Building Mercedes Sprinter "box" as a overland camper

[HannesM]

When we, two restless Estonians, travel we always think ahead what kind of adventure we will be doing next. We where taking a break from non-stop traveling over a year in SE Asia and sitting pretty in our rented house in Bali. That's when all this idea of building a “house on wheels” came to light. At that point we had still a year left for finishing SE Asia trip and there was plenty of time to plan how is the best way to make our next dream to come true. Next trip will be driving from Estonia to Argentina. First leg of the journey will be to Spain maybe. Then shipping our overland camper to Canada. From there to Alaska and then zic sacking all the way to Argentina. Darien cap excluded of course. From Argentina, who knows. Maybe then we will return home or ship the vehicle to Vladivostok and driving from there back to Estonia. Exact plan and route will be decided on the road.
First idea was that we definitely need 4wd vehicle. At the same time we had license issues, as we both hold only normal car license its almost impossible to find a vehicle what can accommodate all the luxuries what we enjoy home. There where some 2'nd hand vehicles but prices started 20thousand+ for just plain chassis . So it was only choice in our budget to buy a 2wd drive vehicle. Lots of research went into finding a cheap way to build a “living box” in the back of some vehicle before we even have bought one. Long story short was that building a polyurethane living box is idioticly expensive here in Estonia and that's how new idea was born of buying second hand vehicle what already had large box in the back.
About 2 months later we found a perfect car trough German website, but we where still in SE Asia and the car was in Germany. Luckily my brother had some free time from work and did fly to Germany and bought it for us. So our platform for “house on wheels” is now a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter 313.
Vehicle info as follows:
Cross weight of 3500kg
95kW emission class 5 diesel engine
6gear manual gearbox
67 000 km on the clock
3 seats
aircon
cruise control
box: (L) 4375mm (H) 2200mm (W) 2050mm

First the box had a two big metal doors at the back. Friend of ours helped us to find reasonable company who did not charged us trillion euros for removing doors and attaching polyurethane wall there. Some German online caravanstore is where we found entry door and in that state is how our soon to be home vehicle was parked for prox. 3 months. Work just did not let us continue the build.
As we mentioned before we had lots of time to plan that build. That's how all the floor plan and equipment list was ready long before we even came back to home from our last travel.
As today we now have most part of furniture attached inside and waiting for the last parts to arrive. Hopefully it will arrive next week.
All the electric and other stuff is mostly already waiting in our garage.

List of all the other stuff what we will have in finalized build:
4 pics. of Victron Energy telecom AGM 165ampH batteries
65A MPPT solar charge controller from EP Solar
6 pics. of “back contact” up to 22% efficient 100W solarpanels (semi flexible,
2,6kg each)
1500W (4500W peak) inverter/charger from Zodore
Dometic FreshJet 1100 aircon unit 230V (that's what Zodore inverter is for)
Dometic MDC65 refrigerator 12V
Surflo “Whisper King” waterpump 12V
Surflo accumulation tank
Webasto ceramic cooker plate X100 (runs on diesel)
Webasto Dual Top Evo 6 hot water/air heater (11L boiler, runs only on diesel)
126L clean water tank
71L gray water tank
LED lights
Dometic Seitz S4 hinged windows
Dometic AirQuad mini Heki roof lights
Dometic portable toilet 976


Finallysed project will have all the bells and whistles what we would like to find in perfect overland camper. Queen sized bed (1600mmX2000mm), kitchen, shower, hot/cold water, refrigerator, aircon and separate seating area.
We have tested our solarpanels under Estonian sun, and data given to us from Dometic, we should have enough power generated each day to be able to run aircon every day at least 6-8 hours. Aircon usage will be planned mainly for night time and if needed we still have enough space on the roof to install additional 100W solarpanel. Boondocking is how we are planning to spend 90+% of our camping time on the next trip and that's how our overland camper is planned from the start.

DefinitelyI forgot some important things to write about our build but will keep posting updates with pictures as the project goes along.

If anybody has any questions then we would be happy to answer them or maybe somebody has some great advice how to make our overland camper eaven better, then all the ideas are more than welcome.

