Adventure Van on a Budget - ‘98 Econoline

wanderer-rrorc

Explorer
Loving the build couple recommendations though I would go with 200 Watts renology for the solar that's what I have and 110 amp hour sealed battery.. with my CPAP on cloudy days I really need more power to make it all the way through the night so I'm going to upgrade to 200 amp hours of battery here soon.

Every one of the seats in my van has its own dedicated dual USB 2.1 amp .I have the switches above my driver's head on the door pillar so I can reach them from outside quickly turn lights on fans on in the very first swich is my battery isolator I got a heavy duty continuous usage one so it lets me charge off the van and even jump back to the start battery when needed.

My USBs ,fridge, fan exterior lighting all run off the house battery in case they accidentally get left on it doesn't affect my start battery.

I have a standard all-weather Shore power bulkhead fitting and then I wired three separate dual outlet boxes in the van my fridge is 110 cord is always plugged in and automatically switches to 110 when it senses voltage .a battery charger tender for the house batteries is always plugged in. Those Outlets are the red ones so I know they're shore power the white one will be hooked up when I finally spend the money on a 2000 watt inverter and the inverter will be switch off of the overhead switches everything else is run off of from the house battery.

If you look in my build on here for Yolanda you can see the progression and I saved images and links to all of the stuff I installed.

Funny thing I looked at the exact same IKEA bed set up but didn't go through with it because I wanted storage for all the blankets pillows rain gear in one side and then the other side is all the house battery eventually water tank tools and spare parts

Sent from my VS987 using Tapatalk
 
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CLM

Member
Took the wife and dogs on a fall drive, then spent half a day out at our land. We have 5 acres that is pretty much a hillside and the limited slip did it’s job even after the rain we had yesterday and made it’s way up there. We walked back down and you could see where it was having to bite pretty good about a 1/3 of the time. Was nice opening the doors up and taking a nap with the cool fall breeze blowing through.

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CLM

Member
Good fall weekend running around Missouri. Learned we can camp in the mid 40’s with no heater and the inside stays almost too warm with the 2 of us and 2 dogs.
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CLM

Member
We’ve enjoyed the van, but we’re going to be finishing it up over the next few weeks and be putting it for sale after the first of the year.
We decided to start a small business and selling off some of our toys to put more money into the business. Will post pictures when it is finished so we don’t leave anyone hanging.
 

daddyrem

New member
hi everyone,

i'm not sure if this is right forum, i'm new here. I have recently purchased a 2000 mark 3 e150 van that i plan to take on ski trips and trips on rutted out (not extremely gnarly) dirt roads. I want extra traction and am not willing to dump thousands into the Ujoint 4x4 kit. Does anyone have any advice or real world experience with a limited slip differential in snow in a ford econoline van? Is there a certain model of LSD that is preferable for mountainous snowy roads? I already have michelin snow tires.

i know this topic has been brought up before, but i'm asking again.

thanks
 

Raul

Adventurer
I had a 200 E150 that I used for ski trips (once or twice a year, I live in Houston), road trips and trails. Not really a heavy usage on snow, but I installed a factory 9.75" (you may have 8.8) LSD differential and with good tires (BTG AT and later Cooper AT3) I never had any issues. With Goodyear Fortera I was all over the place.
 

CLM

Member
We finally finished the inside and put her up for sale this weekend. Really happy with how it turned out. If she doesn’t sell, we will be going to the Midwest vanlife festival in May.

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CLM

Member
They are Glaval brand. The company that did the original conversion used a bunch of stufff that was branded glaval. The seats are super comfortable.
 

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