guidolyons
Addicted to Gear Oil
Quit holding out on us man, we need moar updates!!!!
Did someone use your van for hatchet trowing practice?
Did someone use your van for hatchet trowing practice?
Gallivanter: An Ominous Beginning and an Optimistic Future
- Thread starter Backcountry Pursuit
- Start date
Petrolburner
Explorer
That's a big *** van! Can't wait to get a picture of Gertrude and Gallivanter together.
Backcountry Pursuit
Risk Taker
My trailer really doesn't like any new vehicle I get. It dinged my Tundra right after I got it and now it took a swing at Gallivanter. The tongue completely broke and the trailer separated from the van. It then caught up to the van and the tire picked up the front edge of the trailer that was scraping along the road, and kicked it into the side of the van creating this huge gash. I wasn't even driving. I was on the river. My buddy's girlfriend was driving it to run shuttle. She was terrified to drive my van in the first place. On top of that, she had never driven a vehicle with a trailer on it. Good first experience I'd say.
I turned an aluminum tilt bed snowmobile trailer into a raft trailer. After thousands of miles of rough *** shuttle roads carrying heavy loads, the cast aluminum tongue gave out and cracked apart right though the hole where the pin goes to hold the bed down. There was always some movement there and I guess it finally had enough. My buddy's girlfriend did nothing wrong. It was straight up a metal fatigue failure. NDT metal inspection isn't on my pre trip check list.
I'll take this damage any day because it could have been so much worse. 1. There could have been $10,000+ of rafts on the trailer. 2. It could have gone into the river and disappeared. 3. It could have hit oncoming traffic and hurt or killed somebody. 4. Worst case scenario was later today this trailer was going to have at least three, if not four rafts on it with drunk friends riding in the rafts on the trailer back up the 9 miles to the put in. People could have died. I'll take this any day of the week for what it could have been.
It happened right at the entrance to the campground. We pushed it back in. I tracked down tools and made a 3 hour round trip to the nearest town to get drill bits on Saturday morning. Even made it back for boating that day. I drilled some new holes in the now very short remaining piece of tongue. Bolted it up and it hauled rafts all the way back to Boise.
At least I got the first scratch out of the way...
Backcountry Pursuit
Risk Taker
I leave tomorrow on a working adventure. I am headed to see my brother in Redmond, OR, then to Corvallis to help open another business, then to Portland to meet MG and Jsweezy, then to see my mom, and then home. I'll put on at least 1200 miles over the next 10 days and spend most of the nights in Gallivanter.
I am sooooo ready to really take this thing on a trip! Last weekend doesn't count. That vibration was bad, but the driveline guy told me to go anyways. We loaded the back end heavy and it diminished the vibration. It was more of a shakedown cruise. Literally.
It's ready to go now. I got some shims made today which corrected the pinion angle which was off from welding the spring perches on the Sterling 10.5 in not quite the right orientation. That was the last one. The last vibration. The rattles and hesitations and hiccups and electrical signals and problems and hurdles all appear to be solved. The stuff I have overcome on this project is ridiculous and previously beyond my ability. Not anymore. Everything is running just as I set out to have it be when I started actually tearing into it nine months ago. I am finally headed out on the first big adventure with Gallivanter.
I am sooooo ready to really take this thing on a trip! Last weekend doesn't count. That vibration was bad, but the driveline guy told me to go anyways. We loaded the back end heavy and it diminished the vibration. It was more of a shakedown cruise. Literally.
It's ready to go now. I got some shims made today which corrected the pinion angle which was off from welding the spring perches on the Sterling 10.5 in not quite the right orientation. That was the last one. The last vibration. The rattles and hesitations and hiccups and electrical signals and problems and hurdles all appear to be solved. The stuff I have overcome on this project is ridiculous and previously beyond my ability. Not anymore. Everything is running just as I set out to have it be when I started actually tearing into it nine months ago. I am finally headed out on the first big adventure with Gallivanter.
guidolyons
Addicted to Gear Oil
:Wow1:
I'll say you did! Glad you got the trailer fixed and nothing else was damaged/lost/broken/injured.
Backcountry Pursuit
Risk Taker
Hi All! The van is up and running and I have accomplished a ton over the past month or so. I am starting on the interior build after getting some nice exterior touches on. I will be getting the story up to date over the next few days as I sit here with a bag of frozen peas on my balls from I am sure you can guess what.
