holy sh*t another 144" high roof build

rob cote

Well-known member
This one's short cause I'm on my phone but the awning is all Gucci. The straps made everything rock solid. They look like this:

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I'm not crazy about it, but you can barely see them from the ground so it'll stay like that at least for a little while. The awning is rad. I love it.

I put the switches for the motor and the lights next to the passengers seat on the B-pillar:

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Super easy access from outside, and pretty easy to access inside.

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rob cote

Well-known member
"But how do you sleep in that thing??" How many times we've heard that one.

Truth told, at the moment, we don't. We have, you know, just on the floor with a sleeping pad. It's less than ideal, but we're so excited to live in it that we just dork out and do it anyways. But right now, there's such a mess of stuff going on it's just easier to hammock or whatever. But let me show you how we will sleep in it.

Sideways, duh. You can tell by the flares. And the hashtag sleepsideways or whatever it is. I don't think I've ever actually used that one. But that's not my point. Have any of you guys seen the Winnebago Revel? Of course you have. Right? I feel like that's a safe assumption. Anyway, we're borrowing heavily from their layout design. We even tried to incorporate the same bed lift they're using. What a nightmare that was! You can't just buy it. I dunno, they like hate money or whatever. So first, obviously, I had to figure out what it even is that they're using. It's an Euroloft project 2000 (I think that's what it's called, if I'm remembering correctly). It basically uses seat belt straps secured to the ceiling and wrapped around a motor-driven shaft which lives inside the bed frame. It's pretty clever, I don't hate it. Hence we tried so hard to get one. So I called up the manufacturer. "Lemme get one". They only sell to RV OEMs. Umm...okay, I guess they have better money or whatever. So, I called up Winnebago. "You have to talk to your parts department". Ohhh kaaaayyyyy...So I did. "Hey, I need a replacement bed lift for a Revel." Sure, what's your VIN. Uhhhh. So I scoured the internet. I found a for sale ad which listed the VIN. Score. Then I called back, with the VIN. $2200. If you want the bed frame, that's another 600 or something.

Cool, so we'll just find another option. I don't like the stupid straps anyways. That things a hunk of junk. Hate it. (Not really, I just hate the price and all the hoops you have to jump through to buy it) So, again, Mandy came through clutch with a solution. I wasn't sure up front, but it seemed workable. We got it on order so we could see it in real life, to be more sure. Then it sat. Collecting sawdust. For a few months. I needed it early to see it, but not to install it. Until now.

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Weeeelllll not quite. It's like 90% installed. But again, I can't finish it until more unrelated stuff is done. But I wanted to get this out there for all'y'all who might be looking to do something similar. I think this is going to work out fantastic. So, specifics, yeah? We ordered a Sleep & Store from Cass Hudson. It's designed for toy hauler trailers with nice flat, square walls. You just blast a couple brackets onto each wall, square to each other, and fill in the middle with a bed frame of your own making. The bed lift mechanism does the up-down work with the help of gas springs. It's pretty simple. I probably could have made one, but theirs is much nicer than what I could have done. And way easier to just buy it.

As far as I know, and the salesman I've been communicating with, no one has installed on in a Sprinter yet. I'm not affiliated with them or anything, I've just had a long email chain before and after purchasing, to help understand the product more clearly because I'm not using it in the prescribed manner, exactly. So it's a honest review. "Trust me," said no trustworthy person, ever.

So, the bed lift is pretty straightforward. Interfacing it to the van is anything but. I started with kind of everything all at once, because it felt like I had to. There's three main points, per side, that you have to be concerned with. The horizontal rail and the vertical column are designed such that they sort of interlock together. So that's really just one mounting point. Then there's the top end of the column, and the forward end of the rail. The rail and column want to be perpendicular to each other, with the rail parallel to the floor and the column parallel to whatever the hell the vertical plane is.

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Now you're starting to see my struggle, yeah? What's vertical? What's flat? Take a look around YOUR van, I dare you. Basically everything is referenced off the floor. It's tricky. To rock a rhyme. So, the bed lift can be as wide as the walls at the roof corner. So I had to start with that, to ensure the column could be vertical. But the rail had to be at counter height, so I had to start there as well. And then I had to make a bracket for the junction of the two, so I could hold them up at this arbitrary point in space and fine tune all the angles. And it's kind of like solving a differential equation; as you adjust one thing, two others go out of whack. So if you have like 7 arms, you'd be much better at this than me.

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But after a couple days, I got to where it'll free-stand. And it's square and parallel and perpendicular and all that. Then it's just copy, paste, mirror. I wish. I mean, it was, but it's not that easy when you're working with physical material. Anyway, I started with the passenger's side, because we have a counter in there that I could reference, and use as a stand. Since we don't have the driver's side counter installed yet, I can't truly finish the rail mounting, but the rest of it's complete. The last thing I did was to set up supports for the forward end in the "stowed" position. They're just glorified L-brackets that are sized such that they can be bolted to the van walls at the right location. A Cass Hudson-supplied bumper sits on the top.

