1988 G30 Cube Van, A blank canvas.

[KingArthur]

This is going to be the main build thread for this big blue (maybe not for long) van. 

Van is a military spec G30 with a 6.2 detroit non-turbo diesel motor paired to a 3 speed Hydromatic. It sounds like an old school bus.

I have a small list of various things so far that I'd like to do that are necessary before proceeding further:

- Rear main seal needs to be replaced
- Various gaskests/seals on engine need to be replaced. Oil is seeping out here and there and this must be stopped if possible.
- Paint the lower half of the van with bed liner, and the top half with military surplus paint. Color will be a light desert beige. 
- All door gaskets need to be replaced.
- Fiberglass insulation currently installed needs to be removed and replaced with poly board insulation.
- This wild AC unit needs to be either repaired or scuttled. (Link to that thread here: https://vanlivingforum.com/showthread.php?tid=36629)
- Van needs to generally be thoroughly gone over and cleaned. Various holes need to be patched with bondo or fiberglass. 
- The extended heater hose that used to run to the auxiliary heater needs to be removed, or an auxiliary heater needs to be installed. (Though I don't know what purpose it would serve.)
- Replace headlights with something brighter and correctly aligned and wired to SHUT OFF WHEN IGNITION OFF!!!
- Seats need to be replaced with something more comfortable.

Now for the fun part...

I have two directions I can go with this build. I only have about two months before I'm going to be leaving the state, and I am undecided whether I want to take thing along with me, or if I want to do a very basic conversion and sell the van and move on. Given the #vanlife culture at the moment, I feel that I could end up making some money on this van by using reclaimed materials and basically giving someone the opportunity to buy a 'blank canvas' that they could essentially just slap some paint on and call their own. So I would install all insulation, flooring, any plumbing and electrical components, and any furniture and sell the van unfinished; at 80%. This would be my second conversion so I do have most of the necessary tools, skills, and experience to pull this off.

The other option is to keep the van for myself. Originally I had big creative plans for this van when I bought it at the end of 2017. Because of various troubles financial and otherwise, no conversion happened and I ended up shelving my ambitions for the project. Once again I'm considering resurrecting this venture and perhaps coming up with something I can call home. My main concern as the van sits right now is its fuel mileage. I'm hoping to address the terrible fuel mileage by putting in much taller differential gears. Thread here: (https://vanlivingforum.com/showthread.php?tid=27696&pid=449168#pid449168). The fuel mileage is hovering around 7 at the moment, and this is utterly unacceptable as far as I'm concerned. I think a minimum of 14 or 15 is going to be my absolute lower limit, so if this is possible, I will most likely end up keeping the van.

I still have some various items hanging around from my last van that ended up going to the great scrap yard in the sky. I still have a nice pure sine wave inverter, a 240w solar panel, and various bits and bobs that would aid a conversion and wouldn't require me to start from scratch. If I do keep the van for myself, I learned very much so what I do and do not like when I lived in my Astro for a year and a half. First, I hate not being able to stand up. Second, I hate having to go somewhere to shower at the end of the day. Third, I hate not being able to take a dump in my van. Fourth, I hate having limited space for cooking.

I bought for the very reason of addressing some of these concerns. Height was the main one. Being that I'm 5' 6", I fit with ample room to spare inside this van; the ceiling being almost exactly 6 feet. It will probably be similar in height once the new insulation, floor and ceiling are added because at this moment it's insulated and the ceiling is covered in this sheet metal you see in the photos. Thought I'm sure some do it to no ill effect, I refuse to live in a small space with fiberglass insulation that gets rattled around every time I drive anywhere. 

- The van will need to be fairly heavily insulated being that I would like to be able to survive a winter in the northeast if need be.
- The shower can drain to ground. I don't care about tanks and one can be added later if I change my mind.
- The kitchen will have a large footprint because of my interest in preparing the majority of my food. I have a nice 45(?) quart Engel chest freezer/fridge left over from my Astro that I'll use primarily for refrigeration. So I'm considering building one of the slide-out doohickeys to make it accessible. I learned what a pain in the ass those huge top-opening lids are in these small spaces. 
- As for the toilet, I have half a mind to take on an adventurous composting toilet project, but I think planning on the bucket method at this moment would be more reasonable. 
- Trojan T-105's are fine batteries, but I may consider dropping the cash for some LiFeP04 batteries or maybe one of these Tesla cells. I'd like the van to have over 1KW of usable power. But again this isn't critical.

