So I just got my first fire dispatch of the season and spent 7 days in Sierra Vista, AZ. While I was down there I had my beautiful girlfriend clean the van for me in preparation for the trip to SoCal with her and the grandma in the van. This is the first real cleaning it's had since prior to the Baja 1000 trip in November. I bet there was a 1/16" of dust/dirt/sand on the plastic interior panels. It's the cleanest it has been for awhile. Almost worth a photo. Almost.
Another multi-thousand mile road trip complete. No hickups with the Motovan. I did recharge the AC and it's ice cold now. I didn't even add any oil to the engine over the trip. I did unfortunately learn that I don't like dogs as much as I thought I did and I definitely don't like big black labs shedding in the van all day long. I did pick up the new front bumper in San Diego, as well as a steering stabilizer kit and another add a leaf. I had the alignment redone right before the trip and asked for maximum caster. I now have 3.0 degrees on the left and 4.3 on the right. It goes straight pretty well, added some weight to the steering which is good because it felt way overboosted. I think with the steering stabilizer added in it's going to be great.
Bumper looks sweet!
My stepfather is bringing over some of his left over POR-15 this weekend for the bumper. I just ordered some silver POR-15 topcoat because the van lives outside in the sun and apparently the original stuff doesn't like UV. I need to throw my winch on and see if the bolt pattern matches Jeremy's winch. Then I can clean the thing up and paint it. I'm also looking forward to having it permanently wired. I might even stuff the solenoid under the hood to keep it cleaner looking. I'm not sure about putting any additional lighting on the bumper at the moment. It would be nice to have some extra high beam lighting that I can use on public roads. The lightbar is dangerous to oncoming traffic.
I've been out of town for work for the last month or so. Finally got home and prepped the bumper and painted in POR-15. The black base coat stuff went on pretty nicely. The silver Top Coat from POR-15 didn't settle out as smoothly. It takes like 4 days to fully harden so I'll reserve final judgement until then. I can say for certain that I totally berkeleyed up and should have taken up the offer from WeldTec to have it powder coated prior to pickup. There were so many hard to reach surfaces, nooks and crannies that I hated the experience. I skipped powder coating because of the cost and because I wanted to have something I could touch up on my own. I decided against bedliner or spray paint and went with POR-15 because it has such a hard and durable finish. I didn't know that it was susceptible to UV rays. I also don't have a paint gun so I put the stuff on with a foam brush and roller. Major pain in the ass. I didn't finally get started painting until the afternoon, and with 3 coats and dry time in between I finished at about 1:30 in the morning. All in all it was a friggin' nightmare that I would do differently if I could.
Update on the 5 Star tuning. I previously got almost 14 MPG on the highway, and with any of the three tunes, economy, performance, or towing, I got less than 11 under identical circumstances. I tested many tanks of gas and pissed away a lot of money making sure that these unbelievable numbers were true. I've gone back to the stock tune. I called and told them my numbers and they said they would look at the tune and see if there was something amiss. No one called me. I'm going to try to return it, but since I bought the thing in January I'm not sure how well it will be received. I forsee disputing the charge through Paypal since the product/service was so fraudulent. I will say that the transmission shifting was slightly better, but still no replacement for swapping to shorter rear gears. I still plan to swap gears once I make up my mind on tire size. I'm leaning towards sticking with the stock tires size.
Lastly, my brother has really been interested in buying my van from me. He's ready to sell his Tundra and get an adventure type van. He said he'd be happy to pay me what I have into Gertrude. I guess roughly around $13k. I'm still contemplating this, but it wouldn't be until this fall anyway. I'd go with a box truck or van as a replacement. However, after this last project of painting the bumper, I'm not inclined to take on a new vehicle build. There are a few things I'd like to do differently, but nothing bad enough to want to start all over. I'd almost certainly end up spending more money too. I'd either go with even better, longer travel 2WD suspension, or 4WD.
Thanks for the update on the tuner. Guess I am glad I didnt pony up for one.
Called 5 Star and they talked me into testing a revised tune. If it doesn't work I can return for a full refund, no restocking fee.
In reply to Petrolburner:
That sounds pretty good. Hope the new tune works out, but I guess if it doesn't they are happy to take it back.
First coat of POR-15 was black, then I did two coats of the silver TopCoat.
I also installed the FOX IFP steering stabilizer kit from WeldTecDesigns. I haven't played around with the pressure yet, but she sure goes down the highway nicely and is really easy to drive through the rough stuff. It also added some weight to the over-boosted power steering which is a nice benefit.
Picked up two different styles of Thule bike racks at my local outdoor gear consignment store and made some mounts for the floor of the Motovan using the same tee nuts that I use for mounting the dirt bike wheel chocks to the removable piece of plywood. I can take two mountain bikes and one dirt bike now. The two different styles should allow me to adapt to more frame styles for friend's bikes. My Giant Trance fits both, but my Mrazek single speed only fits in the tray on the right. Next time I have two dirtbikes loaded up I'll mark the center position so I can take two dirtbikes plus a mountain bike in between the two.
