Ace Vantura! ALLLLLLLLLLLRIGHTY then
- Thread starter ohpyramids
- Start date
Please pm me. I would like some 500 denier in tan for my seats.....Cool, I was just asking because i saw the upgraded leafs and fox shocks.
I'm sure once you get it loaded down with a few hundred pounds of weight it will smoothen out.
after i installed my rack & rtt on my truck it handles much better, but we're comparing apples to oranges.
Either way, awesome build!
Let me know if you need any fabric for the interior, i own one of the largest fabric stores on the west coast
Dragos28
Adventurer
I only carry 1000 denier (i'm assuming you're referring to Cordura)
jjohnny350
Adventurer
Wow, nice work, really appreciate all the details and thoughts/afterthoughts that you put in here for us and the pictures. I have been planning mine out for years and love all the information. Rad van, looks like youve put a lot of thought and into your build. UJOR is awesome, keep up the updates and its nice to dream through somebody elses build and see cool ideas. Thanks again.
ohpyramids
Adventurer
@sixinarow
heres a clip of the last time i parked my porsche... the last time ever hahahha
thanks jjohnny! im standing on the shoulders of giants. glad you're finding this helpful. theres a million ways to build a van, hopefully im working towards a good solution.
thanks jjohnny! im standing on the shoulders of giants. glad you're finding this helpful. theres a million ways to build a van, hopefully im working towards a good solution.
ohpyramids
Adventurer
Wall insulation was handled by a thinsulate and reflectix sandwich. I sent some pm's and eventually had a great phone call with hein at impact 3d in oregon. I quickly placed an order for a 30ft. roll of thinsulate. In addition to the big roll of reflectix and aluminum tape I already had, I felt well armed to insulate this cold cave. Everything was held in place with gaffers tape then sealed with the reflectix tape.
Dampening sound and panel vibrations will be handled by Stinger Roadkill material. It seemed to be the best product for the money. I was stoked that it's a non-asphalt based product that won't offgas when hot. I found Roadkill really easy to work with. The standard opinion from audio nerds is that you only need to cover about 30% of the panel to dampen noise. I ordered two cases off amazon and still have one case and one sheet after handling the rear of the van. I haven't addressed the front of cabin yet- so I think I'll be ok with the amount I have on hand. The other rad thing that I didn't really expect is that Roadkill also was pretty amazing at cutting thermal heat transfer as I'll show later.
Final bit of prep planning Lumber yard run:
5'x5' sheets of 3/4" baltic birch plywood
4'x8' sheets of 1/4" baltic birch plywood
4'x8' sheets of 1/2" prefinished baltic birch plywood
This shot shows locations of the Roadkill install.
Dampening sound and panel vibrations will be handled by Stinger Roadkill material. It seemed to be the best product for the money. I was stoked that it's a non-asphalt based product that won't offgas when hot. I found Roadkill really easy to work with. The standard opinion from audio nerds is that you only need to cover about 30% of the panel to dampen noise. I ordered two cases off amazon and still have one case and one sheet after handling the rear of the van. I haven't addressed the front of cabin yet- so I think I'll be ok with the amount I have on hand. The other rad thing that I didn't really expect is that Roadkill also was pretty amazing at cutting thermal heat transfer as I'll show later.
Final bit of prep planning Lumber yard run:
5'x5' sheets of 3/4" baltic birch plywood
4'x8' sheets of 1/4" baltic birch plywood
4'x8' sheets of 1/2" prefinished baltic birch plywood
This shot shows locations of the Roadkill install.
ohpyramids
Adventurer
I should probably backtrack a bit- to before the build got started. I had to install my garage! Needed to get my tools out of storage and my dirtbikes out of the weather. We just purchased a house, and theres no garage, so- with so many things happening at the same time, I went with the most cost effective method -an 8'x15' shipping container. 8x15 gets me into the “shed” vs “garage” zoning regulations of los angeles county- which means I can put it anywhere I want.
