InssssssssVANity!!!!!!!......or ****** did I just fly to Maine to by a Sprinter!

Cole

Expedition Leader
One of my first major goals here after making the van safe was to get a 3rd seat in it for my daughter.

That meant getting the wood/vinyl flooring in, mounts welded up, holes drilled etc.

The flooring was left over from the Eurovan project and only covered about 3/4 of the van floor. This is fine since I want to make the rear floor area for cargo such as motorcycles and othe "truck type stuff"

My plan is to paint this seat base the same color as the van and front seat bases and dye/cover the dptan seat in gray to match.....but for the moment its in and functional, (except for the power to the refrigerator under the seat, I'll wire that up before spring!:coffeedrink:

I know that if I had offset the seat I probably could have made more room for a camper type layout. But this gets her a good view out all the windows, leaves space for a dog on each side, easy for us to see & talk to her and gives a bit more safety cushion if we get T-boned from either side.

I'll put seat swivels on the front two seats and a table mount between them all. So it will make a nice little family table area, leaving the back for other stuff.

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My Aussie puppy (6mo) was there to "help" all day :coffeedrink:

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Test flight.....seems to work:victory:

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njtacoma

Explorer
Cole,
Did you bolt the base into existing structure beams under the body, or just big washers, or...?

Just curious as I still contemplate van life.
 

Cole

Expedition Leader
I looked at the stock mounting locations. Contrary to many of the debates online, it's just sheet metal. VERY thin sheet metal at that.
These mounts wouldn't line up with the stock locations anyway.

I've installed and removed hundreds of seats in my automotive building life and most mounts aren't as bombproof as we would like to think.

Anyway, this seat mount has a 3"4" riser in it that is sunk in through the Marine plywood and vinyl floor. Secured with grade 8 bolts, 3 " round--THICK (2x as thick as the sheet metal floor) fender washers and pinch nuts.
 

defigh

New member
Any underside pics of the bolts/washers? Need to do something similar in mine. Thanks…loving the build so far.
 

Cole

Expedition Leader
Most of the bolts are above the gas tank so nearly impossible to get a decent picture of. Would just look like a nut on a bolt, not really showing location, scale or the depth of the layers of wood, plastic, metal it goes though.
 

Cole

Expedition Leader
Okay, give me some feedback on a few thing here, please!


I did a couple of extremely poor sketches on changing the body color to eliminate the Goldie/Silverish color. :coffeedrink: probably with Bedliner (DIY) or dark charcoal. (Feel free to reduce these if you have mad photoshop skillz:coffeedrink:)

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With the top black too!

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Basic floor plan idea. Rear seats would fold up out of the way for cargo (motorcycles) and have a middle section to convert to a queen sized bed. There would be some upper cabinets too.

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From my Eurovan conversion I have two of these fold out tables left over. Looking for ideas on how to use them in the Sprinter.

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Cole

Expedition Leader
Couple of further thoughts to add to this.

-The top has a horrible paint job. Not exactly sure how they managed to paint the sides and top but not the nose. If you look at the spot above the windshield in this picture you can see a huge flat spot of paint with square edges. It's like they had a crooked chunk of paper taped to that spot while they painted the rest of the van.

2. I bedlined the top of my Eurovan (granted its already a black van) and it's held up well and you don't worry about scratching it when putting things on the roof.

3. There are no rear windows, yet. That rear window panel is painted silver now. So if I cover all the silver I need to do something with it.


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Haf-E

Expedition Leader
I think you should paint or vinyl the side window blank positions (sheet metal) black to simulate more windows- i am planning on doing that on my sprinter. Would make it look less like a rv. Not sure why the painted the rear most side window blank silver on your van? Seems odd...
 

Cole

Expedition Leader
I think you should paint or vinyl the side window blank positions (sheet metal) black to simulate more windows- i am planning on doing that on my sprinter. Would make it look less like a rv. Not sure why the painted the rear most side window blank silver on your van? Seems odd...



I've been considering doing exactly that. I'd probably get pulled over for having my windows too dark:coffeedrink: I also considered using chalkboard paint :coffeedrink:......hell, maybe I could chalkboard paint the whole bottom too so my little girl can reach it and draw all day long:coffeedrink::victory:

The PO painted the rear window blank silver to match so he could put his company logo there but never finished the job.
 

java

Expedition Leader
Laws differ everywhere, but in WA you can have all the windows except the front Drivers and passengers and windshield as dark as you want. Black paint is OK
 

Cole

Expedition Leader
Laws differ everywhere, but in WA you can have all the windows except the front Drivers and passengers and windshield as dark as you want. Black paint is OK


Even the black paint wouldn't be darker than my Eurovan! :coffeedrink: (which is part of the joke I suppose )

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Jb1rd

Explorer
Agree, dont change the top color but Line-X on the bottom will look nice, doing that to mine after the $4000 in rust repair gets done!!!!! FML these thing are rust buckets!!
 

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