Thank you, that's really kind.
It's kind of like a Revel, but not.
- Thread starter rob cote
- Start date
Thank you, that's really kind.
Before I get to more of my own progress, I just want to jot down a little update on the flares and windows situation. So, the first window that was put in - the one in the passenger's side flare that was never supposed to be there - was done wrong, if you remember. The window was installed "correctly" but it was a window for a driver's side, so the seal faces into the wind, and allows water past if you're driving in the wind. We were initially told "it's fine we do it all the time" but when I realized it's actually not fine (by conducting our own leak test), they agreed and ordered the correct window. That was nearly two months ago now, and the window just arrived last week. So, they installed it.
When we spoke to arrange the window replacement, I notified them of the paint bubbling issue. The top edge of the replacement driver's side flare - the one that has a window, to replace the one that didn't have a window and was supposed to - had some obvious bubbles in it. I don't have any pictures of it, because it was hard to photograph. Just take my word for it. So, I was like, "Can you guys investigate root cause and let us know what it will take to resolve?" "Sure, no problem." So, they called back, the window is installed annnnnd the issue is actually not the paint, it's the flare.
Because of course it is.
They had already conversed with Flarespace about it. I don't know how the determination was made, exactly, but they said the panel layup was not executed properly. The panel was not rolled out prior to curing, so air bubbles were trapped inside. After...how long's it been, 3-4 months?, this caused a delamination. It probably took less time than that, I just didn't notice it earlier because I wasn't hanging out on the roof of the van looking down at the top of the flare. So Flarespace had already agreed to cover the cost of repair, which can be done on-site at the installation facility. I'm educated-guessing here - they probably grind back the panel voids and inject epoxy or body filler, smooth it and paint it. They said it should take 3 days.
SO. There's that. But back to the irregularly scheduled storytelling. We're gonna live in this thing, right? So, we need to store food and drinks. For us, that means a refrigerator. You can do it with a cooler. You could avoid foods that need to be kept cool. Lots of options. But this is what works for us. We shopped for fridges for what felt like forever. There're so many options! So many dimensions. And it's kind of a cornerstone, which you'll see, so it felt important to get it "right". Even though there's not really a wrong option, because this is so open-ended. It was actually rather difficult to shop in some ways. We'd find a fridge we liked, only to find out it was really expensive, or only available in certain countries, or the US-based supplier would just not respond, or whatever. It was kind of frustrating.
We eventually picked out one that was really expensive, justified it as "this is our literal home so we should get the best" and then didn't even get it. I was working on our power budget at the same time, so it was totally a moving target which was a little annoying, but Excel made it fairly simple to make changes. One day, I was in West Marine, for some reason. I don't even recall. It might have just been a reconnaissance mission; to see what was available locally, just to know. Anyway, they had an open-box refrigerator that was like half off, and dimensionally pretty frickin' close to what we wanted. They said it had never been used (I'm not entirely convinced, nor do I care) but it had been around the store so long they just wanted it gone. So we took it. It's a Norcold DE0041R if you care. It runs on 12VDC or 120VDC.
Once we got it home, I did some testing on it, to hone my power budget. I also spoke with a representative from Norcold. I was told it's more efficient on 120VAC, and that if both power sources are available, it will default to AC. Well that makes sense. But my testing showed that it pulled about 550Wh/day on AC power and only 430Wh/day on DC. So I planned to install a switch on the AC input, so that it would run off our inverter only when we had shore power available, but ultimately scrapped this plan because it was unnecessarily complicated, and just wired it to run on DC power only. The AC cord is coiled up on top of the refrigerator, not in use.
But before all that, I had to secure the thing in place. This is when the layout of our space starts to take shape for you guys. The refrigerator sits approximately in the middle of the sliding door opening, against the door. And the refrigerator door hinges on the passenger's side front edge. This setup is pretty great from a usability standpoint (spoiler - we've spent a few weekends here and there in the van already, to make sure we like it). When we come out of a grocery store, we can just open the sliding door and the fridge door will swing open past 180*, so we can load everything into the fridge from the ground. Also, when we're outside we don't have to get into the van to get another beer. But when we ARE inside the van, the door swing is out of the way of the main workspace, yet also easily accessible. We love it.
There is one major drawback: mounting it was kind of a chore. At least I only had to do it once. HA! Just kidding; I had to do it twice. As you can see, one of the legs is floating out in space. So I had to make up some brackets to secure it to the wall in there. The "floor" part of the step is just plastic, and it's not really supported directly. Plus, there's not good access, except through the slot where the door hardware slides. And with all the sliding door issues we had, I wanted to stay well away from anything door related. So I made up these brackets:
They look pretty sweet, right? They're .090" steel, and I just bent it with a hammer in my vise. The black paint hides a lot. The trouble was that when it was all bolted into place, the fridge was jiggly as heck. Unacceptable. I traced the source of the movement to two places; the flanges where the brackets are bolted to the wall, which could have been gusseted; and the wall of the van. Ultimately, this motivated a tool purchase and a complete redo of the brackets. I ordered a finger brake from SWAG Offroad for my hydraulic press, and I picked up some 1/8" steel plate. I also incorporated a backing plate that goes under the van. Here's a comparison of the new and old brackets:
The rear corner of the fridge is where the compressor is, so it only required a backing plate at that mounting location. The front side is significantly lighter, and doesn't flex at all. So the installed backing plate looks like this:
Two of those bolts go through the refrigerator mounting bracket. It's rock solid now. A huge improvement. I was stoked about how close I got to the sliding door without touching, too:
The only very minor gripe that I have (and I'm not doing anything to resolve) is that the sliding door is looser than my refrigerator mounting setup, so over the road the sliding door jiggles and makes very slight contact to the fridge. It's not even anything you can hear, but after a long drive, a tiny bit of the plastic trim from the fridge is apparent on the inside of the sliding door. We have a front panel for the door and the side trim pieces and all that, but you have to wait for that.
When we spoke to arrange the window replacement, I notified them of the paint bubbling issue. The top edge of the replacement driver's side flare - the one that has a window, to replace the one that didn't have a window and was supposed to - had some obvious bubbles in it. I don't have any pictures of it, because it was hard to photograph. Just take my word for it. So, I was like, "Can you guys investigate root cause and let us know what it will take to resolve?" "Sure, no problem." So, they called back, the window is installed annnnnd the issue is actually not the paint, it's the flare.
Because of course it is.
They had already conversed with Flarespace about it. I don't know how the determination was made, exactly, but they said the panel layup was not executed properly. The panel was not rolled out prior to curing, so air bubbles were trapped inside. After...how long's it been, 3-4 months?, this caused a delamination. It probably took less time than that, I just didn't notice it earlier because I wasn't hanging out on the roof of the van looking down at the top of the flare. So Flarespace had already agreed to cover the cost of repair, which can be done on-site at the installation facility. I'm educated-guessing here - they probably grind back the panel voids and inject epoxy or body filler, smooth it and paint it. They said it should take 3 days.
SO. There's that. But back to the irregularly scheduled storytelling. We're gonna live in this thing, right? So, we need to store food and drinks. For us, that means a refrigerator. You can do it with a cooler. You could avoid foods that need to be kept cool. Lots of options. But this is what works for us. We shopped for fridges for what felt like forever. There're so many options! So many dimensions. And it's kind of a cornerstone, which you'll see, so it felt important to get it "right". Even though there's not really a wrong option, because this is so open-ended. It was actually rather difficult to shop in some ways. We'd find a fridge we liked, only to find out it was really expensive, or only available in certain countries, or the US-based supplier would just not respond, or whatever. It was kind of frustrating.
We eventually picked out one that was really expensive, justified it as "this is our literal home so we should get the best" and then didn't even get it. I was working on our power budget at the same time, so it was totally a moving target which was a little annoying, but Excel made it fairly simple to make changes. One day, I was in West Marine, for some reason. I don't even recall. It might have just been a reconnaissance mission; to see what was available locally, just to know. Anyway, they had an open-box refrigerator that was like half off, and dimensionally pretty frickin' close to what we wanted. They said it had never been used (I'm not entirely convinced, nor do I care) but it had been around the store so long they just wanted it gone. So we took it. It's a Norcold DE0041R if you care. It runs on 12VDC or 120VDC.
Once we got it home, I did some testing on it, to hone my power budget. I also spoke with a representative from Norcold. I was told it's more efficient on 120VAC, and that if both power sources are available, it will default to AC. Well that makes sense. But my testing showed that it pulled about 550Wh/day on AC power and only 430Wh/day on DC. So I planned to install a switch on the AC input, so that it would run off our inverter only when we had shore power available, but ultimately scrapped this plan because it was unnecessarily complicated, and just wired it to run on DC power only. The AC cord is coiled up on top of the refrigerator, not in use.
But before all that, I had to secure the thing in place. This is when the layout of our space starts to take shape for you guys. The refrigerator sits approximately in the middle of the sliding door opening, against the door. And the refrigerator door hinges on the passenger's side front edge. This setup is pretty great from a usability standpoint (spoiler - we've spent a few weekends here and there in the van already, to make sure we like it). When we come out of a grocery store, we can just open the sliding door and the fridge door will swing open past 180*, so we can load everything into the fridge from the ground. Also, when we're outside we don't have to get into the van to get another beer. But when we ARE inside the van, the door swing is out of the way of the main workspace, yet also easily accessible. We love it.
There is one major drawback: mounting it was kind of a chore. At least I only had to do it once. HA! Just kidding; I had to do it twice. As you can see, one of the legs is floating out in space. So I had to make up some brackets to secure it to the wall in there. The "floor" part of the step is just plastic, and it's not really supported directly. Plus, there's not good access, except through the slot where the door hardware slides. And with all the sliding door issues we had, I wanted to stay well away from anything door related. So I made up these brackets:
They look pretty sweet, right? They're .090" steel, and I just bent it with a hammer in my vise. The black paint hides a lot. The trouble was that when it was all bolted into place, the fridge was jiggly as heck. Unacceptable. I traced the source of the movement to two places; the flanges where the brackets are bolted to the wall, which could have been gusseted; and the wall of the van. Ultimately, this motivated a tool purchase and a complete redo of the brackets. I ordered a finger brake from SWAG Offroad for my hydraulic press, and I picked up some 1/8" steel plate. I also incorporated a backing plate that goes under the van. Here's a comparison of the new and old brackets:
The rear corner of the fridge is where the compressor is, so it only required a backing plate at that mounting location. The front side is significantly lighter, and doesn't flex at all. So the installed backing plate looks like this:
Two of those bolts go through the refrigerator mounting bracket. It's rock solid now. A huge improvement. I was stoked about how close I got to the sliding door without touching, too:
The only very minor gripe that I have (and I'm not doing anything to resolve) is that the sliding door is looser than my refrigerator mounting setup, so over the road the sliding door jiggles and makes very slight contact to the fridge. It's not even anything you can hear, but after a long drive, a tiny bit of the plastic trim from the fridge is apparent on the inside of the sliding door. We have a front panel for the door and the side trim pieces and all that, but you have to wait for that.
