Gemini Mission

[dewray]

Gemini Mission

Long time lurker, first time poster. Hopefully this is some engaging content.

The back story:

Several years ago, my friends and I cooked up the idea to learn how to sail. Living in Flagstaff, AZ, it seemed silly to own a sailboat but I pledge to get the tow rig to support the mission. As a long time climber a van was a no brainer. So I searched for a few months and landed the holy grail, a 7.3 PSD e350 with…. 540,000 miles. This big white whale of a rig reminded me of the space shuttle, and given that the moon is only 240,000 miles away, I imagined this rig could have made that trek in a past life. So, I named it Apollo, after the moon missions.

That rig was great. I took my time building it out as a climbing rig and used it to enable some awesome outings. Ultimately I took it on a 13k mile road trip through the western US and up to the Yukon. Once back state side I realized it was time to part with my mobile home and simplify. So I sold the van in Seattle, recouping all the money I had into it and sent her on her way with 585,000 miles on the clock.

Fast forward a couple years. I’m at work, getting paid while I browse craigslist, and spot one hell of a deal. 2003, e350 club wagon, 5.4L, with 160,000 miles. Barely broken in! I call the guy, jumped on my motorcycle, and rolled down to Sedona for a test drive. Even with worn out tires is was a steal at $1800. I was undecided about whether to flip it, but after a few months with it I was hooked and decided another van build was in the works.

To keep things in perspective I want to lay out my goals and vision with this project.

First and most important: This van is intended to get me out to places, so my GF and I can enjoy playing outside. As such I am not building a galley, a high top, extraneous insulation, etc. I appreciate people turning their vans into full blown mobile homes but this is just a weekender

Secondly: Budget. I am recording the cost of everything I put into this van outside of gas, insurance, and oil changes. I want to prove to myself that at the end of this it was money well spent and I can turn it for a small profit.

Lastly: Like my last van, this will be asked to do a lot of things, from solo trip to paraglide in SLC, to hauling wood or people to climbing crags. As much as I’d like 4x4 it is unnecessary for me given most of my miles will be on pavement and graded dirt. However, I would LOVE a rear locker as I have found myself is some hairy spot with my past van.

 

[dewray]

After hauling 1100 sqft of carpet, popcorn ceiling, a couple cords of firewood I gutted the interior. Everything from the driver/passenger seat back was removed. I saved all the mounting bolts for the bench seats (though there weren’t any benches with the van).

The sub floor was then install with ¾” furing strips and ¾” plywood that I bolted down using the bench seat bolts. Once installed I sealed the whole thing with latex sealer. Past experience suggests this floor will see a lot of spilt beverages.

Wiring was run through the cavities of the van. I anticipated having my house battery mounted on frame rail under the sliding door and my power bus just behind the door opening. I ran two strand 10 AWG cable to the back two corners and the opposite side of the cabin. This should be sufficient to power a water pump, fridge, or other accessories.


Gemini the van got some new shoes and the alignment done. I had to replace a couple blinker bulbs but had a pain in my ****** chasing down a short that was killing my tail lights. After chasing multiple dead end leads and tossing a dozen 15 amp fuses I found the thorn. This van came equipped with an auxiliary battery charging circuit that i assumed was ready to go. However the battery disconnect solenoid had gone bad some time ago and a previous owner had shortcut the circuit to avoid the hassle of fixing it. I fixed the wiring harness and installed a new solenoid to charge my new AMG house battery.

P.S. Sorry for the limited pictures. This is all written retrospectively so far.

 

[dewray]

Starting the cabinets.

Nothing too crazy here. I built some boxes to fit around the wheel wells and rear heater/ac unit. The cavities are ultimately going to be located under the bed and are going to be somewhat difficult to access. I made everything from ½” baltic birch plywood. This stuff is my favorite. It’s high quality cabinet grade plywood that has far more strength than the standard Home Depot stuff. Again, I sealed the insides with latex sealer and then stained and coated the outsides with polyurethane. Between the cabinets is a 3 ft span that I bridged with a single piece of ¾” BB plywood. Though there were some complex volumes around the rear heater these were pretty simple.





However, forward of the bed platform cabinets I built a more complex cabinet. This needed to house all of my electrical components, cooking/kitchen supplies, propane, diesel heater, electric controls. As with most of my projects I jumped in and figured inspiration for how things would come together would just work out. Instead of trying to explain it I’ll just post photos.




