UJOR 4x4 MTB camper for family of 3

[motovan_mn]

Progress is being made on the van at UJOR CO. He is very good at sending frequent updates via text. He also mentioned that this is the cleanest van he's every seen, and that it's almost a shame to convert it since it's so nice stock. That made me feel pretty good about pulling the trigger on this van!

[motovan_mn]

Just another week and we'll be flying out to pick it up!

As the van has been sitting at UJOR CO the "to do" list for Justin has gradually gotten longer and longer. I started out with having him do just the basics for the 4x4 conversion, and intended to do as much as possible of the "extra" work myself. But, as the projects around the house started piling up it started seeming like a better idea to have Justin complete more work on the van while it was in his hands.

I'm the type of person that HATES letting anyone work on my vehicles, but I know it's in good hands. Nevertheless, I'm definitely feeling a sense of guilt about not doing more of the work myself, but it is what it is. Too many things to get done and not enough time to do them all. Gotta outsource!

Roof rack and RTT still need to be installed.

[aarcaris]

It's Look good! I totally agree with that feeling of handing off your vehicle to someone else, but sometimes it really is the best decision. Like you said at least you know it's in good hands with Justin!

[NoR32]

I loved reading through this. Good updates from you and Justin.

[motovan_mn]

Originally Posted by NoR32

I loved reading through this. Good updates from you and Justin.

Thanks! Most of it was all musings and no substantial action, but I'm glad you enjoyed it.

The update we've all been waiting for: We flew in to Denver last week and picked up the van! It served as a fantastic shuttle vehicle for hauling around 8 of us for a few days, and then we dropped most of my family off at the airport and started driving back to MN. Didn't get to hit any trails but I did get a chance to engage 4WD during the unexpected snow storm that dumped several inches.

Overall the van drives great! No bump steer or death wobble whatsoever, the suspension feels fairly compliant and well-tuned to the weight of the van, and of course it looks completely badass. It doesn't drive as well on the road as our AWD Transit did (a little more body roll and seems to require a little more input at the steering wheel to stay in lane), but that's to be expected. The minor sacrifice in on-road handling will be more than made up for by the increased off-road capability. I'm glad I was talked into the 6" lift kit as we still managed to hit the bump stops on the front suspension driving too fast over a speed hump. Can't imagine having 2" less travel with the 4" kit.

As I took some time poking my head around underneath the van, it became more and more apparent the amount of care Justin takes in his craft. A prime example: every bolt is marked with a paint pen after being torqued down, 1) to indicate to Justin that it was torqued, and 2) to serve as a visual marker in case any bolts start to loosen up over time.

The only issue I came across on the drive home is that the gas dispenser at the gas station would splash some gas out of the filler neck after the auto-shutoff clicks. It was almost as if the auto-shutoff was detecting that the tank was "full" a second too late, causing some extra gas to be dispensed. I'm texting back and forth with Justin to try to get this figured out. I'm not positive it's something due to the conversion as the issue didn't occur the first couple fillups after I picked up the van, but he's been willing to help nonetheless. The issue occured at 3 different stations (fillups # 3, 4, and 5 after picking up the van), but after that I started using a slower fill setting on the gas dispenser and that seems to have helped. Justin suggested perhaps there might be an issue with the rollover valve so that is what I'll be looking into next. Unfortunately by the time I had discovered the issue, we were well on our way to MN, so I wasn't able to bring the van back to the shop.

Not too many "glamor" shots, but here are a couple to get started:

[BroncoHauler]

Originally Posted by motovan_mn

...As I took some time poking my head around underneath the van, it became more and more apparent the amount of care Justin takes in his craft. A prime example: every bolt is marked with a paint pen after being torqued down, 1) to indicate to Justin that it was torqued, and 2) to serve as a visual marker in case any bolts start to loosen up over time.

That's a great indication of attention to detail and workmanship.


Herb

[motovan_mn]

Hey folks,

Just a few minor updates, but I figured some of you might find this stuff useful.

Floor liners:
I ordered the Husky floor liners for the front (PN 33251), and they fit fine. The material feels cheaper than the Weathertechs I usually order, and I think I prefer the Weathertech design overall just a little more. Will probably just keep the Huskys for now.