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Well, not exactly, right? Because the bed is only as wide as the roof, remember? I've got to make up some fixed panels that will remain in the flares, next. I'm not exactly sure how I'm gonna tackle that, but you know I'll figure it out.
 

rob cote

Well-known member
Here's a quick slideshow to show you how the bed lift operates.

Here's the stowed position:

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Then you pull down the rear edge:

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Then you pull down the forward edge:

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I laid up there and tried to shake it all around. Even with the temporary 2x4 leg, it's rock solid. I'm pumped about it. On paper, we knew the seats underneath are going to work. But to be able to confirm it by mocking it up with the actual bed there is a huge confidence boost.
 

Britts08

Member
Here's a quick slideshow to show you how the bed lift operates.

Here's the stowed position:

View attachment 190478

Then you pull down the rear edge:

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Then you pull down the forward edge:

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I laid up there and tried to shake it all around. Even with the temporary 2x4 leg, it's rock solid. I'm pumped about it. On paper, we knew the seats underneath are going to work. But to be able to confirm it by mocking it up with the actual bed there is a huge confidence boost.

What's your head clearance with it in the "up" position?
 

rob cote

Well-known member
We haven't built the seats yet, so it's still TBD, but I'll probably leave a couple inches when I'm sitting upright. I never do, because I usually have trash posture, so I'll generally have even more clearance. For reference, I'm 6ft tall. But since I didn't truly answer your question, that's probably a useless stat. I guess a more helpful piece of information would be that the distance to the floor (recall that we raised it about 1-1/4") from the bottom of the bed frame in the stowed position is 64.5".
 

rob cote

Well-known member
Minor update. Because it's way too hot to be productive. Logically, it's a heating system update. I reported that I had a situation where the system puked coolant sometime after shutdown and that I had to add a reservoir for expansion. Well, I had one included with the kit that was just massive. I didn't want to try to fit it. I found a teensy one in a Prius at the local junkyard. It is way easier to fit. I had to cap off one port and make up a simple bracket, but the issue seems to be gone. I've had two successful heat cycles now.

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Side note - does anyone recognize this part?

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rob cote

Well-known member
Yes!

It is the 'Ring pull' or 'Grenade clip' off a Spring Band Clamp hose clip.
View attachment 190562
It speeds up assembly as the operator only has to position the clip on the hose then pull the plastic clip off. And often the clip will be glued to the hose so assembly is even easier and quicker.

Keith.
Awesome, makes total sense. I'd never seen that before.
 

rob cote

Well-known member
I didn't die. Sorry not sorry. Just been wicked busy I guess. We took a tiny mid-week vacation to the lake. And I spent some time finishing up the bracketry for the bed lift. You already saw it, but that was without some gussets I wanted to add, and without paint. It looks essentially the same, so it's not worth taking up 1 of the 5 allowed pictures per this post. My point is just that that took some of the time that's passed since I last posted, but I don't really have anything worthwhile to show for it. I know those threads get boring where everything starts to look the same because you don't need a picture for every teensy step of the process.

SO. You know the recessed panel area thingymajigger on the top of the sliding door? There's probably an optional factory trim piece for that area, I'm guessing. But we don't have it. It's probably on the passenger version? I don't know. I don't really care, either. We made our own. It's pretty simple once you figure out the process. So, here, let me take care of the hard part for you.

First, you get a piece of paper big enough to cover the space. Trim it down so it's only approximately a little bit bigger than the panel, this makes it easier to work with. Hold it still and use your finger and fingernail to shmush the paper into the recessed groove where the panel goes. Also push in where the holes are for mounting pushpin doohickeys. Just enough to crease the paper. Cut it along the creases and then trace it onto 1/4" thick plywood. Or whatever substrate you want really. 1/4" plywood works well. Test fit it to make sure, because that's the trickiest part of the whole thing. Like I said, it's really not that hard. Once it fits good and your holes are drilled and line up well, wrap the thing in foam if you want to. Use a good quality spray adhesive, like 3M High Strength 90. We had a crappy experience with Super 77. It's possible that's because it was old, I don't know. It worked, but not well. Also, landau closed cell foam works better than whatever 1/4" foam Joann is hustling. Just way nicer to work with, and feels better to the touch. Plus it doesn't absorb water so that's a bonus. Anyway, once that's done, do the same with fabric of your choice. Our choice was tan tweed. The color match is way better than we expected, since we weren't really trying to match it. So that was awesome to see. Wrap the edges around the panel and staple close to the edge with 1/4" staples. Trim the excess close to the staples. Use push pin thingies to install it to the door. It looks like this:

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Repeat the same process for the rear doors, to achieve this:

