Petrolburner wrote:
Petrolburner wrote:
I might just make a shelf for the fridge that's tall enough that I can bolt down one of my latest Motovan goodies. It's really heavy and needs to be anchored well.
When I went to the Baja 1000 last year, one of the guys there had an aluminum floor jack from Harbor Freight with a cool aluminum skid plate on it so it would work in the dirt. I thought this was a great idea, and it would probably be a lot more stable than my factory jack.
http://dmzfab.com/product/jack-skid-plate-for-harbor-freight-2-ton-racing-jack/
I figured that I could make one that would still keep the wheels, so I could use it on a hard surface still. Now that my friend has a plasma cutter, TIG welder, and I have some thick sheets of aluminum from the wheelchair lift, why not?
This is how I left it. There's a metal bender in my hangar at work, so I figured I'd just use that to make the front and rear tip up. Stupid. It's a sheet metal bender, and that aluminum is 5/16" thick. Even if I had the right bender with enough power, it would have just cracked anyway. Stupid. Two weeks later and I had a day off, so back to Matt's shop.
Cut most of the way through the plate, use two crescent wrenches for leverage and bend until it nearly snaps off. Just enough of a shred of metal hanging on that it stayed in place and didn't need a tack.
Now, I've gained another floor jack that works on or off pavement. Next up will be the mount. I'm leaning towards a shelf for the fridge, and mount this underneath using one of the original seat mount bolt holes.
I like this. I took aluminum sheet a few months ago and put it under the ENTIRE jack (for use in rallycross/dirt/gravel) and found that it just didn't slide well at all. I took it off and went back to carrying a piece of plywood as a jacking surface. I like your idea though - please let me know how it works in practice!
So it flipped to the next page and no one read about my add a leaf struggle? 
Ian F
MegaDork
9/12/16 7:10 a.m.
Petrolburner wrote:
So it flipped to the next page and no one read about my add a leaf struggle?
OK... I have perhaps a stupid question - but having done this sort of thing before... 25 years ago...
Instead of installing the add-a-leaf with the spring on the van, why not remove the two additional bolts and do it on the bench or ground? So that having to drop the axle so far was less of an issue?
No more stink bug! Looks good. I am envious of your nicely riding van.....
In reply to Ian F:
I think the process of doing it without removing the spring is supposed to be the easy way. Once I put the jack stand on the opposite side I was able to get plenty of clearance.
java230 wrote:
No more stink bug! Looks good. I am envious of your nicely riding van.....
The extra leaf makes it slightly softer and more progressive. Win-win combined with the extra travel. I probably would just get custom spring packs if I were to do it over again though. Oh well.
Previously approved leave from Nov 1st to Dec 31st was just overruled by upper management. Not sure how much use I'll be getting out of my new wetsuit and stand up paddleboard now.
Petrolburner wrote:
Previously approved leave from Nov 1st to Dec 31st was just overruled by upper management. Not sure how much use I'll be getting out of my new wetsuit and stand up paddleboard now.
That sucks man, but the van looks good
It'll all work out I'm sure. Building the loft today, plywood is already cut as well as the two cross beams.
Carboard template for the cutout around the air conditioning outlet.
I used tee nuts to attach the 2x4 cross beams to the 3/4" maple plywood.
I looked at methods to countersink the bolt heads, but I just pulled them tight with the impact. Good enough.
So I used a 2x2 as a spine on the bottom, hoping that would be enough to stiffen the plywood for use to sleep on. I put some heavy stuff on either end and jacked up the middle to put some reverse arch in it while I screwed it in place. It definitely wasn't enough to combat the sag. It only had maybe 3/4" of sag with just me in it, but with two of us and bedding over many nights I didn't think it would work. I was planning to use the 2x2 to mount the removable pillar, a 2x4. I decided to make some plywood side boards that would rest on the ledges instead. I didn't want to be locked into needing the pillar for support. I also made that 2x2 off center to avoid interference with the handlebars of a dirtbike.