Let's talk water. Shall we? We shall. It's actually a necessary ingredient for life, if you didn't know. On the other side of the coin is the fact that 100% of people who have ever died contained water, but we'll ignore that until later.
We're going to be in remote areas, so we prioritized a lot of water storage. More than most, probably. But whatever. We'll have to refill less often, so that's sweet. And we'll be able to fill up from pretty much anywhere. Which is also sweet. How about specifics?
We're using (2) 32-gallon over-the-wheel-well tanks from Agile Off-Road. That's 64 gallons of freshwater storage. I warned you it's a lot. Nothing really crazy about the installation; it's pretty simple. I just put 3/8" threaded rod through the floor of the van with a fender washer on both sides of the floor to sandwich it, on each end of the tank. I used a steel U-channel to clamp down the top of the tank with 3/8" hex nuts. I had to get a little creative with the Dremel to modify the ends of the channel slightly around the holes to get the socket to fit so I could snug the nuts down. You've already seen this picture, but now you're allowed to notice the water tank:
I'm not sure if I showed you guys this yet or not, but we have a 3kW inverter from Xantrex. I would say i'm this good at planning, but really it was a heavy dose of luck. Everything lines up really frickin' well and I'm stoked with how the packaging came out:
As you can see, the threaded rod is performing several tasks with holding everything up and down there. But it's pretty simple to assemble and disassemble. I would know, I've done it like 87 times. For reasons that have nothing to do with poor planning. No, definitely not that.
So, anyway. Where we'll be sourcing our water may be sketchy, from time to time. So, I worked with a good friend of mine who specializes in filtration. On his recommendation, we're using a reverse osmosis system from Waterdrop to filter our water. It's a three-stage system, and if I remember correctly, it filters down to 2 microns. That's pretty much everything except the smallest bacteria. So, it's obviously not sufficient to make 100% safe drinking water. We also got a handheld, wand-style UV light purifier. UV light will kill any remaining bacteria in the water, making it safe for drinking. I just wanted to clarify that you can't necessarily safely drink any ol' water after it runs through the RO system without that additional step.
The filter system sits here on the floor between the passenger's side water tank and the rear side of the fridge. Installation was simple; I just used heavy duty Velcro and stuck it to the floor. Plumbing it was mildly more challenging, but not really. I initially thought it would work off a gravity feed line from the tank, but on reading the manual I realized it needs a minimum pressure to operate. I think it was somewhere around 15psi? It had to get connected to the output from the water pump.
So, in that bundle on the floor is a blue Pex line which is just a crossover connecting the two water tanks. There's also a large clearish-white tube, which is the water supply to the filter. Then there's a smaller diameter solid white tube, which is filtered water output to the tap. The filter system includes a faucet, which will get installed at our sink, when we get to that point. For now, it sits on the floor. Finally, not shown, there's a red line which is process-waste water, that gets fed back into the top of passenger's side water tank. From there it can be reused for any other water purpose. It's not "wastewater" in the traditional sense, it's just leftover unfiltered water from the filtering process. The only other work I had to do to get it fully operational was to extend the wire harness from the filter housing to the faucet. The faucet contains an LED ring to indicate filter status, so there's a 4-wire harness connecting the two components. I think it's about 8 feet long. I tried reaching out to see if an extension harness could be purchased, but no luck. They couldn't provide the connector type information either, so I just spliced in a section of ethernet cable into the middle of the harness, and retained the original screw-lock connector thing, in case it ever needs to be disconnected. I like to stagger the splices when I have to extend a harness, so when you bundle it up, there's not a huge bulge in the middle of the harness.
I think that's about it for water supply stuff. We're using a Shurflo 2088 pump and mostly Pex for plumbing. I haven't yet completed the water inlet situation, but I have the components for it [this is no longer true, but I'm leaving it]. I just need to get further in the construction phase before I can finalize that. At that time, we'll also be adding an "outdoor shower". Not really though, it's just going to be a garden hose connection with cold water supply only. Basically, a washdown type deal, but we keep calling it an outdoor shower amongst ourselves because it's easier, I guess. I can't finish the faucet or interior shower plumbing yet either because none of that stuff is ready. The whole thing is an order of operations exercise so yea.
Frick I completely forgot to mention grey water. We have a 21-gallon spare-tire-basket tank, which is also from Agile Off-Road. That's why our ladder is carrying our spare tire; I told you there was a reason for that. Other than that, nothing has been done on that front. So, I'll update you guys with specifics once we get there. kbye
We're going to be in remote areas, so we prioritized a lot of water storage. More than most, probably. But whatever. We'll have to refill less often, so that's sweet. And we'll be able to fill up from pretty much anywhere. Which is also sweet. How about specifics?
We're using (2) 32-gallon over-the-wheel-well tanks from Agile Off-Road. That's 64 gallons of freshwater storage. I warned you it's a lot. Nothing really crazy about the installation; it's pretty simple. I just put 3/8" threaded rod through the floor of the van with a fender washer on both sides of the floor to sandwich it, on each end of the tank. I used a steel U-channel to clamp down the top of the tank with 3/8" hex nuts. I had to get a little creative with the Dremel to modify the ends of the channel slightly around the holes to get the socket to fit so I could snug the nuts down. You've already seen this picture, but now you're allowed to notice the water tank:
I'm not sure if I showed you guys this yet or not, but we have a 3kW inverter from Xantrex. I would say i'm this good at planning, but really it was a heavy dose of luck. Everything lines up really frickin' well and I'm stoked with how the packaging came out:
As you can see, the threaded rod is performing several tasks with holding everything up and down there. But it's pretty simple to assemble and disassemble. I would know, I've done it like 87 times. For reasons that have nothing to do with poor planning. No, definitely not that.
So, anyway. Where we'll be sourcing our water may be sketchy, from time to time. So, I worked with a good friend of mine who specializes in filtration. On his recommendation, we're using a reverse osmosis system from Waterdrop to filter our water. It's a three-stage system, and if I remember correctly, it filters down to 2 microns. That's pretty much everything except the smallest bacteria. So, it's obviously not sufficient to make 100% safe drinking water. We also got a handheld, wand-style UV light purifier. UV light will kill any remaining bacteria in the water, making it safe for drinking. I just wanted to clarify that you can't necessarily safely drink any ol' water after it runs through the RO system without that additional step.
The filter system sits here on the floor between the passenger's side water tank and the rear side of the fridge. Installation was simple; I just used heavy duty Velcro and stuck it to the floor. Plumbing it was mildly more challenging, but not really. I initially thought it would work off a gravity feed line from the tank, but on reading the manual I realized it needs a minimum pressure to operate. I think it was somewhere around 15psi? It had to get connected to the output from the water pump.
So, in that bundle on the floor is a blue Pex line which is just a crossover connecting the two water tanks. There's also a large clearish-white tube, which is the water supply to the filter. Then there's a smaller diameter solid white tube, which is filtered water output to the tap. The filter system includes a faucet, which will get installed at our sink, when we get to that point. For now, it sits on the floor. Finally, not shown, there's a red line which is process-waste water, that gets fed back into the top of passenger's side water tank. From there it can be reused for any other water purpose. It's not "wastewater" in the traditional sense, it's just leftover unfiltered water from the filtering process. The only other work I had to do to get it fully operational was to extend the wire harness from the filter housing to the faucet. The faucet contains an LED ring to indicate filter status, so there's a 4-wire harness connecting the two components. I think it's about 8 feet long. I tried reaching out to see if an extension harness could be purchased, but no luck. They couldn't provide the connector type information either, so I just spliced in a section of ethernet cable into the middle of the harness, and retained the original screw-lock connector thing, in case it ever needs to be disconnected. I like to stagger the splices when I have to extend a harness, so when you bundle it up, there's not a huge bulge in the middle of the harness.
I think that's about it for water supply stuff. We're using a Shurflo 2088 pump and mostly Pex for plumbing. I haven't yet completed the water inlet situation, but I have the components for it [this is no longer true, but I'm leaving it]. I just need to get further in the construction phase before I can finalize that. At that time, we'll also be adding an "outdoor shower". Not really though, it's just going to be a garden hose connection with cold water supply only. Basically, a washdown type deal, but we keep calling it an outdoor shower amongst ourselves because it's easier, I guess. I can't finish the faucet or interior shower plumbing yet either because none of that stuff is ready. The whole thing is an order of operations exercise so yea.
Frick I completely forgot to mention grey water. We have a 21-gallon spare-tire-basket tank, which is also from Agile Off-Road. That's why our ladder is carrying our spare tire; I told you there was a reason for that. Other than that, nothing has been done on that front. So, I'll update you guys with specifics once we get there. kbye
Alright alright alright. So, we've gone over pretty much of all the systems and utilities at this point. For me, that's pretty much the bulk of the thinking work, so it feels like this is the point where we've crossed somewhat of a totally arbitrary threshold. Doesn't actually exist. But I do feel like it's the beginning of sort of cresting the hill, although there's obviously still a ton left to do.
So, I switched over to woodworking. The first thing to be done was a sort of electrical panel, I guess? I'm not even sure what to call it. It's a multifunction piece; it welcomes guests, encloses the side of the refrigerator, contains shoes, and mounts our fuse panels. First, I had to make an AC fuse panel (not out of wood!), because I didn't really like anything that was available off the shelf. I misread the data sheet for a glass-type fuse panel from Blue Sea Systems; I thought it said it was rated for 120VAC, until I received it. DOH! I was trying to do too many things at once, I guess. So I spent some time shopping around but all I could find were AC breaker panels, and I was like I really don't need all that bulk. We don't have a lot of space. If I need to service anything AC-related, I can easily turn off the inverter and pull the fuse. It's marginally more work than flipping a breaker. And carrying spare fuses takes up way less space than a breaker does. Plus, the breaker panels were expensive. So I made up a simple panel with a half-dozen D-holes for fuse holders.
Of course, there's also the classic DC fuse panel from Blue Sea Systems. Everyone knows that piece. I wish there was an AC-compatible equivalent. If there is, don't tell me. Because I searched for so long to find it and came up empty.
So then I just cut a panel to fit the space. Nothing really crazy from there, just lots of trimming and checking and trimming and checking. The only thing to note is that I cut in a stick of apple wood. I forget if I mentioned here that I harvested an apple tree from my parents house. That was a while back, so it's nice and dry now, but I'm finally putting it to use. The wood is gorgeous, but extremely hard. So it's pretty ideal to use here.
