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Ford Transit Moto Camper Van Build

We went over a 10,000’ pass last night. The truck was definitely feeling the elevation. It was mostly in 4th gear and dropped to 3rd a couple times. It was a pretty steep incline and nobody was going quick. Only a MiniCooper passed us and they were only going slightly faster.
 
Over 3000 miles in the rig so far. We are still out in the Colorado area.

There has been a lot of camping in the van down by a river.

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The computer is saying 18mpg right now, I would guess that is about 17mpg if calculated by hand.

The 3.7 naturally aspirated motor is just fine going up and down the mountain passes. We have been over some big ones. It is not the fastest, cars and empty pickups will pass us but no one else. I generally don’t try and push it very hard. The manual button on the transmission is fantastic. The shifter is in a comfortable spot and easy to reach (unlike my GMC work van).

The overhead console is very convenient for snack storage. It is wobbly though and a little annoying on rough roads.

The van corners very well. The anti sway bars keep it very upright.

The cruise control is nice. It will automatically down shift the transmission to keep the speed in check.
 
Aug 31 2019


We are up to 5000 miles on the Transit now. I really like the way this thing drives and how the transmission works.

We got caught in a bad storm in Kansas. The Transit has a feature that keeps it from being blown over, I think that made my job much more difficult. We would get slammed by wind from the passenger side, then the van would swerve to the drivers side, to put more weight on the passenger wheels, I had to fight the steering wheel for a couple hours. This was in the early morning hours. I was so tired that we pulled over and slept for a few hours, the storm passed over us. I got up once I realized the storm was back, I hit the road to get ahead of it again. Once the wind died down slightly, just below where the van would sense it, the driving got much easier. I am going to look and see if there is a way to disable this feature
 
There are a couple little things that I would like to change on the camper build.
Adding 6” to the bed would be nice, it works as is right now as long as sally does not sleep in the middle of the bed.
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The cabinet doors swinging into the open space makes it crowded, I might change to sliding doors or roll up doors.

I want a fridge and microwave, so I have this inverter/charger coming.
https://www.aimscorp.net/2000-Watt-Pure-Sine-Inverter-Charger.html

It serves several functions. It is a transfer switch, if I plug into shore power, it will automatically power the 120v appliances from that power. At the same time it switches into charging mode and charges the battery bank.

I think I am going to shoot for about 200ah of batteries. I will also wire them up so they are charged while the alternator is turning.

Does anyone see any electrical issues with hooking the 40amp feed from the alternator to the battery bank to charge the house batteries? The feed is switched off of switch 4 on the center console and is only activated once the alternator is turning. The alternator is capable of 220 amps of power
 
Jan 19 2020


Ok, so it has been many months since an update. We are up to 8500 miles on the Transit, being a bike hauler, that means 8500 miles of going to fun places. That is pretty good for 6 months of use.

A few nick picking complaints. The location of the cruise control is down low on the wheel, in a recessed spot. It can be a little inconvenient to reach sometimes. There are total of 14 buttons on the steering wheel (excluding the horn) and sometimes I need to take my eyes off the road to look at what buttons to use. Like when coming up behind a slower vehicle and I want to click the cruise down a couple mph. I think they cleaned stuff up on the 2020 model. Also, the 2020 has adaptive cruise as an option.

The 3rd brake light/ camera pod has 2 little side panels, I found one laying in the driveway one day and the other fell off when I touched it. They are held on by gorilla tape now but I need to get the ladder out and come up with a better solution. If you buy one of these vans, put tape on those, there are many reports of them disappearing.

When laying in bed, while the van was in motion, I noticed the fantastic fan was a source of wind noise. I made up a foam block and covered it in headliner fabric. Then using a chunk of PVC pipe and a moto grip, I made a handle. This has cut down on the wind noise.

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I have started to work on finishing the garage space out. The shoe pockets for tools and spare parts work great but came crashing to the floor during a speed bump incident where the van may or may not have gone airborne. I got some metal grid for store displays and attached it to the doors, then I attached the pockets more securely. We also bought a couple wire baskets that are much more durable. I will be buying more of the baskets.