In my intro, I said "This thread will be the true story of a van build and all the trials and tribulations of what it takes to make a 4x4 van happen in your driveway with no previous vehicle modification experience." For me, part of that is documenting just how much this whole thing costs. I have gleaned through my Amazon, eBay, Paypal and bank statements to document really close to the penny just how much this has cost me so far. I have created a Google Sheet for your viewing pleasure. I will add it this link to my first post and if you want to check just how much I've spent in the future, you can look in post #1.
Drumroll....As of today, I have dumped $26,128.60 into a van I only paid $1800 to buy in the first place. Wow. #vanlife. Click the link below to go to the chronological list of costs and stay tuned in the next few days for updates on the build.
Gallivanter's Cost Sheet
Here is Gallivanter as he sits today.
In my intro, I said "This thread will be the true story of a van build and all the trials and tribulations of what it takes to make a 4x4 van happen in your driveway with no previous vehicle modification experience." For me, part of that is documenting just how much this whole thing costs. I have gleaned through my Amazon, eBay, Paypal and bank statements to document really close to the penny just how much this has cost me so far. I have created a Google Sheet for your viewing pleasure. I will add it this link to my first post and if you want to check just how much I've spent in the future, you can look in post #1.
Drumroll....As of today, I have dumped $26,128.60 into a van I only paid $1800 to buy in the first place. Wow. #vanlife. Click the link below to go to the chronological list of costs and stay tuned in the next few days for updates on the build.
Gallivanter's Cost Sheet
Here is Gallivanter as he sits today.
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Fork-N-Road
Member
"You need permission" error on the link you provided, heads up!
Backcountry Pursuit
Risk Taker
Should be fixed now. I missed a button.
temporarydweller
Observer
Great build!! Amazing job so far, can't wait to see how your interior turns out. Yes it is a bit eye opening when you sit down and start totaling up the money spent. Thanks for the pricing spreadsheet. If more people put those up I'm afraid it might actually scare away new van builds. :Wow1:
Mat Mobile
Adventurer
Subscribed!
I'm surprised I haven't read this thread in more detail. Wait, I know... it's because I focus on the Chevy's and there's way too much good stuff on this forum. BTW, it's always fun to see how people get into vans. Thanks for sharing!
You're a masochiste! Doing a spread sheet to see how much your van cost?!? Now that takes balls! :wings:
Great job!
I'm surprised I haven't read this thread in more detail. Wait, I know... it's because I focus on the Chevy's and there's way too much good stuff on this forum. BTW, it's always fun to see how people get into vans. Thanks for sharing!
You're a masochiste! Doing a spread sheet to see how much your van cost?!? Now that takes balls! :wings:
Great job!
86scotty
Cynic
Yep, I can't do it. Occasionally my wife uses this computer and if she found it I'd be screwed.
Backcountry Pursuit
Risk Taker
Here we are at the end of September 2016 and I have been going down this van wormhole for a solid six months. I own a 1998 cargo van, a 2000 parts van, a 2015 front axle and 2005 rear axle. MG's kit is on the way and I have a bunch of stuff from Ujoint. This is happening. I am actually taking on doing a 4x4 conversion on a van. I am nervous and excited. I have no idea how this is going to go. The only thing I know for sure, is I am not super happy with the 1998 cargo van I about to convert.
By this point I have mostly stripped and disassembled the 2000 parts van in my girlfriend's driveway out in the country. Did I tell her it was going to be there for two weeks or two months? I'm pretty sure I said “months” not “weeks”. She remembers it differently. I think she was probably right, but we are just going to gloss over that... This was a way fun project tearing it apart since I wasn't ever going to put it back together and it was ok if I broke stuff taking it out. I also learned a ton about where stuff is in these vans and how they go together. I have pulled what I needed off of it and the rest is piled up as junk inside the van.
The very last few things that needed to come out of the 2000 parts van before it went to scrap was the transmission and rear axle. I had never pulled a transmission before, let alone a full sized 4R100. I bought the Harbor Freight 800lb jack with the 20% off coupon and managed to get it out of the van single handedly. I was in the gravel and miserable goat heads of the GF's driveway but I got it done. I learned a very valuable lesson that it is messy as **** pulling a tranny. Fluid comes out from so many places! I felt really proud for having gotten that done by myself.
