[ChrisKul]

I thought I'd start a thread about our conversion. The goal is to have a simple, but well-made interior. Anyway, here it goes

So we bought this big Red Van from a small dealer in Maryland. We got a great deal; it seems that they sell almost all their Transits to tradesmen and non of them wanted a bright red cargo van with windows all around. Who would have guessed? It has limited slip, tow package, sync and a few other things I wanted.

The first step was to get the windows tinted, limo tint on the sides which is 5% I think. The rear windows were done with 35% tint.

Then I spent a week ordering stuff: insulation, roof fan, Plus nuts, plywood, various goops and sealers....

Installing the Maxxair fan was traumatic.

I used one of Hein's spacers as a template and cut this big hole. The trick to getting a smooth cut is to use a super fine jigsaw blade made especially for thin sheetmetal, not a regular metal blade.

I drilled holed holes for the screws, 1/8". Then I glued the spacer down with 3M 4200. I used butyl tape on the fan flange and screwed the sandwich into place. Once the butyl had squeezed out I trimmed off the excess a had lunch. Finally I added a bead of lap sealant. I'll add a little more lap sealant tomorrow. It should take about three hours to do this, but I spent an hour getting rid of a wood chip that attached itself to the 4200, didn't notice until all was screwed down.

 

[smitty141]

It is hard to chop a 14"x14" hole in a brand new van..

Smitty

 

[ChrisKul]

The next task was insulation with Thinsulate. We did about 80% over three days after work, maybe 6 hours total. It's pretty straightforward doing the bigger pieces. We simply cut them and stuck them into place with 3M 90 spray adhesive.

We tried shoving strips of insulation into the narrower channels with a flexible stick, but found it was much faster to pull it through. We cut the strip, threaded a length of stiff string into the channel, then pushed the string through a hole in the insulation I'd made with an awl and secured it with an overhand knot. Now we fed and pulled the strip into place. A sharp tug pulled the knot out of the string by tearing the hole. Fast and simple. I still have to do the doors and a few spots where I'll be running wires.

Insulating the floor was pretty easy. We used 1/2" foam cut into strips on a table saw. I ripped the strips while my lovely wife cut them to length and held them in place with bits of masking tape. Once we were satisfied with the fit she stuck them down with Roberts Maxgrip double-stick tape (made for vinyl flooring). It took us 3 or 4 hours for this, including a lunch break.

 

[ChrisKul]

This afternoon I cut the floor out of 1/2" MDO, which is basically plywood covered with waterproof paper. I love MDO; it's very smooth, cheaper than marine grade plywood and waterproof; I've used it for house siding and painted interior boat panels.

I traced the floor using the floor mat that came with the van and cut it out out with a jig saw and circular saw.

The floor fit like the proverbial glove. Since it was the cocktail hour we called it a day. Tomorrow I'll pull the floor back out and seal the edges, then reinstall it and join the three sections. I'll eventually cover this with vinyl fake-wood planks, but I might as well leave it bare while we build and test fit the cabinets, no point in scratching up the vinyl. It took about 2 hours to cut and fit the floor.

 

[ChrisKul]

This van building project has already taught me a few things:
1) Planning is the hardest part, particularly so when I change my mind a dozen times about everything.
2) I'm almost always waiting for one last item to arrive.
3) Once I finally have everything, including a firm plan, building is not so hard. But it does take twice as long as I thought it would.

My current project is the galley. It's 48" long 23" deep and 36" high.

That's an 8" deep heavy duty sink. Many years of sailing have taught us that deep sinks are the only way to go. It was the one galley feature my wife insisted on.

The stove is an alcohol fueled (non-pressurized) Origo 3000. It's more expensive than a propane stove, but it's safer and self contained. Plus we can lift it out of the cutout and cook on a picnic table; it's the other one galley feature my wife insisted on. We've cooked with kerosene, propane, and alcohol on our various boats, and these Origo stoves are our favorites. I might inset it deeper into the counter; right now the bottom 2" in inset.

The counter is oak butcher block which will be finished with tung oil. The cabinet is 12mm Baltic birch which may be finished with Watco oil or marine varnish or something else. We have little cutoffs in the kitchen with various finishes being tested. I've never worked with Baltic birch, so if anyone has finishing suggestions please chime in.

We haven't decide on the faucet and pump yet. My wife wants a simple marine foot pump and a spout while I'm thinking of the luxury of pressure water. She points out that our first cruising boat (an old Hallberg Rassy 31) had only a foot pump and we used only about half as much water on that boat. Of course we were cruising in places where filling up was a hassle, not so in a van so I'm not sure that it matters.

 

[klp]

Your red van looks great! Mine is a cargo with windows too - this looks very familiar.

I agree with your van building findings - planning takes forever and the actual build takes longer too. Still fun though. I can't wait to see what's next.

 

[maricard]

Good start.

 

[pjtezza]

The counter is oak butcher block which will be finished with tung oil. The cabinet is 12mm Baltic birch which may be finished with Watco oil or marine varnish or something else. We have little cutoffs in the kitchen with various finishes being tested. I've never worked with Baltic birch, so if anyone has finishing suggestions please chime in.

