mhiscox
Expedition Leader
NEW CONTENT ADDED TO THIS THREAD ON 01/15/09.
COMPANION BUILD THREADS ARE HERE:
CHASSIS AND EXTERIOR: http://expeditionportal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=19224
SYSTEMS: http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=26415
This thread will review the interior, including the cab, of my Sprinter Expedition Vehicle. This is a companion posting to the thread at:
http://expeditionportal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=19224
that covered the chassis and the exterior. That thread also has a basic description of the vehicle.
This first posting of the new thread will cover the cab area.
The cab area of the 2002 through 2006 Sprinter is considerably different, and more trucklike, that those in the newer 2007-on NCV3 models. The new dash design is more sophisticated, the seating somewhat different and, most strikingly, the steering wheel is adjustable, eliminating the "full Kramden" bus-like tilt found on my model. That said, though, there's much good to be said about the older version's more truck-like cab.
The floor of the Sprinter is already covered in an odd sort of plastic that seems pretty much impervious to damage and which is easy enough to clean up without much effort.
However, they make these rubber floor mats custom-fit to the Sprinter, and they are easy to remove and hose off, so I''ve got 'em.
The dash of a T1N Sprinter is normally plain plastic in your choice of any color as long as it is grey. They make stick-on panels that cover several areas of the dash and the doors. Most of the motorhome manuafacters cover things in wood tones; I opted for brushed aluminum and am happy with the choice. It gussied things up some without making it look strange, which some of the woodgrain does (given that's what's left is just low-rent plastic.)
The Spinters come with enough cutouts to have a switch for every option they offered and then some. My dash has the most switches I've ever seen. Most have only a couple, which, given there's space for twelve, looks a bit lame. Top row switches, L to R, are door locking, ASR off (Automatic Slip Reduction; i.e., traction control), driver's side seat heating, passenger side seat heating, rear work light and the connection to the cabin batteries which can be used for backup starting power. The bottom row has the air horn swich and the high idle on switch. The rectangular cutout is where the timer and controls for the auxiliary diesel heater goes; I have the heater but it is controlled by an in-cabin thermostat. The big, black thing to the upper right is MBz's odd, but strangely useful, spring clip; you use it to hold receipts or directions.
Just by way of explanation, the things on the gearshift lever are "reminder" tags. The red "Remove Before Flight" hanger tags lives on the rear Heki hatch and is moved to the gearshift whenever it is opened. The hatch will fly up and break if you get up to speed with it open, so it's an important thing to remember. The lime-yellow piece is just a jogger's reflective armband. I put it over the gearshift to remind me that the vehicle can't be driven. A common reason is being connected to shore power or having the awning windows open.
You can buy a plastic tray that holds onto the top of the dash with sticky tape. Not the most elegant piece, but it comes in useful given that there are always things that you'd like to have at hand.
The photo also shows the Alpine CDA-9820XM head end unit. It's claim to fame was that it was the only head end with the XM tuner built into the unit. Now that XM and Sirius have developed their cheap, plug in tuners for stock electronics, it's not too important, but at the time, to have satellite radio required a separated satellite radio tuner unless you used this model. Now discontinued, I believe. The original Mercedes unit was especially lame, not even particularly good for a plumber's van.
The original speakers provided, 4 inchers that dropped into holes in the corners of the dash, were even worse. Fortunately, it's trivial to pry up the grills, disconnect the units provided, and plug in new 4" (which might require some trimming, depending on brand) or 3.5" speakers from a more reputable company. In my case, 3.5" units from Eclipse dropped right in.
Most of the Sprinters don't have rear speakers, but there is room behind the headliner for 6" or 6.25" co- or triaxial speakers if you don't go crazy with the depth (or if you use lift rings). Takes courage to cut a giant hole in the headliner, but that's the hardest part of it.
I used Boston Acoustics coaxial speakers. There's no separate amp. To be perfectly honest, it's about impossible to get great sound out of a Sprinter, as the options for speaker placement aren't good. My Boston Acoustics basically fire into each other two feet above my ears. One guy had custom door pods fabicated out of fiberglass, but short of that, the best you can probably hope for is an improvement from "intolerable" to "somewhat better than decent."
When messing with the headliner for the speakers, I hit on one of my better ideas, extending a metal rod across the cabin to hang things from.
