Not So Subtle E350 Shuttle - 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

[thescottgivens]

Gregor, your thread is my favorite thing on the interwebs!!! Keep it coming....there are lots of folks out there that learn from your detailed documentation and I, for one, really really appreciate it.

 

[Numbchux]

Good work!



A friend of mine made a tire swingout for his XJ that put the tire up higher like that, and it bounced around a bit. After a year or so, it broke off, on the road.....so definitely important to make sure it's well-anchored, and the further from the pivot the harder that is.

Looking at the design in pictures (grain of salt), I have 2 immediate concerns. The 2 pivots don't appear to be on the same plane, does it bind up when it opens/closes. Seems like *in theory* it would put a twisting force on the assembly once open.

Also the fact that one pivot is on the bumper (frame) and the other is on the body. Any concerns or signs of them moving independently?

 

[sakurama]

Looking at the design in pictures (grain of salt), I have 2 immediate concerns. The 2 pivots don't appear to be on the same plane, does it bind up when it opens/closes. Seems like *in theory* it would put a twisting force on the assembly once open.

Also the fact that one pivot is on the bumper (frame) and the other is on the body. Any concerns or signs of them moving independently?

My upper mount looks like it's a hinge but it's not. It's simply a latch. When you pull the pin and then undo the lower catch you give the tire a little tug and it slides off the delrin catch plate and then the gas strut pushes it open (faster than I'd like) and then it hits it's stop at about 110-120° so it doesn't flip out into the oncoming traffic lane. So the lower pivot is all that holds the spare when it's open but since there's no dynamic stress as you are (hopefully) stopped there's no worry about it being tweaked.

My biggest concern was blocking the right door. If I had to open the tire carrier any time I wanted to get access to the back I would have lost the whole point of having a van. I need to easily access the cargo area so the right door has about a 1/2" of clearance (I'd have to redo it if I ever put on 37's) but it opens and closes fine. For the few times I need to open both doors I pull the pin, undo the latch on the bumper and give the frame a little pull and I can open the second door.

Hope that explains things.

Gregor

 

[Arctic Travelller]

So, your cat hangs around the van, and doesn't wander off? We took ours on the Roaming rally in B.C. when she was a kitten and she did pretty well. Her favorite place to hang out was on the dash, and now whenever the doors are open she hops up there as if saying, when's the next trip? I may have to try it again. Oh yea, I may steal your latch arrangement, my Aluminess box keeps wrecking the current latch system, possibly due to 15gals of fuel, a generator and other stuff in the box. It may be a bit overloaded.

 

[eblau]

I need to duplicate the cat stack test on a few of my projects.

 

[Numbchux]

My upper mount looks like it's a hinge but it's not. It's simply a latch. When you pull the pin and then undo the lower catch you give the tire a little tug and it slides off the delrin catch plate and then the gas strut pushes it open (faster than I'd like) and then it hits it's stop at about 110-120° so it doesn't flip out into the oncoming traffic lane. So the lower pivot is all that holds the spare when it's open but since there's no dynamic stress as you are (hopefully) stopped there's no worry about it being tweaked.

My biggest concern was blocking the right door. If I had to open the tire carrier any time I wanted to get access to the back I would have lost the whole point of having a van. I need to easily access the cargo area so the right door has about a 1/2" of clearance (I'd have to redo it if I ever put on 37's) but it opens and closes fine. For the few times I need to open both doors I pull the pin, undo the latch on the bumper and give the frame a little pull and I can open the second door.

Hope that explains things.

Gregor

Ah, I was visualizing it as a hinge, and that sure didn't look like it would work well. Now that I look at your pictures, I completely see it.

Keep up the good work!

 

[sakurama]

So, your cat hangs around the van, and doesn't wander off? We took ours on the Roaming rally in B.C. when she was a kitten and she did pretty well. Her favorite place to hang out was on the dash, and now whenever the doors are open she hops up there as if saying, when's the next trip? I may have to try it again. Oh yea, I may steal your latch arrangement, my Aluminess box keeps wrecking the current latch system, possibly due to 15gals of fuel, a generator and other stuff in the box. It may be a bit overloaded.

I stole the mount location from Aluminess so we know it has some history as a point of strength.

I need to duplicate the cat stack test on a few of my projects.

Cat's have so many purposes besides the obvious of juggling.


Once we got to Colorado we cast about for some things to do. One of the things on my list was to take the kids to the Great Sand Dunes National Monument. As a kid growing up in Westcliffe this was a spring ritual. Every year in May when the snow had receded enough we'd strike out south on Hwy 69 to Medano Pass. This mild but narrow 4x4 pass would cut over the mountains and drop you on the back side of the dunes right where a stream met the steepest dunes. We'd spend the night and I remember the ritual of lowering our tire pressure in order to get through the soft sand.

Being winter there was no way we could do Medano Pass so we went the long way through the San Luis Valley.

I'm still getting used to the van and what it can and can't get away with. I've never owned or driven anything that's so heavy so it's a learning process. The sand, however, was pretty tight and we had no issues although as we got farther and farther in my sister got more nervous. She remembers the few times we got stuck as kids. In the summer the sand is very light and soft and it's easy to sink in. Big fat tires at low pressures are the only way to get through.

The stream was frozen and the temperature was in the teens but it didn't really matter - we'd made it to the dunes.

