What did you do to your SMB today?

[larrie]

You may want to replace the filler and breather hoses while you have it apart. We had a problem with ours leaking after changing to a 45 gallon tank. They did not leak before the switch. My guess is that lol the moving around required to replace the tank cracked them.

 

[gcvt-SMB]

You may want to replace the filler and breather hoses while you have it apart. We had a problem with ours leaking after changing to a 45 gallon tank. They did not leak before the switch. My guess is that lol the moving around required to replace the tank cracked them.

I definitely will. All three vent hoses and filler hose are cracked. Plus I just cut them all to make it easier to drop the tank haha.

 

[quietglow]

This weekend did a side of the road removal of the badly installed Weboost coax which was allowing water ingress. Then, after a flat tire in the middle of boonies in northern AR which was due to a cracked valve stem, I figured waiting until next year for new tires was a bad plan. So, we're now rocking Agilis Crossclimates (the unidirectional ones). The van sounds and handles sooooo much better.

This week, I also met up with Tim Fitzpatrick and his wife Laura for an ersatz Sportsmobile convention in a Menards parking lot here in Chicago. I learned a slew of things in the short time we had and look forward to future meetups. Again, great to chat with you Tim!

 

[Oogs]

Drilled some holes in my grill after removing the Ford emblem. This was an experiment to see how it affected transmission temps and actually dropped them 10 degrees. Tested over a 6 hour drive this past weekend pulling our SMB trailer over some mountain driving. Temps stayed under 200 where they would peak at 205 with ambient 65. The big ole' blue oval blocks most of the tranny cooler. I plan on enlarging the hole in an oval shape for more airflow and backing it w some black painted wire mesh for rock protection. Was looking for a cheap solution before adding another cooler considering my Starcool is going thru a major rehab right now.

Curious if folks who installed that aftermarket eBay grill saw any drop in temps.

 

[Fitz2]

This weekend did a side of the road removal of the badly installed Weboost coax which was allowing water ingress. Then, after a flat tire in the middle of boonies in northern AR which was due to a cracked valve stem, I figured waiting until next year for new tires was a bad plan. So, we're now rocking Agilis Crossclimates (the unidirectional ones). The van sounds and handles sooooo much better.

This week, I also met up with Tim Fitzpatrick and his wife Laura for an ersatz Sportsmobile convention in a Menards parking lot here in Chicago. I learned a slew of things in the short time we had and look forward to future meetups. Again, great to chat with you Tim!

Great meeting up with you Joe, always fun to meet like-minded people. Laura has landed safely in India and I’m currently in Portland as I make my way home via Amtrak. I’d rather be driving the van, but a roomette on Amtrak is not a bad way to go.
Keep us posted on the new tires. I’m due to do the same later this year and haven’t started to look around yet. I really like the Falkens that the van has now except the AT3 has been replaced with the AT4 so I have do do my research.
Great looking van you have, thanks again for driving up to find us while we were in Chicago.

 

[dbhost]

Finishing it up after sundown tonight as it is both hot AND humid today, but...
Mounted up a CB Antenna Mirror mount to the rear door spare tire carrier, complete with beehive mount and 6" spring.
Ran a piece of 36" stainless steel 3/8-24 all thread into the beehive mount for a push pole...

Combined total height of the push pole and the HiBoost antenna assembly will put the entire element above the pop top in the up position.

The task to be completed after sundown, mount the bracket and antenna for the cellular booster, and set up the booster in a semi permanent mount inside the camper.

Got the feedback from Starlink, 30 days from delivery if I don't hook it up the account enables automatically. I will be setting up on the 15th, so 16 days after delivery (trying to get my billing date mid month instead of around the 1st...).

The Flame King stove arrived, have not yet unboxed it.

Realized last night the fridge has been running with the van unplugged and no solar panels connected for a week. Battery at 28%, plugged it in and charged up...

Measured, measured again, and then took the T molding off and measured again. The MDF / melamine my countertops / doors and presumably cabinets is made from measures 1/2", so off to, well I would prefer better quality but budget and convenience say Home Depot for some 1/2" Hardwood ply to make the countertop from...

 

[loper]

Finally found (and fixed!) the slack in my steering. The u-joint coupler bolt into the steering box was loose.