It's just a regular chrome shower rod that you can lock to a specific length be twisting it. After cutting it to the right length, I carefully used a hole saw to cut opposing holes the diameter of the rod. I then put the rod through the holes, extended the rod enough that it can't come out, and added some hooks. The headliner that supports the rod is plenty strong in the up/down plane, so we can pretty much hang anything on it we want. The two most common uses are keeping the outdoor jackets handy but out of the way, and hanging pants and shirts at bedtime.
The most interesting thing about having a "motorhome" crammed into the mid-length Sprinter is finding ways to store things. By making the decision to keep windows all the way around the van, we don't have much in the way of hanging lockers, drawers, etc. There was a huge amount of headliner area above the windshield that was otherwise wasted, so I took advantage of the space to attach some storage pouches.
These came from Target and are sold as seat back storage pouches. Turns out that the spots where the cords are intended to rope the thing to the seat back made good mounting holes. The pouch in the photo is on the passenger's side, but there's an identical one on the driver's side. These have come in very handy for storing small stuff (pens, pocket knife, insect repellent, cell phone, etc.) that you'd like to have more accessible than having it in a drawer in the cabin. To the left of the pouch, in the center of the vehicle, is another small mesh pouch that holds the vehicle "checklist" and other small items.
It's worth mentioning the seats in the Sprinter, which are WAAAY better than you'd think they'd be from looking at them. My van has the "Comfort Seat" option, so my comments apply mostly to them, though the base seats are still a good deal better than in any domestic van.
With the Comfort Seats, you get yourself levers for moving the front and back of the seat up and down independently, allowing you to get any seat height and bottom cushion angle you want. And, as you'd expect, the backrest reclines. All in all, nothing special, but I think what makes the difference is the firmness of the seats. As is the case in many German cars, the seats seem rock hard when you first sit in them, but over time, the fact that they are staying supportive becomes a plus.
Both driver's and passenger's seats sit on top of welded metal pedestals. Underneath the driver's seat is a fuse block and various electrical and electronic stuff. Underneath the passenger seat is the auxiliary battery, if you have an auxiliary battery. But I don't. So what I have instead is this kind of trick storage space better than a foot square and maybe eight inches high.
Hardly worth a photo to show how it's handy for storing toilet paper and toilet chemicals, but you can buy the parts to replace the plastic removable door with a study locking door and thus end up with a "safe" which could reasonably be expected to deter many casual thieves.
Next up is the interior layout. Somebody mail me a wide-angle lens.
COMPANION BUILD THREADS ARE HERE:
CHASSIS AND EXTERIOR: http://expeditionportal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=19224
SYSTEMS: http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=26415
This thread will review the interior, including the cab, of my Sprinter Expedition Vehicle. This is a companion posting to the thread at:
http://expeditionportal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=19224
that covered the chassis and the exterior. That thread also has a basic description of the vehicle.
This first posting of the new thread will cover the cab area.
The cab area of the 2002 through 2006 Sprinter is considerably different, and more trucklike, that those in the newer 2007-on NCV3 models. The new dash design is more sophisticated, the seating somewhat different and, most strikingly, the steering wheel is adjustable, eliminating the "full Kramden" bus-like tilt found on my model. That said, though, there's much good to be said about the older version's more truck-like cab.
The floor of the Sprinter is already covered in an odd sort of plastic that seems pretty much impervious to damage and which is easy enough to clean up without much effort.
However, they make these rubber floor mats custom-fit to the Sprinter, and they are easy to remove and hose off, so I''ve got 'em.
The dash of a T1N Sprinter is normally plain plastic in your choice of any color as long as it is grey. They make stick-on panels that cover several areas of the dash and the doors. Most of the motorhome manuafacters cover things in wood tones; I opted for brushed aluminum and am happy with the choice. It gussied things up some without making it look strange, which some of the woodgrain does (given that's what's left is just low-rent plastic.)
The Spinters come with enough cutouts to have a switch for every option they offered and then some. My dash has the most switches I've ever seen. Most have only a couple, which, given there's space for twelve, looks a bit lame. Top row switches, L to R, are door locking, ASR off (Automatic Slip Reduction; i.e., traction control), driver's side seat heating, passenger side seat heating, rear work light and the connection to the cabin batteries which can be used for backup starting power. The bottom row has the air horn swich and the high idle on switch. The rectangular cutout is where the timer and controls for the auxiliary diesel heater goes; I have the heater but it is controlled by an in-cabin thermostat. The big, black thing to the upper right is MBz's odd, but strangely useful, spring clip; you use it to hold receipts or directions.
