Ace Vantura! ALLLLLLLLLLLRIGHTY then

[ohpyramids]

starting the building:

Decided to clean up some wiring that I ran while ago. This cluster of crud is power and video for the backup camera, as well as the rear speaker wires.

Used the snakeskin wire loom out here. Love the look.

Started the Roadkill damplifier mat installation on the driver rear door.

Since we moved recently, I managed to lose my new roller tool. Had to improvise.

Finished bringing the wire loom forward and got most of the rear cabin area handled with the Roadkill. Also attempted to use some of the 1/4” r-tech poly foam I picked up at Lowes. It has a foil face and seemed to be ok for the price. In my heat test it seemed to be a complete waste of $7. Don't plan to use the rest of the board I have (which later broke in my yard during a windstorm overnight).

Last 4 floor holes. Love the magswitch.

Decided to tackle cutting out my first door panel ever. 1/4” baltic birch plywood cut from a paper template that was transferred onto the plywood. Man, that hole is super super bad. I followed the steel contour rather than the speaker shape. Hoping a 6x9 speaker grill will cover it. Really hoping a 6x9 speaker grill will cover it.

Time to take a break from the wood and learn something new. The container garage gets dark inside at night. Since I'm putting in 12 hr days, I really need light. Ordered a safety fixture and this 4 pack of LED retrofit bulbs. I thought they'd be plug & play, but boy- was I underinformed. After reading the directions, bypassing the ballast, and blowing the breaker a few times, I turned to youtube. Finally got things figured out… Needed to replace the tombstones.

The coolest part of LED bulbs is that there are no drastic shadows. Since there are so many independent sources of light, most of the shadows get washed out. Additionally, I heard that bugs cant see them since theres no UV light output. I hate bugs so thats cool too! Below is a test fit before they get all buttoned up.

Later that night I decided to get into the por 15 paint. I decided to use a small brush and paint carefully since this stuff can make a mess very quickly.

 

[ohpyramids]

Finally on to Flooring!

Grabbed a roll of thick butcher paper from the orchard supply store. It was great for making my floor template.

Since Im using 5'x5' sheets of 3/4 Baltic Birch Plywood, my floor will be two main sheets of plywood and a few small filler pieces on one side. I used a forstner bit to open the corners, and a nice Bosch high tooth count jigsaw blade to cut out my wheel well and gas filler areas.

To try and prevent the two pieces of plywood from rubbing together when floating on the volara padding, I decided to keep them together with some screws and a lap joint. Its pretty simple, a 3/8” deep cut thats 1/2” wide on both pieces of plywood. Mainly, this is because I want to try out my dewalt router!

While I still had some sunlight, I decided to get started on the benches.

Clamped both bench ends together and used 80 grit sandpaper to even out the high spots.

Decided now was a great time to test fit the floor and benches.

Temporarily installed the floor. Finally feels like Im making progress at this point.

The bench is looking good, but to make things fit tighter, I ended up cutting a curve to match the van body 6” tall and 1” deep into the top corner.

Took the plywood back out to continue working on the floor.

Drilling holes to anchor the plywood panels. It feels kinda dumb to drill new holes after spending all that time welding holes over the last few days!

Applying RTV and installing the rivnuts.

Starting to cut the foam. I went with two thicknesses of Volara foam. I decided on using 1/4” Volara to create a continuous sheet of foam across the floor, and 3/8” thick to make strips that would fill the lower areas between the ribs. In hindsight- I should have used the 1/4” for both applications.

Cutting down the 3/8” sheet of foam and using Super 90 to stick it to the van floor. You can see my fiance cutting sheets of insulation in the background on the porch.

 

[ohpyramids]

Later that night we got started on insulation and sound dampening.

Stinger Roadkill getting smashed all over the wheel well. Please enjoy my bootleg sound mat roller tool.

High on glue fumes selfie.

We trimmed and mounted some thinsulate as a huge sheet across the driver side wall. Stopped here for the night.

The next morning, I decided to have some fun with the IR temp gun. The van had been sitting in direct sunlight for several hours with all windows and doors shut. Not sure if this is a proper way to actually test thermal insulation, but Im picking up a 21.4 degree temperature difference between uninsulated van skin and the roadkill. Thats pretty nuts!

 

[illking]

High on glue fumes selfie.

best part of working on your van is the chemical highs. undercoating my van was the equivalent brain cell loss of tailgating a ICP show

 

[ohpyramids]

Drilling and installing nine 5/8” Rivnuts to mount a diy door galley cabinet. Great upper body workout!

Making a 3/4 plywood plate that will attach firmly to the door. The 3/4” plywood fits inside the 1/8” deep steel lip of the door and will hopefully be a burly mounting point for an oversize cabinet. Also used a hole bit to countersink the 5/8” bolt heads and washers.

Pre-stuffed the door with thinsulate only. I will eventually replace these cargo doors with pop-out window doors.

Finished off the evening with a quick install of my impulse purchase. Infinity reference 6x7's slid easily into both rear doors. These speakers sound pretty good for $39!

 

[ohpyramids]

Luckily I have friends with great taste in woodworking. I was able to borrow some Festools! Pictured below is the TS 55 track saw. Festools are a treat to use, and the only reason I didn't get frustrated and potentially bail on all this work. My shop setup is very minimal in the back yard- just two sawhorses, and the amount of woodworking ended up being up much larger than I anticipated. The Festools really really increased my final quality and speed.

A pile of victims; plywood, maple, pine.

While I had the fiance available to help, I decided it'd be a great time to install the wall cleats. Home Depot was low on 10' 1"x2" boards so I ended up with a mix of 8' long pine and 10' long maple. The maple seemed stronger, but I don't intend for these to hold any major weight. We drilled the cleats to countersink the self tapping screw hears after they were cut to length.