After delivery- myself and some strong friends managed to get it 30 ft. back into the yard using a cheapo come-a-long from home depot and some 4” cast iron pipes as rollers. Her final resting spot would be on a 2” gravel pad.
We got to use the van to pickup two 1200lb. bags of gravel at lowes. One was forklifted through the side and another through the back door.
Gotta love a woman who will get her hands dirty 
I sat in the van with a shovel and attacked the bag until it was light enough to tip over and pour out the rest of the contents out. It was very dusty, luckily there was no interior that really mattered.
The final 9'x16' pad.
Container delivery day! Garage on wheels.
The flatbed couldnt fit any deeper between the houses, so thats where the container was dropped.
villageidiot flexxing his welding skills. he made this ************ 4 ft. spike as a ground anchor for the come-a-long. it worked amazingly well. took a full days abuse of sledgehammer blows and high lateral loads from the come-a-long and 3000lb container.
Using a hi-Lift jack to lift a side of the container at a time, we were able to set it down onto pipes and get her to slide into the yard using a come-a-long. After we got the container in the zone, I Locked the van into 4x4 Low and tapped her home with the rear bumper.
villageidiot, myself, and longroadtonowhere basking in the glory of a hard days work and big task accomplished.
After delivery- myself and some strong friends managed to get it 30 ft. back into the yard using a cheapo come-a-long from home depot and some 4” cast iron pipes as rollers. Her final resting spot would be on a 2” gravel pad.
We got to use the van to pickup two 1200lb. bags of gravel at lowes. One was forklifted through the side and another through the back door.
Gotta love a woman who will get her hands dirty 
I sat in the van with a shovel and attacked the bag until it was light enough to tip over and pour out the rest of the contents out. It was very dusty, luckily there was no interior that really mattered.
The final 9'x16' pad.
Container delivery day! Garage on wheels.
The flatbed couldnt fit any deeper between the houses, so thats where the container was dropped.
villageidiot flexxing his welding skills. he made this ************ 4 ft. spike as a ground anchor for the come-a-long. it worked amazingly well. took a full days abuse of sledgehammer blows and high lateral loads from the come-a-long and 3000lb container.
Using a hi-Lift jack to lift a side of the container at a time, we were able to set it down onto pipes and get her to slide into the yard using a come-a-long. After we got the container in the zone, I Locked the van into 4x4 Low and tapped her home with the rear bumper.
villageidiot, myself, and longroadtonowhere basking in the glory of a hard days work and big task accomplished.
Last edited:
ohpyramids
Adventurer
the build:
time to start!
I decided to begin by adding carr hoop steps on all 3 doors. The 6” ujoint lift means we have a huge jump to get in and out. Tthese steps are deep enough to land in a really helpful area height wise. I decided on using the thinner steps up front, and the thicker step for the side door. Eventually, Id like to have sliders with some sort of step, but these hoops were fast to install and fit my budget. They are a huge help getting into the van, and the fiance loves em. Gotta keep her happy!
Next up was to start addressing the rusty floors for the second time. We have an east coast van. The rust is not nearly as bad as it could be, since she’s from southern virginia, but there were some problem areas I had to address in the floor. I hit some of these areas previously with an angle grinder and some junky autozone spray when I first discovered the rust, but it was never done right in my mind. This time I had a die grinder with some 40 grit, por15 and my Hobart hander 140 mig welder ready.
After disconnecting BOTH batteries, I got to work zapping the floor. I have welding experience , but this was a learning process since Ive never welded in vehicles and dont usually handle thin gauge steel. My hobart has a welding application chart- so I set the machine to 20ga steel which meant high wire speed and low voltage- and went for it.
Happy little welds overlapping to close a bolt hole.
Im not showing my unhappy little welds…hah
The magswitch clamp made it easy to jump around between welding sites so I didn't get too much heat in the panel. The clamp is really cool. You can twist the top knob to activate a magnet and the clamp securely attaches to a the steel to give you a 300 amp ground connection. I would have been very difficult to use a traditional ground clamp at so many points in the floor (i think).
