The Gnarhauler: Another white cargo van.

[ibike]

Templating roof panels. I got some 5x5’ 1/8” birch plywood panels and cut some strips to use to make templates. Similar to what I’ve seen in the construction industry for stone countertops. I held everything in place with some spring clamps and then when I was happy with the positioning I’d put a dab of wood glue where the pieces overlapped and let it dry. I’m using 1/4-20 rivnuts in the roof ribs in conjunction with L-Track pucks to hold the ceiling up. Offers a ton of options for hanging gear as well.



Panels dry fit and LED lights wired up. They’re on a dimmer and look great at night. I ran an individual homerun for each perpendicular pair so I can potentially break them up on different dimmers. I’m think the forward four together with the dimmer inside the barn door and the rear four wired to a dimmer inside the rear door. Jury is still out on that one...

[ibike]

Added some exterior lighting as well. Picked up some RGB+W weather rated LED strip, aluminum channel and diffused cover and VHB’d in to the perfectly sized channel on the bottom of my awning.







I ran a five conductor cable into the van to support all the channels of the LED strip. Used a WeatherPack connector on the roof out of view. I’m only hooking up the white and red channels for now. Both on their own dimmer inside the side door.



I also added these guys on all four corners of the rack plus one on the rear. These will be wired to the chassis battery via a homemade relay/switch panel setup I’m working on. They’ll mostly be used when setting up camp in the dark or working on repairs etc.



They match the height of the 8020 on my U-Joint roof rack PERFECTLY! I was super happy with the outcome. I got the lights from E-Trailer.com for about $30 a light. They’re bright, but not too bright. I’m a habitual flip-flop wearer and blast my toes on a rock at least once a year walking around the van in the dark. Hopefully these light will help eliminate that.

[Twoxentrix]

Well done ibike. I like the idea of the led channel mounted underneath the awning...and those lights you attached to the rack look great.

[ibike]

Originally Posted by Twoxentrix

Well done ibike. I like the idea of the led channel mounted underneath the awning...and those lights you attached to the rack look great.

Thank you. I’m looking forward to using the red LEDs at night.

[ibike]

Speaking of lights, I wired up the ceiling lights to a dimmer to test them out. These are the warm white LEDs from Amazon. Really happy with the range of the output. I’m thinking the two most forward lights will be on their own dimmer.

[TRAVRSS]

Originally Posted by ibike

New sections aren't terribly expensive, might be worth replacing if yours is starting to dry out.

Just under a c note... A solid investment in my view. The dealer had it ready to pick up next day.

[ibike]

Got my two floor boxes back from my fab guy. Came out pretty killer. He wasn’t crazy about suspending the weight off just the top of the box so we came up with a 2x2 steel angle cradle system. Threaded rod will pass through the floor of the van and pick up the mounting holes in the steel frame.




The lid system will “float” and sandwich the lid, van floor, box and mounting ring. My fab guys idea also, pretty ingenious.




He built the lip of the flange to account for corrugated van floor, 1/2” polyiso, 3/4” ply and rubber coin flooring. There’s some wiggle room in there to make sure the lid doesn’t bottom out on the flange before it contacts the floor.

[ibike]

Also got the interior paneling all cut and ready for upholstery. Took me a minute to figure out some of the trim/transition pieces. I’m pretty happy with the results.


B-pillar, headliner, trim, foam blob interface.

[aarcaris]

Originally Posted by ibike

...Took me a minute to figure out some of the trim/transition pieces...

B-pillar, headliner, trim, foam blob interface.

Nice Work! I just started on my walls and was having some problems with how to do the trim pieces as well. Now after this I have some better ideas.

[ibike]

Originally Posted by aarcaris

Nice Work! I just started on my walls and was having some problems with how to do the trim pieces as well. Now after this I have some better ideas.

Thanks, the thing that made it infinitely more complicated was using the L-Track to hold the wall panels on. Lots of curves and templating doing it that way. It looks like Sportsmobile and a lot of the DIY crowd firs the walls out to get them a little more flat and square to the floor. In hindsight if I did it again I'd get some 2x2 square tube and use it to fir out the mounting surface for the L-Track, if that makes sense...