When drilling with self tapping screws- make sure to cut away any thinsulate fabric before you drill. The thinsulate got wound up in the threads and I was unable to continue for a bit.

Cleat 1 installed.

Both cleats and all wall insulation installed. As I was taking the panorama and smiling she shot me the- “yeah, sitting in an empty van is not as cool as you think” look.

hah! well - im still stoked because the cleats are super burly and securely attached to the van.

 

[ohpyramids]

Decided to get a feel for how the benches will sit in the van. Noticed immediately that the flat-backed bench needs more clearance from the side of the van.

You can notice the action packer behind the bench side. Im trying to design these so a small size action packer will slide in and out easily… (quickly I ruin this)

Took a jig saw to the top 6” of my seats and made some clearance.

Mounted up the galley cabinet! Special thanks to bud and expo member @longroadtonowhere for knocking this out so quickly.

The galley cabinet design was a real headscratcher. In the end, its simple and effective design and worked really well for our first trip. It can securely hold my camp chef stove while cooking, and provides tons of kitchenware storage while on the road.

Not so happy with the latch solution. They tend to vibrate loose after about 500 miles. Overall, cheap and not so bad considering how quickly this box came together.

Assembled the benches with the help of @longroadtonowhere

Heres a shot showing everything together for the first time! Galley cabinet and both benches are looking great. Also added some reflectix on top of the thinsulate walls.

Moving the benches in and out of the van when they dont have 4 solid sides (no back or bottoms) meant they were more wobbly than I wanted. Especially with the 2.5” top cap across the back. Even with the mix of 1/2” and 3/4” plywood, they just needed more support. I decided to use some 1x3” boards to make an internal frame to beef these things up. I was not thinking ahead- and totally nuked my action packer clearance by doing the strip across the front. Doh!

 

[ohpyramids]

We are getting ready to leave soon, and our trip has us going up some dark and desolate roads. With the genius of villageidiot and a few pep boys parts runs, we got my cheapo ($150)amazon cree 32" led light cobbled together in an afternoon.

Started with some steel bar stock being mounted to the ujoint bumper.

Villageidiot hand modeling with the wiring harness. Theres two versions of this light bar, the one I linked above includes a wiring harness. For $150 it cant be beat!

Final light install. Just in time to test!

Side by side comparison of the cheapo light bar vs stock headlights. We all know that the stock ford lights are a complete joke, but this is how they compare side by side with the same camera exposure. The fiancé and I were insanely thankful to have the extra light while camping in Big Sur.

 

[djbonsu]

Nice work!! What layers of insulation do you have? Any concerns of the walls sweating?

 

[ohpyramids]

Thanks djbonsu! I have thinsulate against the wall and reflectix on top of that. I can't see that the walls are sweating because everything is covered, but the roof is another situation.

The roof is insulated with reflectix only, and I definitely have a condensation problem. The reflectix isn't totally sealed with aluminum tape, so maybe that will help. I also need to get a spray foam to seal the roof ribs.

I'd assume people deal with condensation a lot in vans like this. Hopefully- as long as I'm using quality materials, i won't have a big problem.

 

[onemanarmy]

Van is looking great, like the build and the attitude to get it done.

Looks like its gonna be a fun day to get that container out of your yard.

 

[ohpyramids]

djbonsu -
Heres a photo of condensation I noticed during the insulation install. Im hoping that completely sealing the roof skin with the reflectix and aluminum tape will stop this condensation. Would love to know if anyone has a solution to this.

onemanarmy -
I can't wait to chain up to this container with the van -toss her in 4L and drag it the hell out of my yard! Its gonna be like that scene in Lone Wolf McQuaid- where he's buried alive in the Ram Charger….
except with red wine and a 4x4 van... and the same amount of chest hair.

 

[ohpyramids]

Crunch time! At this point we leave for our 6 day trip tomorrow!

Driver side bench installed.

Heres a shot of the driver side bench sub frame. Pine 1x3 boards attached to the floor and the bench is screwed into them. The drivers side bench has 2 center supports since its over 6 ft long.

Passenger just has 1 center support since its a bit shorter. Both feel bombproof now that they are screwed into the van floor.

Jumping in and out of the van over the last few days without the plastic step was starting to be dangerous. However the plastic step wouldnt fit back into the stock location with the new taller floor. So I took a metal hacksaw to it and cut the top off. Temporarily finished off the wood edge with some aluminum angle I had laying around the garage from a previous project.

Both benches installed! Huge milestone! All I want to do is take a nap

Table top/ bed cut down to size.

As I carry this tabletop plank of plywood around, I realize its totally unwieldy and way too big to be moving around inside the van. I decided to cut 18” off the back and screw it down flat with the benches.

Final shot looking back into the van with everything installed. Really happy with how it all fits. The popup shelf was originally installed because I wanted my fiancé’s side of the bed to be long enough for her. Bonus that the shelf doubled as useful space while cooking.

The galley cabinet can be opened if the foot shelf is folded flat.

Time to pack up the van and get out of LA!

 

[djbonsu]

djbonsu -
Heres a photo of condensation I noticed during the insulation install. Im hoping that completely sealing the roof skin with the reflectix and aluminum tape will stop this condensation. Would love to know if anyone has a solution to this.

Thanks for the insulation layer info! Upon doing some research, I found out that condensation will happen however I guess the main issue is making sure the material used does not have any ability to absorb the water. Closed cell foam or water resistant stuff. Hopefully there is a way to minimize the condensation. Im digging the simple interior setup. Congrats and enjoy your trip!

 

[Raul]

Nice set up. Why not using hinges on the bottom of the back boards, place shelves inside the back of the seat and use that space? You can use it for clothes, food or even a Hi-lift jack.