Motovan--2000 Ford E350 ex-wheelchair van

Aux reverse light bar rocks.

Finally got the compressor mounted with a piece of bar stock. I had difficulty with this one. I was just unable to visualize how it would work out, take appropriate measurements etc. I drilled the ends and then I couldn't get the bolts in due to lack of clearance. Should have been easy, took me a few hours. I'm no pro. Rock solid now though. I removed the rubber feet since the floor is rubber.

Tapped into the main power cable

Ground wire

Positive and breaker

The positive cable headed to the left is for the winch, the one with the breaker runs to the compressor and the distribution box in the rear, and the little one is for the HID headlight harness. It's starting to look like I need a better junction box under the hood for all this crap. Any suggestions?

Came home to the snow

Pretty impressed with the snow and ice performance even without snow tires. Totally comfortable at highway speeds. The only real downside is trying to get going from a stop on the ice.

I figured out barn door storage, partially. I bought an old frame pack from a local used outdoor gear store for $18. Removed the frame and I attached the pack with the top two plastic push darts. It fits well, now I just need to attach it to the door more permanently. It has 6 metal grommets on the pack where it attached to the frame. I should just be able to run bolts or zip ties through those grommets. If I attach it to the door card, then it seems like maybe I should improve the way the door card attaches to the door. It just has 6 plastic push dart things right now. Maybe that's fine. Maybe I should just run it like that until I need to do better. It's been hanging from the top two plastic darts for a few days and some rough roads, although very lightly loaded.

Ditched the hub caps

I noticed the rear axle is a Dana 60 full floater. Not sure I ever pulled the hub caps to look before.

Went on a Christmas tree cutting run with the local Landcruiser club. Played around on trail and off trail until I got stuck. Ran over the kids snowmen family after they were all long gone. Hooliganism. Honda Cubbing. Campfire.

First time ever needing the winch.

FX2 SPORT!

Cool photos from the trip if you haven't clicked the link for the report on ADVrider

I decided at the last minute that I needed to have some HRC stickers for the trip since we both had XRRs.

Adding a leaf at WeldTecDesigns

Airing down

Airing up

Believe it or not, I outran this Bronco on a dirt road. He's got a lot of suspension tuning to do. Mine just flat out works. I was going 55 mph down some pretty rough stuff. With 33" tires it should be even better.

The bedroom, kitchen and dining room.

Uh-oh

Airing down

Bam!

This 2WD Suburban wasn't getting anywhere hauling that trailer. Gertrude to the rescue!

Holy crap that looks fun.

Hows the puma compressor? Its sitting in my ebay cart.... My wife is sick of long air ups, MF50 is slow...

java230 wrote: Hows the puma compressor? Its sitting in my ebay cart.... My wife is sick of long air ups, MF50 is slow...

25 to 50 psi in 1:45. I run 80 in the rear for the long highway trip and 70 up front. The short answer is that its awesome. 12 minutes to air up isn't too bad.

Petrolburner wrote:

java230 wrote: Hows the puma compressor? Its sitting in my ebay cart.... My wife is sick of long air ups, MF50 is slow...

25 to 50 psi in 1:45. I run 80 in the rear for the long highway trip and 70 up front. The short answer is that its awesome. 12 minutes to air up isn't too bad.

Yeah that's not bad, its probably 2-3 mins per tire for mine 14 to 38psi with the MF50. How well does it do once the tank is empty?

The tank is empty right away pretty much. It runs nonstop. The tank would allow you to use air tools in bursts though. I aired up my van and that Suburban nonstop without any trouble. I don't know what the tank pressure is while filling tires.

Details on that reverse light? I'd like one to mount to my trucks bumper.

Mad_Ratel wrote: Details on that reverse light? I'd like one to mount to my trucks bumper.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NTPSKMS?keywords=18w%20led%20light%20bar%20kawell&qid=1449607608&ref_=sr_1_4&sr=8-4

I wanted a low profile LED light bar. I wish it were a half inch taller so that it cleared the lip better and had less of a shadow. The stock reverse lights fill in the shadow just fine. More Lumens would be better, but I wanted it to be a low draw area work light if need be.

I measured the top of my van and determined this 42" light bar would fit nicely.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/400W-40inch-PHILIPS-LED-Light-Bar-Combo-Beam-Curved-Offroad-Truck-Boat-SUV-42-/291623642175?hash=item43e61fa43f:g:LRMAAOSw9r1WARFP&vxp=mtr

I got it for $125 and free shipping with a best offer on Black Friday or thereabouts.

Great riding conditions yesterday.

I organized a moto trip to the Christmas Valley Sand Dunes last weekend. I wanted to go before it got covered in snow. I figured with the rain and temperatures we'd had recently that it had the potential to be epic. It was, but like I had planned.

So I pulled my old Garmin Nuvi off the shelf and threw it in the van for this trip. I remebered that I had saved a waypoint for the last campsite at CV and clicked on it. It took us in from the North and the Lost Forest. I figured that since I had met Lucas through Expedition Portal that he'd be could with the back way in.

My poor little Aliner took a pretty good bouncing. It needs long travel suspension too. I dropped the air pressure to 20 psi when we first hit the dirt. Once we got off Fredericks butte road and it got rougher I dropped down to 14 psi.

In the end, it took 1.5 hours longer to reach camp than the original ETA from Garmin suggested. It was a fun ride in however and the Motovan had no issues at all with traction or bumps or anything.

We had a good campfire and :drinkers:

I went to bed at about 2:30 and clicked on the heat with my nice new digital thermostat. Nothing. Thermostat is clicking and saying "Heat On" on the display. Nothing. WTF!?! I brought a long a Little Buddy heater and lit it inside the camper. Totally unhappy with the furnace not working I pulled the thermostat off and just twisted the berkeleying wires together. Still nothing. Checked my fuse panel and it was all good. Must have broken something bumping along the rough road. berkeley. Then suddenly the furnace kicks on like nothing was wrong. In my drunken stupor I just crawled into bed. Now as you can probably imagine, in a tiny camper with a furnace that size I was going to get roasted out of there with it running non stop, remember I hot wired the berkeleyer. Well I was too drunk and tired to do anything properly so I just went straight to sleep and woke up the next morning nice and warm with the door wide open. May have wasted a bit of propane. Reinstalled the thermostat in the daylight and it worked just fine. No idea what the delay was.

It was about 8 AM and for some reason I didn't feel like utter dog E36 M3 so I hopped on the Cub for a reconnaissance ride. It was not easy to find my way to the dunes. There is a new fence and private land that I don't remember from before. All the trails had huge frozen puddles too so that kind of sucked riding around.

I found the tracks from the people making noise last night. They had fancy side by sides. Seemed like an appropriate tool for the job given the snow.

Well, I was right about one thing. The sand was totally firm enough to not need a paddle tire. Had we gotten here before the snow it would have been epic.

Went back to camp, made breakfast and got geared up for the real riding.

The flat areas at the bottom of the dunes were slick under the snow. Look at the difference in snow cover from the Cub ride to the Pig ride. Damn near ate E36 M3 right here.

Had to wipe snow off the lenses pretty often.

Post AM ride beer

Decided that with the snow and visibility, we probably weren't going to go back out again so we packed up and hit the road. Took the Motovan through the whoops while it was unloaded first. Dug the winch in pretty good a few times. No damage, just a lot of sand everywhere up front. I need that badass WeldTecDesigns pre-runner bumper.

Pretty good snow storm on the way out.

I hadn't eaten since breakfast so I was pretty damn hungry by now. I told Matt to meet me at Tres Caballos in La Pine.

Had good food, margs and Patron shots. Stopped at the store on the way to Matt's house for more supplies.

Continued drinking beers and rallying the Honda ATC collection. Plowed snow in Matt's FJ 40. Woke up the next morning to some pretty heavy snow. It rained last night so this E36 M3 was super duper heavy. Fortunately no branches broke above the Motovan.

I was a little concerned I was going to get stuck getting out of the driveway. The road hadn't been plowed since last night when Matt did it, and there was another 9" of fresh. I had to bust through the berm left by plowing. Matt's neighbor across the street was berkeleying around in the road and I lost my momentum for busting through the berm and keeping going. I didn't come to a complete stop, but pretty close. Hammered wide open throttle and just kept moving. Pulled the trailer through the berm and just kept going. Lots of deep ruts down the road and then a big berm hitting the country road that had been plowed. Fortunately I didn't have to stop for traffic and just plowed on through. She's an impressive machine all right.

Got home and didn't even have any snow to shovel.

Looks like an awesome trip! the new headlights cut through the snow nice. I need some like that.

java230 wrote: Looks like an awesome trip! the new headlights cut through the snow nice. I need some like that.

On Low beam they were great in the blizzard. I had pretty good distance without lighting up all the snow at eye level.

YOu make me wonder about taking my 2wd f150 into the blue ridge for some "service" road fun...

Mad_Ratel wrote: YOu make me wonder about taking my 2wd f150 into the blue ridge for some "service" road fun...

Put a thousand pounds in the bed and go for it!

Epic adventures, man! Your rigs are incredibly thought out, utilitarian and beautiful!

Turing into a great snow year. Can't afford a Timbersled this year and couldn't resist buying a snowmobile any longer. This thing is 11 feet long!

Loading is easier with a snow berm. I just picked up a Harbor Freight strap winch that I will use to get it loaded from my garage.

Snow melt

It's fun!

I clearly need an intervention

^^^clearly your not married! I miss my snowmobiles. They are way too much fun.

Making the loading ramp angle pretty much flat.

We tried to ski directly onto the ski rack of a Neon once like that. Kind of worked. I think your idea is better!

Lof8 wrote: Epic adventures, man! Your rigs are incredibly thought out, utilitarian and beautiful!

Thank you!

So, things have happened. My father is getting ready to head to Baja for January-March-ish with his 2008 GMC Sierra 4x4 crew cab Duramax with giant truck camper and a 16ft aluminum boat with a 40hp Mercury tiller. He's been dreaming of camping on the beach and fishing every day for the last few years. He's ready to make it happen this year. My brother owns The Backcountry Pursuit in Boise and Eagle Idaho. It's been a good winter there, as well as here. He called me the other day, soon after I bought the Arctic Cat, to tell me that he can probably afford to go to Baja and fish with Dad. E36 M3. I just blew the last of my fire season cash on that sled. I can't afford to go without selling a bunch of stuff. I can't afford not to go either. My Dad almost died of a heart attack several years ago right before our first trip to Baja. People die everyday in weird, unpredictable ways. Can't afford not to go. I'll be raising money by selling random things of value. I bought a Honda generator off craigslist a few weeks ago for $450, just because it was a bargain. I sold it last night for $550, minus the gas can, funnel and bottle of Sta-Bil that came with it. I might as well keep that stuff. So that's a step in the right direction. It's not so much that I made $100 off of it, but that I put $550 into the travel fund. Image from my craigslist ad:

This also means I have a deadline to complete a lot of the other Motovan mods. I plan to do a lot of night driving, so one of the high priorities is that 400 watt lightbar. In no particular order, I also plan to install my new headunit, backup camers, wire in the inverter, fix the gauge cluster lighting, front power distribution panel, wire the seat heaters to the accessory power, install the cockpit level indicators, change the oil and probably get the 5 Star tuning system.

Last night I installed my Fox Shox roost shields. I wish I had done this right away, as the rear shocks take a beating from gravel flying off the front tires. There was already a little damage to the lower mounts and some small nicks in the lower shaft. This is only going to accelerate the wear and failure of the shock seal. Dammit.

I'm going to get a quote on getting the exhaust redone too. Where the left and right banks come together, it's pretty much a T instead of a high flow Y. That and the 2 cats, resonator and muffler and I can barely hear the engine running. I'm tempted to just chop out the big muffler and leave the rest like I did with my Tundra, but I think if I do anything I should go after better flow instead of just better sound. A better exhaust coupled with the 5 Star tuning should make it a much better rig on the highway. The 5 Star tune fixes the mapping of the transmission so it doesn't unlock the torque converter all the damn time and shift down a gear at the slightest incline. I've heard good things about it. Plus, more power and better mileage.

This is the boat my Dad is prepping for the trip.