UJOR 4x4 MTB camper for family of 3

[motovan_mn]

Originally Posted by h.grenade

Hey the van is looking good! Keep up the great work. Doing a passenger van is a serious pain in the ass in a lot of tiny ways. I still love having all of the windows though.

Sorry to hear about the passenger door... oof. Thats something that I would do. haha After doing a 5000 mile/6 month trip towing a trailer without issue I get home and forgot that I put the power jack down for a minute and ripped it in half with my Ram pickup. face palm.

Thanks for the heads up on 12psi w/ the methods too. I didn't realize that you could go that low.

Just gotta chalk it up to a learning experience and tell yourself it won't happen again. At least not in the exact same circumstances... And I don't know whether 12 psi on those Methods is exactly kosher. It worked for ~15 miles in snow, but it was flat terrain without any hard obstacles. I don't know that I'd feel comfortable airing down that low in any other circumstance, except maybe soft sand.

Originally Posted by E-350

Cool, time to tease my current efforts, own thread will follow: looks like we’re at a similar stage [emoji23]

Attachment 47083

Roughly prepped the layout already:
Attachment 47084

Looking forward to see what you’re making out of it :-)

Looking good! I like the double sided bench layout w/ bed that spans the middle. If it weren't for my "requirement" of having the bikes inside while also having our kid sleep inside, that's the route I would've taken.

[motovan_mn]

Some small bits of progress over the last couple weeks:

Insulation
As I mentioned previously, there's not a whole lot of large easy panels in the rear of the passenger van. Adding Thinsulate was easier than the butyl sound deadening, but still had to use many small pieces that were roughly fit together. Lots of stuffing small bits into nooks and crannies - who knows how effective that will be, but I had the extra Thinsulate so might as well.

Plywood flooring
Roughed in some 3/4" CDX plywood by scribing the edges and cutting with a jigsaw. It's not perfect, but one edge will be covered by the storage bench/bed. Next is to apply some rubber diamond plate flooring and get it bolted up using the OEM seat mounting points. I purchased two 4x8' sheets and oriented them "east/west" in the van, so each sheet corresponds to one row of bench seat mounting holes. The cargo area is actually 7' long, so each sheet is actually 3.5' in the N/S direction. I am also going to use a 2'x3' piece bolted to the passenger side captain's seat location (directly behind the front passenger seat) which I will use for tying down our cooler. This way I can easily remove the cooler and associated flooring, and bolt in the 4th captain's seat.



Stereo, speakers, dashcam
Got the new setup installed and ran the wiring to the back for the backup cam and rear dash cam. Backup video quality is OK... nothing special but it is certainly better than not having one! The cheap Boss stereo works fine and the new speakers are an improvement over stock. I wish I had stuck with the same model speaker for all 6 locations, but instead I bought two slightly more expensive ones for the front two and cheaped out on the rear 4. They sound surprisingly different and I will need to fiddle with the EQ to find a setting that is a good compromise all around.

Running the wire for the backup cam was not too bad - UJOR already cut through one of the rubber plugs in the floor to run the backup light wiring to the rear bumper, so I just ran the video cable through the same plug. For the dash cam I ran the wire down the rear driver pillar, through the rubber "tube" that runs from the pillar to the door, and then up the inside of the rear door.

Running the wire for the front camera was a little trickier, but not too bad. Couldn't find a good way through the firewall, but found a rubber plug in the driver side footwell that I cut a small slot in. The front camera wire runs down through the footwell, along the frame, and then onto the front bumper where the camera is mounted on the license plate. It's pretty exposed and I might try to tuck it up in the grill somewhere, but this will do for now.





Ceiling Plusnuts
I originally wanted to install L-track on the ceiling running fore/aft in the van, but didn't want to deal with figuring all that out before our trip. So for now I installed some plusnuts in the existing hex-shaped holes in the ceiling ribs. I will cut some holes in the headliner and install some bolts for now, and then I can use these mounting points later for L-track or other mounting system.

