New van, new adventures

[ericvs]

What brand is that induction cooktop and can you recommend it?

I have an Eco4us cooktop. I didn't do a ton of research on cooktops to be honest, but this one has been good. I have not an induction cooktop before, so I don't have anything to compare it to, but this one does exactly what I hoped. It is a power hog for sure, but I don't think any of the inductions are battery friendly. The temp settings are enough that it allows very good heat control while cooking. It will boil all the way down to simmer.

Induction Cooktop

Eco4us offers a “cool to the touch” induction cooktop. Perfect for small environments or when you need an extra burner. Works Great!

eco4us.com

 

[ericvs]

Had a fun weekend + . Drove out to Cle Elum to ride bikes and then potentially kite on Lake Cle Elum. Got to do both! Sweet. Here are some pictures that we took.

After biking on saturday, we drove out into the wilderness and wanted to find some fun camping. We were very close to the Alpine Lakes Wilderness area (I think about as close as you can get while driving) so there were some very cool views. We also found a section of the road that was a tiny bit underwater, so that was exciting

Headed out to the edge of the world for some camping and found an excellent spot nestled amongst the trees and a river.

Here was our morning coffee spot. It is actually the top of Tucquala Lake 10miles ish north of Salmon La Sac. Such a cool place.

After the mountain experience, we headed back into town to get breakfast, then we headed out to the lake. The water was waaaaaaay down and the beach felt like the surface of the moon. We felt like we were in the middle of nowhere. so cool!

Since it was Monday, we got straight to work. We still had full internet. epic! internet on the moon!

how cool is this office?

She had to move indoors for the important meetings so it wasn't as obviously a beach side meeting

Crazy cool!

Bad mama jama of the day award went to this dude with the 70s malibu who just headed down to the beach, much deeper than I was willing. didn't give af. good stuff. His little dog was an adventurer also, just cruised around when he was down there.

Here is a shot from the boat launch. moon landing!

was also able to get a bit of kiting in, it was gusty and sort of the wrong direction, but it was fun to try.

Overall a great day. We did have one incident however. Earlier in the day, we drove down to the beach. Just headed down to check it out before heading to breakfast. Stayed safe and stayed off the deep sand, just cruising on the big rocks, it was no issue.

here is what the beach looked like, flat, big round fun rocks!

WELP!!! I ended up finding the one, huge concrete block that was seriously disguised amongst the other rocks somehow. this picture is the after, but how I didn't see this is beyond me, it was huge!!

So anyway, I drove right up onto it! fun!!

oops. (van compass skid plates are now on order )

Well got to work and jacked and used traction boards and shovelled sand etc etc etc and finally got the van free of its concrete prison!

Such a great trip, hope to head back out there soon!

 

[ericvs]

Well it was supposed to rain for the entire christmas break, so the desert sounded much more appealing. After looking at the options, we decided to try and hit all of them in one shot, haha! Here is the approximate loop. We saw a couple of ghost towns, a couple of almost ghost towns, woke up most morning really far from other people and then drove a long way. Fun trip. Got stuck in the sand in the desert late one night and were able to extract ourselves for good measure. Even found a hot springs hot tub out in the middle of the desert for new years eve.

Here is the loop. We left on Dec 26th from Seattle and returned on Dec 3rd

On the way down, we found a super cool spot outside of Mt Shasta where we camped. Woke up to this awesome view

We hit up San Francisco first and saw some cool stuff.

Empty church in Little Italy was cool

Pics from under the GoldenGate were nice!

and a superfluous van shot

After that, we headed down to Santa Cruz to check out the kite spot (no wind ) and a cool bike spot near UCSC.

I think this was a witches hovel, but cant be sure.

After Santa Cruz, we headed SE to Paso Robles to stay at a friends place. Refuled and re-watered we headed into the desert proper. First stop was Rancho Dos Palmas. There was a gate. The gate was unlocked. We headed in and saw some really cool stuff, but eventually got escorted out of the place by the ranger. It was excellent while it lasted. Oasis in the desert. I kept thinking it was a mirage like the cartoons.

After taking in the illicit sights, we finally headed to Bombay beach, which was a very cool spot.

