Lots of non-van related responsibilities as of late plus nearly 3 weeks of unusually rainy weather here on the front range slowed me down as well because I don't have a shop to work in. Moved through plenty of highs and lows too, with my comfort in taking on this task, but I think I should be able to make everything happen.
Here's my old Toyota pickup...the first vehicle in which I did my own honest to goodness solo road trip...about 3k miles up in to BC, down the west coast and across deserts back to the midwest. Daryl was it's name after the old guy I bought it from back in Iowa...an '81 with 60k miles was new to me in 2001. My middle name is Fred and I was a "truck patch" farmer. Man, I don't have any pictures of it but I had this six foot topper on it and used to haul my produce, and an Amish guy's produce and flowers to market in it. That truck did more work over the years than most trucks do in America these days. Those were the days. Then I just became a gardener, and now a middle school Biology teacher. When I went back to school to get my teaching degree I took a summer off for that trip. Put a Weber carb in it before I left and that little 22r ran like a top the whole time. Pretty sure I had to replace the slave cylinder in the clutch somewhere near SLC on separate trip though. Rust was its demise...it was taking over by the time I'd bought Daryl and with the time and money I had those days I was just putting bandaids on it. Decided to enter the modern world when i moved to Colorado for my first teaching job...I hear it's still on the road though!
I picked out this beauty before moving to Colorado...
But with a little one on the way we needed more doors so out with the new and in with the slightly older 4Runner
Aaaand....back to our regularly scheduled programming:
Started insulation with Reflectix and 3M Thinsulate. Using 3M double stick tape on the Reflectix and 3M spray adhesive for the Thinsulate.
Couldn't leave that much Thinsulate on the door panel...just wouldn't go on...but I left the Reflectix on and ended up cutting all but the top third of the Thinsulate off and stuffed it in to the empty spaces around the panel pockets and around the interior door handle to cut down on noise and cold infiltration.
Then I started cutting panels of Reflectix and sliding it in to every void I could find:
The rear pillars which hold the tail lights:
Between the two layers of the body, over the wheel wells...you can see my VanRug is down now...you can see some of the Thinsulate I started placing as a second layer in these voids:
Then I started stuffing Thinsulate in those places. It fits just snug enough to hold the Reflectix in place but not really be compressed - lots of airspace still present. I measured and cut the scrim with a utility blade and then did the final cut just through the Thinsulate with utility scissors. Then held up panels and found good places to cut them again so they would be workable sizes to be able to move into the spaces without too much struggle.
I guess I forgot to take an "after" photo of the Thinsulate above but I fit it neatly and maintained its shape between the two layers of metal.
Then it was time to start putting the "interior" layer of Reflectix down and another layer of Thinsulate will go on top between it and the interior panels.
WAIT!!! Where did that window come from? It's a C.R. LAURENCE VW21601L CRL T-Slider Window - Driver Side Forward 1992+ Ford Vans 44-1/4" x 22"
JWA over at the SMB forum gave me some pointers as did perusing a bunch of other threads here and there.
Stencil cut and placed.
Taped it off (here I'm almost finished cutting it out with a jigsaw).
Cut through both layers at once:
Then if you look back at the interior shots you can see how roughly I cut the interior whole bigger for the inner clamp ring using my cutoff wheel and hand shears. Not the cleanest but I got the job done:
I cut the hole too small initially and had to do some tedious resizing to get the window to easily fit. Used silicone sealant/adhesive as I couldn't find round butyl tape as narrow as recommended. Should hold up well...going to be a PITA to trim around the inside though - I left myself very little room to work with.
Another interior shot:
Window ruminations are...out the window! As you can see these tires won't fit under the van:
Chris from UJOR sent a crate my way and Greg at Greg's 4WD Extreme in Longmont, Co are going to help me with the conversion. Couldn't be more excited! 6" Stage 2 with ProComps on 35" BFG KO2's should get me around, ya think?!
watchtower, white whale, land yacht, big pig...
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