We haven't decide on the faucet and pump yet. My wife wants a simple marine foot pump and a spout while I'm thinking of the luxury of pressure water. She points out that our first cruising boat (an old Hallberg Rassy 31) had only a foot pump and we used only about half as much water on that boat. Of course we were cruising in places where filling up was a hassle, not so in a van so I'm not sure that it matters.

Nice build!

I have an Ikea birch countertop. I covered it in 3 coats of Linseed oil, as recommended by Ikea, then took it to high country in very low humidity. It shrunk and split along the glue lines. The shrinkage was about 1/8", front to back, none that I could see side to side. My strips and grain are oriented in the same way yours are. For my second try, I re-glued with high quality wood glue, belt sanded the oil finish off, then coated the countertop completely with clear bar top epoxy. My hope is that the moisture won't be able to move through the thick epoxy. So far, so good, but I haven't been able to repeat the same ultra low humidity test yet. I'll be in the desert soon though.

I have built plenty of indoor cabinets out of Home Depot Birch plywood. The more typical use is to have a nice, smooth surface ready for painting. If you roll paint onto them, they will look very smooth. You can stain them, apply finishing oils, etc., but they will blotch. To the untrained eye, the blotching might not be objectionable. The clear epoxy basically freezes them to look as they do when the epoxy is applied, if you would be interested in that effect.

I mounted a minimalist Ikea faucet and used a small water pump, mounted inside the van walls. I can provide you more details if you are interested.

 

[driley]

This van building project has already taught me a few things:
1) Planning is the hardest part, particularly so when I change my mind a dozen times about everything.
2) I'm almost always waiting for one last item to arrive.
3) Once I finally have everything, including a firm plan, building is not so hard. But it does take twice as long as I thought it would.

My current project is the galley. It's 48" long 23" deep and 36" high.

That's an 8" deep heavy duty sink. Many years of sailing have taught us that deep sinks are the only way to go. It was the one galley feature my wife insisted on.

The stove is an alcohol fueled (non-pressurized) Origo 3000. It's more expensive than a propane stove, but it's safer and self contained. Plus we can lift it out of the cutout and cook on a picnic table; it's the other one galley feature my wife insisted on. We've cooked with kerosene, propane, and alcohol on our various boats, and these Origo stoves are our favorites. I might inset it deeper into the counter; right now the bottom 2" in inset.

The counter is oak butcher block which will be finished with tung oil. The cabinet is 12mm Baltic birch which may be finished with Watco oil or marine varnish or something else. We have little cutoffs in the kitchen with various finishes being tested. I've never worked with Baltic birch, so if anyone has finishing suggestions please chime in.

We haven't decide on the faucet and pump yet. My wife wants a simple marine foot pump and a spout while I'm thinking of the luxury of pressure water. She points out that our first cruising boat (an old Hallberg Rassy 31) had only a foot pump and we used only about half as much water on that boat. Of course we were cruising in places where filling up was a hassle, not so in a van so I'm not sure that it matters.

Looks great!

Do you have a source for that sink?

 

[ChrisKul]

I hadn't thought about butcher block cracking in low humidity environments (not an issue in humid Maryland). I might route a groove and epoxy in a spline at each end; I've done that on cherry table tops and it seems to stabilize them.

The sink can be found here: https://www.amazon.com/Phoenix-Undermount-Stainless-Square-Kitchen/dp/B00Z8AL0ZQ/

 

[BabyBuffy]

What you've done prompts me to ask a general question to the forum about an issue that has been gnawing at me.

Some folks have described what they did to attach their floors to the floor of the van when they use a solid material such as plywood. I saw no evidence you used any fasteners to bind your MDO flooring to the van floor and am wondering about that.

Is it really necessary for the type of build that won't rely on attaching other constructions to the floor? Or, if whatever you do plan to install can be fastened to the walls themselves can one depend on gravity and the fact so much will be resting on the floors to suffice? There is the fact that putting holes in the floor of the van to run bolts through might be needed to counter any possibility that plywood or other materials could warp enough to be troublesome at the seams so it does seem problematic to simply not use any fasteners. And of course the possibility of the floor coming up in a serious crash and mashing you from the back against an airbag can't be ruled out either.

What consideration are you giving to the issue?

 

[ChrisKul]

Regarding securing the floor: The three pieces of 1/2" plywood will be joined by 2" wide cleats in the floor channels which should keep the seams aligned. The furniture, four modules, will be bolted to the van walls with many 1/4" and 8mm bolts and these modules will rest on and be screwed to the plywood floor. So I can't imagine the floor coming loose, but if I felt that any floor area was not sufficiently secure it would be simple to adds aluminum ell bracket along the van walls (I can't foresee that being necessary.)

I'm also not very concerned that good quality plywood would warp. In a lifetime of messing around with boats, including replacing some cabin soles I've never had this problem. Once all the furniture is in, there really isn't that much floor area that's not held down by something.

In a severe crash I'd be more concerned with the water tank or batteries flying forward and I'm still thinking about the best way to secure them. Could they tear through 12mm plywood boxes and pull out straps screwed to the floor? Is bolting through the van floor necessary?

