So I bought several 1/2" sheets of 4X8 foam insulation board for the ceiling and I also wanted to install a lay er of Reflectix. I cut the Reflectix sheets to fit between the ceiling ribs and used two-sided tape to hold them in place while I worked on the foam panels. I didn't cut the foam panels for a tight fit because I wanted to allow room for electrical wiring. Some were more precise than others, and maybe I was just tired that day , but I managed to get the panels cut and in place and ran two stringers the length of van's cargo area and attached them to the ribs using self-tapping sheet metal screws...
Notice that I didn't insulate the extended portion of the rear of the van, and the stringers I had cut to end in the middle of the last main ceiling rib. I wanted to leave enough room to add boards extending to the back of the van and have them attached solidly...
Then the additional two stringers were cut and put into place, making sure to work with the roof vent fan support...
Thankfully, I needed to wait on installing the ceiling panels until I had the wiring figured out and the cabling run. I had already routed the solar panel cables over to the front of the right side cabinet, where the controller was going to be mounted but none of the other wiring was in yet...
So I focus sed m y attention back on the cabinets. It was time to make them pretty...
I purchased a 1/4" sheet of birch cabinet plywood, it has a beautiful smooth finished look that I wanted to install over the top of the cabinet's ply wood countertop surface. I cut the pieces to fit and I pulled the cabinets out of the van, except for the rear one which is mounted to the van ribs, sanded the plywood surfaces, cleaned them well and applied a coat of heavy duty wood glue to the surface...
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| My cat's idea of helping out... |
It worked really well, as I was fitting the birch sheets to the tops of the cabinets I noticed within minutes it was getting difficult to move them around for adjustments. I made sure to have them in place quickly, then placed a large piece of scrap plywood over the top and several gallon jugs of water as weights on the surface and waited for them to dry...
And I loved the results...
Notice too that I cut and fitted plywood to the sides of the cabinets and added front trim pieces of 1X3's to give it a more finished look...
Now you can really see what I was trying to accomplish with the cabinets. There is a recessed area on top of the cabinet for storing quick access and smaller items, then the upper cabinet interior area itself which has plywood surfaces top and bottom for your main storage, and then the lower portion which is open to the countertop and allows for items 8" or less in height to be stored. It only has the one finishing board across the front to help keep items from shifting around while driving...
This really gives it more of an open feel, since the area is really small, it helps to give the illusion that it is more open and spacious...
Now that I also have the plywood pieces on the sides of the cabinets done. I used 3/8 plywood for the cabinet shelves, as well as the top and side panels. I can start mounting the solar charge controller and my electrical system wiring and components....
All of the wiring in the van runs across the ceiling or within the upper wall channel to the front of this cabinet. A hole was drilled in the top of the cabinet for the wiring run. I used 16 gauge Ancor Marine Grade Duplex cabling from Amazon for all the wiring except for the solar setup.
My wiring consists of two circuits which run to the rear cabinet for powering the water pumps. Two circuits that go across the roof to the other wall for lighting purposes, front/rear. Two double-wire circuits, one to the front cab area beside the outside of the passenger's seat for a double cigarette lighter socket installation, and the other to the rear cabinet, near the back door for another double cigarette lighter socket assembly.
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| Double cig-lighter outlets at rear door. |
I wanted the solar charge controller to be easy to access and easy to read. In my original drawing I had it mounted on the front of the right side cabinet, and that is where I ended up installing it and the location worked beautifully. Of the six cables you see going into the controller, two are from the paralleled solar panels, two are routed directly to the batteries, and the other two serve the positive and negative connections for all of the load devices...
Just below the controller I mounted a 6 electrical switch panel which was sold on Amazon for marine applications, but it worked great for me. In addition to the 6 switch panel, it has a cigarette lighter socket, a voltmeter, and a third socket with two USB ports for charging cell phones and other rechargeable devices which I use all the time...
This is mounted right inside the side doors. I can access it from inside or outside, glance at it to see how the power is doing, and even catch a glimpse of it in my rear view mirror while driving...
The back of this panel is where I centralized all of the electrical wiring, installed the fuse panel, power distribution, and grounding stud for the two house batteries. I decided not to ground the batteries to the van but to keep the two systems separate. This meant I had to run both power and ground wiring on every circuit, but eliminating those troublesome bad ground issues seemed like a good trade off. The batteries are mounted just below this panel in the lower cabinet, so everything is very close to the source...
I also wanted to include the photo below to point out a few things that you may not have noticed...
This is the back side view of the 6 switch panel. Notice the two black cables running down through the countertop, these are the positive and negative cables running from the house batteries to the controller. The white flex tube also runs down through the countertop to the sealed battery box and vents out the side of the van through a vent I installed on the side of the van...
One other thing, the bolt sticking up with the nut and washers is a large carriage bolt that runs through both the upper and lower cabinet 2X2 structures to give the upper cabinet more stability but is removable if you need to take the cabinet out for any reason...
As I was getting closer and closer to finishing the van build, I realize now that I wasn't taking as many pictures as I was in the beginning, so some of what follows may not be as well photographically documented...
The bed, where is the bed in this van? Well, I decided to use the couch I had in m y house for the bed, but that took a bit of engineering to get to work out...
Continue to Converting Anastasia / Part V
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