INSTANT OVERLANDER: Mikey's Transitory Sprinter Camper

[mhiscox]

FWIW: I’m gonna post up the whole build at one time and let people read through it as suits their preferences. No sense in waiting, I don’t think, ‘cuz there ain’t nothing more gonna happen. :sombrero:

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As ExPo’s most aged veterans know, in bygone days I designed and had built Mog Junior, a 2005 Sprinter 2500 expedition camper that worked quite well and served me faithfully for seven years.



(Go here for build thread details and photos: http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/19224)

But a year ago, at the Northwest SprinterFest, a couple came up and asked if I’d sell Mog Junior to them, and given that me having a vehicle for seven years was already a record, I said OK.

Bad move, it turns out, as it was pretty much the perfect truck for all manner of overland trips and I didn’t have a replacement. I’m a big fan of the Sprinter, as you get a lot of usable interior without an unusably large exterior, plus you get good ground clearance, nice handling, pretty much unmatched fuel economy and, with the inline five-cylinder diesel in the T1N version, and engine that routinely lasts 300K miles. Don’t exactly know why I sold it.

The first move was to try to buy it back, but the new owners think it’s great and have used it well, including a solid month of living out of it in Death Valley this winter.




So my current plan is to have another fancy one built to my design. There are some problems with that, though: a) it takes a while to get these things designed and built, b) there is a redesigned 2014 Sprinter due this fall,



and c) the Ford Transit (aka T-Series) van will be out this fall



and offers a similar European design with what might turn out to be some advantages over the Sprinter (not least of which is a very powerful, compared to the 188 hp of the Sprinter, EcoBoost V6 option). All in all, it seemed like it could be as much as a year before I got everything figured out and had a new van in to drive around.

So, wanting a Sprinter to drive in the interim, I set about to find a used Sprinter I could use over the next six months to a year and then resell it without losing to much on the transaction. The only reason this was remotely practical this is that I’ve got a lot of camping and truck gear left over from previous projects. The success of this interim Sprinter, therefore, is pretty much based on me not having to buy a bunch of stuff to add into the truck.

The other design goal I aimed for was to keep the van completely usable as a cargo van. This meant two main things to me . . . have room to carry my XR in the back and be able to schlep 4x8 sheet good home with them flat on the floor. Therefore, keeping the components removable would be another goal.

Anyway, enough of the rationale for doing this build, and enough of the reason that it turned out looking kind of weird. And it’s not much to brag about and I wouldn’t normally write up a build thread on something this kludged. But there are lots of people to whom I’ve promised photos and a report on what I did and how it works, so on with the overview. And besides, all this will come in handy for the sale thread when it’s time to move it on in the coming months.

 

[mhiscox]

The Truck

I got lucky in looking for a used Sprinter at the same time as John Bendit, owner of Upscale Automotive and the SprinterStore.com, was deciding he had more vehicles around than he was driving. (I know that feeling.) He was willing to offer me, retaining right of first refusal when I sell, Mighty Mouse, his grey T1N Sprinter that served as his first Sprinter camper and the test bed for many of the Sprinter Store products. As a result, the truck I got had a significant head start over a plain cargo van.




The other best thing was that John's truck, a 2003 2500 (SRW/8550 lb. GVWR) badged as a Freightliner, had only 54,000 miles on it. Given how most cargo Sprinters are used, the average for a ten-year-old model is closer to a quarter-million, so it was a real break to get such a low mileage example. Added to that, John had improved the suspension with the Koni shock and swaybar upgrades, and added the tuning module to the engine. All in all, I could not have possibly done better.




John had taken out a number of components to use in his new NCV3 camper, but he left a whole bunch of useful stuff that gave me a head start on the build. That, combined with some lucky breaks in repurposing my stuff, made it possible for me to largely finish off the camper with just a week's worth of effort.

Mighty Mouse needed tires, so I spent the big bucks to get five new Michelin LTX/MS 2s. Sprinters love the LTX, and I got them in my favored 215/85R16 size. This tall, skinny E-rated tire has plenty of carrying capacity, adds an inch of ground clearance, has big cushy sidewalls in case you need to air down, and doesn't rub. (And, interestingly, the bigger diameter gets rid of a giant speedometer error in the trucks on stock tires.)