One thing to note - don't buy pandemic-grade plywood. I even went to a reputable supplier for the "good" stuff, and I'm dealing with tearout and panel voids all over. Pretty disappointing. Anyways. Just smooth and paint. The panel is tied into the refrigerator mounting brackets I made, as well as the refrigerator door frame. That's why I cut in the stick of apple wood; so I'm not screwing into the edge of the plywood. It looks like the panel is sitting on the floor of the step, but I took good care to ensure that it's not. It's just really close to it. Because of the sliding door issues we've had, I want to ensure nothing potentially interferes with the door operation at all. The bottom cutouts have been working out pretty well for us for footwear storage. I get the big one, Mandy gets the small one. Depending on what we actually put in there, we can usually easily fit two pair each. We're toying with getting some sort of net or something made to help contain them, but we haven't figured out exactly what to do yet. My sister is trying to learn macramé which seems like it would be a decent application, but then how do we secure the rope to the panel? That's the sticking point at the moment. Plus priority. [Stick around, because we figured this out]
We're waiting on a good opportunity to meet up with a local artist we're close with, so she can label the fuse panels, as well as fill in the space on the rest of the panel with something creative. But here's a close up of the AC fuse panel. Just ignore the labels, as they're temporary.
Then I made up this little end-cap type panel, to close off the space and make it look a little more finished or whatever. It's painted now, but I don't have a picture of it in that state. So accept this instead:
I thought this post was going to cover a lot more ground than just that, but I'm up to 4 pictures so the rest will have to be another post.
So, I switched over to woodworking. The first thing to be done was a sort of electrical panel, I guess? I'm not even sure what to call it. It's a multifunction piece; it welcomes guests, encloses the side of the refrigerator, contains shoes, and mounts our fuse panels. First, I had to make an AC fuse panel (not out of wood!), because I didn't really like anything that was available off the shelf. I misread the data sheet for a glass-type fuse panel from Blue Sea Systems; I thought it said it was rated for 120VAC, until I received it. DOH! I was trying to do too many things at once, I guess. So I spent some time shopping around but all I could find were AC breaker panels, and I was like I really don't need all that bulk. We don't have a lot of space. If I need to service anything AC-related, I can easily turn off the inverter and pull the fuse. It's marginally more work than flipping a breaker. And carrying spare fuses takes up way less space than a breaker does. Plus, the breaker panels were expensive. So I made up a simple panel with a half-dozen D-holes for fuse holders.
Of course, there's also the classic DC fuse panel from Blue Sea Systems. Everyone knows that piece. I wish there was an AC-compatible equivalent. If there is, don't tell me. Because I searched for so long to find it and came up empty.
So then I just cut a panel to fit the space. Nothing really crazy from there, just lots of trimming and checking and trimming and checking. The only thing to note is that I cut in a stick of apple wood. I forget if I mentioned here that I harvested an apple tree from my parents house. That was a while back, so it's nice and dry now, but I'm finally putting it to use. The wood is gorgeous, but extremely hard. So it's pretty ideal to use here.
One thing to note - don't buy pandemic-grade plywood. I even went to a reputable supplier for the "good" stuff, and I'm dealing with tearout and panel voids all over. Pretty disappointing. Anyways. Just smooth and paint. The panel is tied into the refrigerator mounting brackets I made, as well as the refrigerator door frame. That's why I cut in the stick of apple wood; so I'm not screwing into the edge of the plywood. It looks like the panel is sitting on the floor of the step, but I took good care to ensure that it's not. It's just really close to it. Because of the sliding door issues we've had, I want to ensure nothing potentially interferes with the door operation at all. The bottom cutouts have been working out pretty well for us for footwear storage. I get the big one, Mandy gets the small one. Depending on what we actually put in there, we can usually easily fit two pair each. We're toying with getting some sort of net or something made to help contain them, but we haven't figured out exactly what to do yet. My sister is trying to learn macramé which seems like it would be a decent application, but then how do we secure the rope to the panel? That's the sticking point at the moment. Plus priority. [Stick around, because we figured this out]
We're waiting on a good opportunity to meet up with a local artist we're close with, so she can label the fuse panels, as well as fill in the space on the rest of the panel with something creative. But here's a close up of the AC fuse panel. Just ignore the labels, as they're temporary.
Then I made up this little end-cap type panel, to close off the space and make it look a little more finished or whatever. It's painted now, but I don't have a picture of it in that state. So accept this instead:
I thought this post was going to cover a lot more ground than just that, but I'm up to 4 pictures so the rest will have to be another post.
So follow me around to the other side of the refrigerator. Grab a beer on your way by if you like. I made up a panel that's essentially a picture frame, if you can imagine the plywood in the center is the picture. It's just a canvas really, to showcase our choice of paint color. It took some doing to find the right groove, but I'm not down to bore you with all the details. It's a frickin' rectangle of wood. Here you go:
It lives here:
Moving on. Once that panel was installed, I could work backwards from there. By backwards, I mean progressing forwards, toward the rear of the van. Got it? Oh yeah, we do have the trim for the sides of the fridge face, but they're a pain to put on, so I've been putting it off. Putting off putting them on. Someday. So, there's this awkward little space behind the refrigerator, before you hit the water tank, above the water filter. I wanted to put it to use because space is valuable in these things, don't'cha know. So I had to make this wicked awkward staircase-looking cabinet. There's not really anywhere to touch the floor in that area because of the water filter. But I can't just set it down on top of the water filter, obviously, so it took a lot of figuring. Here's what it looks like when you're figuring:
So ultimately that space is deceptively large. We can fit a frying pan, a dutch oven, some dry foods and paper towels in there. I dunno what we'll end up using it for long term, but for now that's kind of how we've been using it on some weekends here and there. Anyway. In that picture, the whole thing is really only supported by that little foot in front of the water filter. And the clamp, obviously. But it's not touching the van anywhere else. It obviously needed to. So, what I don't have great pictures of, because it's kind of hard to do, is the bracket that I made to secure it.
See the little white vent tube sticking up out of the water tank? Right in that neighborhood, about where it almost hits the blue tape, I put a backing plate inside the wall there. This is just a basic nut plate, with nuts welded to it on the back side. Then, I made up a bracket that picks up the bottom, rear corner of the cabinet. It's probably over-built, which is just how I like it. Tying into the van in this manner made the cabinet nearly rock solid. Nearly. I wasn't totally satisfied when we whipped up a makeshift countertop out of plywood to escape one weekend. But it was good enough for a few days, and I had a plan already anyways.
So. Before I get there, you need to know what's going on above the little storage cubby. Mandy and I love cooking. It's our thing a lot of the time. Which, you'll finally begin to understand why we have so much battery, I think. We wanted to design a kitchen that is easy to use, and capable. I think we achieved it. It's probably overkill for a lot of people. But we love it. We toyed with propane for a while. We had it in our trailer. It works. We don't hate it. But, it's another fuel to source and maintain, there's the potential for leaks, fires, etc. We ultimately decided, no, we're not putting propane in our van. We opted to use an induction cooktop instead. We got a 2-burner from Greystone? Or is Greystone the model? It's really unclear, even after having received it and opened it and read the documentation. It doesn't matter. The thing works great. Slap some bacon on there and turn it on, and it's sizzling in literally seconds. I've never used one before this one, and it's wild. Still kinda getting used to it.
"BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE," Billy said.
Mandy makes bread that is so good. You gotta try it someday. We've given up a lot to build this van. We have to give up more still to move into it. I'm not down to give up the bread. Or any of the baked goods she concocts. So we got an oven. And it had to be big enough to make all the good stuff. It's "basically" a "toaster oven" but not really. It's gigantic. It has all of the modes. It's rad. It lives above the storage cubby.
Hang on I'm almost to the best part. Before we sold our house, we rebuilt the whole kitchen. Part of the changes we made was to incorporate butcherblock countertops. We loved them immediately. We knew we wanted to do something similar in the van. But we're also really trying to make an effort to choose the more sustainable option whenever possible. So, we chose bamboo counters. I had an oversight when I was creating all of the stuff beneath the countertop, and I didn't account for the total finished width, and how it compared to the depth of the counter. My bad. It's a lot to focus on. So I had to widen the countertop by about 3/4" in order to cover everything. Which worked out perfectly, actually, because the bamboo strips were that width. So I extracted one strip from an offcut, and spliced it into the middle of the counter. I can tell where it is, but you can't. It went far better than I anticipated.
So recall before, when the cabinet was very slightly jiggly? It was time to enact my plan. I made up a bunch of angle brackets with nuts welded to them. Like a dozen. Probably overkill, whatever. My plan was to make the counter a structural member of the cabinet assembly. So the final movement within the cabinet was the outer rear corner where the oven is just kinda suspended over the water tank. I lifted it tight to the bottom of the counter and secured it to the countertop. The rest of the cabinets are all secured to the counter as well as the panel in the sliding door and so on. It doesn't move at all now. So we're good. And it looks amazing:
It lives here:
Moving on. Once that panel was installed, I could work backwards from there. By backwards, I mean progressing forwards, toward the rear of the van. Got it? Oh yeah, we do have the trim for the sides of the fridge face, but they're a pain to put on, so I've been putting it off. Putting off putting them on. Someday. So, there's this awkward little space behind the refrigerator, before you hit the water tank, above the water filter. I wanted to put it to use because space is valuable in these things, don't'cha know. So I had to make this wicked awkward staircase-looking cabinet. There's not really anywhere to touch the floor in that area because of the water filter. But I can't just set it down on top of the water filter, obviously, so it took a lot of figuring. Here's what it looks like when you're figuring:
So ultimately that space is deceptively large. We can fit a frying pan, a dutch oven, some dry foods and paper towels in there. I dunno what we'll end up using it for long term, but for now that's kind of how we've been using it on some weekends here and there. Anyway. In that picture, the whole thing is really only supported by that little foot in front of the water filter. And the clamp, obviously. But it's not touching the van anywhere else. It obviously needed to. So, what I don't have great pictures of, because it's kind of hard to do, is the bracket that I made to secure it.
See the little white vent tube sticking up out of the water tank? Right in that neighborhood, about where it almost hits the blue tape, I put a backing plate inside the wall there. This is just a basic nut plate, with nuts welded to it on the back side. Then, I made up a bracket that picks up the bottom, rear corner of the cabinet. It's probably over-built, which is just how I like it. Tying into the van in this manner made the cabinet nearly rock solid. Nearly. I wasn't totally satisfied when we whipped up a makeshift countertop out of plywood to escape one weekend. But it was good enough for a few days, and I had a plan already anyways.
So. Before I get there, you need to know what's going on above the little storage cubby. Mandy and I love cooking. It's our thing a lot of the time. Which, you'll finally begin to understand why we have so much battery, I think. We wanted to design a kitchen that is easy to use, and capable. I think we achieved it. It's probably overkill for a lot of people. But we love it. We toyed with propane for a while. We had it in our trailer. It works. We don't hate it. But, it's another fuel to source and maintain, there's the potential for leaks, fires, etc. We ultimately decided, no, we're not putting propane in our van. We opted to use an induction cooktop instead. We got a 2-burner from Greystone? Or is Greystone the model? It's really unclear, even after having received it and opened it and read the documentation. It doesn't matter. The thing works great. Slap some bacon on there and turn it on, and it's sizzling in literally seconds. I've never used one before this one, and it's wild. Still kinda getting used to it.
"BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE," Billy said.