For the rear floor liners, the only "perfect fit" ones I could find were the Ford All-Weather mats, PN BC2Z-1613300-AD. These come as a set of 4: front driver, front passenger, and 2 long rectangular ones for the 2nd and 3rd row bench seats. I cannot for the life of me figure out how the two rectangular mats are supposed to be arranged. They are slightly different in width/length, but they do not fit "perfectly" in either position. Oh well, better than nothing and I'll probably just end up keeping these as well.


Passenger swivel install:
Ordered a swivel from blingmyrig.com, and overall this went very smoothly. Must've been unlucky because I managed to pull out one of the rear studs that bolt the seat base to the floor. No biggie, just replaced it and went about the installation. I also could not figure out how to cleanly disassemble the seatbelt tensioner connector, so I ended up accidentally damaging the connector. I just cut it out completely and replaced with bullet connectors per 1der's suggestion in his video. Installed 1/2" split loom over the harness, but the bullet connectors didn't quite fit, so I put an additional length of 3/8" diameter split loom in that section just for aesthetics.



The connector PNs are E-2238-001 and E-2238-001, in case anybody wants to try and purchase new connectors and/or figure out how to disassemble them correctly. My guess is that the red plastic clips that snap into place (and presumably secure the terminals in the connector housing) are not intended to be easily removed.
Disconnecting the two mating connectors is fairly easy but may not be immediately intuitive to some: slide the red clip back (#1) and then depress the yellow tab (#2).


The damaged connector:



Rear Captain's Seats:
I bought an old, ripped, and non-matching rear captain's seat from my buddy for real cheap a few weeks ago. However, I happened to come across a post on the UJOR FB group for a pair of tan seats (the correct color) in mint condition. They were located all the way in Vermont, so I messaged the seller to see if he'd be willing to hold them until I was able to arrange a shipment through uShip. However, as it turns out, the seller's nephew just happened to be leaving Vermont that same morning and driving to a suburb just 15 minutes from Minneapolis! Couldn't have worked out better, so now I have a pristine set of captain's seats that I'll be installing. Just need to figure out the seatbelt buckle situation, as the seats came from a 2006 van and ours is a 2013. Might be able to pull the buckles from the original bench seat, but I haven't looked into it too much yet.



Transfer Case Trim Piece Issue:
I discovered that the t-case would not stay engaged in 4-low. I could shift into 4-low, but as soon as I started driving it would pop out of engagement. Turns out the T-case shifter trim piece was mounted offset by about 1", and was preventing the shift lever from fully engaging 4-low. An easy enough fix to move it to the correct position.

How the trim piece was originally positioned:


New trim piece location (you can see the outline of where it used to be):



Fuel spillage issue:
As I described in my previous post, I started having some auto-shutoff issues at the gas pump where the auto-shutoff would kick in, but a small amount of gas would splash out of the filler neck. I discovered that the rubber hose connecting the fill neck to the gas tank had a pretty severe kink in it, so I shortened the rubber hose a bit to alleviate the issue. Unclear if it solved the spillage issue yet, but I will report back.




For the T-case shifter and fuel spillage issues, I texted Justin to let him know just so he was able to react to the feedback on his future builds. However, he went as far as to offer to reimburse me for my time spent fixing the issue. It was such quick work that I declined his offer, but I thought that was a positive indicative of the type of business he's running. Of course, the most ideal situation would have been to not have these issues in the first place, but I suppose mistakes happen.

[motovan_mn]

Well, this van was supposed to be a MTB and family hauler, but here we are pretending to be a moto van! The lack of tie down points makes it a real challenge, but I left the 2nd row bench seat in and squeezed an Alta Redshift MX and an Yamaha TT-R 125 in the back to go flat track racing. Makes for a pretty compact paddock setup! I'm adding a wheel chock/tiedown solution to my projects list.

[E-350]

Sweet! Nice to see an Alta here! A friend has one and is now driving it back in Germany :-)

[Twoxentrix]

Originally Posted by motovan_mn

I'm adding a wheel chock/tiedown solution to my projects list.

I like the progress!
You've come to the realization your LIST will never dwindle in size - correct???