Sprinter Van: Weeks 1-2.

In case you missed it, a couple of weeks ago we bought a van. First, we installed and replaced some of the parts I got from a guy who salvages T1N Sprinters. Then Cosmo, Pepper, and J stayed with us for a few days last weekend. This week, we got back to work. Cleaning. Then more cleaning. The kind of cleaning that entails toothbrushes.

This van was a work truck. For a tile guy and his company. Not surprisingly, it had a lot of tile gunk in places only tile gunk could get. So we ripped stuff out. We yanked stuff out. We drilled stuff out. The plywood panels, the factory flooring in the cargo area and the factory flooring in the cab. Lots of trim. We buffed and sanded the spots of rust in the back, then coated them with primer. Elbow grease is cheap and highly-satisfying.

I cleaned and degreased the engine bay. Then we ripped out the floor. We had to prime the rust along the bottom edge of the back doors.

We're pretty sure the guys ran their wet tile saw out of the back of the van. It was the worst spot of rust. Still, just surface stuff. No real concern. It gave me an excuse to finally pick up a power tool I'm not sure how I've managed to live this long without: an angle grinder. Something I realized about building out a van is that I'm warming up to the idea of working with metal. The grinder made short work of the rust. Then I blasted it with a rust converter. Then K coated it with primer.

One thing I'm already appreciating about the fact this bad boy was built in Düsseldorf is that every single bolt is metric. None of this mix of metric and standard.

Ripping out the factory floor was a process. First, it was riveted to the sheet metal underneath. Second, as Bryce had pointed out to me last week, there are eight tiny holes that mark the factory locations of the seat mounting brackets. Those placements are critical. So before we ripped out the floor, I drilled small pilot holes through the floor to make the same markings in the van's body. 

After drilling out every single rivet, I yanked on the composite wood floor. There was a layer of basically roofing felt underneath. To my surprise, it was cut out where the seat brackets are positioned. So K outlined them with a Sharpie. Then we ripped out the felt. Impressively, the metal floor was molded to perfectly fit the mounting brackets. For three rows of seats, in fact. Turns out, when Mercedes builds these vans the cargo floor is the same across all models, seats or no seats.

Super-cool. There were still those pesky rivets, with their heads drilled off, sticking up through the floor. So I had to completely drill out every single one. It took a combo of a drill and hammer.

That leaves us with lots of 1/4" holes in the floor. No sweat. We picked up a few packages of JB Weld SteelStiks. I'll crawl around and fill them all, plus the ones we didn't make.

Every once and a while, I stop and am reminded how cool a place it is we live…

Then back to work. Since we were done priming the cargo area, it was time to drill another 1.5 million *&^%$#@! rivets. 

I was looking forward to this part. Not the rivet drilling. The TIMBRRRR of the falling metal divider.

Thar she blows! For some reason, removing that thing made the van start to feel like ours. Less like a work van filled with noise and dust and grime and sweaty dudes driving across Snoqualmie Pass listening to Christian rock on their way to a job site. More like what we're envisioning. The adventures to be had.

We'll save the divider as a template for the walls and possibly a shelf in the headliner above our seats. As Saturday wound down, we took out the cab floor in order to clean it and the metal underneath. There was oil, leaked from the jack I had to refill with hydraulic fluid for when we need to actually lift the van off it's wheels. Which will be sooner than later. The brake warning light came on driving it home after we bought it. New brake pads are on the docket.

The clouds threatened to rain, but never did. K made us iced coffees. It was overcast, thankfully. Still muggy and warm.

Last night once Squish was asleep, we sat on the back porch and finally ordered a few things. A window behind the driver's door for Sefton. A slider window further back on the driver's side for where our bed will be. We don't understand the vans we see with a bunk window on the passenger side. Every time the slider is open, it'd block the window. We mocked them both up for fun.

For soundproofing, of the various options we read about (Hushmat, FatMat, and Noico) we ended up going with FatMat. I got enough to hopefully have some extra to put in our other two vehicles. Lastly, we ordered a Maxxair ventilation fan for the roof.

Even though we don't entirely know what we're doing, there's a strategy to our approach. The windows and the fans are the things that require us to take a saw to the sheet metal and cut big, gaping holes in our van. Best to get all that out of the way in one go. The sound deadener has to go on the sheet metal siding, floor, and door panels before we can install insulation. Yep, strategy.

While we wait for the first round of materials, we'll continue deep cleaning. Replacing the sliding door roller with a new one I miraculously found for $17 on Amazon (the OEM part is around $65). It's just missing the vinyl bushing. An oil and filter change. Those front and rear brake pads. There's trim to paint. The stock wheels, too. Of course, more cleaning. 

While we made pizza Friday night, Al texted me. Did he forget to tear off the top of the title he'd need to report the sale? He had, but we saved it. I sent him a photo. Then, just for fun, a photo of his old van tore up parked outside our fence. He asked me to send him a photo once it's done. He wants to see it. I told him, 'Absolutely.'