These ends looked like they were going to cause pain in the future so I beveled the edges with my sawzall.
Here's the finished product showcasing my beautiful partner and the plywood scabs on the side. She's standing on her tip toes to look that tall 
There's no sag with both of us laying up there. I'll skip the 2x4" pillar, no need.
I have room to stand in front of the bed and behind it within the van.
There's room for my inflatable SUP to sit up there with the fins on and everything.
For my solar shower, I think I can probably just slide the SUP backwards six feet and lay the bag of water on the board. It should be high enough for me to take a normal height shower underneath. Double bonus bro! 
Next up, mounting my fancy battery box for the two golf cart batteries I robbed from my camper. I'll also need to wire up some lights for below the new loft since they pretty much block all the light from the 4 dome lights. I wanted some more hard wired interior lights anyway, with better switch access. The dome lights are just wired to the front and side doors, and the manual override on the light switch. Not real convenient for taking a piss in the middle of the night.
I also need to mount this.
This will all have to wait as I'm down in SoCal for some more action.
It's hot.
Looks great! I think you will really enjoy the awning. Shade over the side doors any time is awesome.
Awesome! Great progress. Let us know how that awning works, I've been looking at those.
Tom Suddard wrote:
Awesome! Great progress. Let us know how that awning works, I've been looking at those.
I have a CVT model on my truck. Its awesome to have 
I was planning on CVT, but they didn't call me back. Auto Anything had a sale and as I was going through the checkout process just to check the final price, I accidentally bought it. $230 was a good deal and now I'll have no issues if I want to add any of the ARB accessories. They're less expensive than the comparable CVT stuff.
So an identical high top E350 with the tall rear doors just popped up for sale near me...you're making that very tempting. Cool build!
Would some trimmed angle iron under the plywood not stiffen it up?
i.e. trim the ends 6" so that it fits on the ledge where you have the plywood scabs. then run it across.
Should only need 2 or three 2"x2"x1/8" and greatly increase the stiffness. (even the kind made out of aluminum would work.)
In reply to Mad_Ratel:
That would probably have worked too. It wouldn't have overlapped the ledge though, so I would have just run it full length.
Long overdue for an update. I did some work to the van, took it to Moab UT for ten days of dirt bike and mountain bike riding, broke my wrist, got Nov-14th to December 14th off approved, bought an airline ticket for Kathleen to fly to Cabo on the 26th and back North on the Dec 6th. That will give us a week and a half to run around the Southern portion of Baja together. I just got the cast put on my wrist Friday, and they're going to cut it off next Thursday and hopefully give me a hard plastic cast that I can wear in the ocean.
Oh that sucks! Wreck your bike? Good to hear you got some leave scheduled anyway.
I cut a piece of plywood to fill in the gap between the wall so the battery box could be level and bolted down with more tee nuts.
I moved the Blue Sea fuse panel from the rear of the van to here. This interior panel is easily removed which makes it easy to get at the fuses.
It used to be behind this panel.
I could sort of get at it by pulling out one of the fuzzy gray panels now that the hydraulic unit wasn't there. I traded that battery box I couldn't use to my brother for this gray plastic from his parts van.
You can also see that I popped in a 12 volt outlet for future use. I picked up a 12 volt fluorescent trouble light too.
This was a bit of a PITA to install because the rubber floor is higher than standard so I had to cut a half an inch off the whole thing. The plastic melted with the saw and immediately resealed behind the blade. I'm guessing this would be really easy stuff to plastic weld.
java230 wrote:
Oh that sucks! Wreck your bike? Good to hear you got some leave scheduled anyway.
Riding "The Whole Enchilada" on mountain bikes, I came down this series of rock ledges too slowly and went over the handlebars and sprained both wrists, smacked my knee and my head. Turns out I sprained the left wrist bad enough to get an avulsion fracture of the triquetreum. I still had to finish the bike ride and I rode my dirt bike for the next three days on gnarly, technical stuff. It only hurt when I flexed it. If my wrist stayed in a straight line it was fine.