Mandy makes bread that is so good. You gotta try it someday. We've given up a lot to build this van. We have to give up more still to move into it. I'm not down to give up the bread. Or any of the baked goods she concocts. So we got an oven. And it had to be big enough to make all the good stuff. It's "basically" a "toaster oven" but not really. It's gigantic. It has all of the modes. It's rad. It lives above the storage cubby.
Hang on I'm almost to the best part. Before we sold our house, we rebuilt the whole kitchen. Part of the changes we made was to incorporate butcherblock countertops. We loved them immediately. We knew we wanted to do something similar in the van. But we're also really trying to make an effort to choose the more sustainable option whenever possible. So, we chose bamboo counters. I had an oversight when I was creating all of the stuff beneath the countertop, and I didn't account for the total finished width, and how it compared to the depth of the counter. My bad. It's a lot to focus on. So I had to widen the countertop by about 3/4" in order to cover everything. Which worked out perfectly, actually, because the bamboo strips were that width. So I extracted one strip from an offcut, and spliced it into the middle of the counter. I can tell where it is, but you can't. It went far better than I anticipated.
So recall before, when the cabinet was very slightly jiggly? It was time to enact my plan. I made up a bunch of angle brackets with nuts welded to them. Like a dozen. Probably overkill, whatever. My plan was to make the counter a structural member of the cabinet assembly. So the final movement within the cabinet was the outer rear corner where the oven is just kinda suspended over the water tank. I lifted it tight to the bottom of the counter and secured it to the countertop. The rest of the cabinets are all secured to the counter as well as the panel in the sliding door and so on. It doesn't move at all now. So we're good. And it looks amazing:
I know, right!? It was treated with teak oil to seal it. It's not food-safe, but that's alright, we don't prep food directly on the counter anyways.
We shopped around and around for an awning, and we ultimately purchased a legless awning from Girard. The model is GG750. They use O'bravia fabric. O'bravia fabric can be recycled, which is awesome.
Very few people have put these awnings onto a Sprinter, so it's been a bit challenging. I had to make up my own brackets to secure it to the roof rails. They were fairly straightforward L brackets, but getting the actual dimensions for the hole patterns, to ensure the awning lands in the right place, was tricky. It's heavy, and the van is tall. Lots of ladder work. My legs! But, like I said, nothing super fancy or anything, just careful measuring, cutting, and drilling. I gusseted each for added rigiditiditidity. Here's a process picture, before the gusset was finalized and welded:
Note how wide the "foot" is next to the holes. This portion of the bracket sits on top of a bump in the roof right next to the rail, with some Flex Tape in between as a damper/paint protectant.
I also had to make the pieces that slide into the roof rails. I mean, I probably could have bought them, but it was faster to just make them. It's "just" a rectangle with a couple square holes and carriage bolts. How hard could it be, right? It was actually frickin' time-consuming. I wanted them to fit as snugly as possible inside the rail, for maximum shear strength. I had this constant fear of the thing just falling off the roof while I was making them. That would be trash. So, I got them close on the long sides with a cutoff wheel, and then filed them down to the finished dimensions to ensure the sides were perfectly straight and parallel. I think I got to within 0.005" on each. Then, filing a round hole into a square hole (to hold the carriage bolts) takes approximately 150 swipes of the file, per corner. It got really repetitive, so I counted. I left these holes undersized so the carriage bolts are an interference fit so they stay nice and secure. Then of course the bolts were too tall, so I had to file the heads flat.
Finally everything fit, I arranged some help to lift the thing up onto the roof and got it bolted up. I had previously run wires up to the ceiling near the passenger's side B-pillar, so power was accessible by simply installing a fuse. I was stoked, and I obviously had to do a test run immediately. The awning worked, and extended like it should. The brackets are obviously super beefy and did their job.
The frickin' roof of the van is too flimsy to support the huge moment about the roof rail. The L-brackets all tipped towards the outside, lifting the inner portion of the foot clear off the roof of the van. Nothing broke, or permanently deformed, but it's obviously not acceptable. I didn't get any pictures because it was dark by this time, the mosquitos were out, and I was frustrated because of the failure.
So, I made a couple braces to the driver's side, at least for temporary, so we can use the awning in the near term. Long term, we're still working on a solution. I know Fiamma's brackets make use of the shape of the roof of the van to the outside of the roof rail. I could do this, I just realize it will be a bit more challenging to get the shape of the bracket just right. The other option we're considering is a roof rack/deck kind of thing. Which, we've been considering off and on for...probably over a year now?
I don't know. This is still up in the air, but it's very low priority at this point. A roof deck may be in the cards some day, but by now we've got probably 15,000 miles with the awning braced to the driver's side, and everything has been fine.
I put the switches for the motor and the lights next to the passengers seat on the B-pillar:
It's super easy access from inside or outside. Most of the time, we're outside when we want to deploy the awning, obviously. It works awesome and we love it.
Very few people have put these awnings onto a Sprinter, so it's been a bit challenging. I had to make up my own brackets to secure it to the roof rails. They were fairly straightforward L brackets, but getting the actual dimensions for the hole patterns, to ensure the awning lands in the right place, was tricky. It's heavy, and the van is tall. Lots of ladder work. My legs! But, like I said, nothing super fancy or anything, just careful measuring, cutting, and drilling. I gusseted each for added rigiditiditidity. Here's a process picture, before the gusset was finalized and welded:
Note how wide the "foot" is next to the holes. This portion of the bracket sits on top of a bump in the roof right next to the rail, with some Flex Tape in between as a damper/paint protectant.
I also had to make the pieces that slide into the roof rails. I mean, I probably could have bought them, but it was faster to just make them. It's "just" a rectangle with a couple square holes and carriage bolts. How hard could it be, right? It was actually frickin' time-consuming. I wanted them to fit as snugly as possible inside the rail, for maximum shear strength. I had this constant fear of the thing just falling off the roof while I was making them. That would be trash. So, I got them close on the long sides with a cutoff wheel, and then filed them down to the finished dimensions to ensure the sides were perfectly straight and parallel. I think I got to within 0.005" on each. Then, filing a round hole into a square hole (to hold the carriage bolts) takes approximately 150 swipes of the file, per corner. It got really repetitive, so I counted. I left these holes undersized so the carriage bolts are an interference fit so they stay nice and secure. Then of course the bolts were too tall, so I had to file the heads flat.
Finally everything fit, I arranged some help to lift the thing up onto the roof and got it bolted up. I had previously run wires up to the ceiling near the passenger's side B-pillar, so power was accessible by simply installing a fuse. I was stoked, and I obviously had to do a test run immediately. The awning worked, and extended like it should. The brackets are obviously super beefy and did their job.
The frickin' roof of the van is too flimsy to support the huge moment about the roof rail. The L-brackets all tipped towards the outside, lifting the inner portion of the foot clear off the roof of the van. Nothing broke, or permanently deformed, but it's obviously not acceptable. I didn't get any pictures because it was dark by this time, the mosquitos were out, and I was frustrated because of the failure.
So, I made a couple braces to the driver's side, at least for temporary, so we can use the awning in the near term. Long term, we're still working on a solution. I know Fiamma's brackets make use of the shape of the roof of the van to the outside of the roof rail. I could do this, I just realize it will be a bit more challenging to get the shape of the bracket just right. The other option we're considering is a roof rack/deck kind of thing. Which, we've been considering off and on for...probably over a year now?
I don't know. This is still up in the air, but it's very low priority at this point. A roof deck may be in the cards some day, but by now we've got probably 15,000 miles with the awning braced to the driver's side, and everything has been fine.
I put the switches for the motor and the lights next to the passengers seat on the B-pillar:
It's super easy access from inside or outside. Most of the time, we're outside when we want to deploy the awning, obviously. It works awesome and we love it.
"But how do you sleep in that thing??" How many times we've heard that one.
Truth told, at the moment, we don't. We have, you know, just on the floor with a sleeping pad. It's less than ideal, but we're so excited to live in it that we just dork out and do it anyways. But right now, there's such a mess of stuff going on it's just easier to hammock or whatever. But let me show you how we will sleep in it.
Sideways, duh. You can tell by the flares. And the hashtag sleepsideways or whatever it is. I don't think I've ever actually used that one. But that's not my point. Have any of you guys seen the Winnebago Revel? Of course you have. Right? I feel like that's a safe assumption. Anyway, we're borrowing heavily from their layout design. We even tried to incorporate the same bed lift they're using. What a nightmare that was! You can't just go ahead and buy it. I dunno, they like hate money or whatever. So first, obviously, I had to figure out what it even is that they're using. It's an Euroloft project 2000 (I think that's what it's called, if I'm remembering correctly). It basically uses seat belt straps secured to the ceiling and wrapped around a motor-driven shaft which lives inside the bed frame. It's pretty clever, I don't hate it. Hence we tried so hard to get one. So I called up the manufacturer. "Lemme get one". They only sell to RV OEMs. Umm...okay, I guess they have better money or whatever. So, I called up Winnebago, they said, "You have to talk to your parts department". Ohhh kaaaayyyyy...So I did. "Hey, I need a replacement bed lift for a Revel." Sure, what's your VIN. Uhhhh. So I scoured the internet. I found a for sale ad which listed the VIN. Score. Then I called back, with the VIN. $2200. If you want the bed frame, that's another $600 or something.
Cool, so we'll just find another option because that's way too much money. I don't like the stupid straps anyways. That things a hunk of junk. Hate it. (Not really, I just hate the price and all the hoops you have to jump through to buy it) So, again, Mandy came through clutch with a solution. I wasn't sure up front, but it seemed workable. We got it on order so we could see it in real life, to be more sure. Then it sat. Collecting sawdust. For a few months. I needed it early to see it, but not to install it. Until now. Ignore the pine bits, this was a mockup for testing purposes and in no way reflective of the finished product:
Weeeelllll not quite. It's like 90% installed. But again, I can't finish it until more unrelated stuff is done. But I wanted to get this out there for all'y'all who might be looking to do something similar. I think this is going to work out fantastic [spoiler - I was right. Did you question it for an instant?]. So, specifics, yeah? We ordered a Sleep & Store from Cass Hudson. It's designed for toy hauler trailers with nice flat, square walls. You just blast a couple brackets onto each wall, square to each other, and fill in the middle with a bed frame of your own making. The bed lift mechanism does the up-down work with the help of gas springs. It's pretty simple. I probably could have made one, but theirs is much nicer than what I could have done. And way easier to just buy it.
As far as I know, and the salesman I've been communicating with, no one has installed on in a Sprinter yet [perhaps still? but I haven't been paying attention]. I'm not affiliated with them or anything, I've just had a long email chain before and after purchasing, to help understand the product more clearly because I'm not using it in the prescribed manner, exactly. So it's a honest review. "Trust me," said no trustworthy person, ever.
So, the bed lift is pretty straightforward. Interfacing it to the van is anything but. I started with kind of everything all at once, because it felt like I had to. There's three main points, per side, that you have to be concerned with. The horizontal rail and the vertical column are designed such that they sort of interlock together. So that's really just one mounting point. Then there's the top end of the column, and the forward end of the rail. The rail and column want to be perpendicular to each other, with the rail parallel to the floor and the column parallel to whatever the hell the vertical plane is. And then of course the column/rail pairs have to be parallel to each other from driver's side to passenger's side. It's a lot of constraints.
