Hey everyone, I sold MotoTruck and last month my family and I began to embark on another DIY Adventure… We loved our Tacoma and GFC setup, but want/need more room. The genesis of this build is a Sprinter 170 AWD Cargo we bought from Mercedes-Benz San Luis Obispo.
Our build will include:
Pass-thru GFC Modified RTT to make it a true “Seat 4, Sleep 4” Van
Hard-walled Wetbath
70+ Gallons of freshwater
DIY “Smartfloor” System
Lots of L-Track and Unistrut for mounting everything
24V Lithium Battery Bank with Solar
Flares and Murphy Style Bed
Extruded Aluminum Framing/ cabinetry
Hydronic Heating
24V AC
Isotherm Drawer 130 Fridge
Induction Cooktop
Kitchen Sink
Lots of storage inside and out
Wheels/Tires/Suspension
Exterior accessories along the way
Next was my DIY “Smart Floor” System. I did not want to pay over $10,000 for a “Smart Floor”, so I made my own. I used two sheets of furniture grade 1/2" Birch Plywood half-lapped together. The top sheet was cut to allow the flanged L-Track to rest on the bottom sheet. Beneath the subfloor is 3M double scrim Thinsulate on the “valley” sections of the corrugated van floor. The subfloor is held in place via the 10 OEM D-Ring locations, and heavy duty adhesive bonded to the van floor. The L-Track for the seating area is bolted all the way through the subfloor and van floor and held in place by steel plates. The 4- 96" pieces of L-Track are secured via over 100 t-nuts on the back side of the bottom sheet of plywood. I then used Lonseal Lonridge Marine floor to finish it off.
Overall, I am very happy with the floor. I saved a lot of money DIY, and it looks amazing in person.
Today I finished up the unistrut rail system for the walls and ceiling. The cabinetry will be attached to this system. I went through Roost Vans who had the rails powder coated and cut to size. This was a little time consuming, but overall I’m happy with how it turned out.
I’m starting to test fit the wall and ceiling panels and trying out a few different ideas. So far, mounting the panels under the unistrut seems to be the cleanest look.
Velit 24V AC Installed! Cut a 14” x 14” hole in my roof, sanded down/ deburred the edges, applied POR-15 on edges, laid down the included 14” x 14” foam gasket, had a buddy come over to lift the AC into place and that’s about it. The wooden box the AC came in got me real good though! As I jumped down onto the ground, my knee caught one of the metal tabs wooden box and fileted it open!
Great build, that injury looks like no fun. I had a nearly identical wound, albeit just a little smaller, in the right medial aspect of my knee from a ski edge a few months ago. Hope you heal quickly!
@Dogandagladiator@ws6616 Apparently looking before you leap is important. lol @MBBME Bummer about your knee… You all healed up? I had a XC MTB Race next month so each day off my bike is fitness lost for me
I definitely got lucky as the laceration was all the way down to the bone, but missed basically all of the important soft tissue around my knee. 7 stitches, which looks to be about half the staples you got, but physically healed up with a nice scar too. The worst part, other than it happening on the Tuesday of a week-long ski trip in Big Sky, is the diminished sensation and weird nerve sensations on my shin (which I’m told could last up to a year…or forever).
