The Candy Van - 1982 Econoline E100

You sir, have built a rolling lounge/living room!  It just keeps getting awesomer.

ClemSparks said:

You sir, have built a rolling lounge/living room!  It just keeps getting awesomer.

Thanks!  We keep chipping away at it.  The goal is a cool, comfortable driver and I think we are getting there.  

This weekend we finished up the seats.  It was a little more involved that we were expecting.

The stock seat belts did not fit with the seats.  They wanted to occupy the same space as the seat bottom.  

The seat was keeping them from reaching the frame.  As you can see there was a pretty big gap.

The old seat brackets had an extension on them.  Obviously there were some changes to seat belts over the years because there are holes that match up with the ones on the rotating brackets under the extension.

Luckily I had some universal 3 point belts from the CJ5 project that fit well.  

The drivers seat doesn't rotate 180, but it does go further than in this picture.  The back hits the steering wheel.  It looks like if I had tilt it would clear.  Unfortunately I don't think tilt and 3 on the tree and exist in the same column.  At least Ive never seen it.

You can sort of see it in the picture above, but there is a lot more surface rust on the floorboard that I thought there was.  I am going to need to address that soon.  The current plan is to enjoy it over the summer and bring it into the garage for rust repair over the winter.  I want to fix the little bits on the rear wheel wells before finishing the interior.  Plus the bottoms of the doors had some bondo slapped on them at some point and its starting to fall out and that will need fixed.

When we put the mattress in the back before the World Tour of Texas we zip tied a fitted sheet to it as a cover.  This weekend, thanks to a couple YouTube videos and a video call with my Grandmother-In-Law, we were able to finally make a permanent cover out of some burnt orange marine vinyl.  We are pretty happy with how it turned out.

nice!!

In reply to logdog (Forum Supporter) :

Excellent! Very period-correct. Did you need a heavy duty sewing machine to make it?

eastpark said:

In reply to logdog (Forum Supporter) :

Excellent! Very period-correct. Did you need a heavy duty sewing machine to make it?

We did it with a basic tabletop Kenmore machine from the 80s that was handed down to my wife a long time ago.  We used a heavier upholstery fabric needle and thread.  The marine vinyl wasn't as thick as I was afraid it would have been when I ordered it.

Not much as far mods recently.  We have been just enjoying it over the last couple months.

A few pics from a camping trip in the Catskills last week.

We basically had the place to ourselves!

Wow!  MI campgrounds are full to capacity.   

That van looks right at home in the woods.

wawazat said:

Wow!  MI campgrounds are full to capacity.   

Most of the ones in NY are as well.  This campground is a satellite location geared towards trail horses of a bigger campground up the road.  The main one has a beach,  modern bathrooms, a playground, stuff like that.  This location has pit toilets and horse stalls but also is between a couple creeks and trailheads.  When we looked at availability over the weekend dates it was basically sold out.  The secret seems to be to use an Equestrian campground in the middle of the week! 

BlueInGreen - Jon (Forum Supporter) said:

That van looks right at home in the woods.

The paint is the perfect color to blend right in.  Plus the blue lights we installed before the Texas Rally worked great for giving enough light to see but not disturb the night!

I'm a big fan of your molester van. It's so sketchy looking, but so damn nice. I'm glad you're getting good use out of it. 

We saw in a youtube video where someone had a scratch off map of their van's travels.  We thought it was a pretty good idea and ordered one too.  As far as I know this van never left York PA for the first 36 years of its life, now its got 13 states under its belt.  

I have been wanting to add a hitch for awhile.  Not for towing,  I cant even imagine what a pain that would be with this van, but for stuff like hitch baskets and bike racks.  We found a Amazon Warehouse deal and got it for 80 bucks.  Cant beat that.

I took the time to make a custom hitch cover.  Its made from the old fire extinguisher bracket from the Chumpcar.  

We spent the last 3 nights doing some Van Camping at a local state park.  

Hammock Life is nice!

A few takeaways now that we have had a couple multiple night camping trips that did NOT involve a racetrack.

I need to get the interior finished.  It desperately needs better storage solutions and I wasn't going to install cabinets until the walls are done.

The bed will need redone.  We can sleep ok on the current bed, but when the walls are done I will lose a couple inches of room.  As it is my head touches the insulation on the driver's side, and my feet are flatly planted on the passenger side insulation.  I will likely do a version of  this type of bed as seen on REI's blog.

I need to get a better hatchet.  The Walmart Special we have had for 15 years has finally made me annoyed enough to replace it, rather than just annoyed enough to THREATEN to replace it when I am using it. 

Awesome!

Looking forward to see the bed project come together.  

logdog said:

Mmmmm.  Smelly.......

 

Welp... The new heater core lasted a year.....

Im rather indifferent to the Metal vs Phenolic piston debate, but the van has a complete set!