Its a love hate thing... - 2010 E350 RB

[CGgonzo12]

So let me try and give everyone the long story, but short?

The wife and I bought our 2010 E350 back in 2019 just before the world shut down, and we were stoked. I loved the look of the SMB style builds, lifted with the overland gear you name it. And the wife loved the Sprinter style Van Life Builds, so our plan was to Hybrid this van and do a little of both. We had our mind made up, and there was no changing that, we were going for that style regardless of what/who advised us differently.....

Fast forward to present time: Man do I wish I would have thought things through more ... now I sit here thinking of all the things that I would have done differently. All the time and headaches that could have been avoided. But, they don't call it a build for nothing right? You have to build and tear down. Build again, use new build, and tear down again, until you find exactly what is going to work the best for you. And I think we did that and I can honestly say, I am excited again for this build, hence why I am now finally starting my build thread.

So now that we got that out of the way, let's get to the fun stuff, the pictures

Our van the day we brought it home:


Then it was time to start gutting it out for the "Custom Build" (that is still in the works by the way).




So we took drive



I was able to touch base with another member here on the forums, and he hooked me up with his Hightop that he had ordered but changed his mind. It saved me some money and also helped him out by getting it off his hands.

So here's the top pre-install:


And here is is after the install....whoa, that. is. tall.


Keep in mind, this install happened right after things started to get back to "Normal?" after all the shutdowns etc. So much so, that I had to rent a hotel room for day use, because everything was shut down. Couldn't really sight see or do anything like that, so I opted to take a nap while the team at Fiberine did their thing.

I will post more about the build as I have a lot more photos to sift through and show you guys the build as it goes, but hope you enjoy the start of this thread, and looking forward to sharing with you!

Driving it home for the first time:


Til next time.... Gonzo

[doublevan2]

Wonder if "Fiberine" could round the front edge more to reduce wind drag ??

[CGgonzo12]

Originally Posted by doublevan2

Wonder if "Fiberine" could round the front edge more to reduce wind drag ??

I was a little surprised with how the drag wasn't terrible. Obviously you lose MPG but I get in-between 10-13MPG depending on the terrain which is cool

[1der]

".... we were going for that style regardless of what/who advised us differently....."

Yep....

... now I sit here thinking of all the things that I would have done differently. All the time and headaches that could have been avoided. But, they don't call it a build for nothing right? You have to build and tear down. Build again, use new build, and tear down again, until you find exactly what is going to work the best for you.

Yep

And I think we did that and I can honestly say, I am excited again for this build, hence why I am now finally starting my build thread.

Looking forward to seeing what you guys arrived at!

[marret]

Yeah, we all take different journeys and sometimes we just have to see/experience and learn for ourselves. Also looking forward to see where you go now.

[CGgonzo12]

Originally Posted by 1der

".... we were going for that style regardless of what/who advised us differently....."

Yep....

... now I sit here thinking of all the things that I would have done differently. All the time and headaches that could have been avoided. But, they don't call it a build for nothing right? You have to build and tear down. Build again, use new build, and tear down again, until you find exactly what is going to work the best for you.

Yep

And I think we did that and I can honestly say, I am excited again for this build, hence why I am now finally starting my build thread.

Looking forward to seeing what you guys arrived at!

As I wrote that paragraph I was mainly thinking of our long text thread where you gave me the do's and don'ts

[CGgonzo12]

Okay.... so where were we?

We had the Hightop installed and man is it awesome, I can actually stand up in my van without hitting my head which is fantastic, now it was time to try and build out our Hybrid build like I mentioned earlier. So let's look into some photos to get the whole story.

So this is where I did actually listen, first thing I did, was prep the floor for the POR-15:


Then I started figuring out how to actually panel this thing, decided to try a stud/rafter method (kind of like a house) to give me mounting points:


Then I needed to start mocking up the Solar, 200W from Renogy:


Final resting point for the Solar:


After getting the solar mounted I decided to add some vinyl to the front spot that would normally/used to be the spot for a front window in the front of the Super Camper Top. (I did this because I felt like it needed some sort of accent):


And of course, the shake down drive after you install anything, whether it be solar, a sticker, or simply adding an interior light


More to come.....

[CGgonzo12]

Okay here is the last post for tonight....

Like I mentioned before, the wife liked the Sprinter Style builds that we all see all over YouTube, and hell, I would be lying if I said I didn't like them either.... So first things first, tongue and groove

The wifey actually got involved for this part which I absolutely loved since I am usually building on my own....


Now you can see, that insulation has been completed in that photo, here is the dedicated insulation photo, Thinsulate 3M per the recommendation of Ray (thank you again Ray).


Now as the build goes on, I had to test our lighting that we were installing....




In order to test the lighting I hooked up a temporary power source. But of course, we need to get the solar part wired up and get all the wiring dialed in, so here is a photo of that:


We planned our first camping trip with the Hightop, so I had a deadline. Needed to get the power dialed in, CHECK! And then somewhere to sleep, hmmmmm, here is that:

(Spoiler Alert): This solution was okay, but I had to sleep at a diagonal which meant the wife had to sleep in a little ball since I was taking up her space too oops.....So I needed a solution....Flarespace anyone???? Maybe in the future? 2022 to be exact!

So we headed out to a local campsite that is about 1 Hour North of where we live to meet up with some family who we haven't seen for quite some time.
The doggo didn't realize he could lay on the bed to see everything we were seeing, so he improvised:

Then our campsite:


Overall, the trip was great, we learned what we liked, what we didn't like etc. but without giving up too much, we will just have to wait to see where the build goes next

-Gonzo

[marret]

Coming along nicely.

[Twoxentrix]

Yep, looking good.
Since it looks like you haven’t paneled the inside top yet, I’d suggest you run some extra wires around in case you decide to add anything in the future. Much easier than pulling stuff apart for access.