Now you're starting to see my struggle, yeah? What's vertical? What's flat? Take a look around YOUR van, I dare you. Basically everything is referenced off the floor. It's tricky. To rock a rhyme. So, the bed lift can be as wide as the walls at the roof corner. So I had to start with that, to ensure the column could be vertical. But the rail had to be at counter height, so I had to start there as well. And then I had to make a bracket for the junction of the two, so I could hold them up at this arbitrary point in space and fine tune all the angles. And it's kind of like solving a differential equation; as you adjust one thing, two others go out of whack. So if you have like 7 arms, you'd be much better at this than me. Sorry, we're not hiring at this time.
But after a couple days, I got to where it'll free-stand. And it's square and parallel and perpendicular and all that. Then it's just copy, paste, mirror. I wish. I mean, it was, but it's not that easy when you're working with physical material. Anyway, I started with the passenger's side, because we have a counter in there that I could reference, and use as a stand. Since we don't have the driver's side counter installed yet, I can't truly finish the rail mounting, but the rest of it's complete. The last thing I did was to set up supports for the forward end in the UP or "stowed" position. They're just glorified L-brackets that are sized such that they can be bolted to the van walls at the right location. A Cass Hudson-supplied bumper sits on the top.
Well, not EVERYTHING is finished, right? Because the bed is only as wide as the roof, remember? I've got to make up some fixed panels that will remain in the flares, next. I'm not exactly sure how I'm gonna tackle that, but you know I'll figure it out.
Truth told, at the moment, we don't. We have, you know, just on the floor with a sleeping pad. It's less than ideal, but we're so excited to live in it that we just dork out and do it anyways. But right now, there's such a mess of stuff going on it's just easier to hammock or whatever. But let me show you how we will sleep in it.
Sideways, duh. You can tell by the flares. And the hashtag sleepsideways or whatever it is. I don't think I've ever actually used that one. But that's not my point. Have any of you guys seen the Winnebago Revel? Of course you have. Right? I feel like that's a safe assumption. Anyway, we're borrowing heavily from their layout design. We even tried to incorporate the same bed lift they're using. What a nightmare that was! You can't just go ahead and buy it. I dunno, they like hate money or whatever. So first, obviously, I had to figure out what it even is that they're using. It's an Euroloft project 2000 (I think that's what it's called, if I'm remembering correctly). It basically uses seat belt straps secured to the ceiling and wrapped around a motor-driven shaft which lives inside the bed frame. It's pretty clever, I don't hate it. Hence we tried so hard to get one. So I called up the manufacturer. "Lemme get one". They only sell to RV OEMs. Umm...okay, I guess they have better money or whatever. So, I called up Winnebago, they said, "You have to talk to your parts department". Ohhh kaaaayyyyy...So I did. "Hey, I need a replacement bed lift for a Revel." Sure, what's your VIN. Uhhhh. So I scoured the internet. I found a for sale ad which listed the VIN. Score. Then I called back, with the VIN. $2200. If you want the bed frame, that's another $600 or something.
Cool, so we'll just find another option because that's way too much money. I don't like the stupid straps anyways. That things a hunk of junk. Hate it. (Not really, I just hate the price and all the hoops you have to jump through to buy it) So, again, Mandy came through clutch with a solution. I wasn't sure up front, but it seemed workable. We got it on order so we could see it in real life, to be more sure. Then it sat. Collecting sawdust. For a few months. I needed it early to see it, but not to install it. Until now. Ignore the pine bits, this was a mockup for testing purposes and in no way reflective of the finished product:
Weeeelllll not quite. It's like 90% installed. But again, I can't finish it until more unrelated stuff is done. But I wanted to get this out there for all'y'all who might be looking to do something similar. I think this is going to work out fantastic [spoiler - I was right. Did you question it for an instant?]. So, specifics, yeah? We ordered a Sleep & Store from Cass Hudson. It's designed for toy hauler trailers with nice flat, square walls. You just blast a couple brackets onto each wall, square to each other, and fill in the middle with a bed frame of your own making. The bed lift mechanism does the up-down work with the help of gas springs. It's pretty simple. I probably could have made one, but theirs is much nicer than what I could have done. And way easier to just buy it.
As far as I know, and the salesman I've been communicating with, no one has installed on in a Sprinter yet [perhaps still? but I haven't been paying attention]. I'm not affiliated with them or anything, I've just had a long email chain before and after purchasing, to help understand the product more clearly because I'm not using it in the prescribed manner, exactly. So it's a honest review. "Trust me," said no trustworthy person, ever.
So, the bed lift is pretty straightforward. Interfacing it to the van is anything but. I started with kind of everything all at once, because it felt like I had to. There's three main points, per side, that you have to be concerned with. The horizontal rail and the vertical column are designed such that they sort of interlock together. So that's really just one mounting point. Then there's the top end of the column, and the forward end of the rail. The rail and column want to be perpendicular to each other, with the rail parallel to the floor and the column parallel to whatever the hell the vertical plane is. And then of course the column/rail pairs have to be parallel to each other from driver's side to passenger's side. It's a lot of constraints.
Now you're starting to see my struggle, yeah? What's vertical? What's flat? Take a look around YOUR van, I dare you. Basically everything is referenced off the floor. It's tricky. To rock a rhyme. So, the bed lift can be as wide as the walls at the roof corner. So I had to start with that, to ensure the column could be vertical. But the rail had to be at counter height, so I had to start there as well. And then I had to make a bracket for the junction of the two, so I could hold them up at this arbitrary point in space and fine tune all the angles. And it's kind of like solving a differential equation; as you adjust one thing, two others go out of whack. So if you have like 7 arms, you'd be much better at this than me. Sorry, we're not hiring at this time.
But after a couple days, I got to where it'll free-stand. And it's square and parallel and perpendicular and all that. Then it's just copy, paste, mirror. I wish. I mean, it was, but it's not that easy when you're working with physical material. Anyway, I started with the passenger's side, because we have a counter in there that I could reference, and use as a stand. Since we don't have the driver's side counter installed yet, I can't truly finish the rail mounting, but the rest of it's complete. The last thing I did was to set up supports for the forward end in the UP or "stowed" position. They're just glorified L-brackets that are sized such that they can be bolted to the van walls at the right location. A Cass Hudson-supplied bumper sits on the top.
Well, not EVERYTHING is finished, right? Because the bed is only as wide as the roof, remember? I've got to make up some fixed panels that will remain in the flares, next. I'm not exactly sure how I'm gonna tackle that, but you know I'll figure it out.
You know the recessed panel area thingymajigger on the top of the sliding door? There's probably an optional factory trim piece for that area, I'm guessing. But we don't have it. It's probably on the passenger version? Ours is a cargo. I don't know. I don't really care, either. We made our own. It's pretty simple once you figure out the process. So, here, let me take care of the hard part for you.
First, you get a piece of paper big enough to cover the space. Trim it down so it's only approximately a little bit bigger than the panel, this makes it easier to work with. Hold it still and use your finger and fingernail to shmush the paper into the recessed groove where the panel goes. Also push in where the holes are for mounting the pushpin doohickeys. Just enough to crease the paper. Cut it along the creases and then trace it onto 1/4" thick plywood. Or whatever substrate you want really. 1/4" plywood works well. Test fit it to make sure, because that's the trickiest part of the whole thing. Like I said, it's really not that hard. Once it fits good and your holes are drilled and line up well, wrap the thing in foam if you want to. Use a good quality spray adhesive, like 3M High Strength 90. We had a crappy experience with Super 77. It's possible that's because it was old, I don't know. It worked, but not well. Also, landau closed cell foam works better than whatever 1/4" foam Joann is hustling. Just way nicer to work with and feels better to the touch. Plus it doesn't absorb water so that's a bonus. Anyway, once that's done, do the same with fabric of your choice. Our choice was tan tweed. The color match is way better than we expected, since we weren't really trying to match it. So that was awesome to see. Wrap the edges around the panel and staple close to the edge with 1/4" staples. Trim the excess close to the staples. Use push pin thingies to install it to the door. It should look like this:
Repeat the same process for the rear doors, to achieve this:
Repeat again for the rear side wall. This is a little tricky, because you have to extract the odd shape of the flare from the middle. But with careful measurements, you can do it. I believe in you. If I can do it, someone else can probably do it, too. Or however that goes. Also wrap the flare trim ring, if you got it. We got it. It makes it look really professional, really easily. The hardest part is wrapping the fabric around the compound curves of the trim ring. My advice? Use fabric with lots of stretch. Tweed is not amenable to stretching. We did asbestos we could, but it's not perfect. The photos hide that, so you're gonna love this part:
I forgot to mention, do the same treatment to the space inside the flare as well. Use a different fabric if you want, for more fun. Then do the same on the other side:
Lastly, and this step is absolutely critical, show dog what you built for him:
First, you get a piece of paper big enough to cover the space. Trim it down so it's only approximately a little bit bigger than the panel, this makes it easier to work with. Hold it still and use your finger and fingernail to shmush the paper into the recessed groove where the panel goes. Also push in where the holes are for mounting the pushpin doohickeys. Just enough to crease the paper. Cut it along the creases and then trace it onto 1/4" thick plywood. Or whatever substrate you want really. 1/4" plywood works well. Test fit it to make sure, because that's the trickiest part of the whole thing. Like I said, it's really not that hard. Once it fits good and your holes are drilled and line up well, wrap the thing in foam if you want to. Use a good quality spray adhesive, like 3M High Strength 90. We had a crappy experience with Super 77. It's possible that's because it was old, I don't know. It worked, but not well. Also, landau closed cell foam works better than whatever 1/4" foam Joann is hustling. Just way nicer to work with and feels better to the touch. Plus it doesn't absorb water so that's a bonus. Anyway, once that's done, do the same with fabric of your choice. Our choice was tan tweed. The color match is way better than we expected, since we weren't really trying to match it. So that was awesome to see. Wrap the edges around the panel and staple close to the edge with 1/4" staples. Trim the excess close to the staples. Use push pin thingies to install it to the door. It should look like this:
Repeat the same process for the rear doors, to achieve this:
Repeat again for the rear side wall. This is a little tricky, because you have to extract the odd shape of the flare from the middle. But with careful measurements, you can do it. I believe in you. If I can do it, someone else can probably do it, too. Or however that goes. Also wrap the flare trim ring, if you got it. We got it. It makes it look really professional, really easily. The hardest part is wrapping the fabric around the compound curves of the trim ring. My advice? Use fabric with lots of stretch. Tweed is not amenable to stretching. We did asbestos we could, but it's not perfect. The photos hide that, so you're gonna love this part:
I forgot to mention, do the same treatment to the space inside the flare as well. Use a different fabric if you want, for more fun. Then do the same on the other side:
Lastly, and this step is absolutely critical, show dog what you built for him:
Alright so a lot of people ask where will we store stuff in the van? We didn't overlook this. It's a compromise, like everything, of course. But, since I can't stand up under the bed lift anyways, we figured why not sacrifice even more height? So, I set to work making a trunk. It makes the space underneath the bed a little bit awkward, but it's already awkward anyways, so I'm kind of like whatever about it. You'll see. I'm confident it's going to work well for us. And that's all that really matters.
