My van life.

I'm still alive. Unfortunately, that is more than I can say for the van.

2010-12-12T01:32:00.003-05:00

So here it is almost 2 years later and I have yet to leave.

A lot has changed for me. I've gone through a lot of personal stuff that I'll spare you from reading. I also just had surgery to fix a shoulder injury that was keeping me from climbing and thus keeping me from driving off to be a van-dwelling climbing bum. Having to pay for the surgery has hampered my enthusiasm and also completely taken the van budget to $0.

I'm recovering well and should be good to go by summer. One problem. My van now needs some surgery of its own.

The van is not running. During the summer of 09 I left for three months to work at a summer camp and let it sit. When I returned it was not happy. Now it has been sitting for almost a year and I'm just now getting my shit together enough to start thinking about what I should do with it.

Whatever happens, I'm ready to go for it and truly let go of a lot of the unnecessary comforts and luxuries that I was previously planning on taking with me in the van. Even if the van runs, I'll be making the conversion much more humble and simple than previously planned.

I've already invested a considerable amount of time and energy into it yet many aspects of my original plan have changed. I'm not sure what is wrong with the van so I'm not sure if it will be salvageable. I sure hope it is. At the same time I realize I could live with much less, like a pickup truck or small SUV/wagon with minimal modification. Though I really really really don't want to go through the hassle of finding another vehicle and trying to sell the shell of my previous attempt.

It could be a simple fix. It could also have already been kissed by death. Each day it sits and I'm frustrated knowing that things aren't getting better in there, yet I have no money to get it towed to a shop and no money to pay a mechanic once it gets there. Not yet anyway.

I'm very mechanically inclined and I'd love to get in there and fix it myself but I'm not sure where to start. If anyone out there reads this and knows their way around old fords, please help!

Here are the symptoms:
Before it completely died it would not idle smoothly.
When it started it would almost immediately stop running unless I gave it gas.
When I gave it gas, the throttle was very jumpy and the engine revved up and died down uncontrollably even when the gas pedal was held in a stationary position.
It would die as soon as the throttle was released.

Signs point to the TPS and vacuum sensors. I checked the vacuum sensors with a multimeter and they checked out fine. Not sure where to find the TPS, I'll have to check the repair manuals.

I know the old gas that has been sitting in the tank is probably another culprit but the van is parked 6 inches from my house on the tank side and I can't get to it. My brother suggested pouring something straight into the fuel injectors... I forgot what he said. I'll have to ask him again.

Roof vent and First nights in the van.

2009-04-07T00:21:00.009-04:00

I'm making slow progress again. A couple of weekends back I worked on the ceiling and roof vent and got it done in three days. It looks really nice and the roof vent will definitely move some air in the summer months to help keep it cool inside. The roof is fiberglass and on the inside I glued a layer of 1/2 inch insulating foam to it and then added a layer of reflectix insulation before attaching the 1/4 inch plywood panel. I finished the plywood with clear polyurethane and it looks very spiffy. After getting the ceiling put together I had to cut a giant hole in it to accommodate the roof vent. It was easier to put everything together first and then cut through it all in one pass. Cutting a 14 square inch hole in your roof is scary business. I considered paying an RV tech to do the install but I don't trust other people's craftsmanship. They aren't the ones who have to live with their work. I managed to do a good job and I was really impressed with myself at how clean it came out looking and I am 100% sure it will never leak for the rest of the van's life.

I still have to finish insulating the walls and then panel them. Putting up the paneling is going to be very hard. I have to figure out how to get all these square pegs into a round hole. The interior of the van is all curves but the wood is all straight. The 1/4 inch plywood will flex and take shape of the walls but all the shapes in the van are extremely difficult to measure. Not to mention my tools are limited and I have no workspace. Oh, and I have almost no idea what I'm doing. I just know what I want the finished product to look like. Someone asked me if I would build a bed in their van for them if they payed me for my work, I don't think I could do that in good conscious. I'm really just making it all up as I go along, I have no idea what I'm doing and anything good that comes from me is purely coincidental.

