2005 Low Top 118" wheel-base: Custom Roof Rack & Interior

Paul_E_D

Member
I had a trailer pigtail cause ALL manner of electrical madness. Hopefully you found your issue. It took me a while as that part was almost new and it really didn't cross my mind for that and other reasons.
 

G100

New member
The Layout and starting to get some work done.

Okay so I am starting to get some progress done now that I have a plan on the interior build out, I think that this is going to be the best solution for the needs and wants of the owner that I listed before (Post #6 before the electrical nightmare) but here they are again.

- First and foremost is seating in the back that he can put a car seat on, and carry more passengers
- The biggest most comfortable bed possible
- A "trunk" or storage in the back. When I asked about having a living space in the front area, he said its not as important as the space in the back.
- Table
- A setup that he can have the bed ready to sleep in just a matter of minutes.
- Swivel seats
- Surf Racks

Here is a diagram of the layout.



So like I was discussing before I need a sofa bed where the back folds down without the whole seat pulling forward. I can’t find this so I am going to have to build this, and in order to make the bed bigger there will be third section that can slide back and forth. When the seat is up it will be push toward the front of the car to free up space in the back, when you want to put the seat down you will slide this section toward the back of the car and the seat back will fold down to meet up with it creating a bed that is probably around 75” long and probably around 60”+ wide, which is pretty much a queen size bed. It would be weird for the seat to extend over the gutter all the way to the slider door so the whole bed setup will end up being 6” short of the passenger side wall so I am planning on putting a thin “side table” to fill that gap and I think it will be real nice to have in the long run to put stuff on.
Under the bench seat will be a full length 60” pull out drawer, the drawer glides are pretty pricey at this length but I think it will be an awesome storage compartment.

To start out though I have to build a raised floor in the back section to store the awning arms, accessory load bars, and folding table. This will be very similar to the raised floor I put in the T100 build. The folding table is the tallest so it will have to be a 2” raised floor.



Here is the layout of the where everything is going to go. I can't come up with any thing for the center 6" space so I guess it is just going to be closed up probably going to be stronger that way anyways. I put some of the carpeting, that I ripped out of the van earlier, below and on the sides of the awning arms and load bars so they don't get all scratched up and it is real nice and smooth when you slide them in and out.


I used contact cement to put down the carpeting, I believe it is some type of marine carpeting from the feel of it, at least I hope it is.

On top of this will be 1/2" ply and then I will put a linoleum floor over that.
 

KRJ

New member
I did something similar in my build to store/access my fold-able table. I hate having to move a bunch of stuff to get to something else. This keeps the table easily accessible and I can still stack things on top of it. I too used carpet top and bottom. Stops scratching and rattling of table as well as holding it in place.
Looks like you could do a double decker setup in your build with the awning arms on top of the table. May increase usable space, depending on the available space above.
Looks like a well planned build, looking forward to following it. My friend has a 118" that he has struggled to use efficiently, a duplicate of your build may be an answer. Plus, I'm going to duplicate your rack!
 

G100

New member
Seat base

Got started on the bench seat. This thing is going to be a little tricky. I need the seat to be no more than 20” wide or else it won’t be comfortable to sit on, and I need it to sit just in front of the slider door when open so that the drawer and pull out, which then sets my bed length at around 75". I don’t want the seat back to be over 24” above the seat base or else it will block the view through the back windows in the rear-view mirror. I want to back slider section to be 1/3 of the total bed length so the tri-fold mattress that will eventually be on there will fit perfectly. So this means that the seat back needs to be about 30” with 6 or more inches below the seat level when in the seat-up position. This took a bit of trial and error for where my pivot points need to be but I think that I have got a mechanism that will make this work.



Seat position will be right in front of the slider. Bench width is going run right up to the gutter.


This is the right and left sides. The right side which is going to be against the wall is going to have a lever to help with going to the different positions.




I am going to use these 58” full extension 500 lb. drawer glides.