I guess this guy was a staple at burning man a few years ago. Kind of makes sense

After leaving Bombay beach we headed north through Joshua Tree National Park which was amazing. No pictures here tho, we just enjoyed the view. It got dark when we got to the end of the park and we ended up taking a night hike up to some of the old mines up there, very cool, very quiet, very surreal.

After Joshua Tree, we found ourselves in Amboy. A 'ghost' town that is trying to revitalize itself I think. working gas pumps to boot! got a neat shot of the past and present highway haulers

The next stop and the most critical, was the Tecopa Hot Tub for new years. Nobody knows who built it, but it was a really cool way to spend new years. A hot springs hot tub out in the desert.

What a cool spot to spend new years. Very cool.

 

[ericvs]

Onto Death valley. I was excited to check it out since I had not been, but we had a sort of shortened timeline, so we weren't able to check everything out, but a good chunk for sure

Super cool Lava tubes!

Canyons!

And found ourselves in Badwater. it is really low there

very flat too

Death Valley was excellent, but we needed some Ghost town action too. Ballarat was on the docket. Headed there and were pleasantly surprised. Saw Charles mansons old truck and some other neat stuff.

had to send the lady to jail

Found some solitude and some burros outside of Ballarat as well

Death Valley and ballarat took us to pretty near our break even point to head back north for work. We camped in Death Valley on our last night in the desert. Very cool to wake up to the solitude of DV

After this, we basically just blasted home on 395 for as long as we could. Very cool trip. The next two posts are some slight divergences we had and one cool old truck we found!

Cheers!

 

[ericvs]

so we found this super cool old mining truck in Ballarat. Check out these split axles! imagine working on these rigs?

 

[ericvs]

So one small issue we had on this trip was a bit of a bog in the sand, pretty far from town, pretty late at night.

Drove out on a power line road, then turned onto another road, but ended up breaking through the crust and getting pretty deep. Luckily we had a small poop shovel, go-treads, a highlift jack base that I modified to fit the factory bottle jack and a lot of time (with a bit of mezcal)

Got in pretty deep at one point. Oops. the ol's van is a bit heavy I guess.

Got to work digging and digging. Needed to get some meat under the rear tires as the dif was hanging up on the sand.

put the lady to work too! This is an equal opportunity vehicle!

You can also see in that pic, the hilift base under the factory bottle jack. Thank you van compass for the blog post about this haha, otherwise I would still be there

Go-treads for the win here

Anyway, overall super fun trip, def need more time to check out all the sights in more detail!

 

[luthj]

Thanks for keeping us up to date. Glad to see another van getting good use.

I didn't see it mentioned, but if you don't have the tools to air down, and a compressor to air up, you are not really prepared to drive on sandy stuff. Air pressure is the #1 task on the soft stuff recovery list, and sure beats digging on your hands and knees.

 

[gentimmy]

you have a mat laid below the sliding door - i assume to keep a mess from entering the Sprinter. Which mat is that?

 

[ericvs]

I didn't see it mentioned, but if you don't have the tools to air down, and a compressor to air up, you are not really prepared to drive on sandy stuff. Air pressure is the #1 task on the soft stuff recovery list, and sure beats digging on your hands and knees.

haha, funny you should mention that. We were literally talking about that when we were digging holes in the earth to free the van . The problem ended up being I dug down too much and the underside was hung up on the sand. Even airing down at that point didn't work, so we had to dig to get enough room to get the jack underneath. It was pretty easy digging since it was just sand and it was cold enough that the snakes and scorpions weren't out. You are right tho, I should have aired down right away, but thought I could sneak one past. I was wrong.

Here is the scoop on my setup and future plans:

Yes, I don't have a compressor at this time, I do have the plan to mount it under the hood with the VanCompass mount that sits above the ECU, but I have not moved forward any more than just buying the mount. This trip did spur the need however, so that is in the works. I want to get the ARB dual, which is overkill probably, but I had a small Viair on the last truck and it was too slow, so figured I would step the game up. It is on order now, but backordered until March at this point. Should have done it sooner.

I also have the trail ready tire deflators, set to 20psi, which I ended up using to get out. I was hesitant at first since I couldn't air back up, but it ended up being required. I should have aired down sooner for sure, but no compressor = do that later. haha.