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I started to finish the walls and ceiling. I put some FRP up on the ceiling because the insulation was getting ripped down by us slinging gear boxes in and out of that space.

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At $34/sheet, it is pricy. I will need about 6 more sheets to finish out the garage. The bikes handlebars and footpegs are beating the walls up inside. I am not sure regular 1/4” plywood would hold up.

As with most engine choices, it is really personal preference and is a point of contention on the Ford Transit specific pages. I am happy with the 3.7, it’s power output and its fuel economy. I have not felt the need for more power, even driving over the mountains of Colorado.
 
April 26 2020

Update on our van. It is equipped with dual batteries and the upfitter switches but I have decided I don’t like drawing off the starting batteries for camping power. I would rather have a stand alone system that I can completely kill and not worry about being able to start the van. I had a solar panel and charge controller laying around, so I decided to make use of it.

Weather guard makes a pair of roof rails that make a nice place to mount stuff. They are inexpensive. I ordered a pair and got them installed the other day.

Step one is to setup scaffolding. Working on top of a 9.5’ tall vehicle is awkward. Then remove the stickers that are covering the mounting points on the roof. There were a couple stickers that were not fully adhered. This is why it is important to plan for water intrusion with insulation and materials that can deal with it.

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I removed all the stickers that looked questionable and replaced with some eternabond tape. This tape is handy to have around for stuff like this.

Then the stickers for the roof mounting points were removed. Ford did an awful job at lining up the threaded inserts with the holes. A little grinding fixed that up.

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The Weatherguard kit includes some rubber pads and sealant. I applied the sealant in a pleasing pattern. It is mandatory to use the thicker pads and they include some optional thinner pads that can be stacked on top. I opted to use the thinner pads too for a 1/8” more height. Without them, the roof rails touched the roof, very slightly, between mounting points. I thought with some movement, the paint would get rubbed off the roof eventually.

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With the rails bolted down, I moved onto solar. First, I made a few aluminum plates with RivNuts to slide into the roof rails.

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Then I drilled a hole through the roof for the solar wiring. This is always a scary but fun thing to do. Sally is applying paint on the hole in the pic.

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A rubber grommet protects the wiring where it passes through the roof. Then I put a little silicone sealant on the solar bulkhead fitting and taped it in place for a while.

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Once the sealant dried, I cut some more eternabond tape and applied a few layers of it. This will be the only thing holding it in place. No screws were used.

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The solar panel is mounted to some pieces of 1/2” conduit that is bent to match the contour of the roof. I am trying to use as much stuff that I have laying around and not make trips to the store. The ends of the conduit was filled with foam backer rod, to minimize and wind howling.

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The bulkhead fitting lives under the panel.

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All done, on the roof of the van. There is a lot of space to expand to more panels if we need them but I think 100w is all we will need.

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This is where we are at now, with a couple wires hanging down. The current amount of rain is making it a miserable day to go out and work on the van.

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A fair amount got done on the wiring today. There is a small space between the bulkhead in the rear of the van and the back of the cabinet up front. I used this space to hide some of the wiring and put the battery mostly in that space. All the existing wiring from up front that was tied to the van batteries is now swapped over to the “house” battery. I also added a moto inspired battery hold down.

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I got the Dometic 9500 case awning installed this morning.

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I toyed with a bunch of different ideas on a DIY awning and could not get anything to pan out. I compared a bunch of different awnings, Thule, Fiamma, Care Free. The dometic won out because it has a full length aluminum excursion that mounts to the van first. The other awnings had multiple pieces that would mount first. I knew this would make it challenging to get them all lined up. I also liked that there are no legs.

This wind test video gave me greater confidence in the product.

 
We are just over a year into ownership and I am getting a few things checked off the list.

First this is we hit a fun number on the ODO a couple weeks ago.

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We will check back in 111,111 miles for 123,456.

The garage area is getting close to being finished off.

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I think I will paint the wood white. I am also going to add some storage to the walls to get stuff off the back doors
 
I got a little more done this afternoon on the garage area.

