Name TBC - Sprinter 516 4x4 Build

[Anton2k3]

So the spec, here is a rough breakdown:

Water:
500l fresh tank
Dual shurflo pumps (one for redundancy)
Naturepure X1-B Seagull water filter
Whale gulper forced drainage pump
Underslung waste tank - heated. Size tbc
External shower
40l Surecal Calorifier - dual coil (one linked to engine heat
Eberspacher DW5s diesel water heater

HVAC:
Under floor multi zone heating (from D5ws)
Backup Eberspacher D2 blown air heating.
Dometic freshet 1700 roof top aircon
Dometic gy11 bathroom fan - linked to humidistat
Fantastic vent 6600r in kitchen


Electrical:
400ah LifePO4 battery bank
Victron colorcontrol GX system
Victron tank level converters (to work with CCGX)
SmartBMS123 battery management
Victron BMV702 battery monitor
Victron EasySolar 12/1600 charger/inverter/solar controller
2 x blue sea 8 gang breaker panels
Various victron bits and pieces for batter safeguarding

Fuel:
Aux fuel tank
Whale gulper fuel transfer pump
Automatic stop floats for transfer

Kitchen:
Waeco CRX80 fridge/freezer
Smev 30l oven/grill
Dometic sink
Dometic cramer 2 burner hob
Plastic worktop (solid, not wood core)

Bathroom:
Towel rail
Custom stainless steel shower tray
Teak duck boards
Dometic CTS4110 part ceramic toilet
Corner or sliding (in drawer) sink
Waterproof toiler roll holder - something we missed on the last van!

Cabinetry/furniture:
All constructed from 6/12/18mm marine grade ply laminated both sides with marine grade laminate
Hard wood edging on all exposed plywood edges (drawer fronts etc)
Waterproof laminate flooring
Stainless steel ring pull latches
Fixed double bed - ikea mattress

Windows:
Sizes TBC
1 x driver side in seating area,
1 x passenger side (one sliding door, one kitchen)
2 x bed area

Some other bits and pieces, but thats the bulk of it. I'll update when I think of anything else.

Cheers

 

[scottishpinz]

Interesting build. Do you have a layout sketch?

Is this downsizing coming from a Vario or is the lwb Sprinter as big inside?

 

[Sitec]

Nice looking van. When I hear limiters and Ireland in the same sentence I always smile... I remember driving trucks on British Motorways.. A 500hp V8 Scania and there I was stuck at 56mph, and out of the blue would come an Irish truck (usually Scania) which would hurtle passed at 65+ mph, with no limiter, and get away with it!

Re your water capacity... 500lt/kg is a lot of weight to carry around.. When I eventually build the body for my truck, I wasn't planning on carrying any more than 300/400lt.. Hope you get the limiter sorted and good luck with the build. Find an independent Merc commercial mechanic and pay him in beer... He'll disable the limiter! 😂

 

[tooFATtoDRIVE]

Hi there, would you mind elaborating on pros/cons of Sprinter vs Vario, both from the daily use and "overlanding" perspectives? Thanks

 

[Anton2k3]

.

 

[ianc]

I'm getting 22 at best with speed limiter (90kmh) in my Vario.

I only wish I could get close to that

 

[Anton2k3]

Hey guys, for some reason I can't get on this site using my home internet at the moment, think maybe my IP has been blocked. Trying to get is resolved. Will update when i can get on in full (have to use my phone 3G at the moment)

 

[Anton2k3]

I keep writing out long replies, but the website won't let me post, getting an internal error, is anyone else getting this?

 

[Anton2k3]

Water tank capacity is based on the Vario and out usage. This is the 5t van, so no worries with capacity. With the current spec and fully loaded tanks, we have 40% surplus capacity (load wise).

 

[part time nomad]

my local MB dealer wont remove the limiter either, but I think I can get them to put it up to 90 K and to br quite honest I think that will do to save the big hit on fuel!
after all whats the rush?

 

[Anton2k3]

I don't really mind cruising at 56, but would like the speed for overtaking lorries. Not too much to report yet, but screen/ radio unit and reversing camera ordered for fitting this weekend, along with a new front drive shaft. I'll drop all of the oils and renew with addition some xado ex120 for belts and braces approach.

 

[Anton2k3]

Ive not updated this for a while. Not because thing haven't been happening, but none of it is particularly exciting. We've been doing a lot of remedial and preventative work to make sure this unit lasts us a while.

One of the first things to address was the seemingly very common rear wheel well seams. The undersealing in the arches seems to be pretty terrible on sprinters. Thus the seams get water in, and it starts to open them up. Ours weren't too bad, but for a van of 5 years old, it's pretty poor standards by Merc. Here's some photos of the job:











I also picked up a single passenger seat and some sports craft swivels, test fitted all that to start to get a feel of floor heights etc:



There was some rust starting to show through in the cab area, and based on previous vans I assumed the steps would need doing too. As we don't want to worry about rust after conversion, this weekend we've been busy stripping the van out, treating all rust, epoxy primering, and finally shooting a layer of UPOL Raptor over the whole floor. This should keep rust at bay! It's been a hard long job, but we feel like the van conversion proper can start now. Photos of the job:

 

[Anton2k3]

Sorry it's a bit of a dry update....but hopefully more exciting things coming soon. The windows and roof vent have arrived, so they will be fitted in the next month or so I hope. It's off to the paint shop meantime to have the roof and sills resprayed.

Not sure what's happend to photos, I'll try to sort them out

 

[Anton2k3]

Does anyone know if its possible to rotate images using code?

Cheers

 

[TrailBadger]

@Anton2k3 as of yet, I've not seen or heard of anything that auto rotates smart phone images automatically. This is a common occurrence from smart phone users. This may have to be done view an online edit software or image storage site. So unless the forum implements an auto rotation option (if there is one) you're going to have to either use a camera or upload images to a editing site then post back here and yes I agree this can be rather annoying to view images in their correct orientation.