Building a Camper Van for Alex to Live in

My friend Alexander finally got a truck and it's beautiful. It was a big and scary purchasing decision for him, and now the really scary part is

building

it ourselves. To

live

and work in this van full time, Alex will need a place to cook, sleep, and most importantly, work. To pay the bills, he'll need to edit YouTube videos, and that means having a no-compromise workstation. We'll get to that, but first I want to show you how we got to this point and what we learned. We are now on day 5 of

building

this truck and along the way we have had quite a few wins and setbacks.

The first win was the swivel seat brackets. To make the most of the van's limited space, we wanted to be able to rotate the driver and passenger seats. This may seem as simple as installing some brackets, but it's actually complicated. Today's seats have weight sensors, seat belt monitors and even airbags in some cases. All of this wiring must move as the seat rotates completely. Fortunately, Dodge knows that these trucks are used for conversions, so they leave a ton of extra cable under the seats, tied up with a zip tie. We let those cables out, experimented with some routing options, and covered them with a cable loom to make it look neater.

Installation of the swivel seat went smoothly with no hiccups or missing parts. Another big win was the soundproofing material. Commercial vans come empty with thin metal sheets on the walls, so they make much more noise than, say, your car. So before we install insulation or walls, we apply this material called "killmat", which is the same as dynamat and other vibration dampening materials. Just putting a little of this on the walls and ceiling made a huge and noticeable difference. Most guides say to cover at least 60% of any thin metal panel with this material, which meant Alex's truck would only need two boxes.

Doing this beforehand with all the panels exposed was easy, inexpensive, and a huge win. Now a lesson. Alex's truck came with this wood floor, which I assumed was attached with these D-rings. So the plan was to remove the D-rings, lift the floor, install our insulation, and then reinstall the floor with longer bolts on the existing holes. The problem? The ground didn't want to rise. I was stuck with that gorilla snot thing. Lifting the floor without splitting it in half was a challenge in itself. We used a 2x4 with a wide piece of plywood, like a huge lever to serve pizza.

With great difficulty, we climbed onto the floor and got out of the van. Then remove the gorilla snot, which took hours. Lesson learned? Never underestimate a seemingly simple task. If I had to do this again, I would start this particular task earlier in the day. Next up is a win: installing the floor insulation and putting the wood back over it. I used that hardwood floor to lay out and cut a 1/4” thick rubber mat and 1/2” thick foam insulation. The rubber came down first to muffle the road noise and the foam fell on top of it. To fill the gap along the edges I used "cool" spray foam.

After it dried, it was easy to cut off the excess. Overall, this part of the build went smoothly and even reduced road noise noticeably. But then we learned one of our biggest lessons: the finer points of isolation. That same day I installed 1 inch foam board on all the walls. I filled the edges with spray foam and taped the gaps between the insulation. As for the pillars and overhead spaces, we used fiberglass batting like you probably have in your home. In a van, however, this material can collect moisture from the walls. Think of it as a glass of cold water that sweats out.

Batting plus moisture equals mold, and that's not good. After talking to some of our friends who have already built vans, we decided to take it all out. This set us back about 8 hours in an already tight schedule. Instead of batting we used more foam board and more spray foam, which was messy and expensive, but it was the right thing to do. Lesson learned? What works in a house, doesn't necessarily work in a van. Now to win, the walls. Our friend Johnny suggested we install furring strips as vertical joists and then install our walls, which were 1/4” thick plywood, over them.

This would allow us to easily find a beam to mount later when installing cabinets or furniture. It worked very well. However, it was impossible to space the beams evenly because there were too many obstructions and obstacles in the body of the van. So we spaced them out as we could and then started installing the plywood. Although the beams were flimsy and the plywood thin, they were surprisingly strong when combined together. This was a great victory. Another victory? The electric one. In any motorhome you will want to have a completely independent battery to power the refrigerator, electronic devices and lights, so that the vehicle's battery does not die and you cannot start the engine.