You can see the small tacks around the edge of the holes that slowly built up the edges. Generally, things went pretty smooth. Between grinding and welding 3-4 holes at a time - I was able to make steady progress without putting too much heat in one part of the floor.
Since it's winter and the sun sets early at 5pm, I was trying to keep the grinding or sawing to a minimum after dark. I used the big tools outside during the day, and concentrated on quiet tasks like insulation at night.
Heres a shot of my work area:
time to start!
I decided to begin by adding carr hoop steps on all 3 doors. The 6” ujoint lift means we have a huge jump to get in and out. Tthese steps are deep enough to land in a really helpful area height wise. I decided on using the thinner steps up front, and the thicker step for the side door. Eventually, Id like to have sliders with some sort of step, but these hoops were fast to install and fit my budget. They are a huge help getting into the van, and the fiance loves em. Gotta keep her happy!
Next up was to start addressing the rusty floors for the second time. We have an east coast van. The rust is not nearly as bad as it could be, since she’s from southern virginia, but there were some problem areas I had to address in the floor. I hit some of these areas previously with an angle grinder and some junky autozone spray when I first discovered the rust, but it was never done right in my mind. This time I had a die grinder with some 40 grit, por15 and my Hobart hander 140 mig welder ready.
After disconnecting BOTH batteries, I got to work zapping the floor. I have welding experience , but this was a learning process since Ive never welded in vehicles and dont usually handle thin gauge steel. My hobart has a welding application chart- so I set the machine to 20ga steel which meant high wire speed and low voltage- and went for it.
Happy little welds overlapping to close a bolt hole.
Im not showing my unhappy little welds…hah
The magswitch clamp made it easy to jump around between welding sites so I didn't get too much heat in the panel. The clamp is really cool. You can twist the top knob to activate a magnet and the clamp securely attaches to a the steel to give you a 300 amp ground connection. I would have been very difficult to use a traditional ground clamp at so many points in the floor (i think).
You can see the small tacks around the edge of the holes that slowly built up the edges. Generally, things went pretty smooth. Between grinding and welding 3-4 holes at a time - I was able to make steady progress without putting too much heat in one part of the floor.
Since it's winter and the sun sets early at 5pm, I was trying to keep the grinding or sawing to a minimum after dark. I used the big tools outside during the day, and concentrated on quiet tasks like insulation at night.
Heres a shot of my work area:
villageidiot327
Explorer
I should probably backtrack a bit- to before the build got started. I had to install my garage! Needed to get my tools out of storage and my dirtbikes out of the weather. We just purchased a house, and theres no garage, so- with so many things happening at the same time, I went with the most cost effective method -an 8'x15’ shipping container. 8x15 gets me into the “shed” vs “garage” zoning regulations of los angeles county- which means I can put it anywhere I want.
After delivery- myself and some strong friends managed to get it 30 ft. back into the yard using a cheapo come-a-long from home depot and some 4” cast iron pipes as rollers. Her final resting spot would be on a 2” gravel pad.
villageidiot flexxing his welding skills. he made this ************ 4 ft. spike as a ground anchor for the come-a-long. it worked amazingly well. took a full days abuse of sledgehammer blows and high lateral loads from the come-a-long and 3000lb container.
Using a hi-Lift jack to lift a side of the container at a time, we were able to set it down onto pipes and get her to slide into the yard using a come-a-long. After we got the container in the zone, I Locked the van into 4x4 Low and tapped her home with the rear bumper.
villageidiot, myself, and longroadtonowhere basking in the glory of a hard days work and big task accomplished.
that was a fun day.
villageidiot327
Explorer
all ya need is a second one 30' from the first with a nice set of trusses on top making a good cover in the middle.
ohpyramids
Adventurer
yes. after a run to the lumber yard- mine quickly became crawling room only. im reluctantly going to have to sell a dirtbike- there just isnt enough room for 3 plus tools.