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Repeat again for the rear side wall. This is a little tricky, because you have to extract the odd shape of the flare from the middle. But with careful measurements, you can do it. I believe in you. If I can do it, someone else can probably do it, too. Or however that goes. Also wrap the flare trim ring, if you got it. We got it. It makes it look really professional, really easily. The hardest part is wrapping the fabric around the compound curves of the trim ring. My advice? Use fabric with lots of stretch. Tweed is not amenable to stretching. We did asbestos we could, but it's not perfect. The photos hide that, so you're gonna love this part:

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I forgot to mention, do the same treatment to the space inside the flare as well. Use a different fabric if you want, for more fun. Then do the same on the other side:

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Lastly, and this step is absolutely critical, show dog what you built for him:

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rob cote

Well-known member
Alright so a lot of people ask where will we store stuff in the van? We didn't overlook this. This part may be controversial, I dunno. It's a compromise, like everything, of course. But, since I can't stand up under the bed lift anyways, we figured why not sacrifice even more height? So I set to work making a trunk. It makes the space underneath the bed a little bit awkward, but it's already awkward anyways, so I'm kind of like whatever about it. You'll see. I'm confident it's going to work well for us. And that's all that really matters.

So, first things last. No wait that's not right. First things first! Why do we even need to say that? Should it just be assumed? Anyway. The real first things is taking a bunch of measurements. But I'm not showing you pictures of that because who cares, right? First thing that looks like anything is making this rib cage sort of deal. It's a bunch of work to get here, but this stage is the first point where it looks like an actual thing. Prior to this, it's just a pile of sticks and sheets.

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It's more apple wood that I harvested and milled myself. It's hard as hell. Which is great because I need a lot of strength in this piece. You can see a bunch of burn marks from cutting it. Not a great look. Before it's square on 4 sides, it likes to walk a bit on the table saw and it binds the blade slightly. Very minor. But it's evidence of its incredible hardness. I sanded it all out even though you'll never see these pieces again. I chucked it into the van, just to make sure everything was kosher. Did you know the blood of the animal can never be kosher? I just learned that, thought it was interesting. My storage trunk is probably not kosher, I don't know all the rules. It's just a word people misappropriate.

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Here you can see the main drawback of this component - the very short ceiling. But this area will only be for sitting anyways, since I was never going to be able to stand under the bed lift. So it's really only awkward when you're getting in and out of the space, and it's not awful. You just have to crouch for a moment. Anyway, it fit mint. Fitment. The fitment fit mint. So I did basically the same process, albeit pretty differently, to make a drawer. Then I applied polyurethane to both in their entirety. In case they ever get wet for whatever reason.

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It really looks awesome with the finish applied. I used a roller this time which is really the way to go. I've been spraying smaller pieces, but there's so much waste, and it's a lot more effort to setup and whatnot. Gotta move everything outside, plan around weather, etc. Get a small foam roller and just go to town. You can put it on way heavier in one pass, too, without getting runs. It saves a bunch of time. Once it was all dry, I secured the drawer slides. They're 48" long, but the drawer box, I think, came out to 53"ish? There's about 5-6" of drawer box that doesn't get fully exposed, but it really doesn't matter. The last few inches are very easily reached from outside. So everything looked all gucci, I slapped it in the van, checked that my doors closed:

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And I loaded it up:

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This is really a preliminary packing. I just wanted to get a feel for how much stuff we could reasonably fit in there. It's a lot. I think it's more than I expected when I only had the drawer on paper. Whiteboard, really. That's usually what I'm working off of. But "on paper" is another of those classic sayings. It just means that it's only a concept, it doesn't physically exist in meatspace yet. Anyway. We'll probably add stuff, subtract stuff, rearrange stuff, etc. But I think the picture helps to convey how large the box is; how useful it will be. It's really not even full, but we have ski boots, 2 complete sets of winter gear including boots, garden hose, extension cord, jumper cables, hiking pack, hammocks, tool box, and extra compost bricks. We were hoping the sleeping bags would fit as well, but I was pretty sure they'd be too tall. We're going to look for vaccuum bags that might work to flatten them for storage. The compression bags work awesome, but they just don't work in this particular configuration. The diameter is larger than the drawer depth.

Why are we bringing sleeping bags? Well, we're planning to have waaaaay more time to get out and do overnight hikes and backcountry camping and whatnot. So. We'll need them, just probably not on a daily basis. The bed will have "normal" bedding. Still gotta find a home for the tent. But first, it needs a new pole.

Anyway, that's it for now. Toodles.
 

rob cote

Well-known member
Another one. This one's not complete yet so don't judge me. But I did a lot of figuring recently, and filled in some blanks so figured I'd share. I probably won't accomplish much over the next few days so. Whatever.

So, anyway. The up and down part of the mattress, let's call it the main mattress, isn't nearly big enough for me. I'm a long boy. So our plan has always been to make wings for the bed, that will remain fixed in the flares. Sounds wicked simple right? Till you get to actually making them, and you're like huh? Story of my life. It actually wasn't awful once I got in there and looked around.

The Sleep & Store is straight up beefy, so I just built off that. I made a panel that's secures to the bottom of the lower bed support, and goes out to the wall. Once I got my stencil to fit then cut the actual panel, it was just a bunch of trim-and-check. You know the drill.

