Lt. Dan's 2007 Chevy Express AWD camper

[Lt. Dan]

I figured I'll flip those brackets around and trim a bit off which should bring the awning in a bunch, but that's a job for later.

 

Ran the factory harness down the inside of the c pillars

Had to extend the wiring for the driver's tail light a bit. Also removed the terrible trailer light wiring the previous owner did with vampire clips.  Why the hell anyone would spend the time doing this when Chevy's plug in connectors are so cheap i have no idea. 

Did the insulation today. Two layers of easy cool/lobucrod on the roof and one on the walls.

 

Used high heat resistant contact cement sprayed out of a cheap siphon feed gun.  Much easier than spray can adhesive and much cheaper.  It's $45 a gallon versus $15 a can.  We probably used 2/3 of a gallon. 

This was one of three $20 guns at harbor freight. I picked the one with the largest nozzle, 2mm, worked great. 

[DodgySam]

I like the way Becca has her knee pads on whilst doing insulation.

 

PS Hi Dan and Rebecca!

[Lt. Dan]

Hey Sam, Kneeling on that ridged floor hurts. If I had some knee pads I'd be wearing them too.

Been framing and paneling the interior for the last few days. It's tedious and frustrating work, not a single straight edge or else un-curved wall in the thing.  

Using 2in or 3in strips of 5mm underlayment plywood for the framing, more rivnuts and counter sunk Allen heads. 

The track will be used to hide some of the panel joins and hang stuff.

The panels are also 5mm plywood, going back I would have probably found some plastic of some sort that takes a curve a bit better. That or buy a conversion van or a pre made interior.... I wish I had.

We've gotten all the panels done except for the last roof panel. For some reason I didn't take pictures probably exhaustion.

The unfinished space in the roof is about 8.5ft long and 50in wide which sucks because plywood sheet is 4x8ft, so it has to be two sheets.   The l-track on the roof takes up an inch either side, but that's also 8ft so there are some gaps at one end which are going to be a bit strange.  

The fit on the interior is ok... Not perfect a few gaps bigger than I'd like but I'm hoping the headliner carpet I'm putting over it will make it look nice.  I'll take more pics when it's back up. 

 

In other news, my parents went on vacation and left us here... The kitchen sink decided to clog after dinner when we just finished a 10hr day on the van.  Took all the traps apart, got shitty rotten water all over me, couldn't find the clog, opened a cleaning plug in a the basement... More shitty water, couldn't find anything so I put it back together, still clogged. Exactly what I wanted at 10pm. Called my cousin in the morning to come by (he's a plumber and I used to work for him in the summers years ago).  Ran the pipe snake 50ft down to clear it,  pulled up a bunch of hair and styrofoam bits, so it wasn't anything we did. 

 

[Lt. Dan]

Started fabbing up the bed frame. It feels really good to be making things out of metal again, stuff I actually know how to do.  

It has some rails to hold my folding table.

The fresh water tank will sit behind the fridge. There will be a space above it which I'll mount the inverter and solar charger and other electrical stuff.

Had to make the bed bolt together to get it through the doors

 

[Lt. Dan]

Sorry for not posting for a few days, making progress though.

Little bracket to hold my sillcock (in the USA the trade term for a hose tap is a sillcock... Many inappropriate jokes were made)

Bracket for the water pump.

Flipped the awning brackets around and trimmed a bit off them to get it closer to the roof. It now sits even with the drip rail.

Mounted some lights under the awning. There are two mounted to the roof rack feet. 

Had a trial of it.

Made a bracket to hold my propane tank to the pillar behind the door.

Rebecca also carpeted that pillar and the wheel wells. Looks a ton better.

Mounted the switches and outlets to the panel that will sit behind the seats. From left to right: switch for inverter, AC power outlet, DC cig lighter and USB plugs, 8 switch and breaker panel, face plate for voltmeter, and in the far right water tank fill door.

The power meter is an $18 Amazon job, it has good reviews but the mounting is a bit annoying, two little tabs designed to mount to sheet metal, so I had to make this plate. The switch is a dpdt to switch between measuring charging and discharging current. 

Did a job I had been putting off for days... Drilling holes in the roof for the solar cables.  There is supposed to be a third for the lights but I lost the nut and washer to the third gland so I need to order another. Painted the edges of the holes after drilling then siliconed them in.  The battery cables are ran through the floor with similar glands.

[Lt. Dan]

Got one of the walls up... Would have done both if we hadn't screwed up and carpeted the wrong side of one of the panels....