Funny story, after we got out, we had dinner and called it a night. In the morning we were trying to figure out where to get air without having to driving too far. Low and behold, when we were looking around a guy with a gas powered compressor in the bed of his truck drove past. We flagged him down and he let us fill up. It was amazing.

Here is a pic of the rear tire at 20psi, so much float!

you have a mat laid below the sliding door - i assume to keep a mess from entering the Sprinter. Which mat is that?

It is a hand sewn wool mat that was purchased at Target or some place like that, got it as a van warming gift . it is fancy, but pretty amazing, holds a ton of dirt and water and keeps the van interior pretty clean. it is a nice addition.

 

[AntecTrek]

Change of life plans forced a change. The truck was excellent, but needed to mix it up a bit.

Had the black rig:

Expedition Portal

Largest and Oldest Overland Forum

www.expeditionportal.com

Moved to the white rig

Wanted it a bit stealthier look. White cargo van with crew windows works
Wanted 4x4 (or AWD, but the transit hadn't come out yet) and the factory 4x4 seemed like a good way to do it instead of doing a conversion. 2018 sprinter works
Got lazy and had someone build it for me (oh wait, same as the last one, oh well). AdventureVanColorado fit the bill, we worked out a layout plan and he got to work

Here are some interior shots. Turned out really well, feels very spacious even with 4 people in there.

Lots of storage & big fridge

Big lounge area

Lots of storage

Big garage for all the gear inside

Had the lady make some custom storage for the back doors

That's really nice, looks comfortable and spacious. would love to have one!

 

[ericvs]

That's really nice, looks comfortable and spacious. would love to have one!

thank you. Yeah, it feels that way. There are so many options for layouts in these vans and there are so many other things you can add or move etc, but I wanted it to feel like a living room and not a hallway. I am very happy with the layout.

 

[Spencer for Hire]

If you had to do it over again would you get a shorter wheelbase instead of the length you have?

 

[ericvs]

If you had to do it over again would you get a shorter wheelbase instead of the length you have?

It depends. If I was doing it over to live in it, I would stick with the 170, but for how I am currently using it with the new lady friend and living in a place etc, I would def do a 144 if it was just going to be an adventure/weekend rig.
The 170 isn't too bad to drive around, but parking and the rear overhang are a bit of pain to be honest. If you can comfortably fit everything in to a 144, I would do that in a heartbeat.

 

[ericvs]

Made a quick trip down to Santa Cruz to escape the April snow in Seattle. Found some good views, rode some fun (steep!) trails next to some huge trees and hit Wadell Beach on the way out. Excellent trip!

Stayed just outside Santa Cruz in Boulder City for a couple nights, cool little spot next to a creek.

Rode some trails in Santa Cruz next to some massive trees

Found some epic coastal views for some of our morning wakeups.

Headed home up Hwy 1 and got to hit a 6m day at Waddell. So good! Even got a wave all to myself!

To get one of the sleep spots with a view had to use all the flex the van had. It isn't a lot.

 

[ericvs]

Small post for some regular maintenance that you should be doing. I have read every 10k miles, but that was just hearsay. Mine had 40k miles on it and it is pretty nasty. The van has been having this hesitation just under 2000rpm. Feels like a plugged fuel filter from my time with the duramax and the cummins. It also can feel like your transmission is slipping, but it is just the lowly EGR valve getting plugged up.

Here is right as I took it out of its perch. I didn't disconnect the coolant lines cause that seemed like a hassle, so I just flipped it over and got a bunch of rags. the impeller thing is just a valve that rotates and opens up three passages for the exhaust, if the valve can't open, it doesn't throw a code or anything it just causes a hesitation. anything above 2000rpm it didn't do it and below about 1700rpm it didn't do it. Weird stuff these EGR valves.

Here is looking down the exhaust hole! so dirty in there, I didn't do any cleaning on this part. I will re-assess the next time I clean it.

and here is is post some carb cleaner and a toothbrush scrub. So shiny!

Tested it out and the hesitation is gone, so I am pretty sure this was the culprit.

Also of note, and sort of funny. you can check the oil level on the dash board on these vans and a quick look under the hood I just assumed there wasn't a dipstick. Wasn't to concerned about it, but I ended up finding the dip stick, it was tucked behind the coolant like to the EGR and the oil fill tube. Good to know. haha