I haven't yet organized my thoughts and created a plan to tackle this project. If possible, I'd like to cover the basics first and try to avoid getting stuck in a sort of 'extraneous' project for more time than I have to spare. For instance, when I built out my Astro, I ended up spending an absolutely absurd amount of time and money trying to make a small kitchen counter/sink combo out of fiberglass reinforced poly board after seeing the video of the guy who built all his furniture out of the stuff. It makes an absolutely terrible surface for a countertop for a multitude of reasons, and after 3 or 4 iterations of trying to get that to work I ended up just making the whole thing out of reclaimed Corion. And all just to learn that sinks with flat bottoms don't work in vans at all, when I could have just used a salad bowl with a hole drilled in the bottom and saved myself literally 100 hours of work and at least a few hundred bucks. So, if you catch my drift, THAT'S what I'm trying to avoid with this van. 

I don't mind getting involved with ambitious projects, so I think what I'm asking of you guys is just for your advice on setting my priorities. I tend to think WAY beyond my capabilities, and sometimes I just need someone to refocus me onto what is actually going to be useful in the immediate future. Being that I'm self employed, I also need to make sure that this project doesn't take over my entire life and start to rob me of the time I need to keep financially afloat. 

Anyway, if you read all that, thank you very much!! Your comments and advice are all appreciated.

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[highdesertranger]

couple of points,

you don't use surplus paint. the paint you want is readily available, it's called by various names depending who you talk to. most call it Desert Sand the number is 30277 it's flat or lusterless depending on who you are talking to. here's a link you can buy it in quarts or buy the gallon,

http://www.rapcoparts.com/4galloncase.html

you can also buy it in rattle cans, Aervoe sells it in the rattle cans.

door gasket should be the same as pick-ups and are readily available.

you are missing one of the studs for the air cleaner you are sucking dirt right in that hole.

it appears someone has bypass the automatic glowplug controller and installed manuals, is that true?

if you decide to do the headlight work let me know and I can point you in the right direction. there are a couple of things to do.

I still say there is something going on with he 7mpg.

highdesertranger

 

[KingArthur]

...
highdesertranger

Thanks for your replies to all my threads. They are helpful.

- Yes, the paint you pinned down is what I'm looking for. I think the vehicle will look good with a military look... plus the light color will help with heat absorption. As well as camouflaging it when the nuclear holocaust finally comes!

- The door gaskets I speak of are in the cab as well as everything in the box. The door seals on the box are basically gone or about to be gone. I was told by a mechanic friend of mine that they can be replaced with something that you can cut to fit? I'm sure such a thing exists, I might just end up using weather stripping from the hardware store or something.

- That air cleaner is among one of the things I need to address on this engine. I'd like to pull it off, sand it, paint it, put new gaskets on it and everything. I simply have too much to do. But I suppose I could throw some putty in the hole for now  You are correct; it does have a glowplug button coversions as I believe the ignition activated style was prone to failure in that it would end up draining the battery. It also has an electric fan conversion that seems to work well.

-  The headlight work I'm just interested in improving visibility a little bit. Nothing too crazy. If I decide I need more I'll probably just add cheap light bars rather than getting performance bulbs. As for the fuel mileage issue, I will give it a test later this week and get an exact number on it. I'm willing to go to fairly extreme lengths to make it better. 

Thanks!

 

[highdesertranger]

I would just put a new stud in the air cleaner. you know most of the parts are still available for that engine. I would try Kascar,

https://www.kascar.com/

for the headlights, a relay kit helps tremendously, they are available from many different companies. however they are easy to build yourself.

highdesertranger

 

[KingArthur]

Forgive me for the brief words in this post I'm posting from my phone. A couple things:

- I've decided rather than trying to chance the diff gears I'm going to swap in a 4l80e. I need to remove the transmission anyway to do the rear main so that's sort of nice I guess. The 4l80e only needs throttle position and engine speed to run its PCM. This guy made it work without having to buy one of the overpriced kits that make the 4l80e standalone. However I do have to figure out how to add a tps to the 6.2.