The seat base is all mocked up with the glides now I need to build the drawer.
 

G100

New member
Lots of Progress

Sorry for the long delay in posts but I have been super busy working on the van. I’ll start where I left off.

The Drawer:



I built the drawer, the outside walls are ¾ all the rest is ½ ply. The inside is all laminated with some bamboo looking laminate. It is kinda divided into three sections. The first two sections have a raised floor so that I can put the stove under one section and have a utensil drawer under the front section. The back section is full depth around 13”. There are multiple slots for the two removable dividers to slide into for organizing stuff. I painted the whole outside with a grey that kinda matches the existing interior.



I ordered a motorhome baggage compartment handle with sliding bolt to latch the drawer shut. I found some cool scraps of wood that I used to make skateboards out of that I think will look really cool for a drawer front.



So I got the whole thing installed and working really nice. I welded a small section of ¾ angle on the the bottom rail for the slide bolt to latch against. It really is solid feeling and sounding, very gratifying to shut, like shutting a meat locker.



The work table that slides over the top of the drawer is ¾ ply with dados cut out to run along the top of the sides of the drawer box. I had to add some skateboard like bearings to hold the table up, for when the drawer is pulled out and the table is still inside. The table is held inside when you open the drawer by a ball bearing latch. Its nice you almost wouldn't even know it was there until you pull it out.



I laminated the work table in a cool product I had some left-overs of, called Fenix NTM, you can google it, it is a new type of laminate that has a bunch of special properties, most of which I don't care about but the one that I like is it has scratch healing properties, supposedly you can heal cuts in the laminate by running a iron over it. It does have a really nice appearance and feel to it, a very smooth matte finish. I painted the bottom grey to seal it and then waxed the channels with furniture wax so it glides real nice when you pull it out.



Next up the fold down bed system.
 

G100

New member
The Bed System

Okay so before I dove into the fold-down sofa bed I decided to put down some linoleum floor in both the front and back. Before I did the back though I attached an aluminum edge to protect the edge of the false floor because that edge is going to get beat up. I made it out of 3"X3"X1/8" aluminum angle. I cut the top edge down to 3/4". Then I trimmed out all the holes for the stuff that slides underneath the false floor. You can also see I added some storage boxes on both sides for whatever but seem like a perfect place for straps. They have a brass latch and very small knob help open it.


I attached the edging before the linoleum so I could butt up the linoleum up to the aluminum edge so that they are about the same height. I didn't want put the aluminum over the linoleum because that would create a 1/8" lip for things to catch on. I got a reclaimed wood print and I laminated it down with some contact adhesive.



I am happy with the way it turned out, the storage boxes on the side are barely noticeable.

Now on to the sofa bed:

The back is 30" high and 61" wide, 7" of that height is below the seat when in the seat position so that you can still use the rear-view mirror to see out of the back windows. It latches up in the seat back position with this dual plunger type latch. The cables will eventually be hidden by a thin peace of black melamine on the back. The plungers will latch in to a bracket on the driver side wall and the other on the "side table."



The "side table" is a pretty important piece of the puzzle. It basically brings the passenger side wall in about 7" because of the door gutter. It will help hold the seat back in the upright position, will house one side of the track for the rear siding 1/3 of the bed. It will also have switch panels on both ends for lighting and power ports and I think it will be really convenient to have a shelf to put stuff on next to the bed like water, your phone, headlamps, ect. I have some more of that wood that I used for the drawer front so I will be wrapping it in that.



The track system is very similar to a garage door setup with just some simple rollers that run in a channel. They are rated at 500lbs. I am just using a piece of 1X1 angle as my moving bracket that holds the rollers. There then be a piece of 3/4 ply screwed to the moving angle brackets. The ply will be strengthened by a piece of angle in the front and a samll headboard in the back, I believe this will be sufficient to keep the ply from bending. The driver side track is held to wall with few machine screws but mainly supported by piece of angle underneath.