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So then I had to do some basic maths to figure out how high to build up from there. We have ordered a custom mattress to fit the main mattress space. That's 7" thick memory foam. The problem with that is if we carried that same height all the way across to the flares, the bottom inch-ish of the windows would be obscured. And we certainly don't need 7" of mattress beneath our feet and pillows. So the bulk of the height of the wings is actually storage cubbies. We're planning on a 2" thick pad atop the wings. It will be about an inch lower than the main mattress which is weird I know, but I don't think it'll be an issue. You'll see when we get there. Anyway, I just cut some 2x8 to length and ripped them to the proper width to get us to the height we need.

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I made a top utilizing the same stencil as the bottom. I had to modify the stencil but whatev. Reduce reuse recycle. The POINT of doing all that was so I could go the other way. Gotta go up to go down. I had to start from the bed support, and I figured it was easier to go up since it was a shorter distance and stuff. I was right. Going down is way more figuring. To be fair, there's a lot more going on below the bed. This is where I'm not totally finished so.

Beneath the main mattress will be our sort of dining area I guess. Not sure what we're calling it. But it's 2 benches and some sort of table deal. I spent the better part of a day measuring chair dimensions and angles, avoiding the blazing sun, and making a mockup. I screwed together a bunch of scraps that I'm not going to show you because it's very homeless, but it proved my concept, so I was confident to move forward.

I made up a bench back and seat bottom panel that will fill the space from the oven to the rear doors. I cut large windows in the seat back, which will give us access to a huge storage space behind the bench when the cushion is removed. The front of the bench (right behind our calves when we're sitting) will remain open for storage. The sleeping bags easily fit in this space. You have to remember it's not finished in the following pictures. The legs are not real.

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I had to be somewhere, and I realized that I needed slightly longer hardware, so I screwed on temporary legs so I could drive it, and the upper part is held with clamps at the moment as you can see. That's van life! But you can see our cubbies are painted. You can get a better idea of the size of the storage space from this angle:

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For reference, the width of the water tank is 16". My plan is to put a wall at the edge of the storage drawer which will act as a rear leg for the bench, as well as prevent anything falling into the gap from the aisle part of the van. There will be a floor above the water tank that meets that wall and creates a bottom for the storage compartment. So things aren't just sitting on the inverter and water tank. You'll see. There's obviously still quite a bit of work to be done, but the bulk of the figuring is done. The bench is comfy. It's sturdy. Mandy and I both sat on it together with those sketchy ass legs and it held us. I think we're good. Oh, and someone asked, (I forget, but I'll look back and figure it out) I have about 4-5" of clearance over my head when I'm seated. More than I initially thought I'd have, I think. Also, I can sit sideways on the bench with my legs across it, and lean against the cabinet. As an option. The bottom is wide enough for my ass. And, if my math is right, which it sometimes is, we should have about the same width between benches as there is between the front seats. So it's cozy, of course, but totally workable.

K bye.
 

rob cote

Well-known member
What's your head clearance with it in the "up" position?
I "measured" a hands-width with my fingers slightly spread. About 4-5 inches. I can get an assistant to get an actual measurement tomorrow. Somewhere in that neighborhood. I'm 6 feet tall. So someone with an additional 4 inches of torso+head+neck could fit. Their lower legs would probably be longer also, and so they may be a little less comfortable than I am. I'm not sure. It feels much more roomy than I anticipated it would. I think the white ceiling (aka the bottom of the bed frame) helps with that effect. From the periphery, it doesn't feel like it's RIGHT THERE. But when you bonk your head you feel it. I'm still adapting.
 

rob cote

Well-known member
So the first thing I tackled when I got some time was to actually bolt the bench in place. The clamps were killing the vibe for me. This meant removing the whole bed wing/cubby piece to cut some notches. The back of the bench has some hardwood corner blocks, which get through-bolted to the bed lift lower support. Had to cut around those to get the bench to sit up tight to that support. Then reinstall everything to line drill the holes for the bolts. So you can see why everything takes so long these days. It's a struggle sometimes to not feel crappy about it.

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Anyway. Once the bench was fully in where it's supposed to be, it came back out to get disassembled and painted. I left the joint free of paint so the bench back and bottom could be glued together at reassembly. I forget if I showed the corner braces I made; they work well, but more is better. So once the glue joint was dry, I could put the bench back in again. This is the thing - I never know when the last time is that something will get installed. I just make sure to do it thoroughly each time. It takes more time, but there is a value add: I get to figure out which parts of assembly or disassembly suck, and fix it. So if in the future I have to take something apart, it should be as easy as I am able to make it.

So then I made up some prettier legs. Stronger, too. And fewer. I dug through my pile of apple wood and found some workable pieces. Once they were down to size, I took some time to sand them out to 400 on the DA. The figuring is gorgeous on these ones. I put a few coats of polyurethane on them, sanding again between coats. Worth it. Then they got screwed to the bench and to the floor aka storage drawer. At this point the bench was noticably more sturdy which was neat. But I wasn't finished.

