Build Log 16 - Van Complete!

May 2017: Once the kitchen cabinetry was in, all the last little details needed to be taken care of:

• Installation of felt pads to avoid rattling,

• Installation of steel hardware for bungees to attach to

• Cutting & finishing cabinet doors & installing magnetic closures

• Finding plastic organizers that fit the space and worked for my organization scheme

• Cutting mattress foam to size

• Installing carbon monoxide sensor (super important!)

• Provisioning with clothes, equipment, nice-to-haves

• So many more little things…

The result is my van! While there’s always more to do and little things that can be improved, it’s comfortable, functional, cozy, and (in my opinion) pretty good looking!

Build Log 15 - Kitchen

As a result of the April 1 departure date, I put off finishing the kitchen till I was back from my 2 week test run to the Pacific Northwest. When I got back, though, Dad and I jumped into putting it together. This time around we used 3/4” baltic birch ply instead of the 1/2” in order to get a little more rigidity.

The cabinet was designed to fit my roto-molded cooler, a small sink, and a couple bins for spices and utensils. We put it together in much the same way the previous cabinetry was assembled.

Build Log 14 - Sewing Curtains

I knew that privacy would be a big concern in the van - at night with the lights on, I look like I’m in a display case! I also knew that the windows were going to be the biggest sources of heat loss in the van.

I decided to make insulated curtains to address both issues. However, my start date of April 1 was looming and I didn’t want to push it off. I decided to take my sewing machine and material with me and make the curtains in Portland at Varun’s place. Over the course of 6 days, I sewed together two rear blinds and a front curtain over there. Since this was my first sewing project ever, it took a lot of trips to Joann Fabrics and a lot of you tubing to figure out how to put these together. 

The Sewing Setup

The curtains are comprised of a light colored linen inside, a dark colored cotton backing, and Thinsulate insulation sandwiched between. I made mini practice piece (the green & blue piece buried under everything else in the following photo) before starting on the rear curtains. Below you see one pinned and ready to sew, followed by the finished article!

The main curtain had added complexity, as I didn’t have enough gray cloth to cover the back. I sewed together 3 pieces to make it work, and I think it looks pretty good! Another complication involved inverting it. To make this sandwiched construction, I sewed everything inside out (exterior faces of linen and cotton together, and Thinsulate layered on top). Because this was such a large piece of Thinsulate to put in the middle of these two pieces of fabric, I had to ‘baste‘ (loosely stitch) the Thinsulate to one face, flip it right side out, then remove the stitching afterwards for a clean appearance.

Even though this was a first attempt - the blinds work pretty well, and unless you’re looking closely, it’s hard to tell that anyone is in the van. Also, in a pinch, the main cabin curtain doubles as a really warm blanket!

Build Log 13 - Electrical Installation

Finishing off the electrical cabinet was a big milestone - it meant that I could complete the final installation of all the electricals. Once this was done, the van would technically be livable, even if all the details weren’t finished. 

I had gone through several design iterations on the electrical system, and by now had amassed most of the key components from various sources - the local battery supply store, Halted’s, West Marine, Fry’s, and a host of other random online shops.

Laying things out before making any cuts

I ended up making my own 8 AWG and 4 AWG wires with a hammer crimper and copper terminals from Fry’s!

Putting it all together still took a couple long days, and required a lot of back and forth the Fry’s and Halted’s to pick up connectors, wires, heat shrink, and all the other little tidbits required to wire it up correctly.

As organized as it has ever looked!

House lights wired up!

Build Log 12 - Cabinetry

My dad led the cabinetry building process. He came up with a lot of good solutions to unforeseen problems, worked through the measurements and double checked fitment, researched the fastening process, and bought all of the tools and fixtures we needed to do a good job on this.

For the cabinetry, we decided to stick with Baltic Birch plywood. In addition to being robust and easy to work with, I really liked the layered look that the edges have and felt that the color worked well with the dark floors. 

Other than double and triple checking out measurements, the biggest trick to getting this cabinetry built was clamping and jigging everything together. We used a lot hand clamps, c-clamps, and squares to secure our pieces together and to the work surface. This ensured that we had precise fitment and that nothing shifted during assembly. 

The cabinet opposite the bed was probably the most challenging to design. We had to take into account the wheel well and the support ledge for the bed extension. We also designed the cabinet to the specific dimensions to some of the stuff I knew I was going to carry with me. The bookshelf is sized for a standard hardcover book, the large storage area to the rear is sized for a Brompton folding bicycle, and the floor-level storage areas fit my toolbox and propane heater perfectly. 

The electrical cabinet wasn’t nearly as complicated, and we were able to cut the pieces and put it together in a weekend.

Lower electrical cabinet for housing battery bank.

Build Log 11 - Building a Bed

While I was off galavanting in India, my Dad had given the the cabinetry a lot of thought. We decided that we would start with the bed, and so while I was out, he came up with the final bed design. A design feature I was keen on was having a bed that slept one but could be extended to sleep two people comfortably. 

