PlethoraOfGuns
Adventurer
Hmmm, shifter or canoe, which one do I care more about? Seems like a stalemate. We'll have to upgrade one of them so it's better than the other.
Cummins Canoe (A Stepvan Story)
- Thread starter PlethoraOfGuns
- Start date
PlethoraOfGuns
Adventurer
Got bored, made an upgrade thanks to certain peoples suggestions. Also would like to point out the fact the the canoe in the last post was built by Grumman Aircraft Corp, and it was inside a van built by Grumman Olson! Grumman in a Grumman!
Now the shifter is super custom! Rock climbers will appreciate this.
Also went to many parts stores for hard to find parts. No luck though...
Getting desperate trying to locate the inner driver side plastic fender well wheel guard thing for the van. Only came with the passenger one and I'd really like to have the driver side in there.
Now the shifter is super custom! Rock climbers will appreciate this.
Also went to many parts stores for hard to find parts. No luck though...
Getting desperate trying to locate the inner driver side plastic fender well wheel guard thing for the van. Only came with the passenger one and I'd really like to have the driver side in there.
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PlethoraOfGuns
Adventurer
It's getting warm out. Need to get the fridge some proper ventilation. This will be controversial. I have second thoughts about it. Looked at the problems and solutions from many angles, this is just what was done and we're rolling with it.
Cut a giant hole in the floor, behind the drivers side rear mud flap. This bulkhead fitting needed a full 6.5" of clearance! Had just enough space between the structural beam supports in the aluminum floor.
Removed the toolbox, bench vise, and workbench to fit this pipe in up under there. My biggest gripe was all the storage space that this would screw up. Now, behind this cabinet we'll will have to put soft gear that almost never will be needed. Maybe a tarp, or winter mechanic jumpsuit? Original plan was to cut in a rv fridge access door into the side of van, but didn't want to lose any more stealthiness. And couldn't go straight down with pipe under fridge because the house batteries were there. And couldn't go down any sooner because the pipe would come out in the wheel well.
It was a pain in the giraffes ass working around pipe to reinstall all the stuff we removed in order to install the pipe. Not happy with any of this, but I haven't thought of anything else better other than having a vent out the side of the van. At the point when we realized we'd have exterior air running inside the van like this all the time, it sank in that now we had to insulate this stupid pipe! All that work trying to get this pvc pipe to fit because that's what we had laying around and we should have just went to the store and got flexible insulated duct!
And of course removed the fridge. When we originally installed fridge, we installed a vent in the side of the van into the very upper portion of the air space behind the fridge. Now we have a lower vent, which is taking cool air from under van, up past refrigeration coils, and out the upper vent. Not sure if there should be a small 12vdc computer van at the end of this pipe further pushing air, but we can totally do that easily.
Cut a giant hole in the floor, behind the drivers side rear mud flap. This bulkhead fitting needed a full 6.5" of clearance! Had just enough space between the structural beam supports in the aluminum floor.
Removed the toolbox, bench vise, and workbench to fit this pipe in up under there. My biggest gripe was all the storage space that this would screw up. Now, behind this cabinet we'll will have to put soft gear that almost never will be needed. Maybe a tarp, or winter mechanic jumpsuit? Original plan was to cut in a rv fridge access door into the side of van, but didn't want to lose any more stealthiness. And couldn't go straight down with pipe under fridge because the house batteries were there. And couldn't go down any sooner because the pipe would come out in the wheel well.
It was a pain in the giraffes ass working around pipe to reinstall all the stuff we removed in order to install the pipe. Not happy with any of this, but I haven't thought of anything else better other than having a vent out the side of the van. At the point when we realized we'd have exterior air running inside the van like this all the time, it sank in that now we had to insulate this stupid pipe! All that work trying to get this pvc pipe to fit because that's what we had laying around and we should have just went to the store and got flexible insulated duct!
And of course removed the fridge. When we originally installed fridge, we installed a vent in the side of the van into the very upper portion of the air space behind the fridge. Now we have a lower vent, which is taking cool air from under van, up past refrigeration coils, and out the upper vent. Not sure if there should be a small 12vdc computer van at the end of this pipe further pushing air, but we can totally do that easily.
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PlethoraOfGuns
Adventurer
Like everything else in this build, recycling stuff if the way to go, that goes for old retired climbing gear too! As far as ideas for utilizing this stuff, ideas will either just come to you or others will suggest them. The shifter is a cool idea indeed, but I cannot take credit for it. Does make it much more fun to drive!
beanco
Member
With no shift pattern on the knob, how do you what gear you're in?
Great build.
Ben
PlethoraOfGuns
Adventurer
Oh that's now an antitheft device. If one of the 5% of the American population that knows how to operate a manual transmission tries to steal the rig, they won't know what gear is what! I know where all the gears are because I've trained on the stock knob. See, I'm always thinking ahead!
ambulancemonkee
Observer
Just don't park it in front of anything you care about, in case they think they've found 1st.
PlethoraOfGuns
Adventurer
Spent the last few days building cabinet drawers. Some drawer slides were donated to us, so we're going to build around those. They are professional cabinet builder grade hidden drawer slides. Not what I wanted to work with, as they just upped the skill level and time to build these drawers, but it's saving us money and we'll have some pretty awesome drawers.
