jjohnny350
Adventurer
Nice work, that things looking good. Jealous of all that space in there. Really cool build youve got going. I love the flexibility of it, another reason vans are so cool. Keep it up and thanks for the pictures and explanations.
Vanimal: 4x4 Sprinter build
- Thread starter Kgorman
- Start date
Finatic Angler
Adventurer
Very nice so far!
They fold up, so maybe under one of the couches, if not there then on the not yet installed roof rack
mk216v
Der Chef der Fahrzeuge
They fold up, so maybe under one of the couches, if not there then on the not yet installed roof rack
Good tinkin'!
Doc Foster
Adventurer
Very nice setup!
The last few weeks have been crazy. I got v1 of vanimal done and we took off on our adventure. We hit New Mexico, AZ, Utah, NV, and finally Tahoe, CA. Lots of driving, dirt roads, dispersed camping, rain, all of it awesome. The sprinter has been awesome. I would however have traded my left nut for one of those diesel heaters. It's been cold. The Casette toilet has been a game changer
I have a list of things I would like to do, and wish MB had done.
We start the return trip in a few days. Should be awesome.
I will post a detailed review/report in a week or so.
I have a list of things I would like to do, and wish MB had done.
We start the return trip in a few days. Should be awesome.
I will post a detailed review/report in a week or so.
Almost 5000 miles, 6 states, dirt roads, 4x4 roads, freezing temps, sand storms, 50-60mph gusting winds, rain! fog! sleet! snow, ice, backroads to interstates this trip saw it all! So glad to be home safe, what an adventure. I am capturing my thoughts before I forget, and will upload pics tomorrow. Here is my review of *my* setup:
4x4: while sometimes difficult to engage, it works excellent for both safe foul weather travel and light off-road duty. I found that what I do is stop before we hit the bad stuff, put it in park, hold the brake and switch it on. Even though this isn't the procedure in the owners manual it seems to work best and be the safest. We did have an incident where the road got icy quick, we pulled off to engage it. I wish it could engage at say below 20mph. Once engaged it works really nicely, I could drive with confidence on slippery roads, not like my Audi, but nothing matches the Quattro. On 4x4 roads, low gear works well, braking a slipping wheel in a psuedo-locker type action. Not a locker, but not terrible, it worked fine. I had a rig full of stuff so I wasn't doing anything extreme, but we did get a wheel in the air so...
ASR: this works as designed. We needed it in the snow, where we would get slightly out of attitude and it would brake a single wheel to correct things. I could have driven through it, but I was glad it was there in the middle of the night on a cold backroad with a rig o' kids sleeping. It *really really* worked great in the wind. The wind stability feature is no joke. The Sprinter is obviously a giant sail, and we were in Western NV during a crazy *** wind storm with 50-60MPH gusts on a 2 lane road. Anyone been there? Holy crap it's scary, just as you adjust the wheel to the wind resistance, the gust stops and you swerve. On a two lane road, this is really scary. The ASR would kick in both during a gust and to help correct the oversteer as the gust let up. Very very effective and a great safety feature.
Tires: I fitted Toyo Open County MT2's before the trip. They proved amazing in the snow, ice, and dirt. I really like them. I am sure other brands work well too, but my advice would be to get a bit of an aggressive tread like these have if you plan off-road. I ran about 50PSI hot and that seemed to work just about everywhere pretty well. I didn't need to air down at any point.
The Van: needs steps for front doors, the locking switches suck so bad, the wiper sprayers suck, the fuel tank is 50% too small. Get the comfort seats, the stockers hurt after long hours. Defrost works awesome, and the HVAC system cools and heats most of the van while driving really well. Always back into parking spots (170"). Big Rig diesel nozzles fit, so you can hit the commercial queue to fuel if you want. I don't think mine is speed governed. The stock stereo is useless, I almost left it in AZ. A full size iPad fits perfect when propped against the flip up center compartment. You can see into big rigs it's so tall, this is not a good thing.
People either hate you or think you are rad when you roll up in your own diesel 4x4 sprinter rig setup. Most people have questions, I try to chat and spread the gospel. Other sprinter folks waive, I waive now. There where like 6 other adventure sprinters in Tahoe besides us. Off the line you can smoke a Ford Focus, while the kids cheer you on. Just sayin'.
The side door 1/2 stop feature should be mandatory, we don't have it but I wish we did. It needs a light bar, needs one. If the second row was just another 6" farther back it would have saved us tons of grief moving around, but it's perfect for 'attending' to kids as they melt down. I need a backup camera. Why the hell is there not front and rear recovery points? The gauges suck, I need a scan gauge.
mods: the mods I did for v1.0 turned out awesome, mostly. First of all the RBComponents stuff is tight. No problems, just worked. The fold down couch/bed conversion setup is super comfy for sleeping. The wall panels looked good, where durable, and no creaking.
I rigged air and a corney keg for water, this proved awesome. I would pressurize the keg with 5gallons of filtered water in it. Then we could spray it for dishes, cleaning kids, filling water bottles, brushing teeth, cooking, all of it. So easy and awesome. The Thetford porta potty was a game changer. Both kids used it a ton, and I can say during the trip we potty trained our 3 year old because it was so 'fun'. We would simply pull off an offramp or onto a side road when the kids had to go, it saved a ton of time, and we could ensure it was more hygienic and safe than random roadside bathrooms.
The goal zero 400 kept the kindles charged so kids didn't fight, worth it's weight in gold. We did pull it out to light up our camp with the goal zero lights during a rain storm. The goal zero stuff is solid. Two weeks, two dogs, 4 people and you van smells. Serious, it smells, the fantastic-fan was a life saver. It was cold as crap most nights so we didn't run it at night.
Organization: this is one area we iterated on the most. Ultimately we realized everything must have its own place. If you have to move things around, essentially repacking each day you will go insane and you will end up single because you will say some dumb *** rude **** to your wife because you are mad at having to repack each day and get behind schedule. My advice is to organize like a OCD nutcase before you leave so everything has a place, it may save the trip and your marriage. Serious. We used Bosch Boxx cases to hold stuff, but any 'system' would work, like Pelicans, Action Packers, etc. I put down L-track and we used it a lot.
Lastly, OMFG if we had the ability to start it via remote. Kids getting strapped into cold car seats tend to wig.
Seriously, I have zero regrets. This rig treated us right and got us across country safety and in style. We loved our trip and look forward to putting more serious miles on it. I won't upload a pic of it as it sits now, it's shredded. Such a mess. great purchase.
4x4: while sometimes difficult to engage, it works excellent for both safe foul weather travel and light off-road duty. I found that what I do is stop before we hit the bad stuff, put it in park, hold the brake and switch it on. Even though this isn't the procedure in the owners manual it seems to work best and be the safest. We did have an incident where the road got icy quick, we pulled off to engage it. I wish it could engage at say below 20mph. Once engaged it works really nicely, I could drive with confidence on slippery roads, not like my Audi, but nothing matches the Quattro. On 4x4 roads, low gear works well, braking a slipping wheel in a psuedo-locker type action. Not a locker, but not terrible, it worked fine. I had a rig full of stuff so I wasn't doing anything extreme, but we did get a wheel in the air so...
ASR: this works as designed. We needed it in the snow, where we would get slightly out of attitude and it would brake a single wheel to correct things. I could have driven through it, but I was glad it was there in the middle of the night on a cold backroad with a rig o' kids sleeping. It *really really* worked great in the wind. The wind stability feature is no joke. The Sprinter is obviously a giant sail, and we were in Western NV during a crazy *** wind storm with 50-60MPH gusts on a 2 lane road. Anyone been there? Holy crap it's scary, just as you adjust the wheel to the wind resistance, the gust stops and you swerve. On a two lane road, this is really scary. The ASR would kick in both during a gust and to help correct the oversteer as the gust let up. Very very effective and a great safety feature.
Tires: I fitted Toyo Open County MT2's before the trip. They proved amazing in the snow, ice, and dirt. I really like them. I am sure other brands work well too, but my advice would be to get a bit of an aggressive tread like these have if you plan off-road. I ran about 50PSI hot and that seemed to work just about everywhere pretty well. I didn't need to air down at any point.
The Van: needs steps for front doors, the locking switches suck so bad, the wiper sprayers suck, the fuel tank is 50% too small. Get the comfort seats, the stockers hurt after long hours. Defrost works awesome, and the HVAC system cools and heats most of the van while driving really well. Always back into parking spots (170"). Big Rig diesel nozzles fit, so you can hit the commercial queue to fuel if you want. I don't think mine is speed governed. The stock stereo is useless, I almost left it in AZ. A full size iPad fits perfect when propped against the flip up center compartment. You can see into big rigs it's so tall, this is not a good thing.
People either hate you or think you are rad when you roll up in your own diesel 4x4 sprinter rig setup. Most people have questions, I try to chat and spread the gospel. Other sprinter folks waive, I waive now. There where like 6 other adventure sprinters in Tahoe besides us. Off the line you can smoke a Ford Focus, while the kids cheer you on. Just sayin'.
The side door 1/2 stop feature should be mandatory, we don't have it but I wish we did. It needs a light bar, needs one. If the second row was just another 6" farther back it would have saved us tons of grief moving around, but it's perfect for 'attending' to kids as they melt down. I need a backup camera. Why the hell is there not front and rear recovery points? The gauges suck, I need a scan gauge.
mods: the mods I did for v1.0 turned out awesome, mostly. First of all the RBComponents stuff is tight. No problems, just worked. The fold down couch/bed conversion setup is super comfy for sleeping. The wall panels looked good, where durable, and no creaking.
I rigged air and a corney keg for water, this proved awesome. I would pressurize the keg with 5gallons of filtered water in it. Then we could spray it for dishes, cleaning kids, filling water bottles, brushing teeth, cooking, all of it. So easy and awesome. The Thetford porta potty was a game changer. Both kids used it a ton, and I can say during the trip we potty trained our 3 year old because it was so 'fun'. We would simply pull off an offramp or onto a side road when the kids had to go, it saved a ton of time, and we could ensure it was more hygienic and safe than random roadside bathrooms.
The goal zero 400 kept the kindles charged so kids didn't fight, worth it's weight in gold. We did pull it out to light up our camp with the goal zero lights during a rain storm. The goal zero stuff is solid. Two weeks, two dogs, 4 people and you van smells. Serious, it smells, the fantastic-fan was a life saver. It was cold as crap most nights so we didn't run it at night.
Organization: this is one area we iterated on the most. Ultimately we realized everything must have its own place. If you have to move things around, essentially repacking each day you will go insane and you will end up single because you will say some dumb *** rude **** to your wife because you are mad at having to repack each day and get behind schedule. My advice is to organize like a OCD nutcase before you leave so everything has a place, it may save the trip and your marriage. Serious. We used Bosch Boxx cases to hold stuff, but any 'system' would work, like Pelicans, Action Packers, etc. I put down L-track and we used it a lot.
Lastly, OMFG if we had the ability to start it via remote. Kids getting strapped into cold car seats tend to wig.
Seriously, I have zero regrets. This rig treated us right and got us across country safety and in style. We loved our trip and look forward to putting more serious miles on it. I won't upload a pic of it as it sits now, it's shredded. Such a mess. great purchase.
Last edited:
Finatic Angler
Adventurer
Awesome news and update
mhiscox
Exp. Leader Emeritus
Thanks for taking the time to write the extensive review. Very nice to know the good and bad points.
I was particularly pleased to have your positive opinion on the crosswind correction. One of my memorable driving experiences was also a Nevada two-lane--probably the same one--with the same constant gale which had me driving a hundred miles with the wheel cranked 15 degrees to starboard. Bad enough, but whenever a semi passed and took the wind off the Sprinter, it'd dive to the center line, I'd straighten the wheel and then be zinged toward the ditch when the semi got passed. Heck of a couple of hours. I'd certainly be pleased to have some electronic wizardry to help out next time.
I was particularly pleased to have your positive opinion on the crosswind correction. One of my memorable driving experiences was also a Nevada two-lane--probably the same one
--with the same constant gale which had me driving a hundred miles with the wheel cranked 15 degrees to starboard. Bad enough, but whenever a semi passed and took the wind off the Sprinter, it'd dive to the center line, I'd straighten the wheel and then be zinged toward the ditch when the semi got passed. Heck of a couple of hours. I'd certainly be pleased to have some electronic wizardry to help out next time.I thought I would post an update.
We continue to use Vanimal for all sorts of adventures. It's been pretty good in V1.0 trim, but I have a couple mods I am going to make.
Initially I used Bosch Boxx organizers for storage, but we realized that we wanted something more permanently attached. Plus, we kept having to unstack the boxxes and restack them to get to our stuff. I saw here someone used a toolbox, so I went that route. Home Depot has Husky brand boxes in just about every dimension. I purchased a 34" wide unit and it fits perfectly. I was worried about it moving around or flying around if there was an accident. I ended up running 5/8" braided steel cable over two factory tie down points then up through the holes in the box where the casters mount, joining them with a couple U clamps. I am very sure if the van rolls or has a crash the tool box will stay put. I plan to inlay a bucher block top on it. This gives us a nice stand up workstation area that we didn't have before, and really needed.
We also figured out we all like to sleep on the bottom bunk much better. For the time being, the whole family fits and is comfortable. I have been on a couple trips to our ranch and slept solo and it was awesome.
I added a Aluminess light bar. It's nice looking, but the mounting is very flimsy as they have you install it. I plan to pull it off and re-do it with an eye towards being a bit more rigid. I plan to throw a Baja Designs light bar on there.
I am a little bummed that the goal zero 400 doesn't have enough capacity to run my Mr Coffee. I need a huge capacity french press. ;-)
Here are some more pics:
We continue to use Vanimal for all sorts of adventures. It's been pretty good in V1.0 trim, but I have a couple mods I am going to make.
Initially I used Bosch Boxx organizers for storage, but we realized that we wanted something more permanently attached. Plus, we kept having to unstack the boxxes and restack them to get to our stuff. I saw here someone used a toolbox, so I went that route. Home Depot has Husky brand boxes in just about every dimension. I purchased a 34" wide unit and it fits perfectly. I was worried about it moving around or flying around if there was an accident. I ended up running 5/8" braided steel cable over two factory tie down points then up through the holes in the box where the casters mount, joining them with a couple U clamps. I am very sure if the van rolls or has a crash the tool box will stay put. I plan to inlay a bucher block top on it. This gives us a nice stand up workstation area that we didn't have before, and really needed.
We also figured out we all like to sleep on the bottom bunk much better. For the time being, the whole family fits and is comfortable. I have been on a couple trips to our ranch and slept solo and it was awesome.
I added a Aluminess light bar. It's nice looking, but the mounting is very flimsy as they have you install it. I plan to pull it off and re-do it with an eye towards being a bit more rigid. I plan to throw a Baja Designs light bar on there.
I am a little bummed that the goal zero 400 doesn't have enough capacity to run my Mr Coffee. I need a huge capacity french press. ;-)
Here are some more pics:
