Hodakaguy's 4x4 Sprinter Build

[Hodakaguy]

Time to start running the wiring....lots of wiring!

First up I loosened up the rack and lifted it up on one side to get clearance for the cable gland install.

To pass the wires through the roof of the van I'll be using two SeaView Cable Glands with the metal powder coated caps, these are marine units and work really well to keep water out. I've used these cable glands on numerous builds and have yet to have one leak.

The cable gland broken down. The kit comes with pieces of brass tubing that you chuck up in a drill and basically melt a hold through the rubber compression fitting. The tubing leaves a nice clean hole, don't use a drill bit as it will NOT leave a clean hole in the rubber.

Pic the correct size of tubing for your wire diameter and drill the holes where you need them.

Holes drilled...ready to install on the van.

Test fitting for location...yep right about here will do.

Using a right angle drill to drill a pilot hole on each end of the cable gland base. Once the base is anchored in place with two screws use a drill bit to mark the holes for the wires by slightly drilling through each hole in the rubber bushing to create a mark on the roof, then remove the cable gland and drill pilot holes for the wires.

Using a Unibit to open up the holes for the wires to pass through.

Now to use the de-burring tool to take the sharp edges off the holes.

Holes drilled.

Didn't get a pic but I painted the bare edges on the holes. Next up time to assemble the cable gland. I have always added some Sikaflex 221 to the base to ensure a waterproof seal.

I also add 221 to the stainless screws that attach the base to the roof.

Continued Below....

Hodakaguy

 

[Hodakaguy]

Continued from above.....

Bases installed.

Pro Tip. I use these to keep open tubes of sealant fresh, they are little condoms for your sealant. Been using these for years and they work great!

Starting to run wire. I always use pre-tinned marine wire when possible as it offers superior corrosion resistance. Each individual strand of wire is tinned before being wound into the complete wire.

Wire ran through the compression fittings and ready to install.

Finishing the install.

More 221 to seal the screws on the top case. The rubber fitting is tapered and as you tighten the upper housing it squeezes the rubber around the wires creating a water proof seal.

And all in place.

Temporarily sealed off the ends of the wires and snap tied them to the rack.

Lots of wiring....

I'll clean this wiring up soon.

Quick diagram for the wiring. There will be a junction box up top to handle the power distribution.

More to come....

Hodakaguy

 

[Hodakaguy]

Awning time.....

Starting to assemble the awning mounts onto the rack. The rack came with these ABS spacers that act as stand offs for the awning brackets, when you tighten them up they pull in flush.

One of the spacers was a bit to wide and needed to be trimmed down a bit, a couple quick passes on the table saw and it's ready to go!

Using a long level to make sure the three mounting tabs are all parallel with each other.

With the mount in the correct position the second hole is drilled on each tab.

Mounts in place!

Time to unbox the Awning.

Awning in place....

I decided to go ahead and mount the tabs for the awning legs onto the side of the van. In the past I usually didn't use these but in certain circumstances they can be very handy so on they go.

The mount.

Holes drilled, primed and painted

Sikaflex 221 to seal the holes.

While I was working on the Awning my wife was cutting insulation and loosely installing it into position.

And starting to glue the insulation in place.

Another benefit of the roof rack is that it shades the roof of the van and really helps to cut down on the heat. Below is a couple pics of the Un-insulated metal on the roof. First on the front portion (The part that's still open until I install the solar panel) and the middle where the roof racks deck is shading the van. This was taken on a 80 deg day with bright sun. The portion of the roof that's under the roof racks deck was 37 deg F. cooler than the open area. Nice!

Continued Below....

Hodakaguy

 

[Hodakaguy]

Continued from above.....

After the days work I took a drive up in the hills to snap a couple pics, play with the drone and get out of the house for a bit while still maintaining Social Distancing .
I think the rack will look even better once I get the solar panel installed as it will fill in the big gap behind the lights so you don't see sky when looking up from the ground. The rack has built in mounts that holds the panel on the upper tubing in front of the punch plate and over the lights.

The awning deploys with the included crank, the crank folds completely flat for easy storage and comes with mounting clips to attach it to a wall etc. The awning goes from retracted to fully deployed in under a minute.