The only thing we needed to do to complete the circle was to climb the highest one we could find. No matter how high you go there's always another at the top egging you on to go still higher and farther but we stopped at the top of a decent 300' dune and then jumped, and ran our way down.

Misson accomplished.

If you get the chance to head down to the Sand Dunes I'd highly recommend you try to take Medano Pass. My memory of it was that our Toyota FJ40 was the favorite choice and never had an issue but more often than not we had an F250 and I recall lots of folding of mirrors and holding of breath as we thread our way through aspen groves. Those memories are why I'll never put a side ladder on the van. My whole life driving off road has been one where the width is essential to making it though.

Maybe this summer we'll try it.

Consider that part 1.

Gregor

 

[sakurama]

Back in the summer you might remember that I was shooting a campaign for Rev'It! Well, these things take a while to finally come out so I couldn't share anything but the video dropped today and the van and the restored Avion trailer make a cameo appearance. It's fun to see what is my family adventure mobile mythologized in a hipsteresque video.

Gregor

 

[sakurama]

So one of the things we don't get much of in Portland that Colorado had in spades was cold and snow. I was a bit nervous about the van starting as the temperature really started to dip. In Portland the temps rarely drop below the mid 30's but in Colorado the week we were there the temps ranged from 17 to 7 below zero. The van started almost every time. The one time it didn't was when I followed my brothers advice from his mechanic - turn the key and wait for the "wait to start" light to go out and then cycle that again before starting. That didn't work.

I think that wasted some precious cranking power and I had to jump the van. For the rest of the trip I didn't bother and it started reliably down to 5 degrees. The 7.3 holds it's heat for a long time so the -7 we encountered was after a trip to the hot springs and it cranked no problem since there was residual heat in the block.

How about a before and after?

The snow was from 8-18" deep and the van wasn't phased. At all. In fact it's weight seems like a real advantage in snow. The flip side of that was after the snow storm, when the snow was packed and super slick, the van would easily climb but downhills required a lot of caution. If you break traction on a downhill the weight will just keep pushing so caution is the word for downhills.

It's a lot like riding a big adventure bike - the weight always makes itself known when breaking.

The next project for the van is to work on the roof rack. It's not a priority right now as I have a motorcycle to build for the 1 Moto Show that's coming up in the first week of February. If you're in or around the Portland area I'd encourage you to come check out the show - it's an amazing collection of bikes and people and quite a good party on Friday (the 8th) night.

I will be documenting the bike mods on my Garage Journal thread if you're curious about that. Feel free to drop in.

Gregor

 

[java]

Awesome! And so very very true about the weight, going over the pass by Hood sucked in my big truck when semis were jacknifed and cars in the ditches everywhere..... 2nd gear and idle down the hills was the trick!

 

[sakurama]

Awesome! And so very very true about the weight, going over the pass by Hood sucked in my big truck when semis were jacknifed and cars in the ditches everywhere..... 2nd gear and idle down the hills was the trick!

Growing up in Colorado I learned a lot about snow driving and the most important was always testing your traction. Quick brake checks before you go down the hill or when the road looks different can tell you a lot.

Because we lived so high up in the mountains it was a regular occurrence to see "flat landers" in their lifted Jeeps with Kansas or Texas plates fly past you in a blizzard or down a pass and then find them upside down a few miles down the road at a curve. It's a difficult thing for people to understand that all vehicles have four wheel brakes - four wheel drive only helps you go - not stop. Even now with ABS if you break traction on black ice or super slick snow on a downhill there's not much that will bring it back. That's especially true with 9000lbs of van.

It was a lesson hard learned in racing - crashing does more to ruin your lap times than anything!

I think we've nailed the "stance" with this van. It's all very proportional and, honestly, it looks better than I had hoped it would when I bought it.

I was at a wine tasting event last night and this very hip friend of my wife's came up to me and said, "I have no idea why but I just LOVE your van - I can't get enough of it." It's a funny thing how van cuts across all the various cross sections of culture and resonates with everyone.

Gregor

 

[RVflyfish]

Truth. My girlfriend always notices people checking out my lifted AWD Astro. She says it's the man equivalent of a Louis Vuitton purse. LOL. We were driving down in Silicon Valley one day and a guy in a $200K 911 GT3 yelled out his window, "I LOVE that thing!"

Have to agree, you nailed the stance on your rig. It looks excellent!

 

[Farfrumwork]

Great update Gregor! Love your build. Such excellent work.


Not to hijack, but I have to agree that Medano Pass and the Sand Dunes are super cool. Our family (wife, 15 & 8yr olds boys, and myself) had been to the Dunes in the past, but made our way over Medano (E to W) this summer in the Sprinter.
Narrow it is on the west side! We have some nice CO pinstripes from that adventure. (none of these pics show the tight trees...)

 

[sakurama]

Yes, I loved the stream crossings! Good to know the Sprinter made it. That lets me know we'll have no problem on the width. I'm guessing they've groomed the trail some since I was a kid...

Gregor

 

[Farfrumwork]

Yes, you should be fine on the width.

The Sprinter had no problem at all. (It's a bit more capable than many think) It's no rock crawler, but we traveled over several passes last summer (Engineer, Ophir, Medano), and down MANY 4x4 trails (including the section of Schofield Pass road between Marble and Crystal) without any issues. Most people are just scared to take theirs into the woods... haha