Building my Adventure Van (2011 NCV3)

[Cheyenne]

I can still see it, the camo isn't working!

You need to go forwards another couple of hundred feet

 

[Geek]

I will post photos from the good camera next week.

.mobile

 

[CheckMax]

.mobile

How did you find the van drove on the sand?

 

[gvb]

lol Dave - for the Sprinter's shop
The house, garage, other shop, etc are already together

I still haven't figured out how I'm going to get the Sprinter up the driveway in the winter however... it is a crazy steep switchback mountain driveway.

It is so steep that one morning (dry summer day) I was going down it and remembered I forgot something. I stopped the van and went to back up and the van sat there spinning.

I had to go to the bottom and take a run to go back up.

Hmmmmm! Time for a 4X4 conversion?

 

[Geek]

Spent the last few days on North Padre and now we are down on South Padre. Need to be a lot more careful driving here.. The beach is super soft. I was told a professional tow will cost you $1500. I would rather not find out. 80 degrees.

.mobile

 

[hein]

We've been in SPI for about a week. I got stuck just off the side of the north park road today when trying to make a U-turn with the trailer. Unhooked the trailer, dug out the sand around the tires drove out. Then went for a nice high wind kiteboard session on the Laguna Madre over by the Convention Center. (it has WIFI so Kim was doing computer work while I was out riding.)

Hope you are not on the beach tonight. The wind will drive water way up at high tide.

 

[Geek]

Nice! We saw some of the kite boarding going on out there today. Crazy winds!
The storm surge drove us off the beach for tonight; which is cool as we were due for hot showers

I think we will head for Big Bend next.

Apparently our cat sitter had to park at the bottom and snowshoe up to our house. No hurry to get home.


.mobile

 

[Geek]

The fun is over

look close and you can see the Sprinter at the bottom of my driveway this afternoon

 

[230321a]

The fun is over

look close and you can see the Sprinter at the bottom of my driveway this afternoon

Got Jeep?

 

[Geek]

2 hours of plowing and an hour with the snowblower and the Sprinter is now parked in its shop at the top

 

[Doug M.]

The fun is over

look close and you can see the Sprinter at the bottom of my driveway this afternoon

Sandy beaches one day and snow drifts the next day. Walking in a winter wonderland.
You have to admit------it's a great bobsled run. Thanks for all your pics, on vacation and off.

 

[GeorgeRa]

Ouch, that is a lot of work. I don't know what is the surface of your driveway but is it possible to install a heated driveway. I was considering heated driveway in Corvallis OR, but for these few days of snow I could not justify. We left our vehicles several times on the county cleaned road and enjoy a few days of time off.

Good luck,

George.

 

[Geek]

 

[Geek]

What a great way to wake up.

Sunrise Christmas Eve, 2014.

 

[Geek]

 

[Geek]

 

[Graphite Dave]

I think your solution for the snowed in driveway was elegant.

 

[Geek]

Random update: working on interior wall panels (I'll come back and add other missing reports when I have time)

Was told that 3M 90 glue works well in cold temps...
I picked up 2 cans at HD - $14 each :ouch

So I decided to try some "small insignificant" panels to test this 3M 90 and its compatibility with this fabric.

Cut out a piece...

Spray with the 3M using cardboard to catch overspray (I have a huge pile of cardboard I made out of slicing down our moving boxes that I keep just for this purpose)

Wait 3 minutes...

bond the first surface and then spray around the edges of the back of the masonite.. eat sammich the wife brought out while I wait for it to set a bit

et voila! One end cap.

 

[Geek]

I had a bit of a panic attack in the middle of night last night:
"Am I an idiot and ordered 4 foot wide fabric with my panels being 4 foot wide I won't be able to wrap them!?!"

Whew... I'm not an idiot.. I bought 56" wide fabric

Working on ceiling panels. Damn egg shaped van

This board is 56" wide at the front and 54.6" wide at the back. Of course I didn't know those measurements to start with so it took a series of tapered cuts to bring it down to the right size.

Screwing things up when working with this much of the fabric would be expensive. Considering I have no idea what I'm doing all I can do is cross my fingers and hope I do it right.

Have to work fast as the working time on the glue is about 10 miniutes and it takes several minutes to spray all of the wood and all of the fabric. This one panel used about 2/3 of a $13 can of glue :huh

Definitely a two person job. My wife and I held the fabric like a really taught bed sheet and then lowered it on to the spray covered panel. Then I took the roller and worked from the middle out.

Came out pretty nice :thumbsup:

Now for a real shoulder workout to mount the damn thing to the ceiling.

This photo is placed here for my own future reference

 

[Geek]

My wife's the best. Only one small whimper about her "arms were about to fall off" when I broke the drill bit and she had to stand there holding it over her head while I went and grabbed a new one - lol. Came out great!

The dog helped too.