The last thing was the rear Dana 60 FF. Shenrie and I had been forming a friendship as I dove into this while van thing. He's a great dude and has helped me a ton. We both agreed on $300 for the axle and he came out to remove it. There isn't a compressor at my GF's house and the U bolts were totally frozen so we just cut them. Shea had his axle, I had recouped $300 of the $550 I had invested in the parts van, and I could finally make that van go away out of my ever patient GF's driveway.
I swapped the rear and barn doors from the silver parts van to the white 98 conversion candidate. They shut so much better than beat up ones that came with my “real van”. I added the door seals and installed the headliner. It really quieted the van down. As I spend more and more time in the van cleaning things up and driving it around, the more I realize I am unhappy with it. It's really beat up on the inside. It doesn't have any of the power options or cruise control and adding those options has proved to be a pretty monumental task. So much that I haven't worked on it in awhile and planned to just kick the can down the road. Crap it's annoying not having those power options. And these silver doors on the white just look ghetto. Heartburn sets in. On the bright side though, the motor in this runs like a friggin' top. It runs really really well after having to spend that $1800 on it 24 hours after the purchase.
I guess that is another thing about this van. I am a little bitter about the whole thing. Flying to Cali and incurring all that extra travel expense, then to have the condition pretty misrepresented by the seller, then needing to add new used tires and an $1800 repair bill just to get the stupid thing home. Yes, I have a little love hate relationship with this new toy I am about to spend a ton of money on.
One of the things I do all the time is continue to shop after a purchase. I know I am not the only one. I just want to make sure I got a good deal and plus I am still in the groove of checking CL every day for new things to pop up. On October 10th, this popped up.
Extended body. V10. XLT. Looks like it's in nice shape. I really don't have $3000 now having just paid MG and Ujoint. The money from selling my Tundra is pretty much gone already. Should I even call? Yeah, I should probably at least go look at it. What could it hurt?
I called. I drove it. I went over it with a fine tooth comb. It was in really really nice shape. All the power everything worked perfectly. The interior was in great shape. The exterior was in near perfect shape other than the passenger door being a little bit different shade of white. Accident, but so what. It was all straight under there. There was no rust. There were no leaks under it. The glass was all good. It had brand spanking new Cooper Discoverer ATP tires.
It has something fairly seriously wrong with it though. There was a horrible stutter. I really thought it was the transmission going out. The owner thought it needed coil packs. But the owner also thought it was a 6.8L V8. Umm, that doesn't exist. “Well my boy put new plugs in it and he put 8 in.” “Ummmmm, look under the van and there are two extra places for the exhaust to come out of the motor.” He seriously thought this was a V8.
So I thought the tranny was going bad. That's ok, I was planning to rebuild it anyway. Shoot, I just don't have the money for a third van. No Tyson. Exercise restraint. But this so much nicer than than my 98 cargo. No Tyson. Exercise restraint. After I had spend almost an hour checking it out and driving it, I told the guy GLWS but I just don't have $3 grand right now and I didn't want to be a ******** and lowball him. We shook hands and I started to walk back to my car across his lawn. When I got about 30 feet away, he shouted “TWO GRAND!” Crap.
“Baaaaaaaby? Can I borrow like $400 for a few weeks?” “If you promise to get this damn POS van out my driveway that has been here for almost two and half months ASAP, then yes.” “Love you baby. You're the best.”
I texted him back once I had scraped together every last penny I could short of taking a cash advance on a credit card. October is the low of the low season for me at my business and things are tight until it gets cold. I mustered $1800. He took it and I brought van #3 home.
Shea has a buddy that owns a towing company and he agreed to haul it away for just the money he got out of it at the scrapyard. I don't know how much he got but he said he was happy the next time I saw him. I'm back down to two vans now.
By this point I have mostly stripped and disassembled the 2000 parts van in my girlfriend's driveway out in the country. Did I tell her it was going to be there for two weeks or two months? I'm pretty sure I said “months” not “weeks”. She remembers it differently. I think she was probably right, but we are just going to gloss over that... This was a way fun project tearing it apart since I wasn't ever going to put it back together and it was ok if I broke stuff taking it out. I also learned a ton about where stuff is in these vans and how they go together. I have pulled what I needed off of it and the rest is piled up as junk inside the van.