The SprinterStore sells these sturdy side steps which are so handy that I'll probably leave them on in spite of the risk I might whack ‘em on a rock. An unexpected part of the benefit is that by stepping on the rear edge, you can use it to get more easily in through the sliding door, which is a good-sized step, even before the taller tires.




There was a hefty well-engineered and protective SprinterStore brush bar that was well enough designed that it was straightforward to take off (four bolts) and I can add it back on any time I think the going will be more serious.




As shown, the winch can be attached to the brush bar, but there are also two well-engineered receivers that can mount the winch--I still have my Warn on the receiver plate from Mog Junior—or tow hooks or (I'm thinking this could be cool) a carrier holding my Trail 90.




The back has a centered receiver and two additional receivers, along with LED backup lights and the optional Sprinter step bumper. I added a Smittybilt step which can also function as a recovery point, though it's mostly to get in and out the back more easily.

 

[mhiscox]

More Truck Details

This van came with rear window glass (with defrosters)



and a window in the sliding door. This is a decent compromise between letting light in/seeing out and wall space for cabin fittings, and it is a good setup for seeing traffic. John had previously gotten quality window tinting on it and it was a good addition.




Inside the truck, John had installed a useful pyrometer and tranny temp gauge, and I put in one of my leftover ScanGauges. (The ScanGauge is a very helpful instrument for the T1N Sprinters, as it lets you manually shift gears in a way that improves fuel economy.)




I also easily added a Samsung 5” music player and a Motorola TN765 GPS. Unlike in my other trucks, I put the GPS on a beanbag mount so that it can be used equally well by the driver or passenger. And it was also easy to toss in my XM Snap radio (usually kept in my XV-JP) after simply buying a second antenna.




The van, as did my old one, came with the “comfort” seats, which have adjustments for front and back angle, recline and seat depth; they also have armrests. These seats seem hard as a rock (even in a 10-year-old van) when you first sit in them, but lots of people (me included, though others’ mileage may vary) think they are fantastic for long distances.




The biggest problem with a T1N Sprinter, in my book, is the non-adjustable steering wheel set at an angle that would make Ralph Kramden feel right at home. (The newer NCV3s have a tilt/telescope wheel.) Nothing to be done about this except to get used to it, which I never quite did. The seat armrests help some.




So that’s the basic truck. On to the cabin.

 

[mhiscox]

Cabin Systems

We had a big head start with some of the systems. John dismantled parts of the camper but left some others in place. In particular, he left a good amount of the electrical in place. We had an under-truck shorepower inlet



which ran to a power strip, which then allowed AC power to outlets on the left and right side of the truck. There’s a nice Inteli-Power 9200 charger/converter, and there’s also a 1000 watt inverter, and wiring, through the blue switch, to turn DC to the water pump on and off.




The water gets drawn from a twelve-gallon plastic tank that’s strapped down along the streetside wall. The fill is a screw thread on the top, so you can fill it in place with a hose. There’s no level gauge, but you can see the level as the tank is translucent. (You could, BTW, carry about three times as much water by expanding the tanks size, as the location has lots of room.)




The best thing to find was a set of three Odyssey 2150 AGM batteries in very nicely fabricated and well protected carriers under the truck, The batteries (100 amp hours each) are likely getting toward the end of their life and may need to be replaced, but having the carriers and cabling all done is a huge advantage even if I do end up buying new batteries.




John left both the bank of streetside overhead cabinets (perfectly usable as is)



and the streetside floor cabinet from his conversion in the van, and I decided that, in the spirit of the instant camper, I should try to make use of his floor cabinet rather than making up my own.

This turned out way better than I thought it would. First off, there was a sink and two handled faucet, already installed,



and although it wasn’t plumbed up. I was able to put together a workable system pretty easily. There wasn’t any grey water tank, but I had a 10 liter Sceptre can that iproved about the ideal size to collect significant sink water without getting too heavy carry to dump.




