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No problems; no hint of problems. But we never had any water intrusion and all bets would be off if you had leaky windows or poorly-sealed penetrations of the shell. We used paper-based insulation, with lots of places that the fiberglass was stuffed into nooks and crannies without backing.

Those are damn fine questions, Jon, but in this country, we're lucky to even know the size options. Dometic, the US distributor, has proven notoriously unhelpful and inefficient, and we've had trouble even buying Any units from them. One Portal member bought a palette of Chinese equivalents...

No problems at all. Because of the way our camper was extensively trimmed out on the inside, using thicker stuff was no problem. If it was a van with just the stock Sprinter plastic wall panels and stock headliner, it would be too thick and you'll want to use an alternative.

Thanks for the helpful responses, gentlemen. Since the possibility of it being a seating area, too, was important to my plan, I think I'll likely give it a pass and make other arrangements.

Thanks for the great pictures, Scott. And thanks for showing a Gear Up on knobbies and dirt. That don't happen as much as it should, and it's good to see it getting dialed in. :clapsmile:

You, son, are a genius. Who the heck would want a 3.5 inch thick composite box when they could have a camper that measures its wall thickness in metal gauge? :sombrero:

But those wouldn't don't have the blinds between the glazing, as the OP had. I've seen the sandwiched blinds in residential windows (search for integral or interstitial blinds), but not an RV. Sounds trick.

I just bought a Sprinter cargo van to replace my long-time Sprinter overlander I sold last year, and I'm planning to use it while I take my time designing and building another (undoubtedly overdone ;) ) camper, probably out of the redesigned 2014 Sprinter, or possibly the new Transit (T-250) van...

Finishing up . . . Just a few leftover things to mention: There's an upper bed, and it's bigger (30" x 76") and more comfortable than the lower bed. As you face the nose cone looking forward, the streetside 60% is open, with very heavy duty (500 lb, IIRC) drawer slides running front to back...

No, no . . . don't miss my point. The wiring shown above looks the way it does because mine was a close-to-prototype vehicle, only the third XV-JP ever done and built while lots about the design was still in flux. I was trying to moderate some of the criticism against GXV by proposing that when...

IIRC, he's routinely in the upper teens whereas 14 is good for me. Probably 4-5 mpg better with the diesel.

And some more: Just above, there's mention of the Fantastic vent fan installed in the curbside cabin wall. I've got mixed feelings about ER's decision to include this. It works well enough, particularly if you use it to pull air through the cabin from the rear window. But it's pretty sizable...

Here's something you don't see every day: Nope, that's not my "Northwest Edition" XV-JP. It's Martin Wright's "Antipodes Edition." Martin has had an XV-JP as long as I have, and his is silver, too. But one thing he has that I don't have is that yellow Jerry can full of diesel on the rear...

Thanks for the very nice compliments, John. Coming from someone with your experience and attributes, they're particularly appreciated. With this revised design, this probably would have been a good truck for you to have taken down to Panama. And I've got it now so we can hang mosquito netting...

It is indeed a Fantastic vent fan, no different than in the roof of a zillion RVs. It is installed so that the hinge for the vent is to the top, and given that there is a lip all the way around the cover, it doesn't leak. However, one thing about hinging it this way is that you could stick your...

I absolutely agree. I think they ae now a couple hundred XV-LTs on the road and the many benefits of serial production have kicked in. Spec'ing and supervising the builds of one-off campers can be fun and gratifying--about as much fun as anything I've done, actually--though you pay for the...

And some more: The XV-JP originally had this interior: with the chest refrigerator and the Thetford cassette curbside and a set of storage cubes on a shelf on streetside, along with the sink. The fabric cubes seemed a workable storage system when I bought the truck, but it wasn't long before...

They're setting a fantastic example for us all. Their outstanding attitude in the face of continued problems is, sad to say, considerably better than I've managed when things fell apart on my much-less-epic trips. I'm going to try hard to remember their poise when broken down thousands of miles...

Ummm . . . so this unlabeled, undiagrammed sprawl is some of the wiring and pneumatic plumbing in my XV-JP, the third one built. And the owners of the earliest XV-LTs have lots of stories, too. But let's keep it all in perspective. I'm not defending shoddy practice--and I've seen plenty...

Thanks for the compliments about the rig, and for raising the issue about the cost. Yes, for a variety of reasons, it'd be significantly less expensive to build this design than ER's original. However, to make it a profitable venture, someone (not me, though I sure thought about it) would have...