One more suggestion would be to cover the front of the shelves with something to block the view of tools or whatever you keep on them. Out of sight out of mind for theft.

 

Damn, that fiberglass woulda been a good idea! I've never worked with fiberglass but know it's fairly easy and I've been wanting to start working with it too, might of been a good opportunity!!

Hopefully that liner stuff seals it to some degree to keep it from getting wet.

Yeah it is but it's not mine. I am trying to dump it if I can though, first $1000 gets it!! I've driven it around twice and it's gutless and wobbly IMO. I'm too used to street bikes where I have alot of control on the bike. That scooter feels numb.
You should buy it for your wife!!

Thanks man, I'm really getting into this project. And just cuz it's different it's turning to be quite a lot of fun.
I'll add the EGR delete to the list of engine mods to do. I'm not looking for anything special, just more power to help with towing!

Damn dude! That stuff ain't cheap! It's like $10 a can and I would need about 10 cans to make that thing thicker!!

I might decide on adding a few more coats when I get back into town tomorrow or Tuesday but I think it's good though.

I tinted the rear windows pretty dark, as dark as I could really and will be putting some kinda curtains and/or blinds up on the rear windows as well. Thinking some magnetic rods could work. Also thinking about doing some kinda curtain or blinds that block off the driving compartment from the cargo bay for when I'm sleeping back there nobody can look in from the front and see what's in there.

 

Just get a bungee cargo net and some hooks to keep everything on the shelves.

 

Cool project Julien! I reallly like vans..The Dmax really makes it cool/worth building.My Dad (who is responsible for my obsession with GM/trucks) had a 70's Chevy van with a 400ci small block with a cam/headers. He had it lowered a bit too...I really liked it...

I think Alum would be your best material..You could make cardboard templates like your doing with mdf, then cut the straights with a skil saw and the curves with a jig saw..Take the pieces to a competent welder (numbered/diagram) and voila. There is also tons of different alum extrusions you can buy for different brackets/etc.

If you need any alum or sheetmetal lmk..I'm not too far and have ton of sheetmetal available (galv,copper,alum,steel,perf...)

 

Thats great, hah.

Everything looks great man. Lookin forward to your updates.

Those vids are crazy, talk about haulin *****.

 

WHen I get mine it will be CREEPER SLEEPER or SLEEPER CREEPER. hahaha
LMFAO. Is this a scene from "Vanishing Point 2012: Pedophile edition"

 

Honestly i have never thought about a van. I usually dont even notice them. But just got done reading the thread so far and i cant wait to see this. A duramax van would be a lot of fun and quite a sleeper while still being very useful. Im in.

 

How much did you buy it for? Also what was the mileage, year etc. if you ndon't mind me asking.

I wish I picked up that one for 6,400. Other than that, the cheapest I have seen is about 10k but it had like 250k miles. All the other ones I see with low mileage are up in the mid to high teens and are also back east

 

Thanks man!! I'll keep that in mind! I might need some eventually but right now I'm set!!

Exactly!!

Yeah, no problem. I'm more than happy to share if it helps in some way. So something to note, gassers can be found for quite cheap, I mean literally for peanuts for what you actually get. Saw some 2006 gas'ers with high mileage in fair condition for $3-4K, but for a Diesel of that same year expect to add $8-10K. Most of the vans have mileage that exceed 100K miles and alot are actually much more than that. Kinda nature of the beast really, if you find one that has under 100K for a decent price consider yourself lucky.

So mine is a 2006 Chevy Express 2500 Duramax with 103,000 miles on the Odometer. Saw it listed on Houston's Craigslist for $13,700 and talked them down to $13,300 on the phone and once I got there talked them down another $300 so I picked it up for $13K+ cali taxes which added another $1800. ( )
The next best option that I found was up in Oregon and it was a 2007 for $15K with a few mods (4" DP, exhaust, bed, wheels and tires, sounds system) done to it already. It had 215,000 miles on it. At the time I didn't find one diesel for sale in California so I was expecting to do some traveling to find a diesel which was fine with me.

Hope that helps dude.

 

So update:
Not much got done since the last update since it was a long weekend and been pretty busy but I did finally get the shelf painted and mounted into the van. It's in their Solid as a MotherFuqqer! A neighbor came by and shook the shelf to see how well it was mounted and he ended up rocking the van back and forth! It didn't budge one bit from it's mounts, just exercised the suspension!!

So here are the mounts I made, they are all down low and super beefy, I also added one at the very top but I did not take a picture of it unfortunately.








Here is the Shelf all painted and ready to get bolted in:



And then here it is all said and done, I still need to install the retaining system, I have a decent idea of what I'm gonna do, just need to hit up a hardware store.



I wanted to paint those brackets black but I decided to take a break from it and fix my street-bike since I got all the plastics for it in the mail. That took me all night but I did get that damn project finished. Not sure what's going on right now but I have three projects going on, my van, my truck and my street bike! I need some cheaper hobbies!