E250 build

[stevesgonewalkabout]

Hey all,

A bit of background -

Steve here, an Australian come to LA to buy and build a van with the intention of taking it south. How far south is yet to be determined. Central America possibly, Chile maybe. I'll be joined by my girlfriend in the coming months so this little beast of burden will have to carry two.

I have no idea about American vans (other than the are massive, as are their motors) or fitting out a van so this thread shall probably end up a "what not to do".

I bought a Ford E-250 last week and set about turning it into home for the foreseeable future.

The good - 2007 model, only 80,000 miles.
The bad - Side cargo doors have taken enough hits from a forklift that while they close, they are no longer watertight. frustrating but when you've only two weeks to buy a van you have to make some concessions.
The ugly - She's gorgeous.

Now, I've only got 10 weeks on my visa before I HAVE to go south so this build will be as quick as I can make it. I'm working in the driveway of an airbnb house I'm staying in and my tool kit consists of:

Battery drill
Circular saw
Jigsaw
Stanley knife
tape measure and speed square
Pencil
Vice grips
Yep... that's about it. Tell you one thing, curved cuts are a barrel of laughs with only a circular saw and jigsaw.



Day 1 - Planning
Need to decide on
- a roof vent and fan.
- House battery / battery selector / inverter
- need to find a second hand fridge (proving VERY HARD)
- cladding to walls - carpet? lauan? painted?
- cladding to ceiling
- layout (half decided)
- Lighting - how to run LED strip lighting (and speaker cables)
- Find cheap roof racks on craiglist

Day 2
Layout - at the moment it's looking like the simple "bed down the rear, fridge / stove across from the side cargo door" layout.


Prep - I took the timber and steel frame out of the back of the van. It would have made panelling the van a breeze, dead straight all the way to the ceiling, but it also lost me 7 inches in width, which is too much for that ease of install. I may come to regret that decision.

Buying and fitting insulation.

I cut down the existing frames that were in the van. They would have made
I'm 6ft, so every tenth of an inch matters in terms of headspace and width for this little van. So I put up 1inch polyiso to the walls where I could, but could only fit 1/2 inch to the ceiling. I installed timber frames to the wall to allow me to install the polyiso on the upper section of the wall, and still have something to fix wall cladding to when the time comes. You can just see them on the left side of the van.

Amazing how short that sentence is. To fit that insulation, to go to Home Depot, then return 3/4 inch because it wouldn't fit, then go back as I was short of 1 inch polyiso and so on took about 12 hours.

Messy workstation yes? Right now I'm working in a driveway, so every single trip to Home Depot (and there have been about 3-6 a day so far) means everything gets put back in the van.



Day 3 - Wall cladding

You can see some nasty gaps, but the lower half of the wall on both sides will be almost totally hidden by the bed / cabinetry. I used 1/4 inch lauan because it was thin, yet seemingly durable enough. Terrible photo attached, but I've been working from 8am till 8pm, so photos of the finish product will have to wait till morning.

Cutting the ply has been challenging. Contrary to the name, a circular saw does not enjoy corners. But you make do with what you have right?
The upper section will probably be covered in the same stuff tomorrow, which will give me the option to either leave it bare, or cover it if I don't like the timber look - wallpaper, carpet, paint.... Planning on this build is happening as it happens.

Day 4 (planned) - I'm hoping to sheet the upper sections of the wall. I find that as long as the security guard doesn't mind then it's a lot easier to park up in the Home Depot carpark and work there. Once that's done I'll try to build a frame for one of the bed / couches, which should prove to be amusing as I've no idea how to do it. I've 3 x 2 for the main framing and .... 1 and 1/2 x 1/4 for the rest.

Also need to order a battery / battery selector / inverter and roof fan / roof vent by tomorrow morning to get it early enough that it won't delay the build.

Thanks for watching!