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So THEN I started working the next panel. I'm not sure what to call it exactly, as it's a multi-function piece. It separates the storage areas, like a wall. But it also supports the rear of the bench, like a chair leg. This is not all that exciting for you guys to hear about probably. It's just cut to size and install with more corner blocks. I cut in a vent louver for the inverter and charger. I think there's sufficient airflow all around them. I'm probably going to not wall them in at the rear door. I'm still working out the exact design of that sort of end cap piece at the rear of the bench. Anyway the bench is solid as a rock now. You can plop down hard onto it and just the whole van shakes.

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Lastly, I began working the floor of the behind-the-bench storage compartment. I secured a rail to the back side of the wall panel beneath the bench, and I can use the frame of the end of the cabinet for support. I need to make a support along the wall panel as well as across the rear. Still trying to figure out the most accurate way to get all that level all the way around. But right now the floor panel is drying; I glued apple wood sticks across the floor, similar to the trunk drawer. I really like that design element - it helps limit gear sliding, adds strength, and takes up a minimum of storage volume. I could just as easily put the reinforcements on the bottom side of the panel, but then we'd lose height equal to the thickness of the straps.

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That's it for now I have to walk dog then we're going out with friends. Hoping to wrap up the bench 100% tomorrow.
 

rob cote

Well-known member
Alright so where did I leave you guys?...Ah yes. Okay. The bench was looking decent, but I had to do better, obviously. It's really just paint doing the bulk of the work. I painted the louver and the wall/bench support piece. I also put some apple wood structure to the storage area floor piece, because the 1/4" underlayment is flimsy as. These strips help immensely. We'll probably add a forward wall piece, just so small objects don't fall down into the abyss. But right now we're just storing sleeping bags in this area, which can't fit into the hole. Anyway, it looks like this now, and this is pretty representative of the finished product. For my part.

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Mandy strung together 5 days off work so she could...work. Different kinda work, you know. So, the bench is obviously supreme comfort already because of my amazing design skills. That's called exaggeration. But considering the size and space, and my zero hours of experience in furniture making, it is more comfortable than I expected. But, like anything, more is better. Nothing in moderation. So Mandy whipped up some cushions for the bench from scratch. They really take the bench to another level of finished and comfort. The only drawback, is that the added height of the seat makes the already short back even shorter. But no worry, she saw that one coming and resolved it straight away by making up this sweet pillow that we can sit on the top of the bench back, against the cubbies. It works perfectly in this location, and you can fully lean back. Plus it uses the same fabric as the bench and the flare, so it's custom as heck and no one else has this pillow.

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Meanwhile she was getting her sew on, I set to work on installing a set of steps which are sorely needed on these 4WD jobbies. I mean, my legs are swole as hell so it's really no trouble at all and I totally enjoy doing that huge one-legged squat hundreds of times a day while I build this thing. Not. OK, the reality is, the climb in is not terrible, but it would be better if it was easier. But we do really appreciate the massive ground clearance, and we want to retain it as much as possible, because we intend to utilize the function. Not that we'll be doing full on rock crawling, but we want to get to really remote areas and if we get stuck on a rock in the middle of nowhere because of a step, that's not okay. Or, if we just hit it and damage or break the step, or the body of the van, that's not ideal either. So, would that actually happen? I don't know. But to us it wasn't worth the risk.

So powered steps. We waited for months; pretty much since we took ownership of the van; for Amp-Research to release the kit for the VS30. I finally got an email saying they were ready to accept preorders, so I placed an order through Sprinter Store, because they added a new product to their website at about the same time. It was within a day or two of the email I got from Amp-Research. And the product was specifically 2019+ Amp-Research power steps. Excellent. So the parts arrived just last week, and I opened up the box to find a modified Amp-Research 2018 kit. Someone adds some okay-ish instructions and a magnet switch for the sliding door. I understand the kit for the 2018s is not exactly plug 'n' play, but I believe the needed door-open signal wires are easier accessed under the dash. After talking with Amp-Research about the kit they haven't yet released, I learned that the real VS30 kit will be plug 'n' play, with an OBDII plug for door open signals. That's what I thought we had ordered. I feel like I was mislead by Sprinter Store and honestly it's not the first time they've been a disappointment. But I just want to talk about our van, not trash vendors. At least, not here. So. Whatever. The installation was kind of a slog, but I think I was just frustrated that it wasn't what we thought we'd ordered. Now that it's over, we love the steps.