Something has been bugging me about this engine for awhile now and everyone, including the mechanic that inspected it, seems to think it's running normal. To me it sounds like the injection pump is eating itself and causing misfire. Below I posted a video of the engine running, and it's nearly impossible to hear it on the video, but maybe one of you knows what I'm talking about. Whenever the engine gets warmed up, it seems to start to misfire. The 'ratcheting' sound produced by the IP will get louder and softer, loud and soft, and sort of jitter between those two volumes. Maybe you can see in the tailpipe the rattle that seems to follow the loud ratcheting sound that comes from the IP. You can hear at the tailpipe how it's sort of running rough. What do you think it is?



- I've read elsewhere that the harmonic balancer can be the reason the rear main seals go on these engines. Looks like it's pretty wobbly to me: guess its time to replace it.

Thanks. Here's some pictures of the work I've been doing to it today. Going to patch all the holes and paint all the rust next week.























Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

 

[Headache]

I watched your video. That old 6.2 sounds pretty good! Obviously I'm not there but it sounded like a nice even idle by diesel standards.

What kind of insulation are you going to use? I'm an XPS fan myself. At least you have flat walls.

 

[KingArthur]

I've got a couple theories on insulation. I'll probably end up using XPS because it's cheap and simple and it works, but I'm open to other ideas.

I happen to live near a very swampy area full of cattails. I had half an idea to try and use cattail down to insulate the van. Yes, I understand that sounds fundamentally insane for many reasons, but I think it COULD be possible. Probably not going to pursue it but it would surely be a first!

I did actually attempt to get some numbers regarding the cattail down. I went and picked 15 stalks and stripped and fluffed the down from them and measured the amount I got. Roughly, I would need 12-1900 stripped stalks in order to insulate the entire van between 2-4 inches of depth of insulate. That right there might prohibit the attempt. I also don't know the r-value for the stuff. Historically it's been used as an insulating material by natives, the poor, and even by the military during the second world war when down became scarce. So I'm sure it could be used, but not sure at what level of efficacy.

Yesterday I removed all the old insulation and cleaned the remainder of it off the walls. Blasted it out with some compressed air. Now comes the time to measure everything and start to lay out some plans for walls, furniture and everything else. What I hope to get done this week is a trip to the junkyard to look for parts and pieces to spruce up the van a bit, and a trip to the hardware store to buy some fiberglass to start patching some various holes here and there. Might try replacing some gaskets too.

Here's some photos from yesterday, including a picture of one of the roof panels removed with the old fiberglass insulation still stuck on it. Next to it is the product of about 15 stalks of cattail down which I measured and used to calculate the approximate volume of down produced by one stalk, and therefore got my number of approximate stalks I would need to insulate the whole van with the stuff. Might try to do some r-value testing on the stuff this week too if I get around to it. The novelty of insulating my van with cattail down is sort of attractive to me by itself.

Does anyone perhaps know what this gooey stuff is that they used to glue on the insulation with is? It's a sort of black, tarlike substance that I would perhaps like to use to cover the inside of the van. It has done an excellent job for the last 20 years preventing rust wherever it was applied, and well, mind as well use what works.

 

[B and C]

Cattails might make a great insulator if you could keep it fluffed up. The vibrations of the road will cause it to settle and pack down. No idea on its' water retention properties.

Any rigid insulation would be far superior in the long run.

 

[highdesertranger]

yeah I would test that cattail down for holding moisture. that's the last thing you want. highdesertranger

 

[Headache]

The black stuff was probably some kind of marine or construction adhesive. It prevented rust in those areas because it blocked oxygen and moisture from getting to the metal. That's definitely what you want to happen.

Maybe something to look into but some people are bypassing using insulation at all and are spraying undercoating on their walls. Here's a video of a couple who have lived in their undercoated(and no vent fan) van for 3 years. They live up in the Kootenays in Canada. That gets DAMN cold! Don't know about heat which is a different issue down here. For them it took care of the condensation issue.