Hodakaguy

 

[Arjan]

Very, very nice and top quality build !

 

[Hodakaguy]

Very, very nice and top quality build !

Thanks Mate, I'm liking how it's turning out so far!

Hodakaguy

 

[Hodakaguy]

More insulation work today.

I'm using 3M Thinsulate SM600L insulation which is effective as both a Thermal and Acoustic insulation. It's also hydrophobic so it won't absorb water....and very expensive so you want to use everything that you can. Here I'm cutting some small pieces out of a scrap piece.

Installing and gluing the insulation into the ceiling.

Here I'm using some pieces of dense foam to thread onto the exposed tips of the screws from the cable gland, just a bit of extra wire protection to keep the sharp bits under wrap

Looking into the dome light wiring to figure out which wires are what. Looking like the computer is switching the ground and both constant and door power are hot. Hmmm....

Time to remove the drivers seat, lots of wiring to run soon.

I'll be installing the switch pro and 75amp Bosch relay for the LP-9's under the seat.

Ceiling insulation is getting closer to being completed.

Hodakaguy

 

[shade]

Fine work, as usual. Thanks for sharing your ideas.

I'm using 3M Thinsulate SM600L insulation which is effective as both a Thermal and Acoustic insulation.

I'm in the process of adding sound deadening material to the cab of my Toyota Tacoma.
How do you think SM600L performance compares to a dual layer of sound damping foam & mass loaded vinyl?

 

[Hodakaguy]

Fine work, as usual. Thanks for sharing your ideas.



I'm in the process of adding sound deadening material to the cab of my Toyota Tacoma.
How do you think SM600L performance compares to a dual layer of sound damping foam & mass loaded vinyl?

Not sure as I haven't every compared the two. I have some sound matt installed as well as the Thinsulate.

Hodakaguy

 

[Hodakaguy]

Starting to wire in the ceiling lights. Yesterday I spent quite a bit of time figuring out why the dome lights wouldn't work, turned out that the front light unit wasn't quite plugged in all the way and the master on/off switch that is built into the front dome light was defaulting to the off position. The Mercedes dome light's work off manipulating the ground vs the power going to the lights. There is a computer controlled SAM module (Signal Acquisition Module) that controls the dome lights via the door switch, the SAM module can be sensitive to loads and can fault out if the loads are outside of the parameters. I temporarily hooked up the LED touch lights to the factory dome light wires to test the system and it all worked good...hopefully no SAM errors will show up down the road with the LED lights in the circuit but if they do it's an easy wiring job to change again.

I'll be using 3 Double Pole Double Throw switchs to give me power options on the LED lights. There are 6 lights total and 3 switches, 2 lights per switch giving me different options for each individual zone. With the switches I will be able to set the lights to come on with the door switches powered off the starting battery (Just like the factory lighting), manually turn a light bank off or manually turn them on via the Aux battery. The lights themselves are touch activated and you can hold your finger on them to dim the light. The lights have a memory and will start in the last used position so if you have them all on dim they will start back up on dim etc.


Supplies Used:

*Genuine Marine LED Lights - Available on Amazon Here: CLICK HERE
*DPDT Switches - Available on Amazon Here: CLICK HERE
*Titan Heat Shrink Electrical Crimp Tool - Available on Amazon Here: CLICK HERE
*Marine Heat Shrink Electrical Connectors - Available on Amazon Here: CLICK HERE
*Brother Heat Shrink Label Maker - Available on Amazon Here: CLICK HERE
*Marine Heat Shrink Tubing - Available on Amazon Here: CLICK HERE
*SAE Connectors - Available on Amazon Here: CLICK HERE
*Pre-Tinned Marine Wire - Available on Amazon Here: CLICK HERE

Here's a shot of the Genuine Marine lights and switches installed in the ceiling for reference.

Here's a rough drawing that shows how each set of lights/switch will be wired.

Adding some grommets for abrasion protection on the back side of the lights, nice snug fit!

