Update:
-Well just in time for our latest adventure I went ahead and took the chance and order the Front Runner foam dividers to finish out a few of the other drawers in hopes that they would match the TrekPak ones I already had in there. I started off by ordering 2 boxes of them and thankfully when they arrived they were almost indistinguishable from the Trekpak ones. When looking really closely it seems like the Trekpak ones are using slightly better material such as a high-quality foam, but that makes sense as they are intended for camera gear and electronics. The biggest downside I saw with the Front Runner kit is that the pins are shorter and plastic so they don't want to hold quite as well and tend to flex more than I would want. Thankfully you can buy Trekpak pins by themselves, I wasn't able to get them before our trip but have since replaced all the plastic pins with the metal ones. For the drawers, I re-did my rear drawers with the taller Front runner foam and then moved into the small drawer below the stove. This was a little harder to do due to the drawer having to be shallow in some areas to clear the induction cooktop, but overall I am happy with how it looks and it functions great! I didn't have enough time or enough material before our trip to get the other shallow drawer above the fridge done but the day before we left another box showed up so it's next on my list.
-Our trip was a great success and Vandit did great through the full trip… until we got home. More on that soon. We spend 10 days going from our home in Bend to Vancouver Island, BC rounding out at about 1,500 miles. We found some of the best campsites I have ever been in and had a ton of fun getting away from it all. One of the shining successes of new additions to the van was the recently purchased side door screen and the custom made vinyl “carpet” I had previously shared. For anyone who is looking for an affordable screen option for their van, I would recommend Landa US on Etsy. It attaches via magnets and is easy to set up and take down. I wouldn’t say it's perfect, but for the price, I feel like it's pretty good. It was much warmer than we initially anticipated, so it was nice to be able to open up the van and get as much fresh air and breeze as possible through the van. The “carpet”/floor mat was great! It was super easy to clean while on our trip even when it was covered in mud and sand from our dog swimming in lakes. Plus it achieved the original goal of making driving around much easier for our dog as he was no longer sliding around or losing his grip while driving.
-Here are a few shots of Vandit on our trip!
-Now for the not so great. The van drove great throughout the trip and made it all the way back home and into the garage with no noticeable issues. Then after the van sat in the garage for about 36 hours I came out to the unfortunate site of a puddle of transmission fluid on the ground. After a quick look under the van, I could see the problem a cracked extension housing on the back side of the transmission. The strange part was that there was no sign of fluid anywhere else except straight down and no trail of fluid in the garage or the driveway so my best guess is it started leaking right when I got home. After a quick Instagram story post asking if anybody else ever had this issue, I got a few responses from Chris at U-Joint saying that the only time he has seen anything remotely like this was when the front driveshaft was too long and at compression was pushed back into the transfer case causing failure typical at the transfer case. So I started investigating more and found that the front driveshaft was made longer than I had thought, so that may have been one of the causes, but I do not remember a hard hit that would have caused this failure. So I went through the process of sending the driveshaft back to Tomwoods to take some length out of it. Unfortuernly that turned into a multi-step process, first, it came back too short so we sent it back then it went to an old address from over 10 years ago in another state but the third time was a charm and it showed up all correct. Luckily the extension housing was covered under the transmission warranty, but I did have to do all the labor myself since it was originally a bench-built transmission. When pulling it apart I found that a couple of the bolts holding this piece were loose which may have caused the failure. When I pulled it off I was shocked to see that it was actually cracked all the way through and fell apart in my hands. After a small delay, I got my part back from the shop and got it all back together, and marked all my bolts this time to help keep an eye on them! I am hoping that was the only issue and that from here on out things will go a little smoother.
-Now I just need to get some road miles in and do some more checks, but I think we should be back in the clear! While on our trip we also thought up some additional interior mods we would like to get done so I added them to the list.
-Also last note. Some may have been following along on the rear bumper project and it is still in the works but put on the back burner for now. I am hoping to get to it this fall/winter if everything goes to plan I am hoping to have it completed by 2024.
Vandit
2008 GMC 3500 SMB
I kinda feel like they will blast right through the magnets too haha They will stay inside if we are inside but they hate being alone.
Linear Mode
