We wanted to go ahead and start a thread about our build and what it is being intended for. We are the couple that purchased RallyPanAm's previous van and drove it back to Florida in April. For six years we've been planning a sabbatical and we have finally reached the point where we are going to do it. Our plan, which isn't much, is to travel North, Central & South America for 4-5 years or until we're broke. We'll probably attempt the Pan Am but aren't focused on it as a must do. Letting go and just living for some time is our priority so we'll get to and end up where ever.
Enough of that... on to what's been done to the van. We've really just started so not much has been accomplished. We replaced the existing two windows with CRL awning ones. We planned to outsource this but no one in our area was willing to do it so we jumped in a did it ourselves. We used pictures of builds from this forum and received some much needed guidance from Sportsmobile Texas. We have a blog entry on our website, which needs to be redesigned, so as we get a chance we'll add some of the details here.
Mostly we've stripped the van (I think we found your missing wardrobe Robb
) and have been preparing it to be built-out for our adventure. We are weekend warriors so progress will be a bit slow but we are hoping to have the majority of it completed for Overland Expo East in October. Our van already has a Sportsmobile penthouse top so as long as it has seats in it we're mostly good to go.
Our build is very basic, we'll get some type of rendering up soon - might be in the edgy new wave kindergarten scratch, as we don't want to have permanent on board systems. Jerry cans, Porta potti, Engel fridge, flexsteel couch/bed, single 4D, Solar... you get the idea. As of right now A/C and heat are off the table but we may leave a space for an Espar. The back of the van will have a couple shelves spanning it for storage. Our WW kayaks might not make the cut so a roof rack is also out, for now.
We decided to drop the Renuel bumpers, gonna list them for sale soon, and have ordered some Alunminess goodness. We have also purchased new captains chairs and are on Ramsey's list for a R.I.P. (Ahem, if you guys want one for people to see at Overland East we'll be there... not trying to move up the list or anything.)
More to come but if you want to see what we've done so far please visit our blog at
http://www.johnandmandi.com/pages/blog
-John and Mandi (.com)