Alexander would be adding solar panels and possibly a second battery in the future, so making everything easy to work with and expandable was a priority. Since we didn't yet have any of the accessories that would go on his truck, I ran cables from the battery area to different points in the cabin, including the roof for solar, the walls for the charging ports and accessories, and to the back. rear. for the refrigerator. For the benefit of our future, I cut ports into the wall and covered them with blank switch plates. This would allow us to access the wiring later, and even run new ones behind the joists using a coat hanger.

This system would be truly scalable and, in our eyes, a huge victory. At this point you may notice that the ceiling and some walls are still bare, and there is a very good reason for this: time. For certain parts of the van we would rely on help from other people, which meant that some parts of the van would have to be ready for them by certain dates. Although frustrating, this commitment has paid off. By doing the driver's side wall on Tuesday night, we were able to count on Johnny's help all day Wednesday. If you like woodworking, or just find it strangely satisfying to watch, you should subscribe to the craft workshop.

Johnny is one of our good friends and his YouTube channel is incredibly awesome. With his knowledge and incredible workshop, we were able to install this tool box, battery compartment and workstation. Let's start with the battery compartment, which as we mentioned would have to be spacious and expandable to be able to add things later. We wanted to place this box behind the driver's seat so it could function as a footrest. With a removable cover, it would also be very easy to access to change fuses or connect new accessories. Johnny drilled holes so we could mount the box to the floor and cut a beautiful top that fit the contours of the truck.

Since we're all nerds, we also installed a transparent top on the battery compartment, which serves no purpose other than to look cool. Ah, priorities. The next thing we did was set up this toolbox, which not only has plenty of drawers for Alex's stuff, but also a nice countertop for things like food prep. Best of all, with just the turn of a key, all the drawers close. This will prevent them from opening when driving the van. Although this toolbox is quite lightweight, that also means that it is made of thin sheet metal like the rest of the truck.

Then Alexander applied some kilmat to the back and all the drawers. In fact, Johnny and I spent a few hours mounting this on the floor and wall. It seems like an easy task, but this toolbox could become a deadly projectile in an accident, so making it perfect was the only outcome we would accept. Once the toolbox was installed, we were able to work on the fun part: the workstation. In most vans, this place is usually a dead space, dedicated to throwing jackets and backpacks. In Alex's van, it would house a huge battery compartment and a very functional workspace.

We would have to get the right height for Alex and also leave room for the driver's seat to turn completely. It wasn't easy, but we took our actions and stuck to them. For the work surface, Johnny used two pre-made stair treads, which he glued together to form one large piece. This would not only be sturdy, but also very pretty. On the side of the toolbox was a handle that was attached with four bolts. Johnny used them to attach a stand, which would place the work surface at the exact height we needed for Alex. As additional support we also used a flange and pipe to build a leg for the outside edge of the table.

Since only one side of the tube would be threaded, Johnny used a block of wood to hold it to the table, which also added some style points. It looked incredibly amazing. I'd like to point out that we deliberately made the toolbox lower than the workstation so that if Alex spilled something while preparing food, it wouldn't destroy his laptop. To charge Alex's laptop, I installed this 12-volt USB C power supply. Without it, Alex would need a power inverter and this wart on the wall that generates heat and wastes energy. This is as close to 100% efficiency as he will get.

This van is now a hodgepodge of incomplete projects. We still need to finish the roof, the walls, the lot, the refrigerator, the bed and the garage. Between trips, normal driving videos, and other obligations, these projects will be spread out a bit throughout the spring. I want to thank everyone for watching this video of the truck. I know you signed up for mountain biking content and this is a little off topic. But if you go to any trail in the world, you're likely to see a van much like this one, with a mountain biker living inside. As we progress through this build, I'll be posting more videos about it, but next week you'll be back to mountain biking content.

For those of you who want more truck content, be sure to check out Singletrack Sampler to see Alexander's side of this learning experience, and of course, check out Crafted Workshop for all the woodworking vices known to mankind. Thanks for traveling with me today and we'll see you next time.