small update as its been a while. i decided to keep a journal of our camping season just to see how much time we were spending doing what we love. i got 20 trips and 41 nights in our van this year, wife missed a few trips, but her numbers are just slightly less than mine. needless to say, we are both really happy with how much time we spent camping this year.
we spent a lot of time talking about how we eventually want this thing setup up inside. each time we went out, we keep track of what we would have used and what we decided we could leave out. so now i have a pretty good picture in my head about how we are going to build out. more on that to come later...
one thing id been looking for since day one was a good window to replace that stupid little door. i am very anal and ocd...i wanted a oem window in that spot as a lot of the aftermarket windows i see dont flow with the lines of the van, but with out a ton of work, the actual oem passenger window was pretty much out of the question due to how the passenger and cargo vans are made. i had seen a window i liked 2 years ago, but could never find any info on it. after 2 years of searching site after site with crappy pix and unanswered emails, i finally stumbled upon the original place i saw this window and was able to contact the owner of the van it was installed in. he was nice enough to provide me with a brand and a part number. so many big thanks to maxacceleration for being the only one to follow through and get me window information. lots of members said they would, but he is the only member who actually took the time to followup with me and get me the info. also, big thanks to member 1der (ray) for getting me this wndow, really appreciate you doing that for me!!
first order of business, determine placement. i wanted to mimic the oem passenger window setup as close as possible. so with a buddies help, we got it measured up and traced onto van.
first cut to remove skin.
then removed inner structure supports.
heres a few pix of the window. its a sandwich style setup. really similar to how a sunroof installs.
both pieces.
inner piece.
outer.
the two larger flanges seat opposite of each other on each side of the outer skin on van. nice and simple.
i didnt want to cut a hole inside larger enough to fit the inside piece, i assume this was procedure since there was zero install instructions and the inner piece had a cut in it so you could manipulate it into place.
putting inner piece into place.
in place.
marko my window guy supplied me with a tube of window urethane and told me to tape up the window like this for easier cleanup.
i gooed up the window. used 3/4's of the tube, so i knew it would seal with one try and slapped it into place.
once its daylight im going to go out into the parkinglot and finish removing tape and splooged urethane. ill get a finished pic when i get done.
first impressions are nice. gives people riding in back a much better view and opened up a world of visibility for me and got rid of a huge blind spot. plus other than getting the placement dialed in, i did all this work solo. so all you diy'ers should have no issues doing this type of install.
for anyone stumbling across this post in your search for a window, this one is a cr laurence window, model # VW21601L and its dimensions are 44 1/4" x 22". this window has the slanted forward edge to follow the flow of the oem bodylines.