The very last few things that needed to come out of the 2000 parts van before it went to scrap was the transmission and rear axle. I had never pulled a transmission before, let alone a full sized 4R100. I bought the Harbor Freight 800lb jack with the 20% off coupon and managed to get it out of the van single handedly. I was in the gravel and miserable goat heads of the GF's driveway but I got it done. I learned a very valuable lesson that it is messy as **** pulling a tranny. Fluid comes out from so many places! I felt really proud for having gotten that done by myself.
The last thing was the rear Dana 60 FF. Shenrie and I had been forming a friendship as I dove into this while van thing. He's a great dude and has helped me a ton. We both agreed on $300 for the axle and he came out to remove it. There isn't a compressor at my GF's house and the U bolts were totally frozen so we just cut them. Shea had his axle, I had recouped $300 of the $550 I had invested in the parts van, and I could finally make that van go away out of my ever patient GF's driveway.
I swapped the rear and barn doors from the silver parts van to the white 98 conversion candidate. They shut so much better than beat up ones that came with my “real van”. I added the door seals and installed the headliner. It really quieted the van down. As I spend more and more time in the van cleaning things up and driving it around, the more I realize I am unhappy with it. It's really beat up on the inside. It doesn't have any of the power options or cruise control and adding those options has proved to be a pretty monumental task. So much that I haven't worked on it in awhile and planned to just kick the can down the road. Crap it's annoying not having those power options. And these silver doors on the white just look ghetto. Heartburn sets in. On the bright side though, the motor in this runs like a friggin' top. It runs really really well after having to spend that $1800 on it 24 hours after the purchase.
I guess that is another thing about this van. I am a little bitter about the whole thing. Flying to Cali and incurring all that extra travel expense, then to have the condition pretty misrepresented by the seller, then needing to add new used tires and an $1800 repair bill just to get the stupid thing home. Yes, I have a little love hate relationship with this new toy I am about to spend a ton of money on.
One of the things I do all the time is continue to shop after a purchase. I know I am not the only one. I just want to make sure I got a good deal and plus I am still in the groove of checking CL every day for new things to pop up. On October 10th, this popped up.
Extended body. V10. XLT. Looks like it's in nice shape. I really don't have $3000 now having just paid MG and Ujoint. The money from selling my Tundra is pretty much gone already. Should I even call? Yeah, I should probably at least go look at it. What could it hurt?
I called. I drove it. I went over it with a fine tooth comb. It was in really really nice shape. All the power everything worked perfectly. The interior was in great shape. The exterior was in near perfect shape other than the passenger door being a little bit different shade of white. Accident, but so what. It was all straight under there. There was no rust. There were no leaks under it. The glass was all good. It had brand spanking new Cooper Discoverer ATP tires.
It has something fairly seriously wrong with it though. There was a horrible stutter. I really thought it was the transmission going out. The owner thought it needed coil packs. But the owner also thought it was a 6.8L V8. Umm, that doesn't exist. “Well my boy put new plugs in it and he put 8 in.” “Ummmmm, look under the van and there are two extra places for the exhaust to come out of the motor.” He seriously thought this was a V8.
So I thought the tranny was going bad. That's ok, I was planning to rebuild it anyway. Shoot, I just don't have the money for a third van. No Tyson. Exercise restraint. But this so much nicer than than my 98 cargo. No Tyson. Exercise restraint. After I had spend almost an hour checking it out and driving it, I told the guy GLWS but I just don't have $3 grand right now and I didn't want to be a ******** and lowball him. We shook hands and I started to walk back to my car across his lawn. When I got about 30 feet away, he shouted “TWO GRAND!” Crap.
“Baaaaaaaby? Can I borrow like $400 for a few weeks?” “If you promise to get this damn POS van out my driveway that has been here for almost two and half months ASAP, then yes.” “Love you baby. You're the best.”
I texted him back once I had scraped together every last penny I could short of taking a cash advance on a credit card. October is the low of the low season for me at my business and things are tight until it gets cold. I mustered $1800. He took it and I brought van #3 home.
Shea has a buddy that owns a towing company and he agreed to haul it away for just the money he got out of it at the scrapyard. I don't know how much he got but he said he was happy the next time I saw him. I'm back down to two vans now.