The hex-shaped holes in the ceiling ribs are 12.6mm flat-to-flat, and I had trouble finding a hex rivnut that would fit. I ended up going with M6 plus nuts that are intended to be installed in a 12mm round hole. I tested a couple and they seemed to install OK by themselves, but I used some 3M DP125 epoxy on the rest of the plusnuts just to ensure they don't spin out. Not sure what the pull out strength will be, but I'm sure it will be enough for hanging a bungee net and keeping light/bulky items out of the way.




Water leakage in rear windows

Hopefully this doesn't get lost in the noise, but I found some water seeping out of the two holes at the bottom of the rear window. I know that generally water can get inside the body panels of vehicles, but I would have figured this particular cavity should be sealed due to how the window is mounted to the door. Anybody know if this is normal/common, or if this is something I need to fix?

[JWA]

Originally Posted by motovan_mn

Water leakage in rear windows

Hopefully this doesn't get lost in the noise, but I found some water seeping out of the two holes at the bottom of the rear window. I know that generally water can get inside the body panels of vehicles, but I would have figured this particular cavity should be sealed due to how the window is mounted to the door. Anybody know if this is normal/common, or if this is something I need to fix?

Hope this isn't arriving too late!?

Water leaks around those windows is somewhat common and relatively easy to fix. The butyl seal between the glass and body is either failing in place or the Acorn nuts have worked themselves loose.

Initially try carefully tightening them with nothing more than a nut driver small amounts in a circular pattern until they seem equally snug all around. Not being cautious here can and has broken the glass--even being in the auto/truck glass business I've done this.

If that doesn't work replacing the butyl sealant is a bit messy but very doable and "safe" with a bit of caution by the average DIY SMB owner.

Glad to answer any questions you might have about this process.

J W

[motovan_mn]

Originally Posted by JWA

Hope this isn't arriving too late!?

Water leaks around those windows is somewhat common and relatively easy to fix. The butyl seal between the glass and body is either failing in place or the Acorn nuts have worked themselves loose.

Initially try carefully tightening them with nothing more than a nut driver small amounts in a circular pattern until they seem equally snug all around. Not being cautious here can and has broken the glass--even being in the auto/truck glass business I've done this.

If that doesn't work replacing the butyl sealant is a bit messy but very doable and "safe" with a bit of caution by the average DIY SMB owner.

Glad to answer any questions you might have about this process.

J W

Thanks for the response! I've already reinstalled the window trim, but no big deal to pull it back off and snug up the acorn nuts. Appreciate the warning about not overtightening them.

If that doesn't do it and a butyl replacement is needed, I'll just wait to fix it until I have time to swap in my pop-open windows that have been sitting in the garage for far too long. Probably won't happen before our UP road trip, but likely soon after.

[E-350]

I replaced all butyl when repainting and to be honest: when it’s already at the point that it leaks, I found it very easy.
Cut it with a stiffer knife (I used my Swiss Army knife) and take out the window. Peel/ rub of the bigger left portions (it’s most probably already fairly hard and not that “gelly” anymore). The rest was easily done with acetone/ IPA.
On the window frame I used a not too sharp/ weared screw driver to push it off along the frame.

[motovan_mn]

A few more updates:

Trim is re-installed. Epoxied in some magnets around the window trim so we can make some window inserts down the road. Currently thinking a simple "curtain" style that has a rigid rod along the top edge, and then loose hanging fabric below that is held in place by the magnets. When not needed, they can be rolled up and secured to the rigid rod via velcro straps or the like.



The rivnuts in the ceiling crossbars worked out great. Here is the headliner re-installed with an M6 flathead bolt and finish washer. I'll decide what to mount here later. 4 mounting locations per crossbar.





A rough layout of how I want to store everything under the passenger side bench/bed.




Finished the flooring panels yesterday as well. The long lengths of L-track aren't mounted yet, and the flooring still needs to be bolted to the van floor. But it's looking pretty good. I used 3/4" plywood + vinyl flooring, and I could only find 1 1/8" metal stair nosing. So i bought 3/4" aluminum angle (1/16" thickness) and made my own trim. A little bit more work needing to drill and countersink the holes, but it looks pretty nice I think. Side note - the vinyl flooring mfg just said to use any polyurethane adhesive, so i used Loctite PL3 Premium construction adhesive since we had a bunch lying around. It didn't do a great job of adhering the flooring, but I think it will hold well enough. The biggest concern is the edges lifting up, and the trim pieces should take care of that.