The system works great, the plunger latches feel real solid when you click them in place. The track system is not as smooth feeling as I had hoped but is very solid. You can see I added three seat-belts, child-seat anchor points and a cubbie hole in the side table. The seat belts just slide between the seat back and the seat if you don't want them and for when your put the bed down.




Off to Upholstery!
 

G100

New member
Progress

One last thing I did before I sent the pieces in for upholstery was I fabricated up some car seat anchor points out of 1/4" solid rod. I also setup spots for three sets of seat belts to bolt into, not pictured.



An this is what I got back from the upholsterer. Pretty happy with it, I told the upholsterer to try and match and the front seats as much as possible but don't go crazy with it. We went with 3" High density foam with a "firm" rating.





The back sliding platform will eventually have a 6" or 7" high headboard to strenghten the piece up so it doesn't bow with weight on it, even though as it is right now its pretty strong. It does have a piece of angle on the far edge that helps, it is also for the seat back to kinda rest on when folded down as a bed.



Fold up wall table:

I also worked on the fold up table between the bench seat and the drivers seat. I thought this was going to be a simple install of a couple hours at most . . . Nope!, It turned much larger project. I got these flip up brackets they are pretty nice I have used them before and they are surprisingly strong very easy to install and I like that I don't have to have legs or an angled support to get in the way.



Well when I went to fasten them to the wall, this is what it looked like.

not only was it at an angle but it also had a unacceptable amount of flex. I was worried it was the brackets and I was going to have to rebuild the whole thing over again, but upon more observation I noticed it was the wall that was flexing. I also realized that when it was in the folded down position it was perfectly flat against the wall (the way I want it), if I shimmed up the brackets so that the table would lock in at level, then when it was folded down it wouldn't be flat against the wall. So I needed to modify the brackets so that the table locks in at an angle much greater then 90 degress and I needed to reinforce the wall so that it doesn't flex when weight is put on the table.

how it came:
Modified for increased angle:

I just added about 3/8" of metal to the angled piece that locks in to the grove.
For the increased strenght on the wall of the van I welded a piece of 1/8" x 6" plate to the wall.


So then I put it all together, bolted it to the wall and it was perfectly level, sweet! so then I pushed down on it to see how the flex was. Well the wall didn't flex, which was nice . . . but the screws going into the table top pulled out. I had to use super small 1/2" screws because I inset the bracket into the table top so that it didn't stick out from the wall as much. This left very little meat for any screw to hold on to. So I had to switch to sex bolts and inset the threaded side and then I will put plugs over those when I am ready to finish it.

So no it didn't take 2 hours, its still not really done.

I also got around to working on some electrical and lighting. I made a LED light strip fixture out of some solid walnut and some plexi-glass. Pretty simple, the light strip has peel and stick tape on the back and the plexi is just fitted in the grove. I will screw the fixture on first then put the light strip in then cover with the plexi.


This is going to be the main switch box located on the side of the "side table" by the slider. It has 2 USB ports, 12v port, dimmer switch for the interior lights and then two switches for some outside LED strips that I am going to install.


More to come, more to be done.
 

GeorgeRa

2013 Sprinter DIY 144WB, Portland OR
Great work, I don’t think I fully understand your sofa bed system so please correct:
1. Front section is fixed
2. Mid-section is somehow hinged in the front and its rear edge tilts up to lock-up position
3. Rear section is on roller and moves fore and aft
4. There is no connection between the mid-section and the rear section.

To deploy to the bed position you need to do 2 operations:
1. Move the rear section back
2. Lower the mid-section down
Am I correct?

In my own design rock & roll style sofa bed I am using 100 lb. air spring to help lifting rear and mid-section (with 1/2" plywood and upholstery is rather heavy) works great but I am thinking to fully automate sofa > bed and bed > sofa operations with 2 linear actuators.

George.
 

G100

New member
George, You are correct on all of your points. Which part is confusing? Here is the basic steps you would take to lower the seat:
1. Pull the rear section back toward the rear doors. This will eventually have a latch you must release first to be able to move it.
2. Release the mid section by pulling up on the handle in the top middle of the mid section. It then tilts back into a reclined position that it can stay in. While in the reclined position this is when you can bring the seat belts up or move them down out of the way.
3. push the mid section down, it fits right into position with the rear section.

There is one part though that I may have touched on a little but didn't explain very much. It is mostly for how you get the sofa from bed position to seat position without have to bend over and break your back. I created a lever that is behind the drawer closest to the wall. It is highlighted in the picture below.



If you step on this lever and push down with your foot, it brings the mid section up to the reclined position, where you can then easily pull the top forward into the locked seat position. It was designed to be used both ways, pull up to put the mid section down into the bed position, but it so easy to just push the seat down that it isn't necessary for that but it can be used that way. It is though totally necessary for bringing it up though, it is so awkward to try and pull it up without it.

Thanks for your interest.
 

G100

New member
Lets finish er' up

Sorry for the long hiatus, but here how I wrapped up this build. So starting from where I left off.
The "side table" was removed and painted and all panels were clear coated which really started to make things look good. Before I put the front back on the "side table" I got all the wiring done on the "switch panel" while I still had easy access to it.

This area is going to be a large storage spot with access from the top so I had to make sure to cover it all up nicely. The "lid" drops into place and is held down with some recessed neodymium magnets. It has a flush ring pull as a handle to pull it up. The "lid" sits flush with the rest of the shelf. My idea is this storage spot will probably hold pillows and blankets stuffed down inside. The back half has the cubbie hole with a LED light strip tucked up inside that is used as a night light and so you can see down into the secret hidding spot under the shelf of the cubbie (not pictured).


So you can see on the switch panel I have on the top a 12v plug and USB plugs then below that the dimmer switch for the interior LEDs is in a 3 way switch circuit with the other switch on the rear end of the "side table." So this way you can turn the interior lights on and off from the side door as well as the rear door or when you are in bed. Below the dimmer switch are two rocker switches for exterior LEDs. One switch illuminates a LED strip above the sliding door and the other switch illuminates a strip hidden on the siding door. You can see the location of the lights here in this shot.


So you might be wondering how I got the power to the lights on the siding door. Well I ordered a set of door contacts just like the ones factory installed on the backdoors.


Then I fabricated a mount that goes right above the rubber door stop on the slider to hold the "plate side". The "pins" side of the set was installed into a hole I cut into the door frame. So the light only get power when the door is open.


I then got around to making the walnut headboard for the back sliding portion of the bed system. I installed some remote latches so that it securely locks into the forward position while the seat is up.


So thats about it. I also installed surfboard racks up on the celling and installed removable storage bags on the walls so there is a spot for everything. Pretty happy with how it all turned out very function-able family van that easily turns into a super comfy camper. I'll post some pictures of it all setup for you all to check out the finished product.
 

lucho22

New member
Hi, I can't find where to order the contact, any suggestions?, I can't find a part number or diagram, is there a manual with all the part numbers?, my two power contacts are damage, I have an sprinter 3500 year 2005 and the rear doors don't lock with remote because the contacts are broken.

You mentioned that you "http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/a...s/IMG_0120.jpg
So you might be wondering how I got the power to the lights on the siding door. Well I ordered a set of door contacts just like the ones factory installed on the backdoors."

Can you tell me where you order them please?
 

ranchworld

'06 158 2500 Passenger
It is a common problem caused by the original poster using "photobucket" as a photo hosting site. That company is now no longer offering free hosting and has replaced all the original photos with the image you now see in the forum post. The only way to see the photos is for the original poster to re-do the photos. This is why the forum elders keep asking us to post the photos directly on this website, then they can't go away as long as the forum is up. You could also try to send the original poster a private message...
 

kiloloop

New member
There are also some chrome and firefox extensions you can install to your browser that can help you see the photos
 

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