The jug may not stay there, as I bought an instant hot water dispenser which I’m planning to use to give me 5/8 gallon of hot water. I’ve been planning for years to test out this plan on one of the campers, and it should work perfect on this use, since I’ll plug it straight into the power strip that provides shore power, so there won’t be any chance of a problem with drawing too fast from the batteries through the inverter.

 

[mhiscox]

More Cabin Systems

The cabinet wasn’t quite wide enough to carry the microwave (the small Sanyo I had that can be carried in the XV-JP), but it worked to cut part of the end of the cabinet and let the microwave stick out toward the rear of the truck. After I dug out a nice rubber mat of (incredibly) exactly the right dimensions to set the unit on, the result was a very custom fit that is pretty well locked in place.



And, as you can see in the photo, below the microwave was room to add a shelf to hold a couple off plastic bins that Costco sold for your fridge but (good luck continuing) look totally custom in the space. BTW, I made this quickie shelf out of some half-inch Gatorboard I had lying around from some long-ago use, and it’s pretty good for making light duty non-structural parts since it’s easy to work and doesn’t weigh anything.

It was very much the same story with the slide for the refrigerator. I had a front opening Dometic DC-0016 and a 27-liter Engel chest type that’d been holding the soda pop and super glue in the shop. The Dometic would have required a new cabinet, but the Engel was so close that by using a Forstner bit to drill holes that the fridge feet could sit down in, I got just enough height (by about a sixteenth inch) for the Engel to work perfectly on the slide John had previously built.




After all that stuff went into place, it was easy and sensible to store the Porta-Potti I had sitting around on a padded piece of plywood spliced into the aft side of the cabin.




I also had four pretty classy Taylorbrite cold cathode fluorescent lights sitting around that I’d picked up when some vendor had a too-good-to-pass-up sale on them. I used them to replace the LED puck lights John had put along streetside of the cabin, two in the kitchen and two under the overhead cabinet.




Next comes the zany part . . . “furnishing” the cabin.

 

[mhiscox]

Outfitting the Cabin

Given my history, I have to tell you that it wasn't the easiest thing to get going on my “cheapo” outfitting of the van, though once I got onto it, it became kind of fun. Just cut me some slack on the totally-non-optimized nature of things.

Probably the most interesting thing I did (and it worked) was to mount an 84” long piece of Rubbermade Fastrack rail to the van structure and then strap on these two Disc-O-Bed “Cabinets.” They're heavy fabric things with three shelves and an adjustable divider for each, mostly meant to be used by deployed military and in other ‘semi-temporary” situations. It was the easiest, and lowest cost, way to get a bunch of storage space with minimal effort. Each one supplies the equivalent of about 12 lineal feet of overhead cabinet.




We used one for all the cooking and kitchen stuff and the dry food, and shared the other one for clothes. I'm not crazy about the blue-green color or the bold lettering, but as a cheap approach to store stuff in any easy-to-get-at way, they'd be tough to beat.




There was also space on the Fastrack rail to put on a hook to hold our jackets and a big mesh basket to hold books and papers and whatever else.




Disc-O-Bed also supplied the canvas “organizer” we hung over the rear cabinet to hold kitchen stuff and whatever. I didn't even bother to mount this permanently, as I was able to make it stay up well with four neodymium bar magnets.




There's a TV/monitor in the van, mostly because I had a 25 inch Samsung unit left over from previous use as a computer monitor, and a set of mounting rails left from something else. The rails mounted easily and securely using just two of the Torx screws that hold the plastic liner panels in.




The curbside table was made from a 3/4 inch veneered plywood leftover and an adjustable keyboard stand. I cut the plywood to shape, adjusted the keyboard stand to the right height for eating at and the right length to fit over the wheel well, and then held the top to the stand with 3M Dual Lock. It's a real handy way to have more counter space when cooking, but you can also eat at it, or have a sort of desk by pulling up a Pico folding chair. When eating the “formal” meals, though, it's dragged down the aisle to be in front of the sofa.