Sorry if my English is little bit weird but its my 3'rd language ☺

 

[mhiscox]

Thank you for posting up your build. I, too, ended up with a two wheel drive Sprinter:

and by carrying enough recovery gear to get me out when I had problems, I felt OK about going almost anywhere if the weather was reasonable.

You have done well to source the box as opposed to making do with the cargo van. The extra amount of space will be very welcome, and the buildout more practical than working with the van's curved sheet metal. I would like to hear sometime how the cabin structure holds up on rough roads. I once had the representative of a company that makes dry boxes like yours tell me he didn't think the structure would hold up. I wasn't so sure, but you'll have relevant opinions to share.

Please send more information and pictures as they become available and your time permits. There are a number of Sprinter builds on this forum, but none of them have been the worldwide travellers your truck will be.

(And congratulations on your skill writing in English. I thought it very good.)

 

[HannesM]

Thank you Mike for your kind words.
I have followed your build and read lots of other posts here on Expedition Portal and found million things how to improve our project. I think the idea of building that kind of overland camper started when we stumbled upon project M.A.D. It's a beautiful build by Portugese man on the back of Iveco 4x4 truck. Probably everybody knows here what I'm talking about, but incase not, there is link to it:
http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/41197-IVECO-40-10-4x4-(Project-M-A-D)

Thanks for pointing out Mike that plywood box can be problematic on rough roads. Luckily we have already considered it because that same thing was told to us by the company who attached new polyurethane wall on the back. They put extra rivets everywhere it was possible and we planned the furniture like it will give the box lots of extra strength. Whole furniture is made out of solid spruce wood. Its lot lighter then special waterproof plywood (idea no.1 for material of choice for making furniture out of it) and tough enough to hold together on rough roads. If the final furniture pieces are in place then the whole box should be at least twice as strong as it was without it. “Luckily” for us, there is enough really bad roads here in Estonia for the makers of that kind of “boxes” to have plenty of testing ground and experience dealing with that kind of potential trouble.
If the last pieces of the furniture is screwed into place, then we will take all the doors off again. We have a plan to cut into them with CNC machine. The pattern is developed, as I write this replay, by my girlfriend and we should give the doors to CNC guy maybe next week. It should save some weight and let the air get into the cabinets. When we have travelled trough tropical climate countries we have noticed that closed cabinets ALWAYS smell bad in that kind of climate. Lots of time we will be exposed on our next travel to that kind of climate, then that idea of “opening” cabinets up that way just seamed smart way to go.

I will add some pictures of the floor plan, furniture and some new pictures from inside what I took today. The furniture plan and 3D pictures are missing shower room in the front, but you will get pretty good idea how everything should look like when its finished.

 

[Bbasso]

sounds interesting. with all that interior room I don't see plans for a shower, are you planning on putting a shower in doors?

 

[philos]

Love it!


Sent via flux capacitor

 

[mhiscox]

Thank you very much. Very useful and interesting to see what you are doing. And your point about using the interior furnishings to strengthen the box is, of course, a great plan.

All in all, very impressive. Thanks again for sharing this with us.

 

[HannesM]

The shower/toilet room will be on the front left corner(left from the fresh water tank) . It will be brox 1000mm x 850mm in size.

 

[Haf-E]

Interesting to see a single wheel cab/chassis box truck - I don't think we get those in the US - all of ours seem to be the dual rear type.

Will you be doing storage boxes under the box?

Nice build - will be interested in seeing where you go with it once its done.

 

[Petrolburner]

Excellent!

 

[HannesM]

Will you be doing storage boxes under the box?

There will be storage area under the living box on both side. It will start at the front of the box and extends until plastic back axel mudcuard.

CNC guys started cutting into our furniture doors. And here is a picture fresh out of the cutting machine. Doors still need to be polished and re-painted.

 

[Petrolburner]

Interesting to see a single wheel cab/chassis box truck - I don't think we get those in the US - all of ours seem to be the dual rear type.

The 10' long box trucks are available with single rear wheels, but bigger than that and it's DRW. The 10' trucks cost more than the 14' trucks on average too. I was very close to buying before I bought my Motovan.