 

[dbhost]

Drilled some holes in my grill after removing the Ford emblem. This was an experiment to see how it affected transmission temps and actually dropped them 10 degrees. Tested over a 6 hour drive this past weekend pulling our SMB trailer over some mountain driving. Temps stayed under 200 where they would peak at 205 with ambient 65. The big ole' blue oval blocks most of the tranny cooler. I plan on enlarging the hole in an oval shape for more airflow and backing it w some black painted wire mesh for rock protection. Was looking for a cheap solution before adding another cooler considering my Starcool is going thru a major rehab right now.

Curious if folks who installed that aftermarket eBay grill saw any drop in temps.
View attachment 1315734

Earlier model / grille, I got the billet style slatted grille with the wide spacing between the slats, and noticed a drop in engine temps. No trans temp gauge to tell so not sure. But I added a HUGE trans cooler when I had my E4OD rebuilt.

 

[dbhost]

Stove arrived today. Not yet unboxed. Heading to the BORG (Big Orange Retail Giant) to get a 2x4 1/2" Baltic Birch plywood panel for a countertop to start the project.

This is literally a make my insurance company happy and get the sink installed project...

I've got the sink with flip down faucet and cover, the Flame King stove, braided stainless line / regulator, a Fire extinguisher bracket I have modded to hold a 1lb propane cylinder, a steak saver adapter (yeah gonna run it on 1lb bottles) and a flare elbow to get the line away from the countertop.

Double checked the material that is there and I thought I had measured before, but just verified. 21w x 40l for the countertop. Material is 3/4" NOT 1/2". Not sure why I thought I had measured 1/2 but REALLY glad I measured again!

 

[dbhost]

So the CB Antenna spring was NOT strong enough for the all thread + added clamp mount + antenna mast + antenna element.

Removed the antenna spring, got with HiBoost and they sent me an additional mast tube, installed that, got everything run, crudely for now, but it is there...

That piece of all thread hiding under numerous wraps of electrical tape to hold the coax in place neatly is way more flexible than I had expected. I need to come up with some sort of rig to hold it to the top of the door and force it to stay in a vertical postion. I am scared to go down the road with the element in the raised position like this...

Any suggestions on how to rig this that wouldn't be horrifyingly ugly would be greatly appreciated.

Mind you my metal fab skills are minimal...

Ordered a set of Sealight 9007 bulbs to repalce the Beamtech 9007 that produce a light pattern that goes everywhere but where it should go...

 

[Gooseberry-SMB]

Ok so this has many questions.
Why do you have the spring in the middle?
I’m guessing it flips up to gain elevation? You are not gaining anything much having that high.

My set up has the spring on the bottom with the sections on top of that to get just over the roofline with the reboost antenna. Now I do have a eyelet just above the door with a bungy loop to keep it from flopping.

 

[doublevan2]

Looks like you'd have to place a block of poly or hard rubber between the van body and the antenna base mount to move the antenna further from van body so it would clear your rain gutter and PH top - and be truly vertical - and maybe do the same thing at the left top edge of the window - thick enough to clear again the PH top, etc. Anchor with self tap screws or better yet some stainless steel screws/nylocks, etc. ? Hard rubber might reduce sound of antenna slapping against van body/metal ?
Good luck -

 

[geoffff]

13 years later, I'm again installing a door talon!

 

[geoffff]

More deja vu work in my "new van".... Here I am replacing my fluorescent tubes with LEDs, again.

This van has two sizes of fluorescent tubes:

• F15T8: 18-inch T8 tubes for the ceiling lights
• F8T5: 12-inch T5 tubes above the kitchen counter

Replacing the F15T8 ceiling lights was easy. I used Amazon.com The contact pins on the ends of these LED tubes can be rotated so the light shines where you like.

Replacing the F8T5 countertop lights was trickier. It turns out fluorescent bulbs vary in length. F8T5 tube bulbs have a "nominal size" of 12 inches, but some are actually 11⅞" long, and some are only 11¾". It turns out that my fixtures are a full 12 inches in length, but the LED replacements Amazon.com are only 11¾" long. (I couldn't find any 12V LED replacements that were a full 12" long.)