And the sofa is another zany thing. Its base is a Camp Time Roll-A-Cot, a well-regarded camping cot with an aluminum base that disassembles to fit into a 5” x 36” pouch. I had one, and it's a comfy thing, so it got included. Then I added the crossbed cushion which the owners of my old Sprinter let me have back when they modified the bed setup to better suit their own use. That cushion is stuffed with a 5” thick Ikea foam mattress cut to size, so it's comfy, too.

And then, in what's nothing but still more idiot luck, we had two big cushions from a day bed we are storing in our attic for a friend, and they were exactly the right length and height to be the back cushions. They were also, remarkably, so poufy that they made the cot/cushion depth, which would be too deep with a normal back cushion, work out right. Voila, instant sofa and berth. (Plus the sleeping pad for the second person can store out of the way between the cot and cushion.)




Good fortune continued when I learned that three 12 gallon storage bins fit perfectly between the legs of the Roll-A-Cot, and a couple of leftover pillows returned from our old Sprinter fit well into the gaps left from the cot and back cushions being longer than the seat cushion. Plus the folded Pico chairs store well under the cot at the forward end. (The oriental runner rug is a good fit, too, and very nice under foot. Sadly, I appropriated it from our front hall and have been told it needs to be returned. I'll order up a cheap replacement. )




The crowning zaniness was encountering the Home Depot sale that for $50 gave you this tool cabinet (plus a tool chest to set on it) in a tasteful grey that matched the interior and a size that exactly filled the space from the back edge of the sliding door to the front end of the table. I Dual Lock'd a power strip to the end of the cabinet, as its flat top, covered in toolbox drawer liner, is great for setting the electronics while they're recharged. The combination of ball-bearing drawers (nicer than expected) to store electronics and miscellaneous and the cabinet below to store bedding was perfect.




That does it. Questions are invited, as are requests for more detail or photos about any particular aspect of the truck.

The total out-of-pocket expenses have just been a few hundred dollars by virtue of John helping out by leaving behind useful components and me having all of the surplus stuff (especially the $800 fridge) available for use. But it's a real success so far. We did a five-day trip down into California and back up the Oregon Coast and it was extremely comfortable to drive and to stay in. Plus, the lightweight approach—this one weighs a ton less than our old one—and John's tuning mods make it really quick, and the little five-banger gave us better than 22 mpg in varied driving.

All in all, it's looking like a totally successful stopgap camper, even if it's a little—or more than a little--odd. :sombrero:

 

[1leglance]

great build and 2 wheel drive and 22mpg means you can still go plenty of places and go farther on the fuel budget.

thanks for posting

 

[PaulJensen]

Nicely done...The use of what has been garage "filler" just makes sense...Can't wait to see it in person...

 

[suntinez]

Nice job Mikey :wavey:

a) trip report!
b) overview pics of the coach

Glad to see you back to your favorite hobby. The tool chest is brilliant.

 

[Tamper84]

Awesome!!! Thank for the write up!!!

Chris

 

[mk216v]

Hehe Mike, I very much appreciate the "rob the shop to mod the Sprinter" build, a nice change of pace on ExPo.
I look forward to discussing the life of such a Sprinter in person. :chef:

 

[Accrete]

Nice write-up Mike.
Enjoyed reading/viewing the simple approach you took on build.

Maybe see you on the road someday.
Cheers,
Thom

 

[Riptide]

Mike, you crack me up!! I'm always scanning your sig to see what's gone, or come back...

Enough already!! Go find another Westy Sprinter, spring for the 4WD conversion from John, and be done with it! You know you want to...

I know I want to...

Now, where did you last leave the Sami...

 

[Ford Prefect]

, ‘cuz there ain’t nothing more gonna happen. :sombrero:

First Big Fat Lie! haha

I wouldn’t normally write up a build thread on something this kludged.

Second Big Fat Lie! haha


Sorry, I had to...

Looks great Mike!

 

[mhiscox]

. . . spring for the 4WD conversion from John, and be done with it!

Exceptional advice. I'll send you my PayPal account information to make it easy to send your contribution.

Now, where did you last leave the Sami...

James Lombardo in San Francisco. Yet another vehicle I should not have sold. I had the perfect setup and sold both halves just to be changing things. Let that be a lesson to you all. :sombrero: