It’s been sitting in our driveway for two years collecting dust. He passed away a few months ago and I decided to invest some money into it to and get it running again. So many memories in that van… camping, music festivals, driving it home at from the river at sunset, parking in my dad’s yard for our wedding… its not the same without him but I think he would be happy to know I’m cleaning it up and bringing it back to life. 💙

Two sites where I have attempted to ground to chassis. Maybe I misunderstand the process.

I am running a negative busbar to a bolt at either of these locations. Nothing will work. Run the negative busbar back to the negative on the battery… everything works.

Any advice?

Her name is juniper beluga.

I build a van every year to go ski in, shooting for 150 days of skiing this year (currently in Mammoth Lakes on day 109, so come say hi if you see me!)

Im thinking about ford, but the width is not enough. Does anyone have problem when sleep im ford transit?

I can't find anything ANYWHERE on this and I think it'd be such a cool idea, but has anyone installed speakers running down their van in the ceiling? How'd it work out for you?

It’s my first night on this journey

Guy wants 4500 for it but is willing to trade for my 04 Lexus rx330.. I know absolutely nothing about this van google searches aren’t helping at all. Listing said it’s a 1997 ford e-150 dmc. Said everything works with it just needs tires and muffler/brake pads. Curious if anyone has any issues/experiences with these. What are they actually worth? It has 190k on it, my Lexus has 167k on it. Is this going to be a horrible trade? My main reason for trading for a larger vehicle is because I need something for work I can sleep in when I’m out of state traveling for work. Any advice helps! Thanks

Today we installed my wife's coffee nook and the kitchen. The coffee nook also serves as a built in cabinet holding the refrigerator. After building all of the cabinets, I assembled soft-closing drawers. The soft-close feature is nice. I was also able to add a small drawer under the sink to hold silverware and utensils. I think we will have plenty of drawer space.

The kitchen sink is pretty large compared to many van builds. It came with a grate in the bottom and a strainer in drain. It also has a grate for the top, if you want to use it to dry your dishes over the sink. It came with a built in cutting board to allow for more countertop space. However, I cut my own from our butcher block countertops so it matches. I am also installing another piece of butcher block that folds up at the end of the sink. This will extend our countertops about 18 inches or so.

Our sink faucet swivels to the outside of the van. This will allow for an outside shower or to rinse off bikes, wetsuits and other gear as needed. I think the coffee nook and kitchen turned out great. Can not wait to add in the upper cabinets. Please stay tuned to Resist The Grind to follow our Promaster van conversion.

THANK YOU FOR SUBSCRIBING if you would like to follow along on our build.

I got tired of the anemic “meep” “meep” sound of my Sprinter horn. Just didn’t seem to have the definitive “get out of my way” sound that a van horn should have.

I’d seen the horn upgrade kits for the 2019+ Sprinters but they didn’t make it for older Sprinters so I found these horns on Amazon. They easily fit in the original location of the old horn without much modification and sounds way better!

It’s pretty easy to do just remove the grille (4 screws), unbolt the old horn, then bolt the new horns in place. I used the metal mounting plate from the old horn to space the 2nd horn apart. You’ll need to fashion a Y electric cable for the 2 horns but that’s the only modification required.

I have a RHD Sprinter. The greywater tank will be installed underneath, opposite the sliding door.

I want to drop drains through the floor on both sides close to the front edge of the rear wheel arches. On the drivers side, it seems I can simply run the drain pipe through the floor, then through existing 38mm frame holes to the tank location, without losing much height.

However on the passenger side, I will need to somehow get the drain across, avoiding the exhaust and driveshaft. I could use flexible hose, but tucking it up is going to create valleys which hold water, which increases the risk of freezing and blockage. The only frame holes I see to traverse across seem too small, and are partially obstructed by brake lines. I considered running through the frame, but there’s not really a usable exit hole, other than the one I plan to use on the driver side, and i seems I’m not allowed to drill the subframe.

I’m looking for completed, tested examples of how others have routed their drains under the vehicle to achieve this, that I can apply to my build. Photos would be fantastic.

Suggestions so far have been to install a grey tank on both sides, and either have two dump drains, or connect both tanks to a single dump drain, essentially making the drain the lowest point under vehicle.

I’m also considering running the sink drain above the floor, joining to the bathroom drain above the floor - which complicates my build but does address the problem.

Thanks.

Beer and Van Life One of the best things about having my van is being able to attend remote beer festivals and sleep right there.

Found this cool design for a folding bed but I'm scratching my head as to how the slats work without legs in the middle of the bed. Sadly the company seems to have disappeared so I'm not sure how to go about emulating the design

where can you pay for 120v (15 amp) charging vanlife? are there free locations and or apps? anyone know dis let us know. tanks a bunches.

Looking for maybe some pros/cons of using this for travel/living situations please let me know if you have any ideas

My girlfriend and I are currently insulating our van and we're going to run thinsulate through the left and right pillars, but I'm wondering how people get any insulation towards the middle? Seems impossible to get it anywhere near it and we want it insulated considering we'll be sleeping right next to it...

Is it okay to insulate the top part on the outside of the metal?

TIA!

Hey all — my name is Jeremy and I am one of the owners of Kona Hills Campground.

I spent a handful of years van/truck camping across the US for various things after a serendipitous hitch hiking trip into Mexico with an old-timer truck camper who had been living the lifestyle every winter for multiple decades. I’m back home these days and still get out as much as I can, but with 2 dogs and a wife I’ve upgraded to a pretty cool 1990 Toyota Sunrader.

About the campground: We are located 45mi west of the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore just outside of Marquette, MI.

The property is 200' above Lake Superior on top of a Kona Dolomite rock outcropping which the campground is named for, with amazing views all around.

The campground is rustic and meant for tent and car/van/truck camping. (No RVs or hookups). We have 40 sites spaced out for privacy across 80 acres.

Even sites that are close together are usually separated by elevation as we planned the design based on how we like to camp rather than packing as many sites in as we could. We purchased the property in 2020 and have been working through entitlements and permitting since then and are officially taking reservations for 2025.

This is our first year of operations and amenities are limited. We are opening with portable toilets and plan to build permanent ones for 2026, for example.

We have additional plans to expand our offerings as we go which include recreational opportunities like hiking and biking trails as well as rock climbing.

Happy to answers any questions about the propertv or the process of opening a campground — it was a lot!

https://campkonahills.com

I feel ya charlie!

https://youtu.be/jN9B6lxqlTk?si=S2NF-X0b-RKPMybT

Been doing research and trying to find the output of my fridge so I can use the right fuse size but I’m confused on the kilowatts hours/24H.

We’re taking a month long trip in July in a Chevy Suburban and want to camp in the vehicle some. I know that’s not van dwelling but I know you all know what you’re talking about and would value your advice.

We would like the freedom to stealth camp once every three nights and could camp with electric or stay in a hotel every so often.

We need to tun a C-pap every night and would like a fan too as some of the trip will be across the desert. What are our best options?

*EDIT: Most of these answers translate largely to gibberish for me. I can look up gibberish and do my best with the information given, but if you are reading this and know what you’re talking about please take a minute to upvote the best advice. As I said, I value your opinion.

I recently installed my electrical system and I'm having trouble with my velit gas heater starting up and running.

When I startup the heater I get an error code relating to the fuel pump. I was trying to figure out if I had a bad fuel pump but then tried to isolate the problem by removing some electrical changes and ultimately realized that the heater runs fine when my main bus bar is not connected to the chassis ground, but when I do connect it to chassis ground the heater will not start up.

With the chassis ground cable removed from my bus bar, a voltage check at the heater controller board saw the voltage go from 13.28 down to 12.00V and start successfully, but with the chassis ground connected to my bus bar, the voltage went from 13.28 to 13.2 and stop after a few seconds.

Do I have a ground loop or something else that is causing the issue? It seems pretty isolated to the chassis ground being connected or not and I am out of ideas

I'm curious if anyone has ever reversed one to fold to the other side.

So I just got my electrical equipment and got a bunch of 70a and a 40a breaker to put between the bus bars and my hardware (dc/dc, solar charger etc) and I've noticed some people saying that fuses are better than breakers. I know BlueSea is a great brand, very high quality and these breakers would be very convenient. Anyone have reasons as to why I should return the breakers and get properly sized fuses instead?

Links for reference:

Fuse - https://a.co/d/fcLxRG6

Breaker - https://a.co/d/8IO5WAO

I’m building a van but I want to keep it registered as a van and not campervan/caravan and to do that I can’t fix my furniture to the van. They need to be easily removed. So I was wondering is there some other option for it than using loading straps?