Van hunt question - Honda Odyssey

[carlhopf]

Everyone! I am debating buying a Honda Odyssey (with the roof rack!) and doing a semi- van conversion as my "first try". 
I'm liking the "stealth" option on it, but the interior - even with the seats out - has a bit of a "bump in" - molded plastic. Also, the venting for the A/C is on the floor, between the back captain's seats.

Q1: any advice for a guy good with tools, in a conversion of this type? (yes, I watch van conversion videos like they are potato chips!)

Q2: any know issues with this make/model?

Q3: If blown or injected plastic has to be kept in the back, how does one accurately find the "ribs" to install a lagun table that can swivel OUT of the van?

(and yes, the car dealer thinks im a nut because I laid down in the van...and I FIT!)

Thanks everyone!

 

[landyachtman]

Welcome to the CRVL forums! To help you learn the ins and outs of these forums, this "Tips, Tricks and Rules" post lists some helpful information to get you started.

Most of our rules boil down to two simple over-riding principles: 1) What you post should provide good information (like your introductory post), and 2) Any response to someone else's post should make them feel glad they are part of this forum community.

We look forward to hearing more from you.

 

[carlhopf]

Thanks for that. I was looking around the forums and doing some searching, but came up empty; this is why i posted here, as this is my second post. I didn't find anything specific on the model, but did find some good information on folding bed/murphy bed, cooking, etc. I am grateful for this information, however I'm not a "cart before horse" fellow, so before I even buy the van, I thought it was a good idea to get some [font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]specific information on the model.

Thanks! Carl[/font]

 

[WayOutWest]

Hi Carl
I am also a new van owner and van conversion enthusiast.  
Feel free to take what is useful from my post and disregard the rest. 

I have a fair amount of experience of doing road trips in a minivan, albeit a rental minivan.  
For many years, I did my road trips and camping with a small Toyota pickup that had either a homemade camper (which lasted 14 years) or, thereafter, a commercial shell, which I still have on the truck.  This ended up being too little space/too cramped a space for comfortable camping, so for several years I began renting a minivan from Enterprise Car rental every time I wanted to take a road tripping vacation...which is the only way I go on vacation.  

Because I was using a rented van, I could not make modifications.  
However, even absent the ability to do that, I was pretty comfortable camping out of a Dodge Grand Caravan.  I was able to completely stretch out and sleep on a reasonably comfortable twin mattress, and set my belongings in duffle bags or boxes along the side of the mattress or back of the van.  I used the existing structure of the van to hang things from or set important items in the molded storage spaces on the van walls.  

In fact I was comfortable enough camping this way, that at first when I began considering buying a van of my own, I considered getting a minivan, such as the Dodge Grand Caravan or Honda Odyssey, which were quite comfortable to drive.  However, after some exploring of van possibilities, I decided to go for a cargo van instead, for mainly two reasons.  One was that I was so excited to be able to actually stand up inside a van, that I fell in love when I found there were vans I could get that allowed this much space, and knew I had to have one of those.  Second was that IMO cargo vans were a lot easier to convert, because you started with just a bare metal cargo area, and it was a lot easier to work with this than with the dressed out walls of a minivan.  

I would suggest that you compare smaller cargo vans, like the Chevy vans, with the minivan, and see if you have any preference comparing the two.  
The advantage of the minivans is definitely that they are easier and more comfortable to drive than the Chevy vans, but the Ford Transit cargo van actually drives a lot like a minivan.  However its larger size then makes it less manueverable than the minivans.  

There are quite a few YouTube videos on people who camp or live out of minivans, so they would have some tips on your question I'd think. For instance this one   and if you search "Living in a Grand Caravan" or "Living in a Honda Odyssey" on YT you'll find a lot!