Ford Prefect
Expedition Leader
Mike, down to the ottoman explanation, you are always above and beyond my friend.
Really like the new configuration.
Really like the new configuration.
AT IT AGAIN: Paul and Mike Convert a Mid/Tall T1N Sprinter Cargo
- Thread starter mhiscox
- Start date
mhiscox
Expedition Leader
For a quarter, I'll let you play with it next time you're over here.
mhiscox
Expedition Leader
Thanks. I'm pleased you like it. That means a lot coming from you.
mk216v
Der Chef der Fahrzeuge
For a quarter, I'll let you play with it next time you're over here.
Jeez, make me break open my piggy bank why don'tcha! :sombrero:
mhiscox
Expedition Leader
A modest update . . .
As makes perfect sense given that the conversion is pretty much finished, there's not been much to pass on in the build thread. Here's an "upgrade," however, that might be worth sharing.
Overall, it's pretty simple. We wanted to mount a 23" Vizio LCD television/monitor I had. The television part wasn't important, but I figured that given the amount of time our winter weather keeps you in the truck, having a good display to stream video on, or to use as a big display for a computer, would be a plus.
The screen doesn't weight much, and I has a multi-axis VESA mount that could handle it easily, so I screwed it into the sheet metal to the rear of the slider.
Then I screwed on the screen with four bolts and it worked great. Right distance from the "viewing areas" and easy to swivel to faces the sofa or swiveled front seat. And the height--the only axis not adjustable--was right.
Only one problem . . . the screen, although not huge, blocked a bit of our precious view out the big windows. So Plan B was to only have the screen up when it was actually used.
By luck, the width available between between the rear of the streetside cabinet and the inside of the rear streetside door was just a little greater than the width of the monitor. So it worked slick to create a little holder (made by cutting up one of the Rubbermaid Fastrack supports used in the "draft" version) and stick up some rubber bumpers to protect the glass.
The screen just slides in, with the top edge riding in the Fastrack groove, which I lined with felt. The streetside end of the Fastrack is closed, and little plastic turnbutton keeps the screen from moving back toward curbside.
The other lucky thing is that the VESA mount on the back of the screen has a protruding "hook" to index it properly to the swivel mount. It turns out that we can just hook the protrusion over the swivel mount and it stays in place, sort of like hanging a picture on a wall. This makes it just a few seconds to make the screen usable or put it away.
As makes perfect sense given that the conversion is pretty much finished, there's not been much to pass on in the build thread. Here's an "upgrade," however, that might be worth sharing.
Overall, it's pretty simple. We wanted to mount a 23" Vizio LCD television/monitor I had. The television part wasn't important, but I figured that given the amount of time our winter weather keeps you in the truck, having a good display to stream video on, or to use as a big display for a computer, would be a plus.
The screen doesn't weight much, and I has a multi-axis VESA mount that could handle it easily, so I screwed it into the sheet metal to the rear of the slider.
Then I screwed on the screen with four bolts and it worked great. Right distance from the "viewing areas" and easy to swivel to faces the sofa or swiveled front seat. And the height--the only axis not adjustable--was right.
Only one problem . . . the screen, although not huge, blocked a bit of our precious view out the big windows. So Plan B was to only have the screen up when it was actually used.
By luck, the width available between between the rear of the streetside cabinet and the inside of the rear streetside door was just a little greater than the width of the monitor. So it worked slick to create a little holder (made by cutting up one of the Rubbermaid Fastrack supports used in the "draft" version) and stick up some rubber bumpers to protect the glass.
The screen just slides in, with the top edge riding in the Fastrack groove, which I lined with felt. The streetside end of the Fastrack is closed, and little plastic turnbutton keeps the screen from moving back toward curbside.
The other lucky thing is that the VESA mount on the back of the screen has a protruding "hook" to index it properly to the swivel mount. It turns out that we can just hook the protrusion over the swivel mount and it stays in place, sort of like hanging a picture on a wall. This makes it just a few seconds to make the screen usable or put it away.
mhiscox
Expedition Leader
I haven't had this one in really fine dust. It does pretty well with the average stuff.
The Sprinter I had before--http://expeditionportal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=19224--was out in the talcum stuff a few times, and while it wasn't perfect, it seemed to have well above average sealing. Much better, for instance, than something like my Wrangler or the 80 I had (though my '05 LX470 was the best; virtually airtight).
mhiscox
Expedition Leader
The van gets new "window treatments"
The other thing I've done lately to the van was to get new blinds for the big rear side windows and the rear door windows. If you've read through the thread, you know that Paul installed these louvered blinds . . .