I like using marine crimp connectors on all my projects, they have built in heat shrink with a glue on the inside and hold extremely well. If you are using marine connectors it takes a special crimp tool to avoid cutting the heat shrink when you crimp. The tool is pretty inexpensive and well worth having in your kit.

Hit it with a heat gun and it's a sealed solid connection.

Another thing I always do on my projects is label all the wiring with printed heat shrink tubing. The extra effort up front pays for itself down the road when your trouble shooting, removing/re-installing panels etc. The costs of labeling machines have come way down in recent years and they are now very affordable. I'm using the Brother PT-E550W Label Machine. This unit works great and there are plenty of generic cartridges available on eBay for about $10 per cartridge. The heat shrink is available in many different sizes and as a bonus you can make standard labels as well .

I'm running all black wire in this section so I placed a small piece of red heat shrink to help identify the polarity in addition to the labeling.

Continued Below.....

 

[Hodakaguy]

Continued From Above....

Factory Dome light wiring, Red is constant pwr, Brown/Blue is switched ground. Battery is getting low, right after this pic I hooked up the portable solar panel to top off the batt.

Prepping the factory light wiring to attach to the 3 way switch.

I'm using these SAE connectors for quick disconnects on the two fan units, this will allow easy removal of the ceiling panels if needed. The connectors are rated at 20amps and the fans pull a max of 3.7 amps.

The middle two lights are spaced apart and again I used SAE connectors to allow quick removal of the ceiling panels if needed.

I didn't like how the factory wiring was ran across the metal edges here so I added a bit of loom for abrasion protection.

Sealing off the end of the constant power wire for the OEM dome light that's no longer needed.

More light wiring.

Light power from the aux battery. I ran pre-tinned marine wire for this run that will power the lights and the two fan units. The lights use less than .5 amps each and the fans are 3.7amps each, 14awg is plenty good here for this length of wire run.

Supplies...

Didn't get any pics while installing the marine wire as I was trying to finish up before it got to late. Here's a couple pics after it was all installed.

More to come.....

Hodakaguy

 

[Arjan]

Impressive !

I use labels with a number.

All numbers are in a database and once finished it makes for a nice book that tells all about what is doing what..

 

[Hodakaguy]

Impressive !

I use labels with a number.

All numbers are in a database and once finished it makes for a nice book that tells all about what is doing what..

That will get the job done as well....just nice to have a reference!

Hodakaguy

 

[Hodakaguy]

Working up top today on the LP-9 wiring.

Wiring! The lights use 3 or 4 wires per light depending on if you want to have a 50% power option, I'll be using 3 wires.....100% power, Amber back lighting and Ground. The lights will pull 55 amps on full bright so the wiring needs to be up to the task. I'm running 6awg marine wire for both the main feed and the ground fro the start battery to the lights, #10 wire for the amber back light power. I decided to make a harness that uses the 6awg wire and has a very short 12awg drop to each light.

Getting ready to start the process of building the harness.

I'm using 6awg HD Splice connectors to make the drops at each light, here getting ready to crimp.

Crimping tool, this baby is handy and works really well!

I'll be using Heavy Duty heat shrink with the glue on the inside to seal each splice connection.

Fabricating the drops to each light. After crimping I add a bit of solder to the mechanical connection to make sure it holds as an extra measure.

Installing the wedge into the connector.

The 12awg wire dropping to the light just fits into the connector with the 6awg wire.

Next I put liquid electrical tape on the ends of the connector as an extra water proofing measure. Once the harness is completed I will put the liquid tape on all the ends once more before wrapping the harness with tape.

Continued Below....

Hodakaguy

 

[Hodakaguy]

Continued from above...

And heat shrink installed......not just lots more to go lol.

Test fitting

Van is a mess lol

More progress

At this point I got busy and forgot to take pics of the next few steps. I repeated the same process for the 10awg amber back light wiring, then wrapped the harness in electrical tape and finally put loom over the whole thing. The solar panel will hide the wiring and keep the sun off the harness. Once the solar panel is installed I'll do a better job of securing the harness.

Quick test of the lighting with power scabbed from jumper cables . Can't wait to get it fully wired up.

Phone pics...Not the best but you get the idea.

More to come.....

Hodakaguy