Building notes aside, I did spend my first few nights in the unfinished van last weekend while I was attending an AMGA course at the new river gorge in WV. This was also the longest trip I've yet to take in the van. For non-climbers [read: sane people] AMGA stands for American Mountain Guides Association. The weekend was nasty, cold and wet. I got to be outside for most of it. It was very nice to come back to the van and be dry and warm inside. I just slept on the floor with my sleeping bag, nothing fancy, it was nice though. A real bed will be necessary for full-time vandwelling.

I met Jim, the guide who was instructing the AMGA course, at the cathedral cafe at 8:30 Friday morning and we talked for about half an hour about sustainable bolting practices and preservation of natural resources while we waited for the other students to arrive. I originally planned on taking this course in NC but somehow ended up in WV and I'm glad I did because Jim was a great teacher and we shared a lot of the same values and opinions. The other students were much less experienced so most of the technical stuff we covered was rudimentary to me but I did learn a lot about guiding.

At the end of the second day Jim and I were talking as I shouldered my pack into the van. Jim asked in an upbeat voice if I was planning on living in it. I summed up all my plans into a single sentence which I blurted out excitedly,
"As soon as I graduate I'm going to Yosemite."
He said, "I went through three chevy astro vans and I lived in them for about 10 years. I got to climb everywhere."
"Really!?" I was psyched
"Yeah, as soon as fall came around we would drive out to Yosemite, then when it got cold we went to Joshua Tree. We just kept going south when it got colder and climbed year 'round."

Jim told me about his set up and how he had all his climbing gear in a cargo net above his bed and we talked for a little bit about what I planned to do with my van. We were both tired and hungry from the day though, so the conversation ended a bit prematurely. He did invite me to park at his farm for free whenever I'm back in WV though.

For that weekend I was staying at Rodger's Rocky Top Retreat, which is right on the side of the gorge and only $6 a night. Its basically a climbers only campground, a few mountain bikers stay there occasionally too and Rodger will turn away families who are looking for a wholesome family camping experience, with good reason. At night when there wasn't anything to do I'd go hang with him and the other climbers there that weekend. Rodger told me about all the different Vandwellers he's seen at his campground, there were lots! On a random note, inscribed on the Porta-Jon at the campground, was this awesome poem:

"O! My elegant modern age!
Silicon breasts and silicon chips
Are not more than a gilded cage."
-Unknown porta-jon poet

So all went well on Sunday, Jim said I was ready for the exam and I'm scheduled to go back up there on the 25th and 26th.

On the trip back from WV the weather got really bad- sleet, snow, and high winds. I was actually pretty comfortable driving in it. But then I ran out of gas. This was because my gas gauge has been broken for a while and something was wrong with my second gas tank which was full the whole time. I had gas in the second tank but it wasn't getting to the engine for some reason and of course, this was the first time I needed it. I was lucky to have rolled to a stop near an exit but I still had to walk a mile in the nasty weather to get to a gas station. When I arrived at the station they didn't have any suitable containers to carry gas with. So I bought two gallons of winshield wiper fluid, dumped them into the complimentary winshield wash stations outside and then rinsed them out with water. I filled them up with gas and proceeded to walk back to the van and I succsessfully hitched a ride for half a mile to where the exit intersected the road.

There was no spout on these containers. I ended up spilling about half of the gas on the ground as tractor trailers sped by missing me by what seemed like inches, while splattering me with icy road sludge. But the van started and got me to the gas station and on my way home again. I really need to get that gauge fixed and figure out what's up with the second tank.

Despite that incident, it was a good weekend. I was on my own and it was a welcome change, difficulties included.

Spring is almost here!

2009-02-22T21:24:00.002-05:00

Finally!

It has been a while since my last update. Winter blues set in when it got cold and I just lost my motivation for a while. I'm still alive and still planning on living in the van. Now that its warming up I'm starting to get off my ass and do things more often. I've got more free time this semester so I should be able to get it done before summertime if I play my cards right. I have all the materials I need, it is just a matter of getting it in there and doing a good job. I guess my biggest mental block is the fact that I'll have to do some actual planning. My organizational skills are... how should I put this, nonexistent.

Thanks for the kind messages.

Conversion Photo Journal 4

2008-11-22T23:09:00.009-05:00

Chapter 4: Interior work, lighting design, and insulation.

November has been a slow month for the van. After the floor was installed I moved on to the walls which posed some new challenges. The walls need to be framed, insulated and paneled. However, there is not much to attach things to and very few even surfaces that I can use. Real houses are easier because everything is flat and box shaped. With the van I've got to figure out how to fit flat wood around all sorts of curved surfaces and how to insulate all kinds of small, strangely shaped crevases. The classic square peg in a round hole problem. The framing is important because I'll be anchoring stuff like my bed, heater, and kitchen counter to it. It needs to be solid and bombproof so that crap doesn't get pulled off the walls and get wrecked if I hit a speed bump.

My solution: procrastination. I'm not sure how to go about it and since it is going to be a foundation for everything else to come, I don't want to screw it up.

So instead of starting on the walls, I started on some of the smaller manageable projects that I could move into the van after I frame it and get the walls done.

I got these solid maple cabinet doors for like 3 dollars at the habitat for humanity restore! Solid maple! They were painted an ugly translucent white and had some scratches but I knew that if they were sanded and refinished they would be beautiful. So I did that.

I couldn't sand off the paint that was inside of the route, so I looked around the garage for something to cover up that ugly pastel white.I found some glossy green spray paint that matched my countertop perfectly. So I taped off everything but the routed area and painted them.
I put them infront of the counter to get an idea of what it would look like when finished. pretty.
I made the moulding around the edges of the countertop with some old wood I found in the garage, and a makeshift [read: ghetto ass] router. Not perfect but it has a cool handcarved look. I've since added a light coat of stain to all of the bare wood and finished everything with two coats of polyurithane. It looks really pretty, I'll get some pictures when it is installed in the van.

Hightech vandwelling.
If you haven't experienced my nerdiness you are about to get a full dose. I love LEDs (light emitting diodes). They are more efficient than compact florescents and incandecent lights, and they never burn out (lifespan >50,000 hours). If you have money to invest, invest it in LEDs. High power LED technology is growing very fast and every time I get a new electronic parts catalog the LED section has new pages. Mark my words, in 20 years LED and solid state lighting technology will be the primary source of artificial lighting in homes. It is the future in sustainable lighting.

Even if you don't know what LEDs are, you've seen them everywhere. New traffic lights, toys, flashlights, car dashboards...the list could go on and on. Beyond those cheap little clear bulbs there is a new type of LED technology emerging capable of producing almost 100 lumens per watt. LEDs that can do this are called "high-flux" LEDs... and I'm putting these in my van.

The cool thing about LEDs is they produce almost no heat and because they are solid state they can be switched on and off repeatedly with no reduction in lifespan. However, since LEDs are either on or off, you can't dim them efficiently unless you get creative. So I decided to use the switching capabilities to my advantage. I added a simple PWM (pulse width modulation) circuit into the LED driver to pulse the LEDs off and on at about 300Hz. That is fairly slow in the electronics world but fast enough not to be detectable by the human eye. I can then modulate the wave to change the length of time that the LEDs are on or off. Here is the schematic I drew of my system.

I took some pictures with an oscilloscope to help illustrate the PWM concept.

The dots on the top are the "ON" time, while the line at the bottom is the "OFF" time. In this picture, the PWM is running a 5% duty cycle which means it is only ON 5% of the time.

Here it is again, this time at about 20%.

50%

80%

95%

So, I definitely took the not so simple approach with lighting but I'll save a lot of power to use for other things.

Lastly, I've started insulating what I can. Here I'm filling up the door cavity with the styrofoam board that my solar panels were packaged in. I just stacked it in there like bricks. I sort of felt like an Eskimo cutting and stacking blocks of white stuff to keep me warm.