If you want to skip the music and crap the actual talking starts at 3 mins. The no insulation talk starts at 5:40. It's a good cheap build regardless.

 

[Amboman]

I just bought 2 Rust Oleum Pro 2 part Bed Liner kits from Rural King $49/ea shipped free https://www.ruralking.com/catalogsearch/result/?&q=bed liner&rows=24&view=grid&start=0
Amazon is $177 per kit as well as Home Depot. I want to do the complete underside of the Ambo. It's rust free & for $100 it will keep the underside better than new. We're doing 2 Ambos before leaving as we have have a nice big hanger floor. It will go over paint is you scuff it up, several you tubes on it.

 

[wayne49]

Using undercoating or bedliner in the interior?
Product is not intended for interior usage.
Anyone can post anything (that doesn't go against the current narrative) to you tube.
It takes time for symptoms to develop, even when living on a toxic waste site.

"Love Canal" timeline.
1953
Hooker Chemical and Plastics Corporation sold the Love Canal property (approximately 15 acres) for $1.00 to the Board of Education of Niagara Falls with a deed disclaimer of responsibility for any future damages due to the presence of buried chemicals.
1955
Board of Education of Niagara Falls completed construction on and opened the 99th Street
Elementary School and sold unused sections of the Love Canal property to home developers to build residences.
1976–1977
The Niagara Gazette (and reporter Michael H. Brown) in a series of articles reported that chemical residues from the Love Canal landfill between 97th and 99th Streets have been seeping into the basements of homes in the area. These reports cited illnesses and injuries to residents and pets and destruction of plant life. The newspaper urged prompt government action.

 

[KingArthur]

I generally share the sentiment that putting products that were never intended for prolonged exposure to humans in your tiny living area could be a bad idea. Bed liner is probably fine after whatever solvent it contains has dried off, but I learned earlier this year that I am extremely allergic to contact cement even after its solvent has dried off. And that stuff is generally used inside houses, so who knows?

I think as long as its painted with a rust inhibitor, that will be sufficient. It would be nice though to kill two birds with one stone: it looks like they used it as an adhesive to stick on the insulation and it was also very effective at preventing rust. Not sure how much the military cared about VOC's leeching out of it though. The stuff is over 25 years old so whatever might have leeched out of it is now very long gone.

Since I've got this interest in possibly insulating with cattail down, I'll probably end up creating my own personal adhesive brew to cover the walls with, and then build up layer upon layer with the adhesive. Spray adhesive, fluff some down on it, spray adhesive, fluff some down, and so on.

I think using something like wood glue mixed with an adhesive silicone would work well. It would get very firm but still be somewhat pliable and therefore resist cracking over time when exposed to extreme heat and cold. I was ruminating about taking possibly 1 part wood glue, 2 parts silicone, mix it with 2 parts denatured alcohol and put it in a pump up sprayer and layer away with the down.

As for the mold issue, if I insulate with the down I'll probably end up enveloping the entire job in plastic just to make absolutely sure I won't be exposed to it. However I used natural fibers in my last build (denim) and I never had a problem. Believe it or not the denim would get wet nearly every time it rained due to me having a leak that I was never able to find, and thanks to the way that it would wick the moisture and spread it out, the denim would dry fairly quickly. This was also helped by the fact that the back of the affected wall was quite exposed so air could move feely around it.

Another thing I read about cattail down... The military favored it for use in (I forget exactly) some sort of clothing that was intended to be used aboard ships. The stuff is incredibly hydrophobic, and it took something like 30 hours submerged to waterlog it. This means that it won't soak up moisture too well. Think about it: the stuff grows in a swamp and it's mechanism of action is being light enough to be carried off by the breeze. If it were wet, it wouldn't get very far, or maybe not at all if it clumped up with its neighbor.

I think I'm going to take a walk down to said pond and try putting some of the down heads in a pillowcase and throw them in the dryer. Maybe it will do a better job fluffing the down than I did by hand, and if I do use the down I would probably do the same thing anyway to dehydrate the down as much as possible before installing it.

Food for thought!

