HillBillyRV Build Thread - 87 Ford E350 Quadravan Pathfinder Conversion

[jacobconroy]

This week I finished up the wiring at the rear bumper between the new jack and the new run. Here is the Chaser attached for a test fit:


It still had some extensions in the tongue from an earlier project and sat a little too high. So I removed the extensions, switched out the stinger for a lower one, and shortened the safety chains:


That looks a little better methinks. Just need to air up the trailer's shocks a bit to get it level. And...check out the vanity plates:


Almost ready to go camping! The trailer now holds a good bit of fire wood and most of the gear that was in the Jeep. Next I need to work out some heat for the van.

I had a bracket made today to mount the Propex inside the van...but I kinda want one of those propane heaters for a yacht. The are very efficient and don't use any battery power (which would probably save me from having to add a fourth battery to the van). Maybe I'll but the Propex in this weekend? Not sure yet.

 

[jacobconroy]

My Front Runner parts arrived last week. They will allow me to extend my 69 inch long Slimline II rack (from the Jeep) to 109 inches long, which is the longest Front Runner Slimline II rack you can get according to Front Runner. This will run the rack from the rear of the van to just behind my sunroof and the rack will house the spare tire, two Alucab Shadow awnings (for 360 degree awning coverage), and either my James Baroud RTT....or firewood and other gear. When I get a second awning I think this is going to be pretty awesome.

I can't say enough good things about Front Runner USA. Frankly, I am amazed that the parts their support guy told me to buy are correct. I just took it all out of the box and checked.

I'll assemble the awning soon and take some pictures for the thread. Next will be a mockup mount to begin bracket fabrication for the rack.

 

[MK13]

In high school my friends parents had an early eighties F-150 step side 4x4 and it was white and baby blue, white roof and rockers, baby blue everywhere else. I always loved that color on an older Ford and I think it would look great and period correct on your RV.

 

[jacobconroy]

In high school my friends parents had an early eighties F-150 step side 4x4 and it was white and baby blue, white roof and rockers, baby blue everywhere else. I always loved that color on an older Ford and I think it would look great and period correct on your RV.

You know...that isn't a bad idea. I could probably get away with leaving the inside dark blue with that color scheme.

 

[NORDFORD]

You know...that isn't a bad idea. I could probably get away with leaving the inside dark blue with that color scheme.

I’d say white or silver roof and leave the dark blue below that. Love the rig. Good find!

 

[jacobconroy]

Today I decided to reconfigure the Front Runner Slimline II rack from the Jeep with the new parts to make it longer. Here is the Jeep rack. First I removed the Thule cross bars so that I could turn the rack upside down for work:



Then I turned it over, removed on of the profiles (that is what Front Runner calls the side rails) and put on the first of four new profiles (two per side):


Then comes the point to install the joint reinforcement between profile 1 & 2. Takes a little messing around, but it isn't too bad:


Had to practice a little "clamp-foo" to hold everything up during assembly. The rack is wider that a 48 inch chunk of CDX:


Then I could adjust the 2nd profile to get the joint reinforcement pieces aligned:

I then inserted the new slats (cross-pieces) and assembled the other side's joint reinforcement:


Then I reinstalled the nose piece and calmly said "Dammit Front Runner!"


I am one slat short. I ordered one more and it should be here this week. Going to need to leave this sitting in the garage all week. Wife is gonna have to park outside. She won't be happy.

But, I think it was worth an extra $500.00 bucks to gain the extra space. This is going to put me up at about $2000.00 for the rack so far (not including the work and cost of fabricating mounting brackets). The good news is that I will now have enough length for the James Baroud RTT in the rear (with rear ladder access), a full-sized spare up front on one side, and room to strap on some firewood across from the spare. A right-hand mount Alu Cab Shadow awning will fit as well, and i MIGHT put another Alu Cab awning kitty-corner to the first one. But, I have a spare Fiamma F45 here at the house and may install it on the passenger side instead. Would save quite a bit of money.