He bought 1” baltic birch ply, a bunch of redwood for the legs, and came up with a clever sliding solution to allow the bed to extend when needed. He did the prep work on the the platform, and the legs, and once I was back, we assembled it and installed it into the van!

Redwood legs - rounded corners thanks to my dad and his router.

Build Log 10 - Walls & Ceiling

For the walls and ceiling, I decided to go with 1/4” birch plywood. I felt that the light color of the walls would make the interior of the van feel more open and contrast nicely with the dark floors. Also, the 1/4” thickness meant that I would be able to easily bend the ply to conform to the curved walls and ceiling of my van. 

The biggest challenge of the walls and ceiling was cutting these 2d ply sheets into shapes that would fit the 3d curves of my van. It required a considerable amount of templating and iteration to get cuts that fit well, but time invested was well worth it. 

After mounting all the ply, I left for India for 3 weeks to go to a wedding and travel through the Himalayas. While I was there, my parents kicked off the next step - whitewashing & clear coating the walls and ceiling. 

Build Log 9 - Installing the Wood Floors

My neighbor had just finished flooring his house and was kind enough to offer his extra planks to me for the van project! I love wood floors and the dark oak definitely classes up the van.

In order to install the floors, first I laid down and trimmed to fit a foam “underlayment.” The underlayment softens the feel of the wood floor slightly and also allows for a better fit between the floor and the subfloor.

After fitting the underlayment, I started laying down floor planks, just as one wood in a house. For each plank, the tongue was glued, along with the receiving groove. The plank was hand fitted and then tapped into place with a rubber mallet. A couple planks required some complex trimming in order to fit around the wheel wells, and my dad lent his expertise in helping get those right.

Finally, I used a pneumatic brad nailer to secure the edges to the subfloor so that it wouldn’t shift due to vibration while driving. Often times floors like this are installed “floating” in houses, with baseboards hiding the gap between the floor and the wall. This is so that the wood floor can expand and contract freely according to temperature and humidity. However, since my floor is so much smaller that a normal house floor, I felt that brad nailing down the floors wouldn’t cause buckling when traveling through hotter & wetter climates. 

OSHA who?

Build Log 8 - Running the Wiring

Finishing off the wiring was a big milestone in the build for a couple reasons. Firstly, it meant that I had finalized the number, type, and locations of electrical peripherals (USB ports & Lights) in the van. Secondly, it meant that I was committing to a rough van layout, as the USB ports were going to be mounted inside cabinetry. I’ll let the videos below do most of the deeper dive into the design of the system.

Notes on selecting wiring: 

Chief amongst my concerns when planning this out was making sure that the wires would be able to handle the load I was placing on them. As I researched this, I found out that there were a ton of variables involved in determining what gauge of wire to purchase, such as: 

• Whether the wire would be behind insulation.
• Whether the wire would be bundled with other wires.
• The length of the wire.
• The average duration that a load would be placed on the wire.
• The startup current for the peripheral (which could be higher than the steady state draw).

Because I had no experience with wiring 12V systems, I decided to overrate everything and went with 12 AWG marine grade wire and plastic split loom to house it and prevent abrasion. This was definitely overkill and more pricey than it needed to be, but I’m confident that I won’t have any issues with overheating wiring in the future.

Build Log 6 - Installing the Solar Panels

A single panel is roughly 40" x 28".

Installing the fan gave me some confidence in my ability to successfully put holes in the roof of my van, so for my next task, I decided to mount up the solar panels. 

For solar panels I picked up 3 Renogy 100W Eclipse panels - the Eclipse variant has slightly higher efficiency cells and is therefore smaller. 

The mounting hardware that came with the panels was not designed for the van roof, so I cooked up something a little more robust for my application. The hardware consists of a bolt, a matching nut, a wide washer to spread the clamping load, and a lock ring to prevent the nut from coming loose under driving conditions. With my sister’s help, I arranged and mounted the solar panels, marked the holes that needed to be drilled, and then bolted the panels down. I used more of the butyl tape around the mounting holes to provide a watertight seal, and then just to be extra watertight, I covered the bolts and the feet with more lap sealant.

To run the wires into the van, I drilled a hole in the roof and placed a waterproof junction box over it.

Build Log 7 - Solar System Proof of Concept

Once I had the solar panels up, I was pretty excited to put together my whole system and test it out. The system consists of: the panels, a charge controller, the battery bank, and a 1500 W inverter, which allows me to use regular 120V appliances on my system. While the final installation includes a bunch of switches, fuses, and busbars to safely distribute power, I didn’t bother with them for the proof of concept. 

It was incredibly cool to have this up and running! I was able to charge my phone, and my laptop from the solar system, and was also able to run lights late into the night using the onboard power to keep working.

Build Log 5 - The Fantastic Fan Vent

The van is a relatively small enclosed space, and so keeping it ventilated was a big concern of mine. Sleeping and cooking tend to generate a lot of humidity, which creates an ideal habitat for mold to form. Also, my AC only works when the engine is running, and so I needed an effective means of cooling for when I’m parked.

There's a hole in my roof!