Unfortunately after just one winter here in MN, the powdercoat on our UJOR bumper is already flaking off and the bare metal underneath is starting to rust. The worst area is because the bumper swingout arm directly contacts the plastic pad. I didn't think about this before, but if you look at the Aluminess design, they have a plastic pad on both the swingout AND the bumper, so that you get plastic-on-plastic sliding action. I think this is an inherent flaw of the UJOR bumper design, unfortunately. I'll have to see about shipping the swingout up higher and trying to bolt a plastic slider to the swingout, or something like that. For now I'll just hit it with rust converter and keep an eye on things.




Now I have one week to mock up the bed/bench prototype and then we hit the road for the UP!

[marret]

Looks great inside. Sucks about the bumper, I'd do the same with rust converter. Constant fight on various underbody areas.

[motovan_mn]

Wrapped up the "prototype" bed/storage platform and hit the road for 9 days. Was supposed to be 3 nights in hotels (friend's wedding in Ann Arbor) and 5 nights of camping, but I was feeling particularly crummy the last night (and had had enough of the bugs) so we ended up in a hotel on the last night. Happy to report that the van is much quieter on the road now, and it sure is nice having a backup camera and a modern stereo. I've already identified some areas for improvement - mainly the fact that with our bikes inside, the interior livable space is quite minimal. And while that might have worked OK in previous places where we lived, the bugs here are INTENSE and I think I have to be realistic about the fact that we'll want/need to spend more time inside the van than previously planned.

All in all we had a great time on the trip. Explored some remote areas, rode MTBs in Copper Harbor and Marquette, and got to catch up with some friends we hadn't seen in a couple years.

[Scalf77]

Looking good, always nice to get some prototype runs in.

-greg

[motovan_mn]

No changes made to the van, but got in another 1300 miles or so and camped a couple nights at Lake McConaughey in Nebraska. This is our second time there (first time was in the AWD Transit) and we will be back many more times. It's not particularly remote or isolated, but the beaches are incredible and the water is warm and shallow (great for kids). And not too many places you can simply drive onto the sand and make camp. Pismo was the other place we would frequent when we were in California.



Made good use of our recovery equipment dragging that little Mazda hatchback all the way out there. It probably could have made it if the damp/hardpack sand near the water was accessible, but there were enough people camped close to the water that we had to go through the softer sand.





We knew it was supposed to rain while we were there and were keeping a close eye on the weather forecast. On Friday night we got a "severe weather" alert for a nearby region warning of softball sized hail, and were also placed under a tornado watch. We were treated to an impressive lightning display about 30 miles to the West, which we enjoyed while keeping an even closer watch on the forecast. The radar map showed that the storm would be missing us by about 20 miles.

However, without warning, some very strong gusts kicked up that sent everyone scattering for shelter. After about 30 seconds of being pelted by rain/hail/sand/wind we decided to pile all 9 people into the van and drove over to the bathroom/shower structure for shelter. We ended up spending the night spread out between the van and another small sedan that we had parked by the bathrooms. Needless to say we didn't get much sleep and were pretty exhausted in the morning.

Our friends had two tents that both got blown away with much of their belongings inside of them (including a wallet and car keys). Miraculously, we were able to retrieve both tents and almost all of everyone's belongings in the morning. Our EZ-UP is completely shredded. We also were unable to close the RTT on our van due to the winds, so we drove from the beach to the bathrooms with the RTT popped up and all the tent flaps open. This meant our sleeping bags and pillows got blown out, but we ALSO were able to recover those in the morning. Had to swim out to retrieve one sleeping bag that was caught on a tree about 200 ft from shore. The CVT roof tent suffered no damage whatsoever, other than the metal rain fly poles being bent (cheap to replace). Very impressed with the build quality on that front.

After we made it to the bathroom shelter, we received an updated weather alert stating that wind gusts of 70 mph were expected. We all feel very fortunate that no one was injured and that we suffered very minimal material losses. And we've certainly come to appreciate the immense force/power behind the weather.



Cleaning up in the morning:



And the sandy aftermath while unpacking. There was so much sand in the van that our kid was playing with his sand toys at our rest stops