Lol...what?

[catfarts]

Hi expo portal, nice to meet you all I’m brendon

I lurk often, grew up between the lane markers and have taken a kin to many thing I read on here.

I live in Oceanside ca and avidly do lots of fun stuff


But here is the expeditionary portion of my life


My time has come to be facilitated to live my dreams. Not that I wasn’t heavily occupied by that but, the end justifies the means
So painting the scene is vast as I have a specific mindset that I have been chasing for a few years now.
Here is a summary. Surf trip south powered by veggie oil and yeah.
Here are the tools everything in bold I have acquired
1985 6.9 e350 2wd ?10000 miles dual tanks 1 for each. With full size steel roof rack
Plant drive conversion set up. I have not done the installation but it seems straight forward

My musts: room for 2-3 surfboards (false floor so boards slide undernearth 3-4 inch clearance.
Cot style long bed over the rear left wheel. Slideout/futon style hopefully
Small kitchen with sink and counter space for a burner (either stationary or not) adjacent from the bed
Arb 50 quart fridge
Fantastic fan
Cat companion
Storage/ shelves at the foot of the bed and below.
200 watt renogy solar setup with a lithium ion battery for power within the vehicle
All terrains

My maybes: musical recording equipment
3rd wvo tank..underneath or aboard..or above
Banks turbo
Buckets for drum practice [facilitated into storage and yeah)



Back to me
I speak basic Spanish and get by fine with whomever I speak with. Helps to play dumb sometimes.
I have traveled a bit so far. Few foreign countries and lots of us and up to Alaska
But the basic decency that is missing from our society has encouraged me to explore other places.
Thus a life in a van driving one direction escaping one place with one itinerary

Sounds simple but I have worked hard to get here.

The van:
Sourced in Santa Paula ca, ranch van that apparently sat for ten years under a tree which did some great rust damage to the drip rail and general roof itself.
This has prompted possible bubble tops? Not yet but we’ll see. Pretty big project with a fair amount of welding to do. I’m going to tackle to rust not the rebuild.

I paid 2200 new batteries, new vrv on a ‘rebuilt’ c6. Roof rack for 400. Low miles apparently, pedals look mellow. I took it to the shop post purchase and had some work done, the paperwork is in the van so I can’t be extensive about it in here yet, but it involved brand new brakes and others.
3k total

I’ve driven up to South Lake Tahoe in her so far and she preformed well in the cold temps. Made it home and took her back to the shop for a check up and the transmission needs to be rebuilt again.
Turns out 2nd gear was out of the game all together. Bummer. 2700 total. Meh..

Funny or not enough the shop has been having a tough time putting it back together and they have had to do it twice. All should be well today but I also thought Monday was the day . Well see if I laugh or not, I’ll be sure to educate myself on the warranty lol

I’m trying to stay at 10k but I’m close to that and about 3/4 of the way into supplies. I’m learning as much as I can and plan to be an idi gear head one day.

My itinerary is Chicama and hopefully all the way to Chile. I went in 2014 for 3 months and had a blast. It reminded me of California before madness. So maybe I’ll find a wife down there. I have nothing to stay in Oceanside for and all the reason to be free.

I have been planning this for a year or so now and am at the tip of jumping into the put with building.
I have a set of tools and all the things I need so, vamanos !

 

[86scotty]

Ola, you seem like the average 'Murican to me. Yay #vanlife! Have fun out there.

 

[grampswrx]

You should post some pics of what we are looking at here, makes the discussion much more interesting.

 

[Scotty D]

Start with the Baja, its like training wheels, super easy and will shake all the bugs out of your systems.
Stop paying a mechanic to do ANYTHING on your rig. You need to buckle down and learn how to do this stuff on your own because you are likely going to be wrenching out in the middle of the desert somewhere and besides, if you had started with this tenet , you would have spent far less. It would have been way cheaper for you to install a new tranny in your driveway than to have a shop rebuild your old one.
Think about getting a locker for your rear end.
Keep things as light as you can , with the right tires and the locker you might be able do air down and drive on sand.
Dont use too much spanish at military checkpoints if your are not dead fluent.
Dont drive at night in rural areas you have never been before ( so many reasons for this)
I prefer a real shovel to a folding one, you will use this a lot.
I always try to travel with at least 2 weeks provisions.

 

[goin camping]

You must learn to do mechanics on your van. Have any "Car Guy" friends? Keep the van as light as possible. Heavy vans sink in sand, dirt, mud and break.

Sounds like an amazing adventure. I hope you will post pictures of your van. We may see something that could save you money, time and wasted effort.

Lot of guys here have built many vans and learned many thing. Along with the jokes they can give you great advice.

After your van is done. We'd like to hear and see pics of your trip down too.

 

[s.e.charles]

not sure I understand why the heavy oil tanks are going up high and the surfboards low (if I understand correctly), but if your peddles are mellow, you'll do just fine.

 

[KYC]

Brb using imagination since no pics