The van is getting to the point where it's usable so we've been enjoying the fall colors sleeping in relative comfort. I'm eager to get the kitchen and water plumbing done though.

Ok, we are now up to current state so I promise I will include better pictures.

 

[ober27]

Nice! We've kept our interior as simple as possible, and it's served us really well for two years now. We didn't want to spend all our time and money building the van, we wanted to travel in it. Ours to is a weekend van, our longest trip so far has been eleven days.
I liked seeing the photo of your first van pulling the sailboat, when we have our boat in tow we joke that our rig becomes a two bedroom.
Have fun!

 

[dewray]

Well, posting in forums is not a skill I can say I've refined. However, I feel like the more budget-friendly builds are more common than you see on here so I'll try to post in case it inspires some conversation.

A lot more has been done with the water and electrical. The lighting over head is all a custom design with 2-way switches multiple lighting schemes. We've gone on a few trips some far and the GF is getting just as psyched on the project as me. Instead of writing, I've just uploaded some videos that might explain better. Here are some trip photos, videos to come.

Sedona

Zion

 

[dewray]

A little more about the forward cabinet

 

[dewray]

The bed setup.
This is more than just an adventure rig. It's my firewood getter, hardware store rig, and moto carrier. So the bed has to be removable for extra big cargo.

Under the bed, I've taken advantage of storing the not-so-often needed items. I've got 22 gallons of fresh water and a high output pump that will come in handy when I get a propane outdoor shower or hosing off the mtn bikes.

 

[dewray]

More on the bed and overly complicated lights. The lights turned into, 'I'll save money doing it on my own / now I've spent more money but at least it's unique'. I'm sure you all can relate.


I still have a lot to do. Add more battery capacity, an inverter, and microwave. I'm going to raptor line the running boards and front quarter panels. And weld up a roof rack for the top. Not to mention tidy up all the exposed insulation and cover up the subfloor.

Quarantine life has been good for projecting

 

[dewray]

I had a little brain blast this morning. I've needed a quick to setup table for cooking on for a while. I've just been cooking in the side entry and it's totally in the way when I need to climb into the van to grab more supplies. I set out to do this project with odds and ends I had laying around. I'm pretty excited how it turned out since it doesn't take any space to store and sets up in seconds.

The top stows underneath one of the drawers. The latches are designed so that they can't open when the draw is shut.

There's a hinged outrigger that supports the table. The top of this is keyed into the bottom of the top so everything locks together.

Just big enough for the stove.

And here's a video showing how it works

 

[dewray]

Been doing a lot of work with van lately since I'm at home. The added incentive of summer road trips on the horizon is also keeping me motivated. Last week I finished up a couple things.

I finished welding up my roof rack. It's 12'x5', with a 1.5" outer tubing rim with 1" square cross bars on 1' spacing. Mounts are 3/16"x2" flat stock. The whole thing is painted with the Rustoleum bed liner rattle can paint. I figured it's gonna get abused so it's be nice to have something that is easy to touch up.

I also prepped and raptor lined the the higher wear areas on the outside on the van. I washed the van once, then again with a degreaser. Sanded the whole thing with 150 grit. I laid down plastic in the driveway and masked off all the middle sections of the van.



The roof took 4 bottles and the rest of the van took 3. I sprayed in the evening as the winds here are crazy in the spring. Even still there was a bit of wind but that didn't have too much affect and the over spray wasn't bad. This was my first time spraying this stuff but it seemed pretty easy, doesn't easily run and it builds up thickness nicely . I'm not crazy about the color, it turned out a little more orange than I anticipated, but it's still an improvement over the plain white. There's definitely spots that seem light but I'm not sure if anyone beside me would notice. I avoided spraying the jams, a shortcut I know, but I lazy sometimes.




I also laid the final flooring. It's Home Depots Husky brand vinyl shop flooring. The stuff is at least double the thickness of the other vinyl they have and I'm really happy with it. I tried to install it when it was warm to minimize it buckling in the heat. I didn't glue it down either as the access to all the body bolts are directly under it and I like the idea of not destroying the interior if for some horrible reason I have to pull the body.