 

[WriterMs]

I'm no expert (in the least) for the way you are doing the build, but it looks quite sensible to me. AND, it is almost like watching a video on fast forward to see how much you did in 3 days with so little supporting infrastructure/tools to work with.

What a spirit of adventure you have to head south. Once the van is built out and your girlfriend arrives, what do you have planned to see in the U.S. during the remainder of your 10 weeks?

 

[stevesgonewalkabout]

I'm no expert (in the least) for the way you are doing the build, but it looks quite sensible to me. AND, it is almost like watching a video on fast forward to see how much you did in 3 days with so little supporting infrastructure/tools to work with.

What a spirit of adventure you have to head south.  Once the van is built out and your girlfriend arrives, what do you have planned to see in the U.S. during the remainder of your 10 weeks?

Thanks Writer, not too sure at the moment. I'd like to see as much as I can from Yellowstone NP to the west. I stupidly didn't apply for the 6 month visa so I have to be out by July the 15th, either Canada (and hope I can get another visa / visa waiver to come back in, or Mexico to head south.

Either way it'll be a grand ole adventure!

 

[Gary68]

got a good start going,at this time of the year i would go canada and head down south in the winter thats unless you like a hot and humid jungle

 

[stevesgonewalkabout]

Hey all, well it's been two days and the build is moving on.

Floor installed - 1/2 ply, and the 1/4 inch lauan plywood has been fixed to the walls with a flexible adhesive and a few screws where they should be concealed. 

And it's up:

Day 4:
Starting on the couches / beds.
3 x 2 (which is actually 2.5 by 1.5 inches or so) and a 1/2 sanded ply top.

I realise once finished that I should have build the two boxes out of the van and then manhandled them in place, it would have been much more accurate a build. But live and learn right?

Midday - Couch one done!

9pm at Lowe's carpark - Passenger side couch installed.
I made the two 1/2 ply boxes as a test run. I wanted to see how different it was to make shelves etc out of striaght ply as opposed to frame and sheet.

11pm at Lowe's carpark
Plywood is cut and in place, it's not perfect but it'll do. Got kicked out of Lowe's by a security guard who told me "If you work on your van it may encourage others to come to the same..." Which would probably be ok by Lowe's if the money I sunk into that place is any factor!

Right now the bed is 60inches wide. There will be two adults on it, both 6ft. But it seems VERY wide. The 3 x 2 on the right hand side is the limit of the bed and there will be shelves behind it. I'm considering making the bed thinner and getting more storage out of those shelves.

That's it for day 4!

Upcoming problems -
- Can't order a vent / fan and have it delivered soon enough, will have to leave the ceiling un sheeted as I travel around (untill I find a RV salvage yard)

- Where the wall panelling meets the ceiling panelling on the left hand side looks like a nightmare. I'm considering marine carpet / automotive headliner / a type of cornice... something to hide that mishapen mess of structural framework. Boxing it in is not an option as it'll make sitting on the couches very awkward.

- Solar - I'll be installing a solar charge controller, but leaving the panel until I can find one cheap on my travels. I shouldn't need it straight away. Needs be I can always turn off the (yet un bought) fridge and live of McDonalds...

- Deep cycle battery - I was looking for something around 120ah+ - Trojan make excellent batteries I'm told but they can be pricey. I'm still searching for the battery with that combination of quality / price.

- Fridge - I may have found a fridge, but can't pick it up for about a week, which means I can either build an enclosure for it and hope I'm close, or wait.

Ok... THAT'S it for day 4.

 

[stevesgonewalkabout]

Day 5

Late start today, got out to Home Depot (for the first of 4 visits by midday). Those places are so understaffed, it's amazing really.

Didn't get a whole lot done today. Plenty of measuring and remeasuring. I installed 80% of the shelving to the van, but to properly fix it I had two options.. Build it all square and pack it out from the evil curved side of the van, or cut each piece of timber to suit the curves od the van.

I went the second option, it was the only way to really fix the shelving securely in my opinion, and that's the only opinion that matters really. :s 

You can see here the in depth and clinical planning of the build. 