I'm really happy with how this one came out though.

Did some wiring of the roof lights... Lots of heat shrink and braided nylon sleeve... And some weather pack connectors.

There are 6 circular lights which are a warm light, two bright strip lights over the bed wired to the house battery and a dome light wired to the Chevy wiring.

If anyone buys Dream lights brand  LEDs, be aware that white is ground and black is positive. Confusing.

Don't mind the plastic on the circular lights, I'll peel that off one they are installed.

Rear roof panel:

Front panel:

[azzurro]

Nice work man!

Looks snuggly. Like living in a sub box.

[NickJ]

On 2 April 2017 at 08:49, Lt. Dan said:

Batteries on the frame... Took me way longer to drill, rivnut and bolt up then i want to tell... Lots of little complications. For some reason this whole battery thing took me a lot longer than i feel like it should have. 

 

Rad build mate! 

If you can cover the tops of the batteries, I've had farm machinery batteries slowly go flat form a build up of crap effectively shorting the terminals onto the frame, I can only imagine salty roads to be potentially worse.

[Lt. Dan]

15 hours ago, NickJ said:

Rad build mate! 

If you can cover the tops of the batteries, I've had farm machinery batteries slowly go flat form a build up of crap effectively shorting the terminals onto the frame, I can only imagine salty roads to be potentially worse.

Interesting, I'll have to keep an eye on it and keep it clean, there isn't much room to put a cover on it

[Lt. Dan]

Made a bunch of progress the last two days.

I'm using cam buckles and ratchet straps that I've shortened to hold things in. I'm using a cheap grommet kit so I can bolt the straps in. The kit actually works quite well, it's a little punch and a driver/anvil to set the grommet.

Here is one holding my table.

Got the interior in.

This is the last panel to go up behind the driver's seat, these are the wires for the solar and lights.

Roof to the factory head liner.

Bed platform in.

AC and DC plugs on the back of the bed.

View under the bed, the box on the left is where the 26 gallons of water sits. Above that is the electronics.

Side door

View of the water pump up against the wall next to the tank. Held down with some shortened ratchet and cam buckle straps. Wish I had taken more pictures of this area but we were making progress.

Switch and plug panel from the front

I've got almost all of my wiring done and the inverter and solar charger mounted but I'll wait till I've tidied all the wires up to take pictures of that. 

[UTERUS]

Damn Dan, looking really good. 

 

The low tech solution for batteries is to smear the posts in grease. 

[chris r]

That looks awesome, I'll have to steal some ideas for when my van arrives

[Lt. Dan]

6 hours ago, chris r said:

That looks awesome, I'll have to steal some ideas for when my van arrives

Thanks. I'm going to write a post in a few days about what I learned, what was  hard and what I'd do differently, so keep reading. People never seem to do that on internet forums so I find people keep copying ideas and making the same mistakes.

[Lt. Dan]

Got some pics of the wiring. Tested everything, found I had somehow wired my solar panels backwards even though I traced them back before plugging them in (they come with two black wires...) Swapped them around and was away laughing

Volt meter doing its thing

Took the back panel off the box to fill the water tank the first time and check for leaks so I got some pictures of that. We also ran some chlorine through the system, about 2ppm, to clean it out.

Also discovered while laying down there that you could actually sleep below the bed quite comfortable with a camp pad and sleeping bag (which we have with us anyway). Good to know if someone comes to visit and needs a space/weather is too poor to use our tent.

Using some loc line flexible coolant hose for my faucet. It is long enough to reach out the door and folds up out of the way. Also for anyone copying this idea, there is a $8 half inch kit on Amazon that has everything but the hose to npt adapter. Buy the genuine USA made LocLine one, it's only a dollar more than the Chinese ones.

Made some window shades awhile ago out of the insulation just never took a picture.

Using magnets to keep them up.

Hung some curtains. They are some cheap Walmart curtains that Rebecca and Mom doubled up and shortened to fit

[Lt. Dan]

Few more details of stuff.

Decided I needed a collapsable flagpole.... searched around on the internet a bunch for something that didn't suck, then realized I already owned the perfect thing.

For those here who aren't back country skiers... it's an avalanche probe, essentially a thick tent pole with a spike on the end. I just cable tied the flag to it and it all folds up and rolls into the sleeve it comes in. Perfect.