Paul custom cut these to the right length and drop, and they worked really well, offering pretty much infinite adjustability between privacy/dark and view/light. I liked them a lot. They were about 90% perfect.
However, they are made of metal, lots of metal, and all that metal make some noise. Not much noise, mind you. It was possible to cinch them up nice and tight and to tie up the cords and rods so they didn't whack the van. But even then, there was a bit of rattling and tingling we could hear for the front. (Yeah, I know, turn the radio up.)
The other problem has to do with the "tumblehome" on the Sprinter that I've mentioned before. The van sides, especially the top half, has a lot of curve to them. The blinds--Gravity: It's the Law--hung vertically, which left the bottoms several inches from the walls at the countertop level. Thus we had to attach magnets to the blinds and frames to get them to hold at an angle. Not a giant problem, but kind of fiddily.
So we were semi-looking for a different solution, and asked a window covering person, and they came up with honeycombed shades made of two layers (a neutral colored blackout layer to the outside and the color layer to the inside. They've got a bit of insulating value and a particularly valuable point is that they're made of synthetic material so it doesn't matter if they get wet from rain or condensation.
The blind part rides on strings--I'm sure there's a better technical term--at each end, and those strings are attached right at the window. This solves the problem of the van sidewall curve; the blinds hang at a matching angle. And enough tension can be put on the strings so that the blinds will stay in place wherever you put them, which is sort of the blinds' party trick . . . you can expand or contract the blind area from full width to a couple of inches, and you can position the stack at the top, bottom or anywhere in between.
And the strings are holding the blind are set out from the wall a bit, which means that they don't contact any part of the truck, so they don't make noise knocking against anything and, being made mostly of soft stuff, they don't rattle themselves.
There weren't a ton of color choices, but they offered a charcoal color that goes pretty well with the interior:
All in all, the metal blinds were about an 8 and these are close to a 10, so it was a good thing to do. (The only sad thing is that they make the curtains-with-snaps setup required on the slider and the front door windows look pretty mundane.)
The other thing I've done lately to the van was to get new blinds for the big rear side windows and the rear door windows. If you've read through the thread, you know that Paul installed these louvered blinds . . .
Paul custom cut these to the right length and drop, and they worked really well, offering pretty much infinite adjustability between privacy/dark and view/light. I liked them a lot. They were about 90% perfect.
However, they are made of metal, lots of metal, and all that metal make some noise. Not much noise, mind you. It was possible to cinch them up nice and tight and to tie up the cords and rods so they didn't whack the van. But even then, there was a bit of rattling and tingling we could hear for the front. (Yeah, I know, turn the radio up.)
The other problem has to do with the "tumblehome" on the Sprinter that I've mentioned before. The van sides, especially the top half, has a lot of curve to them. The blinds--Gravity: It's the Law--hung vertically, which left the bottoms several inches from the walls at the countertop level. Thus we had to attach magnets to the blinds and frames to get them to hold at an angle. Not a giant problem, but kind of fiddily.
So we were semi-looking for a different solution, and asked a window covering person, and they came up with honeycombed shades made of two layers (a neutral colored blackout layer to the outside and the color layer to the inside. They've got a bit of insulating value and a particularly valuable point is that they're made of synthetic material so it doesn't matter if they get wet from rain or condensation.
The blind part rides on strings--I'm sure there's a better technical term--at each end, and those strings are attached right at the window. This solves the problem of the van sidewall curve; the blinds hang at a matching angle. And enough tension can be put on the strings so that the blinds will stay in place wherever you put them, which is sort of the blinds' party trick . . . you can expand or contract the blind area from full width to a couple of inches, and you can position the stack at the top, bottom or anywhere in between.
And the strings are holding the blind are set out from the wall a bit, which means that they don't contact any part of the truck, so they don't make noise knocking against anything and, being made mostly of soft stuff, they don't rattle themselves.
There weren't a ton of color choices, but they offered a charcoal color that goes pretty well with the interior:
All in all, the metal blinds were about an 8 and these are close to a 10, so it was a good thing to do. (The only sad thing is that they make the curtains-with-snaps setup required on the slider and the front door windows look pretty mundane.)
mhiscox
Expedition Leader
Thank you for the nice compliment. It's turned out to be an extremely usable camper for two.
southpier
Expedition Leader
I think this is the difference between backyard engineering and a professional solution.