I dunno if this website can handle a video, but I'm sure they'll show up in a future video on our Youtubes, if you guys watch us there. But here's a picture:

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It's way easier getting in and out of the van. Way less fatigue. So, this next part is going to be in process for a while now, because I can't finish it until other stuff is done, but we did get a decent jump on it yesterday, and we've got some of the finer points of the design and the process worked out. We used to be homeowners. Now we're houseless. But when we did have a house, we did a bunch of mods to it. One of those things was to continue hardwood flooring where the previous owner quit and left some nasty carpet. We couldn't get an exact match to the existing hardwood floor, but it was pretty close, and that's not the point here. We ended up with a bunch of leftover maple that's just gorgeous. And we kept it because of that. At the time, we didn't know what it would be used for. But now we know. We put the floor on the ceiling. But by Mandy's calculations, factoring in scrap from cutting (she literally mapped out each cut), we were short like 22 board-inches. And it would be super heavy.

So I began ripping all the boards in half, from 3/4" to about 3/8". Well, 3/8" was the theoretical goal, but my bandsawing is not perfect, and the blade removes material as well. And the finish is bleh. So next, the boards were all run through the planer. This took them down to a little over 1/4". Somewhere around .270" if I remember correctly. Just enough to get rid of the bandsaw texture. Then they got ripped on the table saw to remove the tongues and grooves (what was left of them), and the microbevel. Then chopped to appropriate lengths. The layout is hard to tell in the picture, but there are short pieces running from to back in the van; these sit in between the roof channels, flush with the bottom face. There are long stringers running across the van from side to side; these are secured to the roof channels with nutserts, and are about 1" wider than the roof channels. So the front to back pieces sit on top of the stringers and can't fall out. Hopefully that makes sense. With this configuration, we only lose that 1/4" of height in the areas where there are roof channels. The rest of the ceiling is the same roof channel height. This leaves plenty of room for a bunch of wool insulation to get stuffed in there, which should finally finish off our insulating.

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There's a lot of work left to do on the ceiling yet, but I'm stoked on how great it looks. I was on the fence about a wood ceiling. A lot of the ones I've seen lose the full thickness of the boards over the whole ceiling which I didn't like, and I just don't quite love the look, I'm not sure why. It's not bad, I'm just not crazy about them. I obviously have to do some final fitment of the boards, mainly in the corners. I have to add a few more nutserts into the ceiling channels, but they're not here yet. The edges are sharp because my equipment is good and square, so I will probably apply a chamfer to the edges of the boards, at least the ones that run side-to-side. I have to select and apply a finish to all of it. I want to adhere the short pieces of each section all together, which should ease installation and removal, as well as reduce the noise from vibrations, I hope. But at least you guys get to see a rough idea of what it will look like, and then it will appear to you as if nothing happened, and then magically it will be complete.
 

rob cote

Well-known member
Just a small one. Yesterday our custom-size mattress arrived so we obviously tossed it up in place and laid on it immediately. So comfy! It's 7" of memory foam and gives us about 1" of clearance to the ceiling in the up position. I also learned that I guess I miscalculated the heights of things or whatnot, or just a simple oversight, I don't know. I didn't think much about the transition geometry of the bed lift. But the front goes up when you pull the back down. Not a lot, but enough that it crashes into the ceiling boards. So I need an opportunity with a helper to move the bed and take measurements and things before I can figure out the best solution. But, for now, if we do it as a two-man operation, we can move the bed up and down without interference. Someone just has to hold the front end down a tad through the move. This picture of the mattress is crappy, but it's all I have right now. It just shows the clearance to the ceiling. Nailed it.

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Since the ceiling feels a bit overwhelming at the moment, I started working on the floor. I figured best to start at the rear end and go forward. I'm working with cork-backed laminate flooring. I think the style is called floating? I don't even know, honestly. I've never worked with it before, but it's incredibly easy. The rear section went so quick, I was done by mid-morning.

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I decided to keep trucking since I still wasn't up for tackling the ceiling. Also figured it would be mentally easier to just get the flooring 100% done. It feels nice to cross an item off the list completely and get the materials out of the shop. So I finished off the forward section as well.

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Then the cabling and plumbing cutting across the floor was an eyesore. So I figured well, I'll just glue up a wire trough to cover that and I can install it tomorrow. Actually, I did this before I started the front section of flooring. But in any case, the glue joint felt pretty sturdy after a few hours of laying down flooring, so I figured it would be fine to screw it down and finish curing. Once it was screwed down, it was only a short bit more work to finish it off completely. For this mostly vertical section across the front side of the storage drawer, I just used spray adhesive to stick the flooring pieces. We'll see how well it holds up. For now it seems quite stuck. Time will tell. If it fails, it's not going to be a problem, just ugly. So no big deal. Right now it looks awesome though.

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Oh in that last picture you can see the small wall panel I made to secure the 120VAC outlet below the oven. I dunno if I showcased that here or not yet. It was just a small thing the other day, after we got burnt out from working on the ceiling. I needed something kinda mindless to do so I whipped that up. Ok bye.
 

rob cote

Well-known member
I don't have 5 pictures yet but oh well. That's vanlife! I've just been doing a few various small jobs; tying up loose ends here and there. Or, in some cases not. But at least making progress. In some cases not. I guess I don't know how to classify what the ffff I've been doing.