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Backcountry Pursuit
Risk Taker
It just so happened the day I bought my new van there was also a little impromptu van meetup night. Plus my brother was in town randomly and he helped me pick up the van. Naterry (Nate, owner of Trekker Vans and creator of Ute I and Ute II) was in town with Ute II and I needed to check out that van. It was great inspiration to see all these other vans and know that my project was about to begin. Good peeps in the van community.
Backcountry Pursuit
Risk Taker
October was a really busy month. Both in the Gallivanter van project and with work. That's seasonal changeover for me at the business when we move the summer gear and display racks out and then move the winter stuff in. I put in a lot of hours. My cargo van proved it's worth. It is astounding how much crap I could jam in there.
For awhile, in my naivety I thought I was just going to have one van and make it modular so that I could remove the interior when it was seasonal changeover time and reinstall it camper van mode with it was complete. This would need to happen twice a year and I came to the conclusion that was downright insane. I would need two vans.
The 98 cargo grew on me during this time. I was very pleased with just how well it ran. Once I started looking at it in the light of it being just a cargo van and not something that I was going to dump tens of thousands of $$$ into, it really became clear I needed to keep this van for its new intended purpose. Plus, I was really pot committed at this point. I had flown to California, bought it for $4000 and then dumped another $2000 into it with the repair bill and tires. I would lose my *** on it if I tried to sell it. Plus, then I would just have to buy something else for the business. I had been looking a $1000-$1500 mini vans, but they fit a fraction of the crap inside. Yep, I shall keep the cargo van and I am really happy I did. It's a good van albeit a little ugly. The only way I am going to get my money out of it is to use it.
A few important and exciting parts arrived in October. The first big one was my Sterling 10.5” rear axle with 4.30 gears and the factory limited slip. Yes, it was a pain in the *** to deal with the salvage yard and that kid probably did lose his job over the whole thing, but I am really happy to have this axle here now. It means I am doing everything right the first time and I like it that way, even though this does add a significant amount of cost and scope to the project.
Here are a few photos of the truck it came off of. Interesting and rare configuration for Ford. Single cab, short box, V10, 2WD and 4.30 limited slip rear. I had gotten the vin number from the salvage yard and checked with one of the Ford dealerships here and they were able to verify it was a 4.30 LSD. Of course it couldn't be a perfect transaction totally free from worry, the data tag was missing on axle. They had to pull the rear diff cover to drain the fluid for shipping and I had them count the teeth just to make sure.
I apparently didn't learn my lesson the first time and had them load the axle in my van again at the transfer station. At least the rear axle is many pounds lighter than the front and I got it out with just the use of the cherry picker. This time it was only a 3.7 beer project. No fingers were lost or toes crushed in the moving of this axle.
A few other cool goodies arrived as well. I just happened to luck out and catch the front passenger seat swivel group buy on the SMB forum. Cripes that box was heavy. That's a nice chunk of steel. My Aluminess spare tire carrier arrived about two days after swivel. Seems like every day I was getting some big piece of the puzzle arriving at my house.
During this October time frame I also shipped back the rear wheel spacers to Chris at Ujoint. You need those for several reasons. First, the axles on the vans have an 8x6.5” bolt pattern. The newer Ford coil axles are an 8x170mm bolt pattern. The spacers correct that and and also bring the rear axle track width out to match the slightly wider truck axle. Since I am now doing a rear axle swap as well, I didn't need these spacers, but I did need the Sterling install kit that Ujoint sells. Chris hooked me up and swapped the spacers for the Sterling install kit. The e brake cable connections are different and Chis makes up the proper cables to basically make the truck axle and van play nice together. The kit comes with the hard brake line that goes on the axle as well as the spring perches and shock mounts that need to get welded to the Sterling to match the width of the van frame which is also a little different than the truck frame. It's a nice kit and very worth getting if you plan to install a Sterling 10.5 Call Ujoint.