Just by way of explanation, the things on the gearshift lever are "reminder" tags. The red "Remove Before Flight" hanger tags lives on the rear Heki hatch and is moved to the gearshift whenever it is opened. The hatch will fly up and break if you get up to speed with it open, so it's an important thing to remember. The lime-yellow piece is just a jogger's reflective armband. I put it over the gearshift to remind me that the vehicle can't be driven. A common reason is being connected to shore power or having the awning windows open.
You can buy a plastic tray that holds onto the top of the dash with sticky tape. Not the most elegant piece, but it comes in useful given that there are always things that you'd like to have at hand.
The photo also shows the Alpine CDA-9820XM head end unit. It's claim to fame was that it was the only head end with the XM tuner built into the unit. Now that XM and Sirius have developed their cheap, plug in tuners for stock electronics, it's not too important, but at the time, to have satellite radio required a separated satellite radio tuner unless you used this model. Now discontinued, I believe. The original Mercedes unit was especially lame, not even particularly good for a plumber's van.
The original speakers provided, 4 inchers that dropped into holes in the corners of the dash, were even worse. Fortunately, it's trivial to pry up the grills, disconnect the units provided, and plug in new 4" (which might require some trimming, depending on brand) or 3.5" speakers from a more reputable company. In my case, 3.5" units from Eclipse dropped right in.
Most of the Sprinters don't have rear speakers, but there is room behind the headliner for 6" or 6.25" co- or triaxial speakers if you don't go crazy with the depth (or if you use lift rings). Takes courage to cut a giant hole in the headliner, but that's the hardest part of it.
I used Boston Acoustics coaxial speakers. There's no separate amp. To be perfectly honest, it's about impossible to get great sound out of a Sprinter, as the options for speaker placement aren't good. My Boston Acoustics basically fire into each other two feet above my ears. One guy had custom door pods fabicated out of fiberglass, but short of that, the best you can probably hope for is an improvement from "intolerable" to "somewhat better than decent."
When messing with the headliner for the speakers, I hit on one of my better ideas, extending a metal rod across the cabin to hang things from.
It's just a regular chrome shower rod that you can lock to a specific length be twisting it. After cutting it to the right length, I carefully used a hole saw to cut opposing holes the diameter of the rod. I then put the rod through the holes, extended the rod enough that it can't come out, and added some hooks. The headliner that supports the rod is plenty strong in the up/down plane, so we can pretty much hang anything on it we want. The two most common uses are keeping the outdoor jackets handy but out of the way, and hanging pants and shirts at bedtime.
The most interesting thing about having a "motorhome" crammed into the mid-length Sprinter is finding ways to store things. By making the decision to keep windows all the way around the van, we don't have much in the way of hanging lockers, drawers, etc. There was a huge amount of headliner area above the windshield that was otherwise wasted, so I took advantage of the space to attach some storage pouches.
These came from Target and are sold as seat back storage pouches. Turns out that the spots where the cords are intended to rope the thing to the seat back made good mounting holes. The pouch in the photo is on the passenger's side, but there's an identical one on the driver's side. These have come in very handy for storing small stuff (pens, pocket knife, insect repellent, cell phone, etc.) that you'd like to have more accessible than having it in a drawer in the cabin. To the left of the pouch, in the center of the vehicle, is another small mesh pouch that holds the vehicle "checklist" and other small items.
It's worth mentioning the seats in the Sprinter, which are WAAAY better than you'd think they'd be from looking at them. My van has the "Comfort Seat" option, so my comments apply mostly to them, though the base seats are still a good deal better than in any domestic van.
With the Comfort Seats, you get yourself levers for moving the front and back of the seat up and down independently, allowing you to get any seat height and bottom cushion angle you want. And, as you'd expect, the backrest reclines. All in all, nothing special, but I think what makes the difference is the firmness of the seats. As is the case in many German cars, the seats seem rock hard when you first sit in them, but over time, the fact that they are staying supportive becomes a plus.
Both driver's and passenger's seats sit on top of welded metal pedestals. Underneath the driver's seat is a fuse block and various electrical and electronic stuff. Underneath the passenger seat is the auxiliary battery, if you have an auxiliary battery. But I don't. So what I have instead is this kind of trick storage space better than a foot square and maybe eight inches high.
Hardly worth a photo to show how it's handy for storing toilet paper and toilet chemicals, but you can buy the parts to replace the plastic removable door with a study locking door and thus end up with a "safe" which could reasonably be expected to deter many casual thieves.
Next up is the interior layout. Somebody mail me a wide-angle lens.
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