Let's start from some random spot in the middle, since none of it matters anyway. We have to get our lightly soiled water into the appropriate tank. That tank sits on the spare tire carrier under the van floor. Our spare is on the ladder, remember? So I worked opposite the flow of water and started at the tank port. I just threw together some PVC fittings so I could cut approximate lengths; none of it is finalized and glued. I wanted to get a start since I had a little downtime, but we don't have the sink or shower installed yet, so I can't connect the other ends and make sure everything is right. So this whole assembly was only installed for a short time, but I at least have a pathway sorted, and some lengths cut. So when I have the other connection locations, it should go in quick.

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It looks like it's hitting the axle because it is, but it was also just resting in there so I could take the photo. It easily lifts off the axle and away from the bump stop. And I'll obviously have to incorporate some hangers. This preliminary install gave me the opportunity to see what that might look like and plan ahead. Shouldn't be a big deal when I get around to finishing it off.

We've had a plan for a while now to have an "outdoor shower". That's just what we call it for simplicity. But more accurately, it's a garden hose. But we don't have a garden. I think in the marine world it's called a washdown connection? Something like that. We won't be showering with it, unless we're a place where none of you are around. I'm aware you don't want to see that. So, you're welcome. It will mainly be for washing muddy boots, muddy dog, muddy van, etc. Call it a mud hose. I don't know. Anyway, there was a plan and zero action. So I banged out the plumbing pretty quickly the other day. It's just another T off the pressure side of the system, and a Pex line to the back doors.

We got a hose connector from Aquor a while ago that's super nice. I really like it. It's just a quarter-turn type deal, with a check valve inside both pieces. So theoretically, you could leave your hose full of water if you wanted. Ours is an expanding-type jobby, so we have to drain it to fit it back in it's container to store it. But basically when you disconnect the hose, there's just a tiny dribble of water that comes out and that's it. And you're not constantly compressing the rubber washer inside the hose end, so it should last much longer. You know how those always fail and you get that tiny trickle of water down the hose every time you use it? I hate that. This should help prevent (or at least prolong) that. Plus it looks awesome.

So I made up a panel for it to sit in. It's nothing too crazy, but it was a few days worth of glue-ups because of the order of operations. I couldn't do it all at once. The panel will also act as a sort of knee wall to help prevent anything falling out of the storage space when we open the door. I'm hoping my ski boots will fit in this space, we'll see once this rain stops. I did test it out yesterday, since I needed to drain the tanks anyways. Our hose reaches all the way around the van so we should be able to do a full wash periodically to keep it nice and nice. And the stretch action of the hose actually works really well as a sort of accumulator, so the water pump doesn't have to run 100% of the time. It's probably approximately 50% duty cycle. I didn't measure it, that's just a guesstimate. But the hose throbs the whole time which is creepy.

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A while back, I forget if I wrote this or not, I installed a level sensor on the tanks. I'm not sure if SCAD is the brand or the technology, honestly. It's basically an adhesive foil with wires coming off it, and you stick it to the outside of the tank. You can see it in the previous picture. Through the process of magic, this creates an electric signal that corresponds to the amount of liquid inside the tank. I don't know. I just followed the directions for once. The tanks sat at this stage for a while, because I didn't have the final location for the gauge. Then I did, and it wasn't priority because I had other stuff to get done.

But anyways, I made up a panel that's definitely temporary. It's ugly as hell. But it will act as a stencil for the final product. This has been the best operating rhythm I've found for making weird shapes that aren't exactly measurable. I make something approximate using a piece of scrap, and then I can write on it; add half inch here, remove 3/16" from this section, etc. So when I trace it onto the final piece, I account for the notes, and then it usually works first try. Would that be the second try? In any case, this allowed me to get the final length on the wiring harness to the gauge. It might not land in exactly the same spot, but there's a bit of extra length, it should be able to move a few inches. I installed the water fill port panel thing as well, but I think we're going to use something different. Imagine this, but without all the wires showing, because this is the best picture I have:

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The point is that we have a gauge to read while we're filling the water tanks. It's not in the ideal location for regular checking, but it's not difficult to access, and I suspect once we're in a rhythm of daily use, we'll have a decent feel for when we'll need to fill the fresh tanks and drain the grey tank. The most important function of the gauge will be to ensure we don't overfill the fresh tanks because it will spill out the vent. So that's one job as done as I can get it at this point. Once the bench is in place on that side, I will re-make the panel to fit more betterer and look all nice and nice.
 

rob cote

Well-known member
Is it normal on this forum for people to not interact, only read? It's fine, just not what I'm used to, so was curious.

I had a fair bit of downtime this week, so not major progress, although I am 100% caught up on work now. You'll find out what that means at the end. So. You already saw the ceiling in place before remember? Scroll back. Or don't, because it looks better now anyways. I took it all out to make adjustments. A few of the perimeter pieces needed to be trimmed a little. Everything needed to be sanded and finished. Some holes had to be slightly adjusted for better fitment, etc. You know the drill. No that's the impact wrench, I said drill.

We picked out our favorite piece of the flooring material to make the rear...I dunno...archway piece? It's this crazy birdseye piece that looks awesome with the finish applied. It took me forever and a day to shape it to the contours of the door opening to fit properly. But you guys get to skip over that part. I cut in the hole for the factory dome light as well. Here's what it looks like finished:

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So I think I mentioned that we ran into a roadblock with the mattress hitting the ceiling. Basically, it was an oversight on our part - the bed lift actually goes up as it goes down, because it moves in arcs. And I totally didn't consider that when sizing the mattress. MY BAD. So we spent several days weighing options and trying to figure out the best plan. We were ultimately stuck with the mattress we bought, regardless, so I figured what the hell, I may as well try and make it work because what's the harm? We weren't going to get any value back out of it, except through maybe donating, which I'm not even sure of any places that are accepting mattress donations. Anyway. I ripped the seams, just to have a looksie. I never opened up a mattress before.

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The piping IS the seam, which should make reassembly pretty easy, I think. For Mandy. It will be easy for her. Not me. So I was like I'll keep going I guess. I rolled it back to expose the end of the foam that is the front edge although here I'm working at the back of the van. The thing about a rectangle is it's actually symmetrical. So I could work where it's easier, and then flip it around after. So basically, I marked a line on the top that was equal to the thickness of the mattress back from the edge. So if I connected that line to the bottom edge, it would make a 45* angle, where there once was a 90* angle. I dunno if that makes sense. It's hard to describe geometry in text sometimes. You'll see in the next picture. Those of you who are impatient already saw it. I made cuts about 2" apart, give or take, connecting the line to the bottom edge. These just ensured that I didn't get too far off track as I cut across, removing each triangle one at a time.

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Ultimately, I had to go back and make the angle a bit steeper. For this, I just drew another line 2" back from my original, and again connected it to the bottom edge. So we lost about 8" of width at the top of the mattress, but the bottom is still the same and the front is a weird angle. But there's still plenty of mattress for us, and the slope actually makes entry and exit a little easier I think. It looks weird, but it works. So who cares! The mattress still brushes the ceiling during the transition, but it doesn't really hang up like it did before. One thing I have left to take care of is to lop off the corners of the steel bed frame. I just need to take out about a 1" triangle of material that's not doing anything, because this part still hits the ceiling. I ran out of steam yesterday, and we're doing a little road trip today and sleeping in the van tonight. By doing a 2-person move with the bed lift, one person can hold the front down so it doesn't gouge the ceiling, and for one night that's not a big deal. I'll deal with it tomorrow or something.

Anyway. So the ceiling went back in once the bed issue was reworked. It looks basically the same as before, but with a little bit more yellow and gloss. It's a satin finish polyurethane. I also cut the driver's side dome light into the ceiling because we totally forgot about it when we built the wall. I had seen someone else build a ceiling in this configuration. I think it was George, from Humble Road vans? I think that's the name of his YouTube channel. He's got some pretty great videos. He glued a fabric strip to the back of all the ceiling slats to help hold them together. So I tried the same. It was way too awkward to try to lift into place by myself so I ultimately ripped it off. I dunno. Maybe he had help or he did something different, but he made it look way easier. So each slat went in one at a time and I stuffed a layer of Havelock wool above so half our ceiling is insulated now. Finally. We're almost 100% insulated which is sweet.

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So that's where we're at now. We're going to a concert and tailgating out of the van. I'm stoked to cook a good dinner right in the parking lot before the show and then have a comfy spot to sleep afterwards. It's gonna be awesome. And the plan is, when we get back home tomorrow and Sunday (we get back home tomorrow, but we will continue to execute this plan on Sunday as well; we're not getting back home on two separate days - well, unless we leave and then re-return, I guess) to get as much done building our bathroom as we can. I'm hoping that it's to a point where it actually looks like something. I believe we have all the components we need on hand. But we've called in help because this one's a bit above my pay grade. Actually way above, because I'm on that zero dollars a year salary. Bye.
 

RVBarry

2023 AWD 170 DIY CamperVan
Is it normal on this forum for people to not interact, only read? It's fine, just not what I'm used to, so was curious.
Hi, build threads like this don't get a lot of conversation unless you have questions.

Your build looks great!
 

fireball05

Newly arrived 2021 144HR 4x4 passenger
I'm enjoying following along from the sidelines, but if a bit more heckling from the crowd will help you out, I'll have a few more beers and start yelling a bit louder :)
 

Massabusa

Sprinter Enthusiast!
Hi Rob!
Also following along from MA.
I agree with both things RVBarry stated.
The other reason people often comment is if they see the poster suggesting doing something that would be dangerous to themselves or others, something significantly unsafe, usually done in a kind way to be helpful and help educate...
Your build is wicked awesome- to use the MA vernacular, keep it up.
 
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