Planning to try and do a layout to allow me to carry a motorcycle inside or at least bicycles inside and a smaller dual sport on a hitch carrier.
I'd call it an adventure setup for necessities, but not an overly comfy setup. Batteries, fridge, stove, swivel seats, tv (we love watching movies at night with a beverage). Still looking for the best layout. Also debating on a bed I can raise/lower. Happijac style, but looking into the Racor setup and adapting it.
I started off with some easy exterior mods. Plastidipped the wheels. Didn't mask at all because I've heard it won't stick and stay on the tires so we will see haha. I may end up having to wipe it off.
I did mask the ram. The van looks sooo much better IMO. The change of the wheels really took it farther away from the commercial look. I'm kinda going for a "tactical" look I guess so it'll fit in with the flat bill guys' big trucks around the area.
Installed the brush guard. Took about 3 hours taking my time. It's a pretty much bolt on affair other than trimming a very small area out of the passenger side splash shield under the van. I ordered this from Amazon for $229 shipped.
My bills have become less curved after living here.... Lol
I plan to wrap the hood with the same vinyl I'm going to use elsewhere on the van. That's the plan at least. Dipping the hood would be a piece of cake!
I'm starting the swivel seat install today. Fingers crossed it goes smooth. One of the adjuster levers was bent up from shipping and I contacted Discount van/truck about that and the rubber tips that were worn on them both from poking through the boxes.
I'm a little concerned with the wire routing since I didn't really find any good details on the routing. I'm trying to get that yellow connector apart right now.. could have swore I saw a comment about that somewhere in the great ocean of this forum.
I have everything lined up with everything only finger tight and it looks as though the swivel will work fun, but It looks as though there is no way to just route the wiring through the center swivel hole because it is far far to small to fit any connector through and it would barely fit the wiring and probably damage after many swivel maneuvers.
I've sent another email to Ivas at Discount van truck and am awaiting a reply. I don't see any other way to route the wiring. I'd have been done with this in 30 minutes if this wasn't a problem. These swivels will be useless without the wiring done obviously.
I really love their installs because they are functional, but still nice to look at. The only affordable setup I can figure is the Racor lift and then a good amount of ingenuity like another guy did. I just measured and with about 50" I could fit in my street bike, but I'm planning on buying a smaller 250 dual sport so I can out it on a sideways hitch carrier if necessary. Still being able to haul stuff around town by removing the bed will be useful most often.
I picked up a recovery shackle setup for when the other camper get stuck and so I can knock the **** out of my knee cap occasionally. I might name my van flatbill. ; )
I'm getting CCV to do the phase 1 of my interior buildout starting on Dec 12th. They are going to do a manually height adjustable bed so I can do fit my mountain bikes, but also lower the bed if I'm taking a non mtb trip.
Digging the dipped wheels and front badge. Going to do those as well. I think I'm going to take it one step further and also spray the 3 giant chrome "RAM 3500" logos. Should only take a few mins to mask those.
Sure looks to be a serene and relaxing set up... once I got the image open, running Win10 & firefox I had to use _XnView_ stand alone software to get a glimpse of it.
Looking forward to seeing your conversion loaded and out on expeditions soon!
I just clicked on it and the image went into my downloads folder and I opened it right up with my image editing software on my Mac (GraphicConverter 9)
****, that's a pretty good solution to my platform bed consternation, though think I'd feel more comfortable with at least one more vertical member. Looks like they used the door pillar up front and furred out the rear wall to catch the horizontal support member. Back to the planning board.
Installed the brush guard. Took about 3 hours taking my time. It's a pretty much bolt on affair other than trimming a very small area out of the passenger side splash shield under the van. I ordered this from Amazon for $229 shipped.
Could you please post a link or brand on the Brush Guard you found on Amazon for that price. I'd like to get one, but what I've found is quite a bit higher price
To search Amazon for "promaster" you need to enter it like "pro-master" or "pro master." They should fix that. Thanks for posting that link zoomyn. Im sitting in the DMV ready to get bent over the counter for registration costs.
Nice, I was going to post I saw them back in stock!
Update- been busy with holidays etc, but i finished the passenger seat swivel install. To install these brand swivels you must cut off or repin the connectors because the connectors are too big to fit through the center hole in these swivels. I had an airbag light after the first wiring I did ... Ugh, just had a wiretap that wasn't tapping so i torqued down on them and all was good.
I did find some parts for the bed platform that I'm pretty excited about for super cheap. More to come on that.
Pics- for the life of me I could not get the pins out of the two larger plugs, but the smaller black plug can be opened up as shown and then you can get the pins out so no cutting. There are some tools made by Lisle I think is the name for wire repinning.
I know nothing about wood and I'd like to get some of your opinions.
I am currently building out the walls of my van and after reading through a lot of threads and build blogs it seems most people who use plywood for their walls, use either Luan or Baltic Birch. I went to my local wood dealer...
Good Afternoon. We are building out overhead face frame cabinets with lift up doors. I am confused as to what type of strut to use to keep it open. We are also installing push latch "locks" on them. Seems that the couple of different struts we have ordered are the type that are spring loaded...
Got this grey beauty delivered on April 1st, hope April Fools doesn’t count in this case!
It’s taken us a while to get started, I knew what we wanted, but the electric planning really took a long time.
This forum is amazingly full of knowledge and helpful hints! It’s just a matter of knowing...
