We've been vaguely shopping for a van to use for camping for a while. A while being the last several years. Chad has wanted one pretty much ever since he sold his 1972 VW camper ten years ago, and we knew that this fall we would have a bit more flexibility with the kid being in college.
This was pre-pandemic, for the record. With the pandemic, all of a sudden *everyone* seemed to be shopping for vans. Ugh. I am *not* on-trend. No, no, no, no, no. We just happened to execute at the same time as everyone else, which made the shopping a little more difficult. We researched and considered options, and test-drove the latest $hiny New Vehicles. We just couldn't bring ourselves to pay over $50k for a new (big empty box) van, knowing that we'd immediately want to turn it into a camper and then beat it up on dirt road adventures; and an already-built camper van is now going for >$100k (and $150k is not at all uncommon). So, we set our sights on an older vehicle.
One needed the *right* van -- the right height (tall enough to stand in), the right length (short enough to fit in a standard parking place), the right model year (old enough that it isn't annoying to work on yourself), the right engine, not too many problems with the body or too many miles. Oh, and the right price. Given that the build will be experimental, and a learning process, we didn't want to spend a huge amount of money on the starting point.
Further research led us to what's known as a T1N Sprinter, made by Mercedes but sold in the US by Dodge and Freightliner between 2002-2006. These are old enough to avoid the issues that many are experiencing with modern diesels, have really reliable and long-lived engines, and are pretty well built. They also get better mileage than the newer ones. These diesel engines apparently run close to forever, so "too many miles" is a ridiculously large number if you're used to gas engines. However, there aren't all that many of them around, and they are increasingly desired by folks like us! Fortunately, Chad has the vehicular skills to keep a relatively old van going, and there's some great support in on-line communities, much like there was (and is) for vintage VWs.
Used Sprinter vans are almost always old delivery vehicles, so what we needed to do was figure out where used commercial vehicles are sold. The local dealers that specialized in commercial vans tend to have ones that aren't *that* old, at least by our standards, and they sell at a premium if the mileage is low.
After much looking and corresponding with people, Chad found a guy down in Southern California who has a business selling old Sprinters that he has carefully curated and/or fixed so that they don't obviously suck. He didn't have what we wanted quite ready, or even on his lot, so we waited. After a couple of months, Chad got a text. Want this one?
Sure! Early one Saturday morning, I grabbed my checkbook, and we hopped in the Camry, headed to LA, bought the van,
and then proceeded to caravan towards home. Chad led in the van, and I tried to keep up in the Camry. It was very apparent to me that the van has a lot more power than the Camry.
At one point, we stopped at a turnout on 101 to have some coffee, which Chad had carefully brought supplies for. Doesn't he look pleased? He had that grin on his face the entire weekend.
The spot we stopped had a nice ocean view, and we were able to watch dolphins at play while we drank our coffee.
Though we could have driven all the way home that night, that would have been a long day and neither of us wanted to drive in the dark. We ended up parking in the driveway of some friends of Chad's in SLO. They weren't home, but it was a perfectly good place to stop for the night, and we just unrolled our camping mats and sleeping bags in the back of the van.
Covid cases there didn't look too terrible, so we walked over to downtown SLO and ate dinner (outside) at a restaurant for the first time since March. They cleverly had taped a QR code to the table that brought up the menu on your phone when you scanned it.
A quick drive the next day, and we were home. I was impressed that the guy we bought the van from texted Chad to make sure that nothing broke down on us on the way home. He is clearly on top of taking care of his customers, even with used vehicles.
The van dwarfs the Camry (and also the truck), but it does fit in the driveway :)
The first thing Chad did on arriving home was to remove the Incredibly Noisy Rattletrap Partition. Poor guy had to listen to it all the way up the freeway on the way home. It was only sort of loosely attached, and serves no useful function for us.
Then, a few other initial projects:
Examination of the top of the van showed a small bit of rust along a seam,
which required cleanup and application of rust-preventive goop covered by special tape, which is now stuck on so well that it will Never Ever Come Off.