 

[jacobconroy]

It was a nice day, no work to do....so I decided that I'm going to try to get the roof fixed up and coated before installing the roof rack. I might not have enough warm days left to install the roll-on coating (like bed liner), but I'm going to give it a hell of a try.


First I had to remove the interior roof panels and insulation to see what's what:


Then I had to remove the "breaker, breaker, 10-4 good buddy" roof rack and old CB cable:


After grinding the inside and outside of the screw holes, I put blue tape on the underside in preparation of some All-Metal filler:


Then I added the All-Metal. As you can see, I have never done any body work:


Since the above didn't take very long I started to chisel out the old gutter sealant in preparation of new sealant. I took two hours and was a PITA. But, I turned this:


Into this:


By doing this:


No fun at all. On the next lazy day this week I will wire-wheel the gutters and do a little cleanup. Then it's off to the brother-in-law this weekend to weld up some rusty spots in the gutter, plug some holes, and weld a patch into the location of that cheesy roof vent. It is my hope to get the roof rolled in a week or two. I did decide to make the roof white.

By the way, that roof and the supports under it are pretty flimsy. I think we will need to make some sort gussets (is that what you call them?) out of 16 gage steel and either bolt or weld them to either side of each roof support and weld a plate across the bottom of them. I imagine this would make it very strong and would also give me a frame to put a nice, flat interior roof in the van with lots of insulation. Does anyone have thoughts about this idea? It will be a lot of work, but I am only going to do this once. There will be somewhere between 3 and 4 hundred lbs on the roof, with 250 more if I am in an RTT up there.

 

[jacobconroy]

Finally got a little bit done in preparation of spring. My Bro-In-Law and I pulled the old solar vent out of the ceiling and patched the hole. In a couple of weeks we will prep and coat the roof with Monsta Liner before installing the roof rack.

The guy that installed this vent wasn't ********** around. It took an hour to chisel it out. Looks like he used RTV gasket silecone:


Then we spot welded a patch under the hole:


On the top we filled it up with All-Metal. When the ice melts outside I'll find out if it leaks. Didn't get a picture of that though. Next weekend we will weld a new channel on the rear of the van to fix this major rust spot. It sucks because the water runs through it and right into the van when the rear doors are open:



When we prep and Monsta-line it, I'll get some more pics.

 

[Pangle]

Awesome build! I was reading through the thread and thinking to myself..."man this this is screaming for a monstaliner paint job!" What color do you think you will go with? I just used the "get hammered" on my latest project and I think it will work well on yours. I have also used the light gray, medium gray, desert tan, which I also liked.

 

[Mwilliamshs]

...I didn't get many pictures, but the new run is all done and fused:
View attachment 475227

Why are the fuses at the rear? Putting them there would protect the trailer but leave the van at risk of the wire shorting somewhere along the full length of the van. Much better to have a fuse as near the power source as possible.

 

[jacobconroy]

Why are the fuses at the rear? Putting them there would protect the trailer but leave the van at risk of the wire shorting somewhere along the full length of the van. Much better to have a fuse as near the power source as possible.

The "new" heavy power supply is fused at the front (battery), the brake wire is fused at the brake controller, and the factory wiring is fused in the factory panel.

I always fuse where I takeoff...so that if my wiring is bad, the trailer wiring will stop working and the factory wiring should remain unchanged.

At least that is the plan.

 

[jacobconroy]

Awesome build! I was reading through the thread and thinking to myself..."man this this is screaming for a monstaliner paint job!" What color do you think you will go with? I just used the "get hammered" on my latest project and I think it will work well on yours. I have also used the light gray, medium gray, desert tan, which I also liked.

I decided to keep it dark blue ( I am waaaaaay too lazy to paint the interior part a different color). I ordered the chits from Monsta liner and we are going to go with "Midnight Special"...which is just a dark blue.