Very Nice! Its amazing how much crap fits in there.
java230 wrote: Very Nice! Its amazing how much crap fits in there.
I've been thinking it's just too darn small lately.
In reply to Petrolburner:
Mrazek? Cool. I haven't seen one of those in a long time.
It's funny... I love the suspension mods you've done and it give me bad ideas (and rekindles old memories about pre-runner trucks in 80's 4x4 mags), but I know they would be totally pointless here on the east coast. Anywhere a stock height van couldn't go around here would probably warrant 4WD anyway. Except maybe the steering stabilizer. Anything that can make Twin I-Beam feel less vague is a good thing.
Petrolburner wrote:java230 wrote: Very Nice! Its amazing how much crap fits in there.I've been thinking it's just too darn small lately.
Thats because you pack it to the roof every time! Time for a little trailer?
In reply to java230:
I've got lots of hobbies to fulfill! I have the Aliner if I'm going to haul a trailer. I just don't like all the negatives that come with hauling a trailer to unknown remote areas. Like a dead end and having to turn around.
I watched the Kombi Life YouTube series recently and I envy the simplicity. I just filled out the paperwork to take the month of November and December off this year and I intend to be in Baja that whole time if I'm allowed to. I'd consider changing the layout to be more of a camper for that length of time.
In reply to Ian F:
The suspension mods were aimed equally at increasing ability as well as speed and comfort. Stock springs were just totally unacceptable. It felt like it had two inches of travel and it was always hitting the bump stops.
I'm loving the new bike mounts!
I was glad I left one of the wheel chocks in the other day when I had to load 3 bikes. One passenger had to sit on the refrigerator as I had just taken out the mount for the third seat the night before. It was a short drive.
I rode at Smith Rock State Park last night. Gorgeous as always.
The best part of any ride...the post-ride beer!
Well, the big news around here is that I've asked for November 1st through December 31st as leave without pay, and my boss signed off on the form! I'm planning to spend the majority of November and December in Baja this year. I'll be solo for the most part, and I'm trying to maximize the space so that I can live in the van comfortably. I'm trying to find a better solution for gear storage and cooking/cleaning setup. The hard part is that the fridge is huge, and I can't put anything on top of it or it won't open. I'm thinking a single drawer underneath it might be worthwhile, like those mid layer toolbox drawers. It would be easy if I wasn't planning to take my XR650R and my mountain bike. Maybe just leaving the mountain bike at home would be worth it. Any space saving ideas for my floor plan from the hive? It would be really nice to be able to utilize both my spinning front seats. I think I could put the XR on the passenger side and the mountain bike on the left side, with the MTB mounted as far back as possible. That would leave me some space in front of the bike to work with.
Bike on a carrier ok the back? Throw it inside whenever your away.
I'd build a couple drawers for under the fridge if you have room vertically
Bike outside, hammock inside?
I've already got a sleeping loft inside so I don't need to sleep in my hammock. I do have room to hang the hammock up inside when the bike is out and that may be a good solution for guest sleeping quarters. My Dad might airline down to La Paz for a few days.
I think building a custom drawer under the fridge might be the best idea. If the fridge is closest to the door, I can move it up a foot in the air easily. I can stack three of the black and yellow containers behind the driver's seat just fine, then the fridge, and I still have room to sit with the passenger seat swiveled backwards.
Here's the layout I'm talking about. I could build a drawer for under the fridge to make use of some space. I'd like to be able to get into the fridge easily from the doorway, and if I can retain some open space near the door to get in and out, so much the better. I can drive just fine with the passenger seat like that. When it's reclined against the dash, I can see the passenger side mirror just fine.
For whatever it's worth, my hope when building a similar van is the dirt bike will live outside on a hitch-mount carrier.
When I had my old E150, my DH bike (which is longer than a typical XC mtn bike) was able to fit across the width of the van. While your set-up is cool, it does take up a lot of floor space. I'd look into mounting the bike carrier to a wall near the rear door. Maybe behind the hanging bed?
One thing that would concern me about that type of fridge is how it rejects heat into the interior of the van, vs. an RV fridge which rejects the heat through side wall vents. While I doubt it'll be a concern during Nov and Dec, I just did a camping trip last weekend in NJ when temps were in the 90's most of the time with brutal humidity. Regardless, looking at the picture above - maybe build a platform over that plastic bin and mount the fridge on top. Slide the bin out when you need to access contents.
Like I've mentioned in other RV threads, building a toy-hauler RV out of a van is a challenge I've been pondering for years. I'm hoping to get started on building one when I return home from this assignment in NH.
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