So, first things last. No wait that's not right. First things first! Why do we even need to say that? Should it just be assumed? Anyway. The real first thing is taking a bunch of measurements. But I'm not showing you pictures of that because who cares, right? First thing that looks like anything is making this rib cage sort of deal. It's a bunch of work to get here, but this stage is the first point where it looks like an actual thing. Prior to this, it's just a pile of logs and sheets.
It's more apple wood that I harvested and milled myself. It's hard as hell. Which is great because I need a lot of strength in this piece. You can see a bunch of burn marks from cutting it. Not a great look. Don't judge me. Before it's square on 4 sides, it likes to walk a bit on the table saw and it binds the blade slightly. Very minor. But it's evidence of its incredible hardness. I sanded it all out even though you'll never see these pieces again. I chucked it into the van, just to make sure everything was kosher. Did you know the blood of the animal can never be kosher? I just learned that, thought it was interesting. My storage trunk is probably not kosher, I don't know all the rules. It's just a word people misappropriate.
Here you can see the main drawback of this component - the very short ceiling. But this area will only be for sitting anyways, since I was never going to be able to stand under the bed lift. So, it's really only awkward when you're getting in and out of the space, and it's not awful. You just have to crouch for a moment. Anyway, it fit mint. Fitment. The fitment fit mint. I did basically the same process, albeit pretty differently, to make a drawer. Then, I applied polyurethane to both in their entirety. In case they ever get wet for whatever reason.
It really looks awesome with the finish applied. I used a roller this time which is really the way to go. I've been spraying smaller pieces, but there's so much waste, and it's a lot more effort to setup and whatnot. Gotta move everything outside, plan around weather, etc. Instead, just get a small foam roller and go to town. You can put it on way heavier in one pass, too, without getting runs. It saves a bunch of time. Once it was all dry, I secured the drawer slides. They're 48" long, but the drawer box, I think, came out to 53"ish? There's about 5-6" of drawer box that doesn't get fully exposed, but it really doesn't matter. The last few inches are very easily reached from outside. So everything looked all gucci, I slapped it in the van, checked that my doors closed:
Then I loaded it up:
This is really a preliminary packing. I just wanted to get a feel for how much stuff we could reasonably fit in there. It's a lot. I think it's more than I expected when I only had the drawer on paper. Whiteboard, really. That's usually what I'm working off of. But "on paper" is another of those classic sayings. It just means that it's only a concept, it doesn't physically exist in meatspace yet. Anyway. We'll probably add stuff, subtract stuff, rearrange stuff, etc. But I think the picture helps to convey how large the box is; how useful it will be. It's really not even full, but we have ski boots, 2 complete sets of winter gear including boots, garden hose, extension cord, jumper cables, hiking pack, hammocks, tool box, and extra compost bricks. We were hoping the sleeping bags would fit as well, but I was pretty sure they'd be too tall. We're going to look for vaccuum bags that might work to flatten them for storage. The compression bags work awesome, but they just don't work in this particular configuration. The diameter is larger than the drawer depth.
Anyway, that's it for now. Toodles.
So, first things last. No wait that's not right. First things first! Why do we even need to say that? Should it just be assumed? Anyway. The real first thing is taking a bunch of measurements. But I'm not showing you pictures of that because who cares, right? First thing that looks like anything is making this rib cage sort of deal. It's a bunch of work to get here, but this stage is the first point where it looks like an actual thing. Prior to this, it's just a pile of logs and sheets.
It's more apple wood that I harvested and milled myself. It's hard as hell. Which is great because I need a lot of strength in this piece. You can see a bunch of burn marks from cutting it. Not a great look. Don't judge me. Before it's square on 4 sides, it likes to walk a bit on the table saw and it binds the blade slightly. Very minor. But it's evidence of its incredible hardness. I sanded it all out even though you'll never see these pieces again. I chucked it into the van, just to make sure everything was kosher. Did you know the blood of the animal can never be kosher? I just learned that, thought it was interesting. My storage trunk is probably not kosher, I don't know all the rules. It's just a word people misappropriate.
Here you can see the main drawback of this component - the very short ceiling. But this area will only be for sitting anyways, since I was never going to be able to stand under the bed lift. So, it's really only awkward when you're getting in and out of the space, and it's not awful. You just have to crouch for a moment. Anyway, it fit mint. Fitment. The fitment fit mint. I did basically the same process, albeit pretty differently, to make a drawer. Then, I applied polyurethane to both in their entirety. In case they ever get wet for whatever reason.
It really looks awesome with the finish applied. I used a roller this time which is really the way to go. I've been spraying smaller pieces, but there's so much waste, and it's a lot more effort to setup and whatnot. Gotta move everything outside, plan around weather, etc. Instead, just get a small foam roller and go to town. You can put it on way heavier in one pass, too, without getting runs. It saves a bunch of time. Once it was all dry, I secured the drawer slides. They're 48" long, but the drawer box, I think, came out to 53"ish? There's about 5-6" of drawer box that doesn't get fully exposed, but it really doesn't matter. The last few inches are very easily reached from outside. So everything looked all gucci, I slapped it in the van, checked that my doors closed:
Then I loaded it up:
This is really a preliminary packing. I just wanted to get a feel for how much stuff we could reasonably fit in there. It's a lot. I think it's more than I expected when I only had the drawer on paper. Whiteboard, really. That's usually what I'm working off of. But "on paper" is another of those classic sayings. It just means that it's only a concept, it doesn't physically exist in meatspace yet. Anyway. We'll probably add stuff, subtract stuff, rearrange stuff, etc. But I think the picture helps to convey how large the box is; how useful it will be. It's really not even full, but we have ski boots, 2 complete sets of winter gear including boots, garden hose, extension cord, jumper cables, hiking pack, hammocks, tool box, and extra compost bricks. We were hoping the sleeping bags would fit as well, but I was pretty sure they'd be too tall. We're going to look for vaccuum bags that might work to flatten them for storage. The compression bags work awesome, but they just don't work in this particular configuration. The diameter is larger than the drawer depth.
Anyway, that's it for now. Toodles.
Sorry for the hiatus, had a busy week. But now we're back with the updates until you're up-to-date. So, anyway. The up and down part of the mattress, let's call it the main mattress, isn't nearly big enough for me. I'm a long boy. So our plan has always been to make wings for the bed, that will remain fixed in the flares. Sounds wicked simple right? Till you get to actually making them, and you're like huh? Story of my life. It actually wasn't awful once I got in there and looked around.
The Sleep & Store is straight up beefy, so I just built off that, using it as a foundation of sorts. I made a panel that secures to the bottom of the lower bed support, and goes out to the wall. Once I got my stencil to fit then cut the actual panel, it was just a bunch of trim-and-check. You know the drill.
So then I had to do some basic maths to figure out how high to build up from there. We have ordered a custom mattress to fit the main mattress space. That's 7" thick memory foam. The problem with that is if we carried that same height all the way across to the flares, the bottom inch-ish of the windows would be obscured. And we certainly don't need 7" of mattress beneath our feet and pillows. So the bulk of the height of the wings is actually storage cubbies. We're planning on a 2" thick pad atop the wings. It will be about an inch lower than the main mattress which is weird I know, but I don't think it'll be an issue [update: it's really not]. You'll see when we get there. Anyway, I just cut some 2x8 to length and ripped them to the proper width to get us to the height we need.
I made a top utilizing the same stencil as the bottom. I had to modify the stencil but whatev. Reduce reuse recycle. The POINT of doing all that was so I could go the other way from the bed rail, to make the bench. Gotta go up to go down. I had to start from the bed support, and I figured it was easier to go up since it was a shorter distance and stuff. I was right. The bench is way more figuring. To be fair, there's a lot more going on below the bed. This is where I'm not totally finished so.
Beneath the main mattress will be our sort of dining area I guess. Not sure what we're calling it. But it's 2 benches and some sort of table deal. I spent the better part of a day measuring chair dimensions and angles, avoiding the blazing sun, and making a mockup. I screwed together a bunch of scraps that I'm not going to show you because it's very homeless-looking, but it proved my concept, so I was confident to move forward.
I made up a bench back and seat bottom panel that will fill the space from the oven to the rear doors. I cut large windows in the seat back, which will give us access to a huge storage space behind the bench when the cushion is removed. The front of the bench (right behind our calves when we're sitting) will remain open for storage. The sleeping bags easily fit in this space. You have to remember it's not finished in the following pictures. The legs are not real.
I had to be somewhere, and I realized that I needed slightly longer hardware, so I screwed on temporary legs so I could drive it, and the upper part is held with clamps at the moment as you can see. That's van life! But you can see our cubbies are painted. You can get a better idea of the size of the storage space from this angle:
For reference, the width of the water tank is 16". My plan is to put a wall at the edge of the storage drawer which will act as a rear leg for the bench, as well as prevent anything falling into the gap from the middle aisle part of the van. There will be a floor above the water tank that meets that wall and creates a bottom for the storage compartment. So things aren't just sitting on the inverter and water tank. You'll see. There's obviously still quite a bit of work to be done, but the bulk of the figuring is done. The bench is comfy. It's sturdy. Mandy and I both sat on it together with those sketchy-ass legs and it held us. I think we're good. I have about 4-5" of clearance over my head when I'm seated. More than I initially thought I'd have, I think. Also, I can sit sideways on the bench with my legs across it, and lean against the cabinet. As an option. The bottom is wide enough for my ass. And, if my math is right, which it sometimes is, we should have about the same width between benches as there is between the front seats. So it's cozy, of course, but totally workable.
K bye.
The Sleep & Store is straight up beefy, so I just built off that, using it as a foundation of sorts. I made a panel that secures to the bottom of the lower bed support, and goes out to the wall. Once I got my stencil to fit then cut the actual panel, it was just a bunch of trim-and-check. You know the drill.
So then I had to do some basic maths to figure out how high to build up from there. We have ordered a custom mattress to fit the main mattress space. That's 7" thick memory foam. The problem with that is if we carried that same height all the way across to the flares, the bottom inch-ish of the windows would be obscured. And we certainly don't need 7" of mattress beneath our feet and pillows. So the bulk of the height of the wings is actually storage cubbies. We're planning on a 2" thick pad atop the wings. It will be about an inch lower than the main mattress which is weird I know, but I don't think it'll be an issue [update: it's really not]. You'll see when we get there. Anyway, I just cut some 2x8 to length and ripped them to the proper width to get us to the height we need.