Knobs on the dash weren't turning as smoothly as Chad liked, and he needed to get inside to look at the blower fan motor connections, so guts were exposed.
More guts. Not sure what was done here, but because the vehicle is older, Chad has been diligently looking at everything he can think of, to avoid any problems that could be reasonably anticipated. If I can't find him on a weekend, more often than not he is out in the driveway contentedly peering inside at something! (From Chad: I was checking for "black death" syndrome, not uncommon on these engines, where one of the fuel injectors leaks a bit and the diesel carbonizes into a nasty foamy mess, conveniently hidden under a plastic cover so you won't notice it...)
The division of labor has broken down to "Chad does mechanical/electrical things and I do soft squishy things". I bought some cheap magnetic screen doors off of Amazon and and retrofitted them to fit on the back and side doors. This way we can leave doors open without letting bugs in.
One of the seat cushions had a bit of a hole in it. The guy who sold it to us had included a little bit of replacement fabric, so I used that to replace the mangled part, after filling in some better foam.
Upon dropping the spare tire, Chad found that it was not only bald, but it also came with a free screw installed. No brainer to replace that one.
Since the interior was just a big cavernous space,
high priority on our build list was getting a bed platform made, with a spot to mount bicycles underneath so we could go camping for our anniversary. Normally, one has to tie large sheets of plywood on top of the vehicle, but now we don't have to do that because it fits inside :)
The front courtyard became the building space.
And voila, a bed platform. Chad designed it in two pieces so that we can scoot one back and stack it on top of the other if we want more living space inside while we are awake -- for example, if it is raining.
I added some speaker felt to the top surface to soften it and make it less likely to snag the mattress and bedding. The big discovery here: 3M90 Contact Adhesive. It comes out of the can looking like silly string, which is weird, but it is repositionable for just long enough to be easy to use and then sticks incredibly well to many surfaces.
See -- the bikes fit underneath, and there is quite a bit of space to strap other gear in place. Eventually we will build out some sort of shelf/cabinet/gear tray, but this is good enough to get started.
Chad made good use of the 3M90 adhesive when adding in thinsulate insulation around the interior. Not only did this add thermal insulation, but it also does an amazing job at damping down road noise. After this, the van feels like a real vehicle and not just a large tin can rattling down the road, so the expense of the two large rolls of insulation was well worth it.
Old pathetic (and mostly useless) insulation, which we removed:
Chad contemplating where else he can stuff scraps of the new stuff. Just picture the fact that he had to spray glue like silly string everywhere! Note the excellent large pair of vintage tailor's shears that Chad's mom gave us the last time we were in Downieville; they were just the thing for cutting the large sheets.
Ooooh, full of cozy insulation. We did put the sheets of plastic that came with the van back along the walls over the insulation, but eventually will finish the interior with something else more aesthetic. For now, it at least has its thick winter coat.
I found a folding foam mattress that could go on the bed platform, strung up some fairy lights, and installed the Magnificent Purple Curtains that I felt compelled to make after imagining them as I followed Chad home up the freeway when we bought the vehicle.
Closer look at the Magnificent Purple Curtains. These serve to (a) block out light when we are sleeping and (b) keep the effect of the heat or a/c up front while we are driving. They are two layers -- gray in the front to match the rest of the vehicle, but purple for the cozy pod in the back.
Meanwhile, Chad built up a charge controller and battery box for the battery that powers a small Dometic refrigerated cooler. He cleverly built it up so that we can plug solar panels into it to charge the battery -- and my friend Todd just happened to have some spare solar panels lying around from an old startup that went belly-up, which he graciously let us use.
Having refrigeration is a game-changer for car-camping food. We should have gotten one of these years ago. (Prototype of the battery box shown below, most of the wires are now inside, along with the 100Ah hybrid gel deep-cycle battery; fridge not pictured here, but likely will show up in the next posts somewhere.)
The real adventures come later, but we did take the van out at this point to go mountain biking, just to prove that the setup all worked and that nothing dire would fall apart on the road. Success!
No comments:
Post a Comment