 

[dewray]

Ok, hopefully this is something that peaks people interest. I installed a locker.


It an OX locker. Pretty cool system. I picked it because it doesn't have flimsy copper lines in the housing, no drilling holes, and you have your choice of actuation system. Full disclosure, my prior experience is with diffs does not extend past a drain and fill in my samurai.

After deciding on this locker I called around Flagstaff for an installer. I got everything from, "well we don't do that but we can try" to, "$1200 in labor, an extra $300 in parts, and I can't warranty any of the labor since I'm not purchasing the parts". I spent two week watching every Dana 60 video I could find on youtube and read everything I could get my hands on. I felt like it was worth a shot, I'd get some experience and probably some new tools.

Here's the numbers:
2001 Ford e350, 5.4l V8
Dana 60
3.55 gears
35 spline
This is a semi-float axle with c-clips
Note: The above information was hard to determine for me but ultimately I used Rock Auto to help me figure out the spline count before pulling the axles

OX locker
PN# - Dana 60 4.10 DN c-clip 35 spline

Dana 60 4.10 DN c-clip 35 spline - OX USA

Get a Dana 60 OX Locker c-clip 35 spline today. Dana 60 applications using gear ratios of 4.10 and numerically lower and 35 spline c-clip axles.

ox-usa.com

Another question was, “to pull the whole axle or leave it in place.” I decided to hedge my bets and set everything up out from under the van on a work bench, however after I got the whole thing jacked up I realize I had plenty of room to sit and work under there. I kept everything in place, which was the right call. Most of the work is transferring bearings, shims and gears and that was done in the garage anyways.





To be continued...

 

[dewray]

Wheels, calipers, and rotors pulled. Inspected the level of the fluid, good. Pulled the cover, check the backlash. It was 0.014”, high, spec is 0.006-0.010”. Marked the bearing caps and pulled the carrier. It slid right out which was a little concerning. Nothing seemed strange with the wear on the teeth so I felt ok.



Note: on the outsides of the bearings there were large shim, 0.135” and 0.111”. I kept track of those for later.



After pulling the ring gear off the old carrier I inspected the bearings and realized there were also shims under the bearing. I pulled those and measured the shims, both were 0.035”.



This is where I made a mistake… I got 0.035” of new shims, put them on the new carrier and pressed on the bearings thinking this was going to be a cake walk. When I went to reinstall the carrier it only had about 0.035” of space total outside the bearings, no way the old shims were going back in. After weighing my options, I pulled the perfectly good bearings back off, trashing them.



I then wallowed out those bearings to use them as setup bearings. In increased my shim thickness until I replicated the offset from the prior shims and had the proper bearing preload. It ended up being 0.065” and 0.045”. I checked my pattern and things seemed ok.




Preload was snug, back lash was just around 0.010” so I got new bearings and pressed them on. Things were getting heavy at this point and lifting the carrier into the case was tough. It’s probably 70lbs.

to be continued...

 

[dewray]

Everything else was a breeze. The actuator is in the cover and the run for the lines was easy. I still need to install on-board-air, but I tested it with my compressor and everything locks up. Now it’s time to put some miles on it.






Maybe I didn’t search this forum very well but I had a hard time finding examples of this exact process. Seems like everyone has something different: full float axle, ARB locker, work on a lift or pulled the whole thing. Hopefully this provides some insight into the next person that wants to give this a go. The whole thing took me two day between real work (total about 12hrs) and 3 trips to the parts store.

 

[North]

Hey nice build! Liked that tidbit about using springs to keep overhead cabinet doors open. Cook setup is clever too!

 

[dewray]

I really need to take more progress photos...

But I finally installed my air compressor. Its the ARB single type. This thing comes with a really slick wiring harness that can control the compressor, cycle it to maintain pressure, and manage multiple solenoids for lockers. I adapted it to run on my house system as opposed to the starter battery by wiring the control voltage supply to my low current 12v fuse block instead of the ignition. That fuse block is powered by my charge controller that monitors voltage so I don't deep drain my house battery. The high current for the supply is run directly to my high current bus with a 40 amp inline fuse that's part of the wiring harness.




I'm still waiting for push-to-connect connector so I can finally hook up my air locker. I lost one of those damn things and after half an hour of looking I resorted to Amazon.