The Bro-In-Law just painted his 40's Jeep with Desert Sand and it looks awesome. He was really pushing to do the van in Desert Sand too. But as I said, I really don't want to wind up painting the interior.

 

[Raul]

I am pretty pleased with Monstaliner. I went desert sand / black. Forget about stealth. I think I get more attention from the paint job than the lifted 4x4

 

[jacobconroy]

Today I did a mockup of the rack install in preparation of ordering gutter brackets for it. Took a few pictures.

So, doing this by yourself takes a little planning. Here is what I worked out. First picture is the prep to lift the rack. As you can see I used two 3/4 slices of CDX to keep the sharp edges of the rack off the van and some blankets to keep from tearing the roof up. Since I am about to put Monstalina on the roof the scratching didn't matter too much...but I used blankets anyway. The crusty snow was a bonus because it kept my CDX from sliding away from the van without extra work.



I then lifted the rack (which I don't think is more than 100 lbs.) and used clamps to set it on the CDX at waste-level:


And here we are. Note the safety strap attached to the top of the rack:


And then I attached the strap to the bottom of the passenger side of the van:


A little more lifting and wiggling resulted in a rack on the roof:


After a little moving and measuring I came up with this general fitment:


The rack will more or less sit there. This will allow rear coverage for the Alucab Shadow awning at the rear in hopes of keeping rain out of the inside of the van when the rear doors are open. The twin sun roofs in front will also be able to function properly (they are very important for summer ventilation since I don't yet have working A/C).

The point of all this was to find out how high my gutter-mount brackets would need to be. It is important that I am able to keep the Front Runner camp table under the rack and I wasn't sure how much room it would need given the domed shape of the roof. I did find out that I am going to take off the fairing (or however you spell it) on the front of the rack.

Because....this will allow me to use these gutter-mount brackets. I can get four pairs of brackets for $220.00. Much searching indicated that these brackets are appr. 6.25 inches tall and it turns out that that height is enough to clear the table mounts. In the end it should look and work like it was designed to do this!

I was going to use Front Runner gutter-mount brackets...but they are appr. $100.00 per pair. That is nearly twice the price!. The van is all about being inexpensive and functional.

Also, it seems that I might JUST BARELY be able to open and operate the Alucab awning without a step stool. This would be awesome!

 

[jacobconroy]

I spent a little time on further planning too. Mainly about the kitchen. I had half-heartedly tried to sell the "Jeep Kitchen" that was in my JK. Didn't get any takers though. So I've decided to use it in the van. I'm used to it, it works, and the only thing that sucks about it is the Mickey Mouse drawer slides and half-azzed locking mechanisms that it shipped with.

The sliding door on the van is finicky as it keeps falling out of the track. The power door lock is sketchy too. I plan to fix this stuff later but it is pretty much impossible to guarantee that you can open the sliding door from inside the van. For this reason I am going to use the primary rear door for van access at camp. This means no kitchen at the rear doors. So, here is where it will sit:






The drawers and drawer slides have been removed. I did some research today and found that I can replace all the drawer slides with lock-in/lock-out models for a little less than $500.00. I think I'm gonna do that. I plan to put a quick-release propane connection in the backing behind the step (in the picture above) for quick and easy connection to the Partner stove that mounts in the Jeep Kitchen. There will be a lot of extra room for switches and whatever else.

I've been agonizing over storage locations for my Snow Peak fire pit and found today that it will fit nicely to the left of the Jeep Kitchen along with camp chairs, my Stihl battery-powered saw, and whatever else that needs access without climbing into the van (and dirty stuff).

In other news, I think I found a 10 gallon ASME chassis-mount RV propane tank from a salvage Ford 1-ton RV for $150.00 and it will fit perfectly under the driver's side of the van. Will only cost me about three inches of clearance. Bad news is that I'll have to drive an 8-hour round trip to get it. Still thinking about that.