The spare wheel is bolted into a large RivNut, though the hub.

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I started getting all the spare parts out of the pockets on the back doors and hanging them on some grids that I mounted to the walls.


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Nov 11 2020

It has been a while since I have done any work on the van other than adding gasoline. We are closing in on 20,000 miles in 16 months of ownership. It is only used to haul motorcycles to events. I wonder how many miles we would be up to if the majority of events were not canceled this year.

Vancillary makes a pair of powder coated aluminum brackets to add a shelf in the front of the van. They even included a full size template to cut the shelf out.

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I cut it out of a nice piece of 1/2” plywood.

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Then I used some liquid nails and some pin nails to attach the front flange. A router with an 1/8 round over bit softened all the sharp corners. A couple coats of paint in a light gray that is similar to the Transit headliner. This is going to make a great storage space.


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Aug 10 2021

2 year and 1 month update: We are at about 26k miles. I am making plans for some changes to the living space. I initially just threw it together real quick, thinking I would get around to making it more efficient. Well, this fall, after the trials season wraps up will be the time. I am gathering materials and making plans.

First big thing is we don’t like cooking in the van, cooking grease gets on the inside of the windshield and is almost impossible to remove. We can setup a grill/stove outside, under the awning in a few min and cook out there. So there will be no kitchen part to this build.

Next is the bed, it is 4’ wide right now, that works well but I think adding 12” to it would be nice.

Lastly, I think a closet for clothing would be nice, that will probably be under the bed. This way it can always be packed and ready to go.

We recently purchased a cooler fridge, with some battery and solar upgrades, this will live in the van full time and should never need to be turned off.

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I am finally making use of some of the Upfitter switches. I put a 12v outlet for the fridge, so we can run it on a high draw setting, while the motor is running. Then swap over to the solar, once at camp. We also picked up a WeBoost to help with cell signal in some of the places we stay. If there is a faint signal, this will make a big difference. If there is no signal, it does not work.


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I think a microwave powered by the inverter will find its way into the van on this round of upgrades.
 
Jan 4 2022



Let’s dust some winter cobwebs off this thread.

When I initially put the living quarters together on this van, it was temporary, it was done to give it a try and make sure dimensions all work. 2.5 years later. I have a good idea of what works and what does not.

Late this summer, I upgraded the electric on the van. There is now 300 watts of solar on the roof.

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Then I cut a hole in the base of the cabinet and dropped in 200ah of Renogy AGM batteries.


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Then a 1000w inverter.

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The inverter is to power a microwave.

This setup worked really great this past fall. We just left the fridge powered on all the time. The microwave really made life easier. It is really nice to be able to cook food while driving down the highway.

So this brings us up to current events.

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I visited the local 80/20 shop. Had an awesome shop tour, where they showed me a bunch of different fastening methods and different designs. They don’t do much with vans but were able to offer a good bit of guidance. This sweet demo model is really helpful in seeing how different parts work. I got an initial order put in, just a few sticks of 10 series and some fasteners. I am going to build a small desk. Then the first project in the van is going to be a floor to ceiling pantry cabinet behind the drivers seat.
 
In comments with other users (that I can copy here), this bit is very handy for tapping 80/20 with a 1/4” impact. A little WD40 and it works great.

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Jan 27 2022


Slow progress. As it is with any van build, especially in the winter.

I picked up a bandsaw to cut the 80/20. I know I could do it with a chop saw but I wanted to make aluminum dust and not have chips flying everywhere.

I bought a higher tooth count blade for harbor freight but it seems to leave a slightly rough finish. A couple swipes of a file smooths it out but I want better than that. I am going to order a Bosch 24tpi blade and see if that improves things.

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The 80/20 order showed up today. This should be a good start. 15 96” sticks of the aluminum. I got all the fittings organized.

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First 80/20 project, just to dip me toes in, was to make a stand for a glass table top. Sally uses this as her desk. Yes, everything is dirty back there, I just moved the old desk out of there. I even attached a power strip to the desk, for easy cord management. This went pretty easily. About an hour to make. Now I need to draw more detailed plans up for the van work.

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