Changed out one of the grommets for a sport climbing bolt hanger so I didnt have to unthread the cam buckle strap every time.  Yes... I realize it isn't a rated carabiner and the bolt hanger should pull down ... 

Window nets that rebecca made.  There is also a big one for the side doors.

The strip magnets don't hold for s#!%, glad I have the circle ones.

The rear ones also are bolted through the hinge.

Little ties to hold them up.  

Cargo net in the back.  The tan bag is our sleeping bag. For anyone who wants a bada$$ two person backpacking bag I'm a huge fan of the Nemo Tango Duo, it allows the two of us to carry one less bag and weighs no more than one normal bag, 800fill down and backless.  

The window nets and flag pole live in the cargo net as well when not being used.

The flags were brought to me last month from a friend who was in India.

Some pics of the roof in use

Needed a place to stand so I stole this idea from someone on Expedition Portal to use cut down ute loading ramps.  Now I need to figure out what to do with the second ramp since they are only really useful in pairs...  freebie if you pick it up to anyone who wants it.

Had the van out for its first shakedown overnight run at Cunningham Falls State Park.  We were the only people there.  It of course rained, but I was very very happy with the ARB awning, we were still able to cook outside.

Also took it out to a local horse race last weekend, Maryland Hunt Cup.  The tailgating area was full of yuppies so I picked the coolest looking guy I could to park next to.   

The other guys van was more of a tail gaiting rig, he pretty much spends all weekend driving between porting events, but he did have a removable bed platform.   He had only finished it a few months ago so we chatted a bunch about our builds, cool guy.

Lots of TV lots of sound

Lots of batteries

Lots of amps and lots of air for an air horn

[DodgySam]

Use the other ramp as a ladder.
Bolt it to the back  so you can get up onto the roof.

 

 

unless you already have a ladder on the back...in that case ignore everything I just said.

[Lt. Dan]

19 hours ago, DodgySam said:

Use the other ramp as a ladder.
Bolt it to the back  so you can get up onto the roof.

 

 

unless you already have a ladder on the back...in that case ignore everything I just said.

No ladder yet, but it can't go on the back because these Chevy door hinges can't even hold up the doors when they are new. It's not bad climbing up there anyways.

 

 A company here makes heavy duty aluminum ladders that go on the side but 1. The van is already wide enough that you have trouble on narrow roads 2. They are ungodly expensive.

 

We're on the road now anyways, so no more mods but the ones I can do with basic hand tools. 

Went up to New York state a few nights ago, now staying in Boston in a Walmart parking lot because none of the camp grounds around here open for the summer for another three weeks.  We cooked dinner on a park bench somewhere in the city.  They at least had some BBQ grills so I felt a bit less homeless about cooking there. 

[Lt. Dan]

Bit of an update, we've been on the road for a bit over a week now.  Slowly getting used to van life.

We traveled up the coast, New York, Boston and then Acadia park in Maine. We crossed the border at the smallest crossing ever at St Stephen Canada. Just two guys and a bridge.  Took us a bit because they had to process Rebecca's working holiday Visa and the guy had never done one, but they were quite nice and apologetic about it; I'd expect nothing less of the Canadians.  

Explored the bay of Fundy a bit and St Andrew, beautiful tides, did a bit of climbing around Fredericton. We're off to Nova Scotia today and will come back through New Brunswick again in a week... Mostly because all of the campground haven't opened for the season in NB yet so we've had to park in a few public parks, Walmart and Cabela's parking lots.  Nova Scotia seems to have more camp grounds and parks open so we'll see how that goes.

The van is doing well (knock on wood), very happy with the fridge and the 100l water tank.

 

 

[Lt. Dan]

Up in Nova Scotia now, just left cape Brenton national Park, quite an amazing drive if you get to do it. It's been a bit cold and rainy but I totally recommend the off season, apparently a zoo in the summer. All the campgrounds were "closed" but no one said anything about us parking there, so it was an affordable few days . Got some biking and hiking done. 

Also I totally recommend carrying tire plugs and and air on long trips, got a nail in the tire, much quicker to just fix it then swap it.  I use a co2 paintball cylinder and a fixed pressure regulator but a 12v compressor would work too. 

[Lt. Dan]

Did a little mod today. The side barn door windows were clear but the rear ones that I swapped in were tinted, plus the silver insulation window shades stuck out like dogs balls.  Not the stealth look I was going, for so I picked up some tint from Canadian Tire and put it on in the parking lot.

Not a pro job by any means and it's a bit bluer than the rear but it looks good from 5ft.