We've gotten some rain recently, which, living in the desert, means abandon work and go ride. Installed a steering stabilizer on my XR650R so yesterday was a good time to test it out. Excellent dirt that got even better as I got rained on. I rode until my face hurt from the rain drops and my hands went numb. Steering stabilizer probably saved my life as I was impersonating Johnny Campbell riding WFO through some sandy whoops that were a bit rutted.
irish44j wrote: Love this idea and van, but every time I look at this thread I can't help but think "man, I could have a lot of fun with rattle-can and vinyl" so it doesn't look so much like....well.....a handicap tranport van. Maybe do it up something along the lines of teamilluminata's rally van? Or are you trying to keep it "stealth" on purpose?
Attempt #1
Yes and no... Personally, I like the stealthiness of a white van that looks like a run of-the-mill transport van. It blends into the background so that nobody thinks to look inside and see if anything is worth stealing. That was one thing I loved about my old conversion van - the bloody thing was invisible. It was amazing how something so big could go so unnoticed. This was important to me when the contents inside were worth more than the van.
In reply to Ian F:
This
Ian F wrote: Yes and no... Personally, I like the stealthiness of a white van that looks like a run of-the-mill transport van. It blends into the background so that nobody thinks to look inside and see if anything is worth stealing. That was one thing I loved about my old conversion van - the bloody thing was invisible. It was amazing how something so big could go so unnoticed. This was important to me when the contents inside were worth more than the van.
I don't worry about that much while I'm camping or on the road, but the majority of the time this is parked in front of my house on the street. The stuff inside is important, and I want to leave it loaded. I think that for now I should leave it invisible. Someday when I have a shop with a door big enough to park it inside, I'll make it look like a '92 Honda dirtbike.
I've ordered Pit Posse bike shoes and eye bolts from Summit.
I'm going to prep a 4x8 sheet of plywood to mount the bike shoes to. Any recommendations on thickness or type of wood? I'd like to paint it red/white/blue with a big Honda wing and HRC logos on it. Since I'm not going to do up the outside with the graphics, I'd like to keep doing the inside. Additionally, at the races I can pull the thing out and use it as a work location in the pits. I don't have a projector, but does anyone have a different method for transferring a design to the plywood so that I can paint it? I'd like it to be bigger than something I can print on an 8.5"x11" piece of paper.
Well, if you want I can print it out here at work and mail it to you. Then you can get some carbon paper and trace over it to transfer to the plywood. Just let me know what size.
Ian F wrote: Well, if you want I can print it out here at work and mail it to you. Then you can get some carbon paper and trace over it to transfer to the plywood. Just let me know what size.
Thanks, but I'm hoping to get the paint all done this weekend so I can mount the bike shoes as soon as they arrive.
rasterbator.net
you can put it on lots of 8.5x11" pieces of paper, instead of just one!
cmcgregor wrote: rasterbator.net you can put it on lots of 8.5x11" pieces of paper, instead of just one!
Perfect!
A welcome helper
One benefit to the course rubber floor is good traction on the front wheel when backing down the ramp. In my truck bed with plastic liner the front wheel would lock up and slide, making things interesting. I took my angle grinder and cut a bunch of grooves to add traction where I thought I might need it. Now I have saw dust covering my garage.
Using the program cmcgregor led me to I printed out my favorite Honda logo, which came out around the time I was born, 1985.
I got some transfer paper and laid it under the logo and traced the outlines onto the plywood.
More stickers showed up in the mail, I'm an addict.
This is really taking a long time. I'm probably not going to do the HRC logo underneath like I planned.
Bam!
I used that Sharpie paint marker for all the black and it really worked well. Much more accurate than a paint brush and it had really nice paint. Two thumbs up.
Arts and crafts is fun.
I'd see about some sliders. let the whole board slide backwards and then drop down.
bam, no need to ride teh bikes in/out. :P
but I'm an engineer. It's not right unless it takes 4x longer than it should have and does things I do not really need.
In reply to Mad_Ratel:
Will you do the stress analysis on a piece of 3/4" plywood and let me know if it's up to the challenge? Also design and manufacture the sliders, hydraulics and wiring harness for me. I'll be too busy now that I've installed a bottle opener.
I riveted a piece of aluminum to the back of the door card to provide some stiffness for the torque of the bottle opener being used, and for some decent mounting holes. The black door card is basically cardboard. I noticed quite a bit of room within the door to be used for storage. Someday I'll have to make a new interior for the door to utilize it. I put the aluminum plate in where the cut out for a speaker is so that the aluminum wouldn't rattle/rub against metal.
I made sure to mount it so the steel handrail would not block its action when the door was closed. It's a bit of a reach behind the person in the blue chair when its facing aft. I'm not real stoked about that but I figure it will get most of its use when the door is open.
2 coats of lacquer over the top. The red paint bled ever so slightly with the lacquer, you can just barely see it in the bottom left of the 'H' Shouldn't be noticeable with a muddy bike parked on top of it dropping dirt clumps.
Looks great!
Tracking info says the bike shoes won't be here until Friday. I'm leaving Thursday night for the moto festival that I was hoping to have this thing done for. 
A problem with the right side cargo door lock has arisen. Sometimes when I hit the lock button the actuator sounds like a motor is running but doesn't lock the door. Sometimes it works just fine. Sometimes the motor spins and then locks. I'm not sure exactly how the lock actuator works, but it looks sealed. Can I take it apart or should I just spend $45 on a new actuator?
PB; you had me laughing pretty hard at your distraction...
I noticed quite a bit of room within the door to be used for storage. Someday I'll have to make a new interior for the door to utilize it.
Conversion vans often have interesting door cards with storage cubbies, etc. Next time you're in the junkyard, look around for conversion vans with the same body as your van.
Eye bolts arrived. I ordered 6 of them. I need to remove two more seatbelts to have all six in, but I did the 4 that I had already removed. The chain links will all go on the floor now.
Remember when I asked what I should put in place of the missing seat belt reel lower down in that photo? It's a perfect spot for a Harbor Freight magnetic LED light. I've got 4 or 5 of those things. They are often times available free, with or without a purchase from HF.
I killed the battery one day working on the van and leaving doors open for hours at a time. When the front or side doors are open, the interior lights are on. For some reason though, the rear door light only lights up when it's open AND another door is open. If I open a rear door, the interior lights don't come on and neither does the rear door light. Odd wiring, doesn't seem like the way Ford would do it, so perhaps it was part of the wheelchair lift modifications. Anyway, incandescent bulbs burn a lot of battery power so I searched eBay and found the best deal on some 10 LED bulbs for the 4 lights on the roll cage. The back door light is a different style bulb and the front dome light has yet another style bulb, as well as a bulky wire harness plug that prevents the dome light from fitting into place fully. It needs more work.
Funny story; I ordered 4 bulbs, and when I went to install them, only 1 out of the 4 worked. I messaged the seller and, in broken english, he advised that I try flipping the bulbs around. I did. They all worked. Who would have thought that LED bulbs using Directional Current (DC) were directional? Not this guy.
I also got a bunch of cheap Honda stickers from eBay and put a bunch of them up last night, but forgot to take pitchers. Big ADVrider camping event this weekend so I should get some cool van/camping pics.
Bulbs are bright? The Civic and the 911 both have bulbs that make a whale oil lamp seem bright.
They are just as bright as the incandescent bulbs. I went with a warm white instead of operating room-like white. I figure I'll want that romantic candlelight glow effect when the Motovan is functioning as date night dinning room. Also if I'm out at night camping and go the van to use the bottle opener, I don't want to be blinded and have my buzz killed.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/301198168117?_trksid=p2059210.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
Awesome upgrades to the van! And for your future information all leds are polar, contrary to incandescent bulbs which are nonpolar
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