Ziggy.<br><br>That vertical "rib" came in the van, where they join the back portion of the body to the regular part of the van and spot weld it together. Extended vans have this seam in the same place, just use a longer back end. I assumed it was standard on all dodge vans up to 93 or 94 and perhaps beyond but I assumed wrong apparently. It only sticks inside about 5/8 an inch and has an L shape to it, but the base of the L is pretty short, like 1/4 an inch, and it was kind of nice for getting the corner sheets of white plastic to. It is nothing like the ribs in between the windows you see in my first photo above. Getting those rope cleats screwed into the rib was not easy on the small surface available to drill get a screw in to do so, but I love having them. I really use a lot of rope cleats throughout. Cant have enough attachment points and it is nice when they are unobtrusive.<br><br>Those speakers boxes are homemade, the speakers taken from an old portable stereo. I have them on 20+ feet of speaker wire and can put them outside the van, closer to the campfire when the desire to use less battery power and volume around a campfire is desirable. Not much Bass, but the 6x9's in the front doors do well at that.<br><br>Those white panel plastic sheets are kind of just wedged in place in the back corners. Kind of frustrating to get them to fit as tight as possible to the van body in the corner. Lots of trial and error and a good enough call had to come at some point, as it always does. I think I would do the construction paper/ masking tape method to make a template if I were to do it again. Trial and error turned the neighborhood black with curses. I would not imagine wood paneling would be easy to get into that corner, but I love the extra space it gives me when in bed. My feet are usually in that corner, and the wiring to my taillights has been made less obtrusive since that photo, but I never kicked it out anyway before I cleaned it up. It is nice to be able to easily access that wiring and the bulbs so easily. I also have used the taillamp screws as attachment points, at least on the driver's side, using a Stainless steel machine screw with a ss nut rather than the sheet metal type screws that are standard.<br><br>My Van is painted white, so compared to the heat radiated within from the black tinted conversion van windows, the walls do not heat up much at all in direct sunlight. In my other photos you can see I have pillows bungeed to the windows. This is to get them out of the way in the daytime, but more so for blocking the heat from the black windows and they are hugely effective at this.<br><br>I figured I could always add more insulation on top of the white walls if needed. What is nice about the wood window frames is they can always take a screw. If I ever decide to insulate the walls more, I would get the foam board and cut it to fit really tightly, almost a press fit, then I would remove it glue, contact cement/glue some type of fabric, wall board, more white plastic, ect, to the insulation foam panels/ boards themselves and use some wood trim and screws into the wood to hold them in place.<br><br>I have not really had much below freezing dwelling since this minimal insulation install, but with me being the only heat source, it stays about 10 degrees warmer inside when it reaches the 40's, high 30's at night outside. A Lasko 200 watt heater will keep the interior in the mid 50's in mid to low thirties exterior ambient temps. A mattress heating pad makes climbing into bed a lot easier in such temps, but it usually gets turned off or down to the minimum shortly after.<br><br>My roof has 1/2 inch foam board insulation added to it, but I was unwilling to lose any more headroom/ surfboard room along the ceiling than that. The foamboard is adhered to the fiberglass, but the white paneling is held up only by the oak trim in the back 2/3. Up front there was no other option than to glue it to the insulation foam board with contact cement and cover the edges with white Ducttape as there is no wood within that portion of the roof structure, only fiberglass. Been there since august '07, though I am not really happy with the ducttape. Need to get white Gaffer's tape instead. Ha <img src="/images/boards/smilies/smile.gif" border="0" align="absmiddle"><br><br> There is a OSB stringer sandwiched in the fiberglass roof itself under each visible strip of oak on my roof that take a screw beautifully. I always keep 2 surfboards up there, and have carried 8 up there, inside, fins removed, and still had enough room to sleep comfortably, with a whole lot of power tools under/ behind the bed too. I am rather amazed at how much I can carry and still have living space. The extra weight is not good for around town MPG though. I am lucky to get over nine in my current traffic light/ Hill infested area.<br><br>Mine came with the rear section of original metal roof as a shelf, but it became really weak and fatigued after I gutted out the conversion company frou frou space wasting interior and started using it as a shelf. Significant Weight on the shelf would bow the van sides in a bit too. This metal shelf was a noise maker when driving, squeaking and rattling with road harmonics. I had re enforced it with some angle iron, but decided during the most recent renovation that some well attached 3/4 inch plywood would be more functional and stronger so out came the angle grinder and cut off wheel and out it came. I keep all my clean clothes up there in underbed storage boxes, with a bungee cord to hold them in place when driving. The shelf is angled so that it is wider on the driver's side.<br><br>My front shelf is similar, and much stronger than the weak thin plywood that was up there from the conversion van company. I keep my dirty clothes in a large sealing bag up there, along with work type clothes. They stay put when driving. I love that storage space. Everything soft and in the way gets thrown up there till organization at a better time. it extends to behind the driver's seat, and I have a oak curtain rod back there. I knew with the size of the front shelf, it would sag on its own with time, so I found a piece of warped plywood to incorporate the sag into the shelf. The curtain rod being straight helps keep my clothes in place, for all that high G acceleration I do, just to impress the kids of course. Actually, The only time that clothes fall from up there is climbing hills.<br><br>To get the wood paneling to curve into the back of the van I would take a circular saw and set the blade depth to about half the thickness of the paneling, and cut channels about 1/2 inch apart or closer where the wood needs to flex the most. That little ridge/seam is pretty critical to get it to stay in place. just by the pressure of the wood/ plastic wanting to straighten itself out.<br><br>If you do not have this seam/ridge, I would consider gluing up some wood furring strips to the prepared sheetmetal with an adequate adhesive, just to have an attachment point, at least for the corner piece.<br><br><br><br><br>