I made a top utilizing the same stencil as the bottom. I had to modify the stencil but whatev. Reduce reuse recycle. The POINT of doing all that was so I could go the other way from the bed rail, to make the bench. Gotta go up to go down. I had to start from the bed support, and I figured it was easier to go up since it was a shorter distance and stuff. I was right. The bench is way more figuring. To be fair, there's a lot more going on below the bed. This is where I'm not totally finished so.
Beneath the main mattress will be our sort of dining area I guess. Not sure what we're calling it. But it's 2 benches and some sort of table deal. I spent the better part of a day measuring chair dimensions and angles, avoiding the blazing sun, and making a mockup. I screwed together a bunch of scraps that I'm not going to show you because it's very homeless-looking, but it proved my concept, so I was confident to move forward.
I made up a bench back and seat bottom panel that will fill the space from the oven to the rear doors. I cut large windows in the seat back, which will give us access to a huge storage space behind the bench when the cushion is removed. The front of the bench (right behind our calves when we're sitting) will remain open for storage. The sleeping bags easily fit in this space. You have to remember it's not finished in the following pictures. The legs are not real.
I had to be somewhere, and I realized that I needed slightly longer hardware, so I screwed on temporary legs so I could drive it, and the upper part is held with clamps at the moment as you can see. That's van life! But you can see our cubbies are painted. You can get a better idea of the size of the storage space from this angle:
For reference, the width of the water tank is 16". My plan is to put a wall at the edge of the storage drawer which will act as a rear leg for the bench, as well as prevent anything falling into the gap from the middle aisle part of the van. There will be a floor above the water tank that meets that wall and creates a bottom for the storage compartment. So things aren't just sitting on the inverter and water tank. You'll see. There's obviously still quite a bit of work to be done, but the bulk of the figuring is done. The bench is comfy. It's sturdy. Mandy and I both sat on it together with those sketchy-ass legs and it held us. I think we're good. I have about 4-5" of clearance over my head when I'm seated. More than I initially thought I'd have, I think. Also, I can sit sideways on the bench with my legs across it, and lean against the cabinet. As an option. The bottom is wide enough for my ass. And, if my math is right, which it sometimes is, we should have about the same width between benches as there is between the front seats. So it's cozy, of course, but totally workable.
K bye.
So the next thing I tackled when I got some time was to actually bolt the bench in place. The clamps were killing the vibe for me. This meant removing the whole bed wing/cubby piece to cut some notches. The back of the bench has some hardwood corner blocks, which get through-bolted to the bed lift lower support. I had to cut around those to get the bench to sit up tight to that support. Then reinstall everything to line drill the holes for the bolts. So you can see why everything takes so long these days. It's a struggle sometimes to not feel crappy about slow progress. All that work and it looks nearly the same:
Anyway. Once the bench was fully in where it's supposed to be, it came back out to get disassembled and painted. I left the joint free of paint so the bench back and bottom could be glued together at reassembly. I forget if I showed the corner braces I made; they work well, but more is better. So once the glue joint was dry, I could put the bench back in again. This is the thing - I never know when the last time is that something will get installed. I just make sure to do it thoroughly each time. It takes more time, but there is a value add: I get to figure out which parts of assembly or disassembly suck, and redesign it for morebettererness. So, if in the future I have to take something apart, it should be as easy as I am able to make it.
So then I made up some prettier legs. Stronger, too. And fewer. I dug through my pile of apple wood and found some workable pieces. Once they were down to size, I took some time to sand them out to 400 with the orbital sander. The figuring is gorgeous on these ones. I put a few coats of polyurethane on them, sanding again between coats. Worth it. Then they got screwed to the bench and to the floor aka storage drawer. At this point the bench was noticably more sturdy which was neat. But I wasn't finished.
THEN I started working the next panel. I'm not sure what to call it exactly, as it's a multi-function piece. It separates the storage areas, like a wall. But it also supports the rear of the bench, like a chair leg. This is not all that exciting for you guys to hear about probably. It's just cut to size and install with more corner blocks. I cut in a vent louver for the inverter and charger. I think there's sufficient airflow all around them. I'm probably going to not wall them in at the rear door. I'm still working out the exact design of that sort of end cap piece at the rear of the bench. Anyway the bench is solid as a rock now. You can plop down hard onto it and just the whole van shakes.
Lastly, I began working the floor of the behind-the-bench storage compartment. I secured a rail to the back side of the wall panel beneath the bench, and I can use the frame of the end of the cabinet for support. I need to make a support along the wall panel under the bench, as well as across the rear. Still trying to figure out the most accurate way to get all that level all the way around. But right now, the storage floor panel is drying; I glued apple wood sticks across the floor, similar to the trunk drawer. I really like that design element - it helps limit gear sliding, adds strength, and takes up a minimum of storage volume. I could just as easily put the reinforcements on the bottom side of the panel, but then we'd lose storage height equal to the thickness of the straps.
Anyway. Once the bench was fully in where it's supposed to be, it came back out to get disassembled and painted. I left the joint free of paint so the bench back and bottom could be glued together at reassembly. I forget if I showed the corner braces I made; they work well, but more is better. So once the glue joint was dry, I could put the bench back in again. This is the thing - I never know when the last time is that something will get installed. I just make sure to do it thoroughly each time. It takes more time, but there is a value add: I get to figure out which parts of assembly or disassembly suck, and redesign it for morebettererness. So, if in the future I have to take something apart, it should be as easy as I am able to make it.
So then I made up some prettier legs. Stronger, too. And fewer. I dug through my pile of apple wood and found some workable pieces. Once they were down to size, I took some time to sand them out to 400 with the orbital sander. The figuring is gorgeous on these ones. I put a few coats of polyurethane on them, sanding again between coats. Worth it. Then they got screwed to the bench and to the floor aka storage drawer. At this point the bench was noticably more sturdy which was neat. But I wasn't finished.
THEN I started working the next panel. I'm not sure what to call it exactly, as it's a multi-function piece. It separates the storage areas, like a wall. But it also supports the rear of the bench, like a chair leg. This is not all that exciting for you guys to hear about probably. It's just cut to size and install with more corner blocks. I cut in a vent louver for the inverter and charger. I think there's sufficient airflow all around them. I'm probably going to not wall them in at the rear door. I'm still working out the exact design of that sort of end cap piece at the rear of the bench. Anyway the bench is solid as a rock now. You can plop down hard onto it and just the whole van shakes.
Lastly, I began working the floor of the behind-the-bench storage compartment. I secured a rail to the back side of the wall panel beneath the bench, and I can use the frame of the end of the cabinet for support. I need to make a support along the wall panel under the bench, as well as across the rear. Still trying to figure out the most accurate way to get all that level all the way around. But right now, the storage floor panel is drying; I glued apple wood sticks across the floor, similar to the trunk drawer. I really like that design element - it helps limit gear sliding, adds strength, and takes up a minimum of storage volume. I could just as easily put the reinforcements on the bottom side of the panel, but then we'd lose storage height equal to the thickness of the straps.
The bench was looking decent, but I had to do better, obviously. It's really just paint doing the bulk of the work in that regard. I painted the louver and the wall/bench support piece. I also put some apple wood structure to the storage area floor piece, because the 1/4" underlayment is flimsy as. These strips help immensely. We'll probably add a forward wall piece, just so small objects don't fall down into the abyss [spoiler: I didn't and it's not an issue]. But right now, we're just storing sleeping bags in this area, which can't fit into the hole. Anyway, it looks like this now, and this is pretty representative of the finished product. For my part.
Mandy strung together 5 days off work so she could...work. Different kinda work, you know. So, the bench is obviously supreme comfort already because of my amazing design skills. That's called exaggeration. But considering the size and space, and my zero hours of experience in furniture making, it is more comfortable than I expected. But, like anything, more is better. Nothing in moderation. So, Mandy whipped up some cushions for the bench from scratch. They really take the bench to another level of finished and comfort. The only drawback, is that the added height of the seat makes the already short back even shorter. But no worry, she saw that one coming and resolved it straight away by making up this sweet pillow that we can sit on the top of the bench back, against the cubbies. It works perfectly in this location, and you can fully lean back. Plus it uses the same fabric as the bench and the flare, so it's custom as heck and no one else has this pillow.
Meanwhile she was getting her sew on, I set to work on installing a set of steps which are sorely needed on these 4WD jobbies. I mean, my legs are swole as hell so it's really no trouble at all and I totally enjoy doing that huge one-legged squat hundreds of times a day while I build this thing. Not. OK, the reality is, the climb in is not terrible, but it would be better if it was easier. But we do really appreciate the massive ground clearance, and we want to retain it as much as possible, because we intend to utilize the function. Not that we'll be doing full on rock crawling, but we want to get to really remote areas and if we get stuck on a rock in the middle of nowhere because of a step, that's not okay. Or, if we just hit it and damage or break the step, or the body of the van, that's not ideal either. So, would that actually happen? I don't know. But to us it wasn't worth the risk.
So powered steps. We waited for months; pretty much since we took ownership of the van; for Amp-Research to release the kit for the VS30. I finally got an email saying they were ready to accept preorders, so I placed an order through Sprinter Store, because they added a new product to their website at about the same time. It was within a day or two of the email I got from Amp-Research. And the product page specifically stated 2019+ Amp-Research power steps. Excellent. So the parts arrived just last week, and I opened up the box to find a modified Amp-Research pre-2019 kit. Someone adds some okay-ish instructions and a magnet switch for the sliding door. I understand the kit for the 2018s is not exactly plug 'n' play, but I believe the needed door-open signal wires are easier accessed under the dash. After talking with Amp-Research about the kit they haven't yet released, I learned that the real VS30 kit will be plug 'n' play, with an OBDII plug for door open signals [update: it's a year later and that kit is still not in full-production mode, last I read]. That's what I thought we had ordered. I feel like I was mislead by Sprinter Store and honestly it's not the first time they've been a disappointment. But I just want to talk about our van, not trash vendors. At least, not here. So. Whatever. The installation was kind of a slog, but I think I was just frustrated that it wasn't what we thought we'd ordered. Now that it's over, we love the steps [Still.].
I dunno if this website can handle a video, but I'm sure they'll show up in a future video on our Youtubes, if you guys watch us there. But here's a picture:
It's way easier getting in and out of the van. Way less fatigue. So, this next part is going to be in process for a while now, because I can't finish it until other stuff is done, but we did get a decent jump on it yesterday, and we've got some of the finer points of the design and the process worked out. We used to be homeowners. Now we're houseless. But when we did have a house, we did a bunch of mods to it. One of those things was to continue hardwood flooring where the previous owner quit and left some nasty carpet. We couldn't get an exact match to the existing hardwood floor, but it was pretty close, and that's not the point here. We ended up with a bunch of leftover maple that's just gorgeous. And we kept it because of that. At the time, we didn't know what it would be used for. But now we know. We put the floor on the ceiling. But by Mandy's calculations, factoring in scrap from cutting (she literally mapped out each cut), we were short like 22 board-inches. And it would be super heavy.