 

[pjtezza]

I hadn't thought about butcher block cracking in low humidity environments (not an issue in humid Maryland). I might route a groove and epoxy in a spline at each end; I've done that on cherry table tops and it seems to stabilize them.

For my design, where I've mounted the wood countertop to an aluminum angle base, the 1/8" movement was as much an issue as the cracking. After it first cracked, I made several more trips to the same place on Tioga Pass. After a day or so on Tioga Pass, it would shrink 1/8" and reveal the splits. After returning home to Berkeley for a day or so, it would expand back to its original size. I'm sure the cracking and movement is exacerbated by the large cutouts I made for my drop in stove and undermount sink. I like the look of the bar top epoxy, and it seems like it should work, but if it fails, I'll switch to an artificial material that doesn't move. I once had a high end conversion van and they used a lot of solid wood trim coated with something that either was or looked a lot like bar top epoxy. My current theory is that they did it to solve the same problem.

 

[pjtezza]

Regarding securing the floor: The three pieces of 1/2" plywood will be joined by 2" wide cleats in the floor channels which should keep the seams aligned. The furniture, four modules, will be bolted to the van walls with many 1/4" and 8mm bolts and these modules will rest on and be screwed to the plywood floor. So I can't imagine the floor coming loose, but if I felt that any floor area was not sufficiently secure it would be simple to adds aluminum ell bracket along the van walls (I can't foresee that being necessary.)

I'm also not very concerned that good quality plywood would warp. In a lifetime of messing around with boats, including replacing some cabin soles I've never had this problem. Once all the furniture is in, there really isn't that much floor area that's not held down by something.

In a severe crash I'd be more concerned with the water tank or batteries flying forward and I'm still thinking about the best way to secure them. Could they tear through 12mm plywood boxes and pull out straps screwed to the floor? Is bolting through the van floor necessary?

In my case, I fastened my cabinets to the van walls and floors with nutserts. I built my cabinets out of aluminum angle, so I could drill mounting holes right through the angle, but something similar could be done for wood cabinets. The big nutserts are strong enough that I suspect the sheetmetal they are installed in is the weak point. I still go under the van to make sure that the nutsert and bolt won't hit anything critical, but the drilling and installation all occurs from inside the van, so they aren't as difficult as installing bolts and nuts would be.

A giant version of nutserts are called "bed bolts" - typically used to mount things in the beds of pickup trucks. You can reinforce bedbolts with metal plates both above and below the floor. If you built brackets, you could attach the metal reinforcement plates to the frame of the van. I recently used a version of this system to mount a LP gas tank under my van.

If you absolutely want to keep things secured in a crash, you'd have to do a lot of engineering. For reference, seatbelt mounting points and hardware are supposed to be rated to a minimum of 4,000 lbs. Most people will probably find that level of attachment unnecessary for anything except people. In my case, I felt like 6 or more 10-24 bolts per cabinet was sufficient - its a lot more than the flimsy particleboard cabinets in my commercial RV could hold.

 

[bicyclist]

As you've observed, wood moves very little with the grain, but a fair bit across the grain and the wider the board, the greater the movement. A board fixed in place so that it can't move will crack. Knowing that, the wise woodworker allows for that movement by not fixing the board solidly to a base. It's good practice to elongate the mounting holes in the direction of the movement.

 

[fargy483]

So what type of accessories are necessities in a simple camper van? What type of cabinets are you installing?

 

[danketchpel]

I like the red color now that I've seen a couple of them. Ford had a red cargo with dual sliding doors at the Auto Show in Los Angeles.

It looks like you have a very nice build coming together. I think you boat working background is coming in handy and certainly translates over.

Maybe one of these days I'll gather up enough gumption to cut a big hole in the top of my van....., but it's a last resort.

I'm looking forward to seeing how this all works out, keep up the good work!

 

[surly Bill]

I like Minwax wipe-on-poly as a finish, it goes on and looks like Watco, but has the water-proofness of polyurethane. I've had pretty good luck with it. I usually go with satin so it looks like a rubbed-oil finish.

Also, if you seal the ends and bottom as well as the top, it shouldn't crack.

 

[ChrisKul]

Some Progress

I've changed my mind about the bed layout three times now. Originally I was going to build a full width high platform bed, but we wanted a little more floor space. So I decided to use a folding sofa like in my old VW Westphalia camper--even bought the folding frame. Then my wife wanted a wider bed and a table that seats at least four. So now I've built the beginnings of a boat-like interior. We've had several boats with this layout and it's always worked for us.

There will be an 18"-wide removable table and a filler piece to make a full width bed. The bunks are wide enough to sleep on even without the middle filler piece. There will be a narrow shelf between the backrest and the windows. I guess I should start on the upper cabinets soon.

I plan to hang the doors and install catches on the galley cabinet this weekend. They are all cut and waiting. Then I'll disassemble them, take the top off and finish everything with 3 or 4 coats of Watco oil. All the furniture modules are easily removable and we plan to remove them for finishing and to install the vinyl floor.

 

[klp]

Wow, looks great!