My leaf springs finally arrived! They took a long time. Chris was having to kick his spring guy in the *** to get these PO's done and shipped. My springs took almost 11 weeks from the time I ordered them from Ujoint on August 8th until they arrived in Boise for pick up on October 24th. Super duper beefy and I am happy with them. If I had to do it over again, I would probably just go with a local company. We have a really good spring builder here in Boise, but I didn't find out about them until months after I had these. The Atlas springs from Ujoint were $650 plus a whopping $185 for shipping (Yes, I get it. They are heavy). I feel like I could have saved a few hundred bucks on these guys by having them make locally. However in the end I happy because Chris' experience building these vans and communicating the proper info and characteristics for how they are built is worth something for sure.
For awhile, in my naivety I thought I was just going to have one van and make it modular so that I could remove the interior when it was seasonal changeover time and reinstall it camper van mode with it was complete. This would need to happen twice a year and I came to the conclusion that was downright insane. I would need two vans.
The 98 cargo grew on me during this time. I was very pleased with just how well it ran. Once I started looking at it in the light of it being just a cargo van and not something that I was going to dump tens of thousands of $$$ into, it really became clear I needed to keep this van for its new intended purpose. Plus, I was really pot committed at this point. I had flown to California, bought it for $4000 and then dumped another $2000 into it with the repair bill and tires. I would lose my *** on it if I tried to sell it. Plus, then I would just have to buy something else for the business. I had been looking a $1000-$1500 mini vans, but they fit a fraction of the crap inside. Yep, I shall keep the cargo van and I am really happy I did. It's a good van albeit a little ugly. The only way I am going to get my money out of it is to use it.
A few important and exciting parts arrived in October. The first big one was my Sterling 10.5” rear axle with 4.30 gears and the factory limited slip. Yes, it was a pain in the *** to deal with the salvage yard and that kid probably did lose his job over the whole thing, but I am really happy to have this axle here now. It means I am doing everything right the first time and I like it that way, even though this does add a significant amount of cost and scope to the project.
Here are a few photos of the truck it came off of. Interesting and rare configuration for Ford. Single cab, short box, V10, 2WD and 4.30 limited slip rear. I had gotten the vin number from the salvage yard and checked with one of the Ford dealerships here and they were able to verify it was a 4.30 LSD. Of course it couldn't be a perfect transaction totally free from worry, the data tag was missing on axle. They had to pull the rear diff cover to drain the fluid for shipping and I had them count the teeth just to make sure.
I apparently didn't learn my lesson the first time and had them load the axle in my van again at the transfer station. At least the rear axle is many pounds lighter than the front and I got it out with just the use of the cherry picker. This time it was only a 3.7 beer project. No fingers were lost or toes crushed in the moving of this axle.
A few other cool goodies arrived as well. I just happened to luck out and catch the front passenger seat swivel group buy on the SMB forum. Cripes that box was heavy. That's a nice chunk of steel. My Aluminess spare tire carrier arrived about two days after swivel. Seems like every day I was getting some big piece of the puzzle arriving at my house.
During this October time frame I also shipped back the rear wheel spacers to Chris at Ujoint. You need those for several reasons. First, the axles on the vans have an 8x6.5” bolt pattern. The newer Ford coil axles are an 8x170mm bolt pattern. The spacers correct that and and also bring the rear axle track width out to match the slightly wider truck axle. Since I am now doing a rear axle swap as well, I didn't need these spacers, but I did need the Sterling install kit that Ujoint sells. Chris hooked me up and swapped the spacers for the Sterling install kit. The e brake cable connections are different and Chis makes up the proper cables to basically make the truck axle and van play nice together. The kit comes with the hard brake line that goes on the axle as well as the spring perches and shock mounts that need to get welded to the Sterling to match the width of the van frame which is also a little different than the truck frame. It's a nice kit and very worth getting if you plan to install a Sterling 10.5 Call Ujoint.
My leaf springs finally arrived! They took a long time. Chris was having to kick his spring guy in the *** to get these PO's done and shipped. My springs took almost 11 weeks from the time I ordered them from Ujoint on August 8th until they arrived in Boise for pick up on October 24th. Super duper beefy and I am happy with them. If I had to do it over again, I would probably just go with a local company. We have a really good spring builder here in Boise, but I didn't find out about them until months after I had these. The Atlas springs from Ujoint were $650 plus a whopping $185 for shipping (Yes, I get it. They are heavy). I feel like I could have saved a few hundred bucks on these guys by having them make locally. However in the end I happy because Chris' experience building these vans and communicating the proper info and characteristics for how they are built is worth something for sure.
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