All this plywood was leftovers from when we did the van interior many months ago. Thank goodness we kept all those scraps. No way could we afford the lumber prices now with the market what it is! Lots of measuring and planning ahead and this is the best we came up with. Usually drawers are made of solid 0.75" wood, but this is what we got and it will be lighter. Ran these boards through the router on a simple jig. Took many hours, mostly trial and error. It's my first time attempting joints like this.
So this is the plan we came up with. Figured these simple joints will hold the corners very strong. A groove in the bottom of each side will hold the bottom panel in place. The drawer slides will be mounted under the bottom panel. The lowered relief in the one panel at the bottom is clearance for the push button latch. They are made for 0.75" panels, and since we already have 0.5" here and adding an additional 0.5" front panel later, we had to router out 0.25" so the wood wouldn't be so thick.
Lots of clamps, but didn't have enough. Barely had enough to glue one at a time. No metal fasteners holding these together, all glued joints.
Took several days to get all these done. Under the one drawer you can see the orange handled retainer clips that attach to the drawer slides.
Some sanding and they don't look so bad! Running plywood through the router in the orientation we did was scary. Lots of risk of the ply blowing out. You can see some of that happening if you look closely. Not too bad, I'll live with it. They are very solid and strong, and that's all that matters.
But, and there is always a butt, some things we didn't account for. The pipe we ran for the fridge vent last week is in the way of the bottom drawer. We had just enough clearance behind the drawers for the pipe, but never accounted for the 1" offset bend we put in the pipe to get around those electrical lines. Way too much work to move the pipe or rebuild the lower drawer. We have the "appropriate" tools to fix pickles like this.
Make the pvc soft and pliable, then use hydraulic ram to gain clearance! Yes, the pipe looks like it was the main course at a barbecue, but it's just an air vent and nobody will see it. Promise not to tell anyone? Wouldn't be an accurate build thread if we didn't show all the oopsies.
We were afraid to share this blunder, but you know what, we're pretty proud of the result!
If that fit doesn't put a smile on your face...
And finally drawer slides all installed and ready to accept drawers. But drawers still need more work...
All this plywood was leftovers from when we did the van interior many months ago. Thank goodness we kept all those scraps. No way could we afford the lumber prices now with the market what it is! Lots of measuring and planning ahead and this is the best we came up with. Usually drawers are made of solid 0.75" wood, but this is what we got and it will be lighter. Ran these boards through the router on a simple jig. Took many hours, mostly trial and error. It's my first time attempting joints like this.
So this is the plan we came up with. Figured these simple joints will hold the corners very strong. A groove in the bottom of each side will hold the bottom panel in place. The drawer slides will be mounted under the bottom panel. The lowered relief in the one panel at the bottom is clearance for the push button latch. They are made for 0.75" panels, and since we already have 0.5" here and adding an additional 0.5" front panel later, we had to router out 0.25" so the wood wouldn't be so thick.
Lots of clamps, but didn't have enough. Barely had enough to glue one at a time. No metal fasteners holding these together, all glued joints.
Took several days to get all these done. Under the one drawer you can see the orange handled retainer clips that attach to the drawer slides.
Some sanding and they don't look so bad! Running plywood through the router in the orientation we did was scary. Lots of risk of the ply blowing out. You can see some of that happening if you look closely. Not too bad, I'll live with it. They are very solid and strong, and that's all that matters.
But, and there is always a butt, some things we didn't account for. The pipe we ran for the fridge vent last week is in the way of the bottom drawer. We had just enough clearance behind the drawers for the pipe, but never accounted for the 1" offset bend we put in the pipe to get around those electrical lines. Way too much work to move the pipe or rebuild the lower drawer. We have the "appropriate" tools to fix pickles like this.
Make the pvc soft and pliable, then use hydraulic ram to gain clearance! Yes, the pipe looks like it was the main course at a barbecue, but it's just an air vent and nobody will see it. Promise not to tell anyone? Wouldn't be an accurate build thread if we didn't show all the oopsies.
We were afraid to share this blunder, but you know what, we're pretty proud of the result!
If that fit doesn't put a smile on your face...
And finally drawer slides all installed and ready to accept drawers. But drawers still need more work...
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TheRealPapaK
Active member
Building drawers and cabinet faces is omen of the last things I have to do. I’m not looking forward to it. You did a great job. Please don’t look closely at my drawers if you ever see my rig. They definitely won’t be as nice
PlethoraOfGuns
Adventurer
Haha, thanks everyone. Looks aren't everything. As long as it's functional!
Betarocker
Adventurer
We had one of those Craftsman multi saws. Quite versatile machines, but incredibly dangerous.
PlethoraOfGuns
Adventurer
Are you talking about the radial arm saw? If so, yes, you can easily lose hands or worse. It's a tool that I believe Charles Darwin made just for us humans to try out! Also, some guy named Murphy is always looking over your shoulder, watching you. ?
Theres a guy on youtube that has a truck like this that he converted into an RV. It use to be a bread truck i think. He cant drive past a weigh station without the state patrol swarming down on him like killer bee's. The presumption is that its a commercial vehicle and they expect you to stop at all commercial weigh stations as well as comply with all commercial vehicle laws. Needless to say he is constantly getting pulled over and harrassed anytime he travels in it even though it isnt being used as a commercial vehicle. They just assume its some goof trying to run a weigh station i guess, so they chase him down and pull him over.
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