I settled on the Fantastic Fan - supposedly the best RV-style roof fan on the market. They’re pretty commonly used in van conversions, so I wasn’t too concerned about how well it would work. I was, however, concerned about the 14 x 14 hole I was going to have to cut into the roof of my van. This was going to be the first irreversible modification I was going to make to the van, and screwing this up would likely require welding to fix. 

Testing for fitment after cutting the hole.

So, I measured 20 times, used a template, and then drilled and cut out the hole very carefully. Luckily, the fan fit perfectly! In order to weather seal the fan to the van, I used a rubbery butyl tape underneath in between the van roof and the fan lip, and then a runny silicone lap sealant over the whole seam, which provides a flexible waterproof seal. 

Build Log 4 - Thermal Insulation

I spent a lot of time researching thermal insulation online and found a myriad of approaches and opinions. I decided against standard fiberglass batt (the pink stuff used in houses), as it would break down under the stresses of driving and probably give me mesothelioma. I decided against the eco-friendly variant, cotton batt made from recycled jeans, because vans tend to be humid environments and I didn’t want to have mold issues. I settled on rigid polyisocyanurate foam, which has a very high R value for its thickness. 

The polyiso foam comes in 4’ x 8’ sheets, just like plywood, which meant that I had to make a lot of templates again in order to fit it to the walls and ceiling. The foam posed another issue - it was rigid, whereas my walls and ceiling were curved. I employed a technique called “kerfing”, wherein the foam is sliced almost entirely through at regular intervals in order to flex evenly and approximate a smooth curve. After kerfing and taping the insulation in place, I filled in the cracks with more Great Stuff spray foam and little cut off bits of polyiso foam. 

Build Log 3 - The Subfloor

After cleaning up the rust and sealing it, I was finally ready to begin adding to the van. The first step was to install the subfloor.  I decided to insulate the floor with spray-foam insulation to add a little heat retention. Since the floor is corrugated, this had the additional benefit of evening out the floor to provide a solid base for the subfloor.

After spraying foam into the corrugations, and deformations caused by the previous owners, I trimmed the foam down to a uniform surface.

Next came installing the plywood subfloor. Because the van floor was deformed, I wanted a heavy subfloor. I opted for 3/4” plywood. I then created a template of the entire floor out of construction paper. Using this template, I cut the subfloor to shape out of 3 separate sheets of plywood. 

Once the subfloor was cut, I drilled holes through the plywood and metal van floor so that I could bolt them together. I countersunk and hammered t-nuts into the subfloor, and then ran bolts and lock washers up from below the van in order to fasten everything together. 

Build Log 2 - Acoustic Damping

I discovered, in driving back and forth from Home Depot, that my van was incredibly loud and jangly. Running over bumps in the road was deafening, and the acoustic aftermath of potholes lingered for minutes after I’d barreled through them. 

In order to combat this, I decided to employ the same technique used by ricers around the world - ungodly amounts of Dynamat. For those who don’t know, Dynamat is a butyl based noise damping material comes as a heavy, flexible, sticky, aluminum backed sheet of something akin to tar.

Given that I was on a budget and that I had a huge van to cover in the stuff in, I opted for the cheaper generic butyl damper sheets that were available on Amazon. This stuff is applied by cutting it to size, sticking it onto the surface in question, and rolling vigorously until all air bubbles are gone and the mat is stuck well and good. I applied it to the wheel wells, unsupported areas of the floor, the walls, and the entire roof. All in all, I applied ~100 lbs of the stuff. The result was a significant reduction in wind noise and road noise, and a much more controlled acoustic response to rough roads. 

Build Log 1 - Getting the Van and Step 0.

After months of test drives, endless visits to questionable used commercial vehicle dealerships, and several false positives, I finally picked up a 2008 Ford E-250 Extended with 92k miles on Halloween, 2016. I had to drive all the way out to Pleasanton to get it, but Ankoor was nice enough to drive me out to pick it up. It’s fortunate that I got the van that specific weekend, as it was also the weekend that we were moving out of our apartment, and the van doubled as our moving truck.

After finishing the move, the very first thing to do was to unmount the cargo divider that the van came with. This was riveted & bolted into the walls and required me to break out my angle grinder to get it completely out. It was incredibly heavy, and had I cared more I’m sure i could have sold this on craigslist for a few dollars. However, I was working full time and concerned about my build timeline, so I ended up taking it to the junkyard along with a bunch of other material that came out of the van.

Next, I had to rip out the cargo liner on the walls, the cardboard headliner, and rubber floor & insulation that covered the bare metal. The cargo liner walls proved to be a greater challenge than expected because they were riveted to the metal underneath, and I had to whip out the trusty angle grinder again.

Once the plastic, rubber, and cardboard were finally off, I was in for a bit of a shock. There was a considerable amount of rust on the floor, due no doubt to the rubber floor and insulation pad trapping moisture down there. I picked up a wire brush for the angle grinder, and settled into grinding it all away.

After getting all that rust off, I sealed the bare metal with two coats of Rustoleum.Having finished all that unplanned work, I was finally ready to get started on insulating the van! Step 0 Complete!