Though all those scribbles end up looking like this -

Sorry about the quality of the pics, that was 11pm in an industrial area so quite dark. Hard to find places in LA where using a circular saw at 10pm isn't frowned upon.

Tomorrows issues -
Turning that upper box into three rows of shelving, the lower two to have two shelves each to suit kitchenware, need to find said kitchenware to size up dividers, as the curves of the van mean each divider is a different size.

Painting if possible.

Praying electrical components arrive from Amazon.com

and this... 

This misshapen section of the body of the van. I'll have sheeting covering the ceiling, but it seems the two options are a 'cornice' or automotive headliner with foam backing. It seems the automotive headliner is the cheaper option, but I've never installed this product, could go horribly wrong.

That's it for day 5. Thanks for reading!

 

[drysailor]

Day 5

Late start today, got out to Home Depot (for the first of 4 visits by midday). Those places are so understaffed, it's amazing really.

Didn't get a whole lot done today. Plenty of measuring and remeasuring. I installed 80% of the shelving to the van, but to properly fix it I had two options.. Build it all square and pack it out from the evil curved side of the van, or cut each piece of timber to suit the curves od the van.

I went the second option, it was the only way to really fix the shelving securely in my opinion, and that's the only opinion that matters really. :s 

That's it for day 5. Thanks for reading!

Hi Steve - you can usually find marine carpet in 12-inch wide rolls, designed to be used on boat trailer "bunks". Perhaps you pad the underside with foam?

 

[stevesgonewalkabout]

Hi Steve - you can usually find marine carpet in 12-inch wide rolls, designed to be used on boat trailer "bunks". Perhaps you pad the underside with foam?

Thanks drysailor! I'll check out a few marine shops once the electrical systems are in place. Speaking of which, although Sternwake has given me priceless advice ite still very overwhelming. Not just the larger components (I've bought most), but wife sizes, how to run said wires, how to connect everything up and where to position things. I've nevertheless of much as crimped a wir

 

[stevesgonewalkabout]

Start of Day 8 ( I think)

I pulled down the shelves on the right hadn side, painted them and reinstalled them. Not too happy about the white paint, it gets dirty VERY quickly so I may paint them again, this time in situ. But that's no big issue.

I ran cables for the electrical side of things. Spent hours yesterday searching for answers in the internet about cable size and so on. I got about a thousand DIFFERENT answers so I went with 14 gauge for the 12v and 12 gauge for the 110. I figure too small a gauge and things could go bad, too large a gauge and it's frustrating to pull cables. On the plus side they're double insulated so they should hold up well to vibrations on the dirt roads I'm sure to encounter.


To really position everything I need to build the 'kitchen' cabinets. I've found a fridge, interstate, and searching for cutout sizes on the web have given me two different sizes. If I hold off on that kitchen cabinetry I can't position my inverter / battery / mppt etc, so I'm a little bit stuck. Hopefully the seller will get back to me with (accurate) cutout measurements and I can proceed.

You can see in the pic below my 'mock fridge' and 'mock two burner stove' I use to try to get an idea of how to position everything. 

They've taken a beating but it was by far the best bit of work I've done. Makes sizing up the layout so much easier.


To come -
Well, I need to bite the bullet and pay the $200 odd dollars for a quality battery.
Get on to finding marine carpet for the top corners.
Build the cabinet for the kitchen, once the seller gets back to me
Then I can finish the electrical.

Working in the van is getting tough as I want to move north and work on it as I travel, no point coming to USA for three months only to spend most of it in LA. I'm excited to head north then east, but it means I need to carry all materials in the van and pull the out each time I want to work on it. I figure it'll be two or three days of yelling incoherently like a crazy man, then it'll clear as I finish the carpentry.


Thanks all! Sorry for the lack of pics, not a very photogenic stage of the build anyway!

 

[akrvbob]

Really a super job!! We very much appreciate your sharing it with us and especially the pics!
Bob

 

[stevesgonewalkabout]

Day 10.

So I had to get out of LA, one month there searching for a van and then starting to build, I want to see more of this amazing country. So I headed north towards Big Sur with the idea of driving till two pm then working in the evenings.

Well, it's a lot harder. I don't have anywhere to store anything and I'm still doing carpentry work so the van is full of timbers and sheets of plywood, but everything works out in the end.

Don't worry, I cleaned it out just after this pic:

I Finally bought a battery - Trojan T-1275 - on the advice of Sternwake's encyclopedic knowledge, and an inverter. I bought a PSW inverter but could only afford the 600w model, now I'm worried I won't find a few creature comforts (like a sandwich press) that'll run off it, but such is life.

I started work on a part of the van that has been annoying me since I first sheeted the walls, how to finish the join between the ceiling and walls. I ended up finding automotive headliner and foam and covering it with that. Well wow, what a messy job. Especially when you run 8ft of it and realise you forgot to pull ONE cable through, so you tear it all down and redo it. That was the better part of two afternoons. Still, it's done now and I think when a trim is up underneath it, it will look pretty good (for $60 or so).


Original:

New and improved (but not perfect):

I've arrived at Morro Bay, ready to see Big Sur tomorrow and this evening I glued down the vinyl floor, built a box for the battery, which I bolted to the floor and stained some of the plywood. I also stained the wrong side of one piece so that's a job for tomorrow!!

The vinyl floor and a helpful comparison of stained plywood and unstained:


The upcoming jobs - Build the kitchen! This will be a big one, deciding on the layout and how to maximise useful storage space. I may also try to install some pull out drawers which is something new.

Following that I'll be working on the power, right now I've a headlamp and sandwiches for dinner, and sleeping on some excess headliner foam as my airmatress has a hole in it, so power and matress / couch will be much anticipated!

Day 10 over! Thanks for reading.

 

[cargovanconversion]

Really good work under your circumstances, with so few tools.
Good luck and have a great trip down south, not down under!

Van Williams

 

[MadVanMan]

This makes me rethink how I did my van. Looks good.

 

[stevesgonewalkabout]

Hey all,

Well I've been travelling around the States, trying to work on the van as I go. Things move a lot slower when you're trying to build a van at a campsite in the Rockies! I WAS taking pics as I went a long, but somehow deleted them. Oh well. Here's an update.

I'll be putting more pics up, and the pics from the actual trip (6,000 miles and eight states so far!) on my facebook page - Search:  Tales From The Road.



So I had to build some drawers for the kitchen. These were relatively easy, but installing the drawer slides was a nightmare! One of the problems of building with plywood is it doesn't leave you any real access. Luckily the width of the void for the drawers were literally the width of my battery drill, plus drill bit, plus screw, plus a quarter inch.

What ended up being harder is trying to keep the drawers from sliding out during any dirt roads or corners. I've put magnets in but they only do so much. I'm trying to avoid the bungee cord run through drawer handles.

Here's the kitchen. With 5mm ply unstained. I later stained it but unfortunately it lost a lot of that wonderful character. What you can't see in the photos is the lack of quality. There are plenty of cuts there that are ....almost straight.

Behind the three switches is a Blue Seas System fuse panel.

https://postimage.org/
The kitchen with stained ply. The White plywood will be painted brown, mostly to hide imperfections.

On to the solar system. I ended up going with a Renology 200w kit. I could have saved money putting it all together myself but for the piece of mind the kit was the simplest option.

Two panels side by side fit on the roof of the E250 with about 1.5 inches to spare. Perfect fit! I didn't bother angling them as who knows what direction I'd be facing. And I'm happy I didn't as the front edge of the panels are literally coated with dead bugs, that's from two days driving in farmland.

The solar panels are connected to the MPPT which is connected to the battery. All positives have inline fuses. From the second battery cables are then run to the inverter, and to the fuse box for the 12v system. A lot of cable.

You can also see the 150amp fuse and battery isolator there, with cables running through the engine bay to the starting battery. Having power finally connected was such a relief. FINALLY cold beer!!!!

Once I had power I could finally connect up all those pesky wires. First thing was the vent and fan. Cutting a hole in the roof of the van was nerve wracking, but worked flawlessly. Putting the trim around the vent was tougher. The standard 14inch trims you get everywhere are too high for a thin roof like mine, so I have to cut off 1.5 inches of the vertical section. But it still didn't fit. I ended up having to cut it into quarters and slicing off a 1/2 inch from each of the four sides. I could have tried harder to cut them dead straight, but I was in a campground in Idaho somewhere, and white silicon will do wonders.

Oh, I cut the white trim at the end of the day, tired, hot and ready to call it a day. I thought I'll do one more cut, but to do so I had to take the guard off the circular saw......    About five second later the circular saw was flying through the air as it bounced off the flimsy plastic and ran across the back of my thumb. I won't put the pic up here, but to give you an idea I chipped two of the saw's teeth off on the bone in my thumb, and my nail is in seven pieces. Lesson learned. When tired, call it a day.

Some of you will like this part, some probably shake your heads.
I built a frame and sheeted it, then proceeded to drill 100 holes in it and lay fairy lights throughout it. Yes, it was a lot of work. It'll go up on the ceiling and should have a rather interesting effect at night. Installing it was a nightmare though! The van only has two ribs to fix it to, and they are filled with odd shaped holes at random intervals. So it was a case of drilling along the ribs until the screws bit in. Plenty of wood filler and paint shall be required.

The cuts in the top and bottom of the light box are there so the panel can bend to match the curve of the roof. Once up I filled the remaining gaps with woodfiller and painted it. You'd never see it in a rolls royce, but it looks good enough for a shabby backpacker van!

I'll try to get more pics up once work progresses, once again you can check facebook - Tales from the road.

I've been able to take some wonderful pictures as the scenery in this country is spectacular! Cheers all.

Steve Freeman

 

[BradKW]

Some of you will like this part, some probably shake your heads.
I built a frame and sheeted it, then proceeded to drill 100 holes in it and lay fairy lights throughout it. Yes, it was a lot of work. It'll go up on the ceiling and should have a rather interesting effect at night. Installing it was a nightmare though! The van only has two ribs to fix it to, and they are filled with odd shaped holes at random intervals. So it was a case of drilling along the ribs until the screws bit in. Plenty of wood filler and paint shall be required.

The cuts in the top and bottom of the light box are there so the panel can bend to match the curve of the roof. Once up I filled the remaining gaps with woodfiller and painted it. You'd never see it in a rolls royce, but it looks good enough for a shabby backpacker van!

It's coming right along!  I'm going to most likely be placed in the "shaking heads" group, as even with a description and pictures, I still can't figure out what the heck you mean about fairy lights...    

 

[highdesertranger]

nice walkabout.

"FINALLY cold beer!!!!"

I like it you have your priorities straight. highdesertranger

 

[stevesgonewalkabout]

It's coming right along!  I'm going to most likely be placed in the "shaking heads" group, as even with a description and pictures, I still can't figure out what the heck you mean about fairy lights...    

I put the lightbox up, still a bit of work to go to finish it all off, install a light above the bed / table and some more trims to be installed.


Brad, here's a snapshot of the lights:

This video shows it better, not all that impressive during the day but at night they are great!

lights

 

[speedhighway46]

Very cool!

 

[highdesertranger]

how's that thumb? highdesertranger

 

[stevesgonewalkabout]

Very cool!

Thanks speedhighway, right now they are very bright. They are plugged in to the 110v so I'm hoping I can install a dimmer somehow.

how's that thumb?  highdesertranger

It's going surprisingly well! the nail is gone, but you can't see the bone so that's a win!