Conversion Photo Journal 3

2008-10-24T15:50:00.006-04:00

Chapter 3: New Floor and Finished Solar Panels.

Yesterday I came home from school suprised to see that my brother had already installed the hardwood floor! He has a second job in flooring and got this really nice stuff for free.

The Conversion Photo Journal 2

2008-10-22T00:40:00.010-04:00

Chapter 2: Solar Panel Mounting and the Kitchen

Here are the fruits of this past weekend's labors.

Here is my new power plant, still in the boxes. Two 120 watt solar panels fed into a blue sky MPPT charge controller then into two 130 amp-hour trojan deep cycle batteries.

Opening boxes is always exciting.

Important information!!! When you get a solar panel you need to know its output in volts and amps, all of the maximum ratings, and just about everything else in order to safely use it and also to maximize system efficiency.

Here, I'm "dry fitting" the mounting brackets...
...and measuring to make sure everything will fit on the roof.
Once the measurements were made and everything was how I wanted it, I marked where the mounting brackets needed to be attached to the panels.
Then, I flipped the panels over and started wiring everything up. They needed to be wired before mounting because I wouldn't be able to reach under and wire it up once the panels were right side up.

10 AWG wire is hard to work with.

Panels wired together in parallel.

I used the measurements I made before to drill out the holes to mount the brackets.

I used tamper-resistant bolts that require a special star Allen wrench.

With the tamper resistant bolts, I used a few tamper resistant nuts. The top part breaks off once it is torqued enough and leaves an un-wrench-able smooth surface. This way no one can steal my panels!

Once all the mounting brackets were attached, I covered the panels in the foam they were packaged in and wrapped them up in bubble wrap just in case they were to slip while I was trying to get them up on the roof. Here I used a blanket to help me slide the panels up without scratching up my van.

On top! Unfortunately the mounting brackets scratched the roof up a lot. It's not that big of a deal though because no one can see the roof and it is made out of fiberglass so it won't rust.

I used putty to hold the panels in place while preparing the roof for mounting. The roof is curved and not level, but the panels are ridged and the mounts require a level surface. My solution: fiberglass roof extensions. I stripped the areas where the mounts would go and then made moulds and poured in more fiberglass resin to give a level surface.

Before I could pour the resin, I wanted to make sure that the van was level so that the new mounting surface would be even. First, I parked the van as level as I could get it.

Then I used a lot of heavy crap to get the van perfectly level.

Then I measured, mixed, and poured fiberglass. Here is the first one I did. The fiberglass resin filled the mould, bonded to the roof and leveled the surface perfectly.

This was the only one I got done before it was too dark to do any more. So I went into the garage and started work on my kitchen.

Cutting wood the old fashioned way.

Kitchen: I put the sink and stove top in just to show off how it will look. It's still far from done.

So that's all I got done last weekend. Today I finished bolting the panels to the roof, now I just have to wire them up to the charge controller and batteries. Thursday my brother is bringing over the hardwood flooring and is going to help me install it. I'm trying to get as much done as I can before it starts getting really cold outside. Once the floor is done I can start insulating the walls and getting the wiring in place and hook up all of the kitchen stuff. I'm estimating all of that will take about 2 more weeks.

An Overview of Solar Power

2008-10-20T00:45:00.008-04:00

Solar Power

and why it's not the answer for everyone.

First, a word about solar panels:

Harnessing energy from the sun the way that plants do is great and there is definitely a lot of potential in the idea. However, photovoltaic "solar panels" aren't all they are cracked up to be. I don't believe that photovoltaics are the best answer for society's energy needs. I think that there are more useful and efficient ways to use the sun's power than PV but I won't go into that right now. Today I'm talking about PV. Today's photovoltaics are expensive and inefficient. Perhaps in the future the PV technology will be better, but available PV systems today have a few major downfalls that prevent them from being a commercial energy source. Those downfalls are efficiency and power storage. Photovoltaics can only create power when the sun shines and if that power isn't being used, its wasted. So that means batteries must be used to store the power until it is needed. But battery technology hasn't advanced much in the several hundred years since it has been in use in western society. Lead-acid batteries are still the norm and they are extremely temperamental and contain toxic materials. Grid-tie PV systems avoid batteries but at the expense of being attached to a pre-existing power "grid" or a utility which then must manage the power. So in short, the biggest problem is not about getting the power but managing it. Some form of storage has to be used in order for large-scale solar to be viable. The power has to get used, wasted, or stored in a battery.

