of cool tours lined up. I believe we'll see how that turns out. I got to see Art, the director of the tiny home festival. Again, I haven't seen him for a couple of years. Last time I was at one of these festivals filming, I was still in the middle of the roof raise of Zep2. So it's been a while since I got to see him, catch up with him and also just meet the different people there that were doing the conversions, living tiny. It's just really cool being around all those like-minded people. So overall, I am glad that I came to Denver. You know, decent drive, four hours, bouncing around hotel rooms. You know, sometimes that can be a pain, but it was absolutely worth it. But I am excited to get back. Linnea and I have date night tonight, house of dragons, all that good stuff. So still have a decent amount of driving left, but the elements driving fine. It is taking me a little bit to get used to. I'm used to this car being a certain height. So there's been many times to where I have stepped out of this car and kind of stumbled over myself because it's kind of like steps. Like if you're used to a particular height of steps and then you either go with lower or higher steps, it might mess you up a little bit. Same with this car, stepping out of it, used to the ground being somewhere and it's not there anymore. I love the look of it and I'm very excited to take this element back out. The next video will probably be me and the pups because Linnea is heading out of town and we are going to take this back on a bit of a tricky road and see how it performs with the lift. Do a couple nights out there fishing, hiking, doing some shed hunting. So I'm excited for that and just want to say thank all of you for watching. Really do appreciate it and also thanks once again to Element Driven for sending this awesome lift kit and helping me get this element ready to be a little micro camper. We'll catch you next week.