So instead, I began ripping all the boards in half, from 3/4" to about 3/8". Well, 3/8" was the theoretical goal, but my bandsawing is not perfect, and the blade removes material as well. And the finish is bleh. So next, the boards were all run through the planer. This took them down to a little over 1/4". Somewhere around .270" if I remember correctly. Just enough to get rid of the bandsaw texture and even them all up. Then they got ripped on the table saw to remove the tongues and grooves (what was left of them), and the micro-bevel. Then chopped to appropriate lengths on the sliding compound mitre. The layout is hard to tell in the picture, but there are short pieces running front to back in the van; these sit in between the interior roof channels, flush with the bottom face. There are long stringers running across the van from side to side; these are secured to the roof channels with nutserts, and are about 1" wider than the roof channels. So the front to back pieces sit on top of the stringers and can't fall out. Hopefully that makes sense. With this configuration, we only lose that 1/4" of height in the areas where there are roof channels. The rest of the ceiling is the same roof channel height. This leaves plenty of room for a bunch of wool insulation to get stuffed in there, which should finally finish off our insulating.
There's a lot of work left to do on the ceiling yet, but I'm stoked on how great it looks. I was on the fence about a wood ceiling. A lot of the ones I've seen lose interior height equal to the full thickness of the boards over the whole ceiling which I didn't like, and I just don't quite love the look, I'm not sure why. It's not bad, I'm just not crazy about them. I obviously have to do some final fitment of the boards, mainly in the corners. I have to add a few more nutserts into the ceiling channels, but they're not here yet. The edges are sharp because my equipment is good and square, so I will probably apply a chamfer to the edges of the boards, at least the ones that run side-to-side. I have to select and apply a finish to all of it. I want to adhere the short pieces of each section all together, which should ease installation and removal, as well as reduce the noise from vibrations, I hope. But at least you guys get to see a rough idea of what it will look like, and then it will appear to you as if nothing has happened, and magically it's complete.
Mandy strung together 5 days off work so she could...work. Different kinda work, you know. So, the bench is obviously supreme comfort already because of my amazing design skills. That's called exaggeration. But considering the size and space, and my zero hours of experience in furniture making, it is more comfortable than I expected. But, like anything, more is better. Nothing in moderation. So, Mandy whipped up some cushions for the bench from scratch. They really take the bench to another level of finished and comfort. The only drawback, is that the added height of the seat makes the already short back even shorter. But no worry, she saw that one coming and resolved it straight away by making up this sweet pillow that we can sit on the top of the bench back, against the cubbies. It works perfectly in this location, and you can fully lean back. Plus it uses the same fabric as the bench and the flare, so it's custom as heck and no one else has this pillow.
Meanwhile she was getting her sew on, I set to work on installing a set of steps which are sorely needed on these 4WD jobbies. I mean, my legs are swole as hell so it's really no trouble at all and I totally enjoy doing that huge one-legged squat hundreds of times a day while I build this thing. Not. OK, the reality is, the climb in is not terrible, but it would be better if it was easier. But we do really appreciate the massive ground clearance, and we want to retain it as much as possible, because we intend to utilize the function. Not that we'll be doing full on rock crawling, but we want to get to really remote areas and if we get stuck on a rock in the middle of nowhere because of a step, that's not okay. Or, if we just hit it and damage or break the step, or the body of the van, that's not ideal either. So, would that actually happen? I don't know. But to us it wasn't worth the risk.
So powered steps. We waited for months; pretty much since we took ownership of the van; for Amp-Research to release the kit for the VS30. I finally got an email saying they were ready to accept preorders, so I placed an order through Sprinter Store, because they added a new product to their website at about the same time. It was within a day or two of the email I got from Amp-Research. And the product page specifically stated 2019+ Amp-Research power steps. Excellent. So the parts arrived just last week, and I opened up the box to find a modified Amp-Research pre-2019 kit. Someone adds some okay-ish instructions and a magnet switch for the sliding door. I understand the kit for the 2018s is not exactly plug 'n' play, but I believe the needed door-open signal wires are easier accessed under the dash. After talking with Amp-Research about the kit they haven't yet released, I learned that the real VS30 kit will be plug 'n' play, with an OBDII plug for door open signals [update: it's a year later and that kit is still not in full-production mode, last I read]. That's what I thought we had ordered. I feel like I was mislead by Sprinter Store and honestly it's not the first time they've been a disappointment. But I just want to talk about our van, not trash vendors. At least, not here. So. Whatever. The installation was kind of a slog, but I think I was just frustrated that it wasn't what we thought we'd ordered. Now that it's over, we love the steps [Still.].
I dunno if this website can handle a video, but I'm sure they'll show up in a future video on our Youtubes, if you guys watch us there. But here's a picture:
It's way easier getting in and out of the van. Way less fatigue. So, this next part is going to be in process for a while now, because I can't finish it until other stuff is done, but we did get a decent jump on it yesterday, and we've got some of the finer points of the design and the process worked out. We used to be homeowners. Now we're houseless. But when we did have a house, we did a bunch of mods to it. One of those things was to continue hardwood flooring where the previous owner quit and left some nasty carpet. We couldn't get an exact match to the existing hardwood floor, but it was pretty close, and that's not the point here. We ended up with a bunch of leftover maple that's just gorgeous. And we kept it because of that. At the time, we didn't know what it would be used for. But now we know. We put the floor on the ceiling. But by Mandy's calculations, factoring in scrap from cutting (she literally mapped out each cut), we were short like 22 board-inches. And it would be super heavy.
So instead, I began ripping all the boards in half, from 3/4" to about 3/8". Well, 3/8" was the theoretical goal, but my bandsawing is not perfect, and the blade removes material as well. And the finish is bleh. So next, the boards were all run through the planer. This took them down to a little over 1/4". Somewhere around .270" if I remember correctly. Just enough to get rid of the bandsaw texture and even them all up. Then they got ripped on the table saw to remove the tongues and grooves (what was left of them), and the micro-bevel. Then chopped to appropriate lengths on the sliding compound mitre. The layout is hard to tell in the picture, but there are short pieces running front to back in the van; these sit in between the interior roof channels, flush with the bottom face. There are long stringers running across the van from side to side; these are secured to the roof channels with nutserts, and are about 1" wider than the roof channels. So the front to back pieces sit on top of the stringers and can't fall out. Hopefully that makes sense. With this configuration, we only lose that 1/4" of height in the areas where there are roof channels. The rest of the ceiling is the same roof channel height. This leaves plenty of room for a bunch of wool insulation to get stuffed in there, which should finally finish off our insulating.
There's a lot of work left to do on the ceiling yet, but I'm stoked on how great it looks. I was on the fence about a wood ceiling. A lot of the ones I've seen lose interior height equal to the full thickness of the boards over the whole ceiling which I didn't like, and I just don't quite love the look, I'm not sure why. It's not bad, I'm just not crazy about them. I obviously have to do some final fitment of the boards, mainly in the corners. I have to add a few more nutserts into the ceiling channels, but they're not here yet. The edges are sharp because my equipment is good and square, so I will probably apply a chamfer to the edges of the boards, at least the ones that run side-to-side. I have to select and apply a finish to all of it. I want to adhere the short pieces of each section all together, which should ease installation and removal, as well as reduce the noise from vibrations, I hope. But at least you guys get to see a rough idea of what it will look like, and then it will appear to you as if nothing has happened, and magically it's complete.
Just a small one. Yesterday our custom-size mattress arrived from Custom Mattress Factory (not affiliated, just a satisfied customer), so we obviously tossed it up in place and laid on it immediately. So comfy! It's 7" of memory foam and gives us about 1" of clearance to the ceiling in the up position. I also learned that I guess I miscalculated the heights of things or whatnot, or just a simple oversight, I don't know. I didn't think much about the transient geometry of the bed lift. The front goes up when you pull the back down. Not a lot, but enough that it crashes into the ceiling boards. So, I need an opportunity with a helper to move the bed and take measurements and things before I can figure out the best solution. But, for now, if we do it as a two-man operation, we can move the bed up and down without interference. Someone just has to hold the front end down a tad through the move. This picture of the mattress is crappy, but it's all I have right now. It just shows the clearance to the ceiling. Nailed it.
Since the ceiling feels a bit overwhelming at the moment, I started working on the floor. I figured best to start at the rear end and go forward. I'm working with cork-backed laminate flooring. I think the style is called floating? I don't even know, honestly. I've never worked with it before, but it's incredibly easy. The rear section went so quick, I was done by mid-morning.
I decided to keep trucking since I still wasn't up for tackling the ceiling. Also figured it would be mentally easier to just get the flooring 100% done. It feels nice to cross an item off the list completely and get the materials out of the shop. So I finished off the forward section as well.
Then the cabling and plumbing cutting across the floor was an eyesore. So I figured well, I'll just glue up a wire trough to cover that and I can install it tomorrow. Actually, I did this before I started the front section of flooring. But in any case, the glue joint felt pretty sturdy after a few hours of laying down flooring, so I figured it would be fine to screw it down and finish curing. Once it was screwed down, it was only a short bit more work to finish it off completely. For the vertical section across the front side of the storage drawer, I just used spray adhesive to stick the flooring pieces. We'll see how well it holds up. For now it seems quite stuck. Time will tell. If it fails, it's not going to be a problem, just ugly. So no big deal. Right now it looks awesome though. [8 month update: still holding strong]
Oh, in that last picture you can see the small wall panel I made to secure the 120VAC outlet below the oven. I dunno if I showcased that here or not yet. It was just a small thing the other day, after I got burnt out from working on the ceiling. I needed something kinda mindless to do so I whipped that up. Ok bye.
Since the ceiling feels a bit overwhelming at the moment, I started working on the floor. I figured best to start at the rear end and go forward. I'm working with cork-backed laminate flooring. I think the style is called floating? I don't even know, honestly. I've never worked with it before, but it's incredibly easy. The rear section went so quick, I was done by mid-morning.
I decided to keep trucking since I still wasn't up for tackling the ceiling. Also figured it would be mentally easier to just get the flooring 100% done. It feels nice to cross an item off the list completely and get the materials out of the shop. So I finished off the forward section as well.
Then the cabling and plumbing cutting across the floor was an eyesore. So I figured well, I'll just glue up a wire trough to cover that and I can install it tomorrow. Actually, I did this before I started the front section of flooring. But in any case, the glue joint felt pretty sturdy after a few hours of laying down flooring, so I figured it would be fine to screw it down and finish curing. Once it was screwed down, it was only a short bit more work to finish it off completely. For the vertical section across the front side of the storage drawer, I just used spray adhesive to stick the flooring pieces. We'll see how well it holds up. For now it seems quite stuck. Time will tell. If it fails, it's not going to be a problem, just ugly. So no big deal. Right now it looks awesome though. [8 month update: still holding strong]
Oh, in that last picture you can see the small wall panel I made to secure the 120VAC outlet below the oven. I dunno if I showcased that here or not yet. It was just a small thing the other day, after I got burnt out from working on the ceiling. I needed something kinda mindless to do so I whipped that up. Ok bye.