How it works:

The Panels:

The sun emits light which is converted into electric current by the PV panels. There are several brands of solar panels and for the most part, all the big names put out the same kind of product with a few exceptions. Panel prices vary and fluctuate often, so be patient and wait for a good deal. I got two 120 watt panels for $475 each when they usually start at around $700. The current produced by PV's is not constant. PV's put out the most power during the peak hours of the day and less during the early and late hours. That power, before going into a battery, must be fed into a charge controller which regulates the current and the voltage in order to keep the battery at an optimum charge without over or under charging it. Without regulation, the battery will be undercharged and/or overcharged which will shorten its life and in some cases cause it to explode or emit large amounts of explosive hydrogen gas. So it MUST be regulated.

The charge controller:

There are a lot of very cheap "regulators" out there but they are all crap and some only regulate either voltage OR current, when you really need to regulate both. There are even some cheap "regulators" that don't regulate at all but instead only limit the power going in while wasting the rest! If you skimp on the regulator you are going to lose at least 20% of your solar capacity right there. That means if you have 100 watts going into a crappy regulator, you're going to see 80 watts output at best. So invest in either a PWM (pulse width modulated) or better yet, a MPPT (maximum power point tracker) charge controller and stick with the known brands (don't by junk from china). The good charge controllers start at $150 and go up from there.

Batteries:

From the charge controller the regulated power is fed into your deep-cycle batteries. Most batteries must also be maintained regularly. There are super expensive AGM batteries that don't require maintenance BUT they have less capacity and a shorter life span. So stick with the maintainable flooded cell lead-acid batteries unless you are such a slacker that you would rather pay three times as much for a battery that won't last as long. Rechargeable "deep-cycle" batteries can only be cycled a number of times before they can no longer hold a charge and they are very temperamental about the kind of charging they get. All the more reason to invest in a good charge controller! A well maintained and properly charged battery can last for more than 5 years but an abused or neglected battery can self destruct in a matter of minutes. Also, deep-cycle batteries are not meant to be discharged below 50% of their capacity. For instance, if you have a 100 amp-hour battery, think of it more like a 50 amp-hour battery in terms of use. So not only do you have to monitor the power going into the battery, you also have to keep track of the power you are taking out of the battery. A lot to keep up with huh?

The yield:

After all that planning, money, work, and math what do you get? Not a whole lot compared to being hooked up to the evil corporate "grid" unfortunately. For their size solar panels put out very little usable power. PV panels are rated at their maximum output, which means that they will only put out their rated number for a couple of hours while the sun is highest, then the power will taper off into oblivion as the sun sets. But wait there's more! PV systems produce direct current (DC) SO if you plan on using you 110 volt AC (alternating current) appliances, you're going to have to convert the power once again. If you know anything about real-world physics you know that in every conversion there is a loss of efficiency. That means that even more of our expensive power is going down the drain! Because there is not as much power and you can't completely drain your batteries- using solar requires you to scale back your energy consumption. The upside is that most panels have a warrantied output for at least 20 years. So you have a very high initial investment that pays off very slowly but really barely justifies all that trouble. Solar doesn't create any emissions, except for manufacturing and lets not forget about the toxic batteries. The one advantage that makes solar great is that it can be hooked up anywhere and it will provide silent power without needing to be plugged in to any grid and that is why I'm using solar panels on my van-house-mobile.

Conclusion:

Solar is not free or easy. Which is the real reason why it won't work in America. Let me be clear that I don't hate America, it is a beