FALCON'S Aventuremobile conversion thread.

[FALCON]

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TESTING LIGHT POSITION
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Before I put the ceiling panels on, I want to run the wires for the lights to the correct position (I’ll make or cut little cavities in the insulation for the wires to fit in). I wanted to set them up first to check fit and to see if they would create annoying shadows in certain positions. I’ll place them close to where they are mounted in these pictures. There was no issue with shadows - there are so many LEDs in these strips that you can’t get much of a shadow anywhere.

View from the outside with the lights on  (I’ll have window covers inside)

Up next - installing the ceiling panels. I was hoping to get that done this weekend, but I have been working a LOT of hours on this - like 10 hours a day for the last 8 days - and today I’m taking a day off from labor in the van. All that awkward moving around inside the van has made one of my knees hurt and tell me it’s time to rest. That gives me a good reason to catch up on other stuff - Garden and lawn maintenance, cleaning my house, and research for further build steps…

 

[4GNomad]

Falcon,

Nice work on the insulation and paneling. I love the lights you put in there and how the space is lit up from them, especially from the exterior. Thanks for sharing your progress. Take care.

 

[LeeRevell]

Regarding your tender knees, go to HD or Lowes, and get some cheap strap-on kneepads. They really save the knees!
I'm eager to see the ceiling panels and final wall covering!

 

[Almost There]

Regarding your tender knees, go to HD or Lowes, and get some cheap strap-on kneepads.  They really save the knees!
I'm eager to see the ceiling panels and final wall covering!

I second that!!

I cracked a knee cap years ago and normally find kneeling incredibly painful, particularly rolling on the knee at all. With the knee pads on, I can crawl around with no pain in my knees.

Not that other parts of me don't hurt but the knees are fine.

 

[rvpopeye]

A definite 2 thumbs up !
Job well done.

 

[FALCON]

Regarding your tender knees, go to HD or Lowes, and get some cheap strap-on kneepads. They really save the knees!
I'm eager to see the ceiling panels and final wall covering!

You're already looking at the final wall covering. That's everything I'm going to do for the walls.

As for the knees - they aren't hurting from them being on the floor. It's a tendon or part of a muscle. One of them is just a bit tight and painful when my knee is under certain pressure. I could certainly keep going without the pain stopping me, but it's a better habit to rest when my body needs it and not push to injury.

 

[surfer]

Hi, I haven't been able to read the whole post so I hope my ideas aren't a repeat.

In regards to # 2 - Bed in the middle...
Don't build a solid wall between the bed and the back doors enclosing your bike, just enclose the two end cabinets in the corners. That way you still have access to the door and windows from inside. You can see through the windows for driving even though the bike is there or when you're just lounging and its raining you can still see out . When its nice out you can have your bike sitting out and the doors open and still get that circulation and views. Make the bed hinge from either side so you can sit facing towards the front of the van or flip the other end up so you can sit looking out the back doors. You can also have easy access from the back side of the van to the storage under the bed.

In regards to insulating the ribs...
Buy cans of spray foam and metal tape. Tape the bottom hole of the rib. Start filling it up with the foam insulation from the hole above the hole you just taped closed. When the foam gets close to the hole you're filling from, tape it up and then from the hole above it start spraying more foam insulation. Repeat and rinse.

 

[dvdchris]

wow, good job so far!



On the wires, the wrapping with electrical tape is overkill and time consuming. 

For future wire runs, use one of these things:



http://amzn.com/B005V9UU1O

[size=small]http://amzn.com/B00R7QHBI4[/size]



You can buy this at Home Depot as well. The split coil will allow you to insert another wire or two after running it.

 

[FALCON]

It's been raining here like crazy - and by crazy I mean raining very hard for 20-30 minutes, then stopping, then starting, then stopping, nearly all day long.

I don't have a garage and for the work I'm doing right now (using spray adhesive and other chemicals) I want to have the doors open. Does it work well to get some pieces of tarp to drape over the top of the doors to create a sort of covered entrance?

 

[Almost There]

Instead of just draping a tarp over the doors it's better to tie ropes off to the tarp in 2 or 3 places and throw them over the roof. Tie them off on something on the other side like the rims or the bumpers so that the tarp is at least a foot over the roof of the van.

Then take anything including leftover lengths pieces of lumber and make poles for the loose edge. You'll need 2 tie outs per pole unless you're really good at pitching tents...

Just draping a tarp over the doors usually means that the rain comes running right on in. BTDT.

Don't forget to empty the pond that will form on the makeshift canopy...

I can't do that with my high top but you can!

I'm putting in the reinforcing back board so that I can have an awning put on - probably in Quartzite this coming winter.

 

[FALCON]

@Almost There - thanks. I bought one piece of tarp. I'll probably try it out this week.

@DVDChris - thank you. I was actually looking for some of that at Home Depot and Lowes. All I could find were sizes bigger than what I wanted for the wires going up to the ceiling (1/2" and up). I'll probably get some for a lot of the other wires down in the van. The electrical tape is also pretty annoying to take off once I need to get at the wire in the future (which I've found out when going back to install the lights and needing to remove a few inches of the electrical tape wrapping)

I did get some knee pads, which I think are helping. They allow me to position my body in more ergonomic ways. I am having some issues with my lower back being sore and tight. It's not stopping me from working, but I'm working less aggressively. I'm doing much less of standing on my feet to move around in the van and starting to think more about where I position things so I don't have to lean far to grab something. I'm sure I'll probably get the building ergonomics all figured out right around the time I'm finishing things up

 

[FALCON]

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CEILING PANELS
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The dreaded ceiling panels… I expected this would be difficult for me. Then I got started, and I knew for sure. I had a hard time doing this. Working above my head is hard in the first place, and then trying to hold a big piece of plastic up and do actual work on it was hard as well.

I used these: http://www.homedepot.com/p/PLAS-TEX...hite-Polywall-Plastic-Panel-8203690/205945792

They are the same plastic sheets that I used for some parts of the walls. I had the insulation installed flush with the ceiling ribs, so I’d be able to attach these panels at the ribs. Around all the sides, I ended up running them back into the gaps between the outer walls and the support ribs - much like you would for certain types of (non-fabric) headliners. Between it raining, and me not wanting to work continuously on this step for a long time at once, It took me a couple days to put them in. Also I didn’t want to screw it up and have to buy a lot of extra sheets of plastic.

The plastic sheets are 4’x8’. I wanted to use one piece to go all the way from the left side to the right, and to connect from one roof rib to the next. There are 4 ribs across the roof, so this ended up being 5 pieces. Each piece was about 6 feet wide by 2.5 to 3 feet long. That meant I could only get one piece from each 4x8 sheet. So it meant that if I made one mistake that ruined the piece, it would cost me $20 and maybe an extra trip to Home Depot.

So - all these things combined - the difficulty of working overhead, plus not wanting to buy more sheets - made me more accepting of visual imperfections. You’ll see some in the pictures below. Also, I’m not all that concerned with the visual appearance of small details for this project. I’m not making a show vehicle here. I do want to achieve a certain level of appearance - to stand up to the vision I have in my head. But that vision is more about overall looks and function - not about little details being perfect.

Once I got the pieces up and in place, the biggest problem was - and definitely be into the future - the adhesive not holding the panels up against the insulation well enough. One thing I’m wondering (and maybe hoping) is whether the environmental conditions have some impact here. It was quite hot out (85-95 degrees) and VERY humid. I mean rainforest in the rainy season humid. I mean that as soon as it was starting to cool off just a little bit in the evening, masking tape would no longer stick to anything because everything was a little bit wet with condensation.

In most areas, I don’t really care if the panels sag a bit. As long as they stay securely attached to the ribs, with the edges still in place, I think I’ll be cool with it. But one place it will bother me is around the vent fan. That’s one of the only places where edges of the panel are not secured by the screws or by going into a crevice. I might see if installing the fan finishing piece would work. I’d have to secure it to the fan itself, and I don’t know if that’s really possible.

If I have a lot of problems with the panels sagging, I may try to re-glue them sometime when it is not humid outside. If that doesn’t work, I could get some metal pieces and make springs or sort of rails to hold them up (kind of like I did for the insulation, but maybe long ones that would attach to multiple ribs - sort of like the lights will). Or I could do something like what Glen at tosimplify.net did with his - and put some metal ribs spanning the width of the van that act as a spring pushing up on the ceiling.

Overall, I’m really happy with it so far. It matches my vision pretty well.

All installed:

The edges at the ribs face backwards. So when you view it from the front of the van, it looks a bit smoother than this. Those two black wires hanging down on each side are for the lights.

View from the front of the van:

This is at the intersection of two panels - where each of them overlap the support rib. This is the base of the support rib, at one side of the van. This was probably the worst looking one. I put a little extra piece in to fill the gap left by one of the sheets. You can also see the panel on the right has a slightly different texture. This is because I screwed up the panel - I wrote (a lot) with a pencil on the front side of the panel. I didn’t want to buy another piece so I just put it in backwards. The front side of the panel doesn’t adhere to glue as well as the back, so that makes this one a bit more likely to come apart from the insulation.

And this was probably the best one.

I kept the front dome light in. I cut a smaller piece to fit just right around the light, and then got the main panel “close enough”

The front panel was the most difficult panel to make. I did have the headliner that I took out and I used that for a template. But it wasn’t quite right and the front side of it was shorter than what I wanted. It didn’t stick down far enough into the gap between the ceiling and the plastic panel at the front. So I cut another piece that would stick down further. This will probably give me some annoyance in the future.

Next up:
- Lots of research (Mattress specifics, bed platform design, electrical system design, water system, gas system, etc….)
- Installing the lights

 

[FALCON]

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LIGHTS!
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Next, I put in the lights. Mounting them ended up being pretty easy. I some mounting clips that I got from the light supplier. The lights are 2 meters long - spanning across three of the roof support ribs. So I screwed the clips in at the support ribs, and put the light housing up into the clips. The housings are a bit flexible, so they curved to the contour of the roof. I probably got a bit lucky that all of the spots on the ribs where I wanted to mounts the lights did not have a screw for holding up the ceiling panels, and more importantly, did not have holes in the support rib at that point (which would prevent me from being able to use the clips right there).

I trimmed up the wires and connect them as best I know how at this point. And, well, that’s not very good. I haven’t learned about wiring yet and I feel like a total hack doing it. :s  I just soldered the wires together and wrapped them in electrical tape. I left some extra length of wire so if I want to go back and connect them in a better way, or connect them without leaving any extra wire, I can do that later on. I might also cut a small slit in the ceiling panel and try to push the wires up above it.

If there is an obvious way that I should have wired these (or should change to), please let me know.

Here are the lights, just installed and with the wiring still needing to be finished:

Testing before I shorten and solder the wires:

Soldered:

Wires taped up to the ceiling using white electrical tape.

And all done! YAY!

In total (two strips of two meters each) there are 236 LEDS. At maximum output, they put out 1,368 Lumens (which will be reduced some by the translucent plastic cover in the mounting rail) and use 12 watts. The lowest setting on the dimmer that gives maybe 15% of max, so it may use as little as 1 watt of power. That’s incredible. LEDs are so awesome. Such a wonderful technological development. We’re living in ‘the future’ right now and it is wonderful! :idea:

In case anyone wonders, I got these lights from www.SuperBrightLEDS.com. They are not cheap. I do like the way the look, and I like the light they supply. The light is very diffuse, and there are not really any shadows inside. That’s something I worried about, as I do a fair amount of writing (pen and paper) and I don’t want a hard shadow of my head on the paper while I’m writing. Here are the part numbers I used (all from superbrightLEDS.com)

• NFLS-x-LC2
• B5390ANODA
• 20051
• 1072

I didn’t order a dimmer from them because theirs was big and clunky and ugly. A company called Kick Lighting makes a nice looking 12v PWM dimmer. I don’t think they are available for direct sale, but I found one on Ebay.


Coming up:
- Finalize the design of the bed platform (for which I also pretty much have to decide where to put the batteries, water, and stove gas - at least to decide whether to put them under the bed or not)
- Order mattress, rear differential locker
- Build boxes around the wheel wells
- Install flooring
- Build the bed platform

FYI - For electrical system design research, I bought a few books. Some of them were total junk. There’s one I really like: Stand-Alone Solar Electric Systems. It’s written much like a textbook. I like it a lot. I still have to do other research, because it doesn’t go far in depth, but as someone starting from scratch here, it gives me a solid level of understanding and it covers all the different subjects you need for designing an electrical system. It is specifically focused on off-grid 12V solar systems of 500 watts or less (exactly what most of us are doing). When I read other stuff on the internet about electric systems, I often wonder “is this just this dude’s own opinion? How right is he?” or “are they selling something” etc.. This book seems like it’s written in an unbiased way. I got a copy for $13 on Barnes and Noble. The current prices on Barnes and Noble and Amazon are both around $55.

 

[FALCON]

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DESIGN CHOICES
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I’ve done a lot of design work over the last few days, and I’ve decided to make things simple for the initial build. The two changes I decided on are:

1 - To not make the bed fold up into a couch. I can add that later if I want. I’ll make the bed platform very simple so there won’t be much to dismantle if I work on it again. I’m making this decision with the assumption that I will be able to either secure the passenger seat facing backwards, or find and install an appropriate swivel platform. So far, I haven’t found a good swivel platform. The bolt pattern for my seat seems to be unnecessarily complicated (maybe that’s so you can’t reverse it, or so the bottom frame of the seat was impossible to install backwards during production??)

2 - To not use a water pump / plumbing / faucet. This decision was related to the bed frame design as the fresh water container would probably have went under the bed, and then I would’ve had to designed the bed so it’s easy enough to remove and replace the fresh water tank and hookup the pump. Right now what I’m thinking is that I’ll use a container that I keep in/on/above the galley for dispensing water. That will provide water for any purpose other than the infrequent cases where I use a lot of water at once (laundry?).  

I think I’ll use a container like one of these:
#1, #2, #3.

I’ll store more water in other containers - elsewhere in the van. Something like these:
#1, #2, #3.

I’ll probably use a bowl for a sink, and have a smallish greywater container underneath that (maybe 2 gallons or less).  

I did some initial design drafts and I may try to set it up so the water container is not sitting on the galley surface (it’d either be held up above, or would be in the galley, right under the top surface). This way I could have something sitting on that surface and be able to open the fridge to get something out. (otherwise the stove, fridge, and sink or water container would take up all of the galley surface and once I have stuff on top of the fridge, getting something out of it would be a pain in the ass)

These decisions simplified the design process, and allowed me to move forward with van construction and not have to make as many decisions first.





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WHEEL WELL BOXES
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I was doing calculations - to figure out how high the bed platform should be so that:
- With the mattress on top of it, I have room to sit without slouching down
- I can fit suitable size of storage containers underneath (ideally the ones I already have)

Satisfying both of those criteria makes the position very tight. I called www.thefoamfactory.com, and decided to use a 5” mattress (3” of high density/firm foam, and 2” of memory foam). I’m guessing a bit how about much that will compress when I sit on it. But based on what they said on the phone, and doing some hunch-type calculations myself in my head based on the Foams IFD numbers, I think it will work. It’s going to be such that I can’t sit up all the way straight unless the bed is compressed some. But it’s going to compress some, so I might as well take that into consideration.

Here are the boxes:

I was thinking about painting these, but they will be mostly covered up. I think I might paint just the sides.






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RAIN!
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I’m trying to do a lot of work during a Biblical downpour. Feels like we’re on day 24 or so. Or I hear it’s something about El Nino…

I bought a tarp and tried it out. First - on the back doors - it worked great unless it was raining really hard. Then the water in the roof ribs would come along under the tarp and out the back, and fall into the van. I moved the tarp over to the passenger side and I think that will work better because the roof ribs will not empty (as much) off the side of the roof. My driveway is inclined, so that will help the water flow down the ribs and out the bottom side of them.

(I’ll find something else to put on top of it instead of wood)



NEXT UP  - LAMINATE WOOD FLOOR INSTALLATION!

 

[FALCON]

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FLOOR
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I found some really cheap laminate flooring at a Habitat for Humanity store. I got an underlayment roll from Home Depot and some molding, which together cost a lot more than the flooring itself.

I’ve never installed flooring and I started out with no idea how to do it properly. I also ended the job not knowing much about how to do it properly . I cut the joining parts off of the ends of the boards to make them easier for me to install (just the short sides, not the long edges). I also nailed them into the plywood below.

For the molding, I bought three different kinds that I though may work. I only used two types. I put the molding only on the transitions from the finished floor to the front floor and the doors. In the back, I ended up removing the top layer of molding because the raised surface interfered with sliding a storage container under the bed from the back.

Finished:

Finally getting to the end of my “prep” install work, and next I’ll get on to building the furniture.

 

[FALCON]

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BED PLATFORM
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As noted earlier, I was originally planning on building a more complex bed platform - one that could be folded up as a couch from at least one side. But I decided to build the water system and bed in a more simple way.

After making boxes around the wheelwells, the bed platform is simply a piece of plywood played on top of them, with one vertical plywood board in the middle for support. I want the bed so I can store pretty big containers underneath and so I can sit up straight on top of it. I did get the containers to fit. Whether I will be able to sit up will depend on how thick of a mattress I order and how much it actually compresses when I sit on it. I’m planning to order a 5” mattress, which would need to compress 2-3 inches for me to sit up straight.

In order to simplify installation, I cut the ends off of the bed platform and just screwed them down next to eachother. You’ll see the cuts I made for this - they are wavy lines. That made it way easier to get the boards in the van and in position.

Test fitting before I screw anything down.

Test fitting the storage containers. They ended up fitting perfectly. Well, perfectly without the lids. These are Rubbermaid 14 gallon containers that I already have a bunch of. In order for them to fit, I added an extra layer of plywood on top of the wheel well boxes.

Here you can see how I cut the platform into pieces. I cut a non-straight line so the pattern would make it easier to position correctly.

Here I’ve installed the center support. I used a Kreg jig, and added some metal brackets. (You can also see the extra layer of plywood on top of the wheel well box)

With everything screwed into place:

The pieces fit back together well:

The support fit in ok but the cut was not straight and so there were some gaps between it and the platform. So when I screwed the big bed board down into this support, I didn’t tighten the screws so much that it pulled the platform all the way down to it. I just want to keep the support in place and vertical.

After installation, the storage containers still fit perfectly. I was really pumped about that! Yeah buddy!!! I laid on it to see how well I’d fit. I believe these Dodge vans are wider than the Ford or Chevy vans. I’m 5' 9.5”, and I fit fine. I can lay entirely straight and flat on the bed. There is also room to have my arms up “above” my head - with them sort of crossed - not sticking out straight. This requires about 3-4” of space past the top of my head, which I either already have, or comes pretty naturally with how I have my legs/feet.


It feels good getting started on something other than the walls/ceiling/floor. Now I feel like I’m getting into the meat of the conversion.

 

[dvdchris]

Thats pretty much what I did for my bed. 

Wow, that must have been a lot of work with that floor...don't take this the wrong way, but I see a lot of people do this, overthinking the installation of floating plank flooring, which I found to be the easiest single part of my conversion. They are designed to interlock easily and not designed to be nailed down for a number of reasons. A pull bar and tapping block is extremely helpful.

Also, beware the Reliance 7 gallon Aquatainer. The newer ones have a lot of spigot problems and the actual seam on the container has been known to fail, a disaster in a van with laminate flooring.

 

[LeeRevell]

Thats pretty much what I did for my bed. 

Wow, that must have been a lot of work with that floor...don't take this the wrong way, but I see a lot of people do this, overthinking the installation of floating plank flooring, which I found to be the easiest single part of my conversion. They are designed to interlock easily and not designed to be nailed down for a number of reasons. A pull bar and tapping block is extremely helpful.

Also, beware the Reliance 7 gallon Aquatainer. The newer ones have a lot of spigot problems and the actual seam on the container has been known to fail, a disaster in a van with laminate flooring.

I have three of them now with the spigots broken off.  Very fragile plastic!  Also heavy to move, that seven gallons of water.  I am going to switch to the 4 gallon type.

 

[dvdchris]

I'm really liking the white walls and ceiling.
I'm going to have to get a Kreg jig...

 

[One Awesome Inch]

Looks great. One thing I'd recommend is to get a hole saw bit for your drill and put a bunch of holes in that plywood for your bed. As you sleep your body creates heat which condensates into moisture. With just a sheet of plywood you will find lots of moisture between your foam bed and the plywood. That moisture may lead to mold.

Best of luck!