 

[HannesM]

Here is some updates on our build.
Just yesterday finished building walls for shower room. A front wall of the bed area was attached couple of days ago. Local Mercedes dealer was the one who attached that roof spoiler. That was something what I was not confident enough to do myself. Would not be a great prospect to drive around and suddenly something will go flying away from the roof. I’m a stubborn country boy and like to do everything by myself, but my better half is here to bring me down to earth every now and then ☺
The project of cutting in to and re-painting furniture doors are almost finished too. Doors look really good already now.

 

[mhiscox]

Thanks for more photos. I really like seeing your work.

It sure is coming together nicely. Very attractive inside. Good luck as you continue.

 

[HannesM]

Little update what we have been up to.
One major thing has changed from our original floor plan is that clean water tank is now situated on the right side of the living area. Changes had to be made because of the calculations on equal weight on both side of the truck did not add up in the old settings. One of four batteries had to be moved to the center of the truck. So now all the electrical stuff is right next to the shower room. That new layout but us in a position where we had to figure out how to make shower room 100% waterproof. I have some background in building industry so I remembered that we used to use “Gera fiber” to make bathrooms waterproof before tiling jobs. It’s a jelly like clue and after it hardens it will become really good rubber sealant for our walls and floor. It should protect the valuable electrical equipment right next to it. Just in case something will go wrong, as it usually do, we clued class fiber coat to floor and walls and will paint it with oil-based paint tomorrow. 2 coats of Gera fiber, class fiber matt plus oil based paint, that should make shower room bullet brood from water leakage.
After the shower room was first time coated with Gera fiber, we did the L shape seating area. Back fall of the cabin is where the shower room is now and underneath of that seat is where batteries and inverter/charger etc. are. Underneath the right side seat is fresh water tank and the pump. Water tank compartment is also coated from inside with that rubber like Gera fiber. Those two areas are of course separated by plywood wall. Electrical and water systems are still mainly on the paper only and hopefully we will have time for them at the start of next week.
There has been tons of more work needed to be done with those special furniture doors. It has been pain in the*s to get the inside areas painted with different color and all the original white paint had to be painted again also. Again most of that work is done and some minor fixes still has to be done.
Some days ago the inverter/charger combi unit arrived finally from China. It was stuck in the customs for some reason. It was really hard to find a decent unit with both capabilities of inverting 12V to 230V and charging the batteries if the mains are connected. We think the 600W solar will be enough for us, but better to have a backup plan ready and installed if its not. Lots and lots of time went into finding a unit what has a trip at least on 16V because if dealing that much of solar regular that kind of equipment has tripper set on 15-15,5V and that’s just not enough. Our inverter/charger is Zodore PF-1500W
http://www.zodore.com/Product/8417654920.html
Yesterday we started of cutting into the walls and roof of our soon to be new home. Managed to attach one window to the kitchen in half the day’s time ☺ luckily for us, it was the smallest window of 3 and a quickest lesson to be learned like that. Next cutting job was today the roof light and the air-conditioning unit. All the places what need to be cut into are taken in consideration from the planning stages and we placed wooden frames underneath the roof before we did the sealing paneling works. Now it’s just an easy job of taking right measurements from the roof plan. First roof light was super easy because of lessons learned from that first window. Just cant cut the hole too small and if the instruction manual reads 400X400mm it means that the hole has to be at least 400X400mm ☺
First time in this build I did read the installing manual twice before attempting to do any jobs involving air-conditioning unit. All the electrical diagrams and other technical stuff were at first little bit confusing but I did get it second time reading. Hole was again 400X400mm and all the 230V and 12V wires where already waiting underneath the sealing panels. All that did take prox. half a day do finish and final outcome was a nice flow of cold air from newly installed aircon. Will try to measure again exactly how long the aircon can work before the low voltage trip engages on inverter. It should be something between 6-8 hours. Time will tell. We will be super happy if it can be operated 5-6 hours at night time and that will give us a nice cold home to sleep in.

 

[mhiscox]

Thanks once again. I'm finding your construction very interesting and I'm enjoying watching your cabin being built.