 

[Headache]

Wayne, while Love Canal isn't relevant to this discussion I hope you're just as diligent with any adhesives, paint, stain, butyl tape, etc. that may be going into this build. When it comes to "insulation" there really isn't a "safe" option because the ones that have no off gassing may harbor mold and mildew, be virtually impossible to get everywhere needed(or be a PITA to install) or be pretty expensive.

 

[Headache]

As for the mold issue, if I insulate with the down I'll probably end up enveloping the entire job in plastic just to make absolutely sure I won't be exposed to it. However I used natural fibers in my last build (denim) and I never had a problem. Believe it or not the denim would get wet nearly every time it rained due to me having a leak that I was never able to find, and thanks to the way that it would wick the moisture and spread it out, the denim would dry fairly quickly. This was also helped by the fact that the back of the affected wall was quite exposed so air could move feely around it.

I'm going to try this again as I had something typed up but someone was playing with the SQL....

The plastic barrier will work just fine as long as you never screw anything into a wall because as soon as you do it penetrates the barrier.

That's weird about the denim because it takes forever to dry, even as jeans.  I've read both good and bad regarding van builds including moldy denim.  I'd use it in a house in a heartbeat, maybe even in a fiberglass RV but not in my metal van.

The thing about insulation is that ALL insulation can and will harbor mold and mildew but not all of it provides food for it to grow.  Right now I have mildew on my ceiling and XPS.  No more cooking in my van.  

I'm very interested in the cattail experiment and I've read the same Mother Earth News article from the 80's.  However, cattails also have made great compost meaning they break down with moisture and heat.  Just like the undercoating it's going to depend on where you spend most of your time.  The most successful tests of it as insulation was in Europe when it had been made into boards.  You'll be using it loose so it will be prone to compacting.  I LOVE cattails so this is intriguing at the very least.

 

[KingArthur]

Got some info on the cattails for everybody who is curious...

I did some basic testing with the down today. I took some leftover fiberglass insulation and sandwiched it between two pieces of cardboard with adhesive. I did the same to an equal amount of down. I then took an electric radiator and turned it on high and once hot put the two pieces side by side on the radiator. I simply measured the difference in temperature with my hand. I understand this isn't incredibly scientific not to have actual temperature values, but I don't really have a good way of measuring surface temperature and I'm not going to buy one of those temperature guns just for this. Regardless, I think I came up with some interesting results.

To put it simply the cattail down clearly outperformed the fiberglass. It got hot slower and somehow resisted heating up to the same temperature of the fiberglass. I checked the temperature of the surface of both ever five minutes for a half an hour and then checked it at one hour on top of the heater. The difference was not major but it was significant. After an hour the temperature difference was the most noticeable, with the surface of the down insulated cardboard being fairly cool. The fiberglass insulated cardboard could be felt radiating some heat. Again, not extreme, but I feel confident saying that in my humble experiment, the cattail down outperformed the fiberglass.

All this being said, I don't know the R-value of the fiberglass I used. It's also quite old, and perhaps it lost some of its ability to insulate over time.

As for how to actually attach the stuff to the walls...

At this point I think using layers of spray adhesive is going to be the best route. I'm not allergic to the stuff; the only downside in my opinion is it's sort of expensive at 12 bucks a can for the good stuff. I tried thinning out some general adhesive with acetone to perhaps use it in a sprayer, but it just sort of turned into jelly rather than liquefying. I tried a few different adhesives and solvents and basically got the same result with each, so I'm sufficiently satisfied to just spend the few extra bucks on the spray adhesive rather than beat my head against the wall I think.

So basically, spray adhesive, throw some down at the wall, spray adhesive again, throw some more down, and so on. Worked well enough on the test cardboard. I think I will baffle it in sections or cells when I put it in the van just to give it some extra support rather than just blasting it on like foam insulate.

 

[Doubleone]

...decided rather than trying to chance the diff gears I'm going to swap in a 4l80e. I need to remove the transmission anyway to do the rear main so that's sort of nice I guess. The 4l80e only needs throttle position and engine speed to run its PCM. This guy made it work without having to buy one of the overpriced kits that make the 4l80e standalone. However I do have to figure out how to add a tps to the 6.2.

...To me it sounds like the injection pump is eating itself and causing misfire. ...Whenever the engine gets warmed up, it seems to start to misfire. The 'ratcheting' sound produced by the IP will get louder and softer, loud and soft, and sort of jitter between those two volumes. Maybe you can see in the tailpipe the rattle that seems to follow the loud ratcheting sound that comes from the IP.

...I've read elsewhere that the harmonic balancer can be the reason the rear main seals go on these engines....

Any chance you can share where you got the info on the 4l80e conversion.  I'd really like to read up on that. 

TPS mainly need to be zero'd at idle.  Fortunately, they're a 90º sweep to full throttle so I'm thinking maybe a tin mount from an intake manifold bolt with a 1:1 connection directly to the throttle shaft itself.  Some rubber hose, flex cable, or other extension from the throttle shaft to a remote mounted TPS could also work.  Here's an example of an aftermarket with a cable  https://www.usshift.com/tps.shtml

I couldn't hear any mechanical sounds in the video. The way it perked up when you hit the throttle actually sounded pretty good.  I could hear the irregular idle at the exhaust.  My first thoughts were water (or possibly residual air) in the fuel.  I'd check for water in the filter, and tank if needed, also run some injector cleaner/biocide through it.  If it's been sitting, could be a drippy injector nozzle at idle and some cleaner will usually take clean that right up.  Injector drive gears usually don't wear much, and if you later find you need an injection pump assembly you can always replace that from up top.  Another thought if yours has an EGR, sometimes those can carbon up and leak a little at idle when they really should be closed.  Check and clean as needed.   

Never heard of a harmonic balancer taking out a seal.  A bad harmonic will usually cause vibrations, and in the extreme perhaps a broken crank and/or odd bearing wear.  But thinking more about that harmonic balancer and your mysterious noise gave me an idea...  Since you'll already have the oil pan off...  I'd take it a bit further and open the front end also to check/replace the timing chain for slop, replace the harmonic, and get a fresh seal in the front end at the same time as the rear.  Both of those seals could be 30+ years old...and crusty.

 

[KingArthur]

The info I got on the 4l80e conversion is in this thread, posted above. As for hooking a TPS to a 6.2, that remains to be solved. I think the solution you propsed is logical. I was thinking that maybe an entire throttle body could be pulled off something newer and bolt on to the 6.2 if I could be that lucky at the junkyard.

As for the injector gears, the reason I bring it up is because thats definitely what is making the noise. Could be a leaky or clogged injector or water in fuel however, so I'll definitely try that. Filter I just replaced recently but it was sitting over winter so it could just be nasty fuel. It has always had this problem though. Clogged EGR is another thought worth pursuing if the simple things don't fix it.

I had half a mind to replace as many seals I could. Basically I will if by some miracle I have the time to essentially rebuild the engine. That is contingent, however, on if I don't find a good turbodiesel to swap in for a good price instead.

Basically I'm open to anything if it works and doesn't cost too much. Labor I can afford to spend, money not so much. This is why I'm interested in things like insulating with cattail down and using cheap materials that maybe require some assembly.

 

[highdesertranger]

you shouldn't have an EGR on that 6.2. they only put EGR's on Blazers and 1/2 tons. 3/4 and 1 ton 6.2's never had an EGR.

I hope you don't have water in the fuel. water eats up the injectors and pumps. I would find out ASAP. don't you have a water separator filter. checking for water is easy pump some fuel into a glass jar. if there is water in the fuel it will be obvious.

have you checked for air in the fuel system? that's a common issue with these because of the age and it's easy to check for. let me know and I will run it down for you.

highdesertranger

 

[Doubleone]

Diesel has an open intake (no air throttle); engine speed is handled with fuel.  A throttle body might be hard to adapt to the top of the engine, plus you still have to run a cable to it.  So I started considering, it might also be hard to adapt a TPS right at the pump itself.  Thinking a little out of the box here... it might be more straight forward to just put the TPS inside the cab right near the throttle pedal.  Next thoughts jumped to a late model throttle body, like off an Explorer or some other small car, cut it down to the bare essentials, take out the butterfly, and link a cable from your throttle pedal to the dummy throttle body...  Cheap and easy... basically a ready made TPS mounted to a shaft with lots of extra holes for mounting it to the firewall.