I eventually came up with the idea of wrapping the contact pins with aluminum foil in order to buy myself another ⅛" on each end. It works amazingly well! The wads of foil make those bulbs stick in their fixtures nice and secure -- no wiggling at all.


modified wiring: ballast removed


LED (left) vs fluorescent (right)


aluminum foil to the rescue

 

[dbhost]

Ok so this has many questions.
Why do you have the spring in the middle?
I’m guessing it flips up to gain elevation? You are not gaining anything much having that high.

My set up has the spring on the bottom with the sections on top of that to get just over the roofline with the reboost antenna. Now I do have a eyelet just above the door with a bungy loop to keep it from flopping.

It flips up, the spring is part of the install kit from HiBoost. I figured leaving it on wouldn't hurt, it helps the mast avoid damage should I encounter a low branch or something...

The spring at the bottom is great, until you add the 36" stainless steel all thread as a mast extension...

Looks like you'd have to place a block of poly or hard rubber between the van body and the antenna base mount to move the antenna further from van body so it would clear your rain gutter and PH top - and be truly vertical - and maybe do the same thing at the left top edge of the window - thick enough to clear again the PH top, etc. Anchor with self tap screws or better yet some stainless steel screws/nylocks, etc. ? Hard rubber might reduce sound of antenna slapping against van body/metal ?
Good luck -

Nope. That is a CB Antenna mirror clamp mount clamped to the spare tire carrier. No black poly, black powdercoated steel... I am FAR more concerned with performance in camp than en route. The idea is to make certain deployed the element would be above the pop top raised in camp. I am fairly certain I can swap down to just the black clamp mount the booster kit came with and clear the pop top closed.

Due to the way the spare tire carrier is made, seriously dobut I will be able to get this completely vertical without spending a fortune at say a muffler shop and having a mount plate welded in dead level that I can bolt the antenna mount bracket to...

There is a big pull knob on that upper portion that allows the mast to swing up so basically in this position it is folded in half...

If performance in camp going through canvas and fiberglass would be fine, not sure why RF would have a problem with those either, may just eliminate the pole rig all together and clamp the stock mount / mast / element down without the allthread...

 

[geoffff]

My van has this black hole. If you push things on the kitchen counter back towards the wall, they will fall off the edge, down into a giant crack, to be forever lost behind the refrigerator.

I had the fridge out (for reasons I'll describe elsewhere), and found back there 20 years of lost stuff -- including a pair of prescription eyeglasses, some hats, a shirt, and various other miscellaneous little things.



I decided to block this gap with some screen. (I don't want to block the airflow to the fridge.)



I cut this shape, and screwed it in back there.





Phew!

 

[geoffff]

Replaced the originally-installed Shurflo 2088-403-144 water pump with a Shurflo "Whisper King" 2093-204-413. So much quieter!!

 

[dbhost]

So the interior lighting finally got on my last nerve. The original bar type lights were suffering bulb failures and I couldn't find new bulbs, and the reading lamps were similarly falling apart, including the one behind the drivers head that kept leaving a dent in my dome I have had it with these fixtures!

So I spent some time out in the HEAT working on the swap until I ran out of daylight. Kind of hard to work on lighting with the power disconnected in the dark after all.

I have 3 of these lights out of the 4 installed and they are nicer than they have any right to be...
Amazon.com
One over each cargo door so basically one by the rear cargo doors by the bed, the other by the slider at the kitchen, and then one on the far side of the Penthouse top (Sportsmobile calls their pop up top a Penthouse roof). The one at the front of the Penthouse roof needs to be done.

And I have 2 of these lights out of 3 installed. Amazon.com I bought the single pack and a two pack since there is no 3 pack...

The one at the end of the bed by the kitchen is the one I had wired wrong. The black wire was the HOT wire NOT the ground... Fixed it and it works GREAT...

The other ones go one on the other side of the bed kind of crammed in between the closet and the rear window by the bed, and one goes RIGHT BEHIND the drivers seat behind the drivers head. They have USB charging ports and are touch controlled with dimmable lights.

The splices are heat shrunk as well so they should be there a good long time.

Once all are in I will take video of the whole setup and process / publish a walk through of the lighting. If these things prove reliable, I don't think there is any way I could be happier with them...

I will get back after it and get the fixture at the front of the Penthouse top and the one behind the drivers seat swapped, get the battery hooked back up and test it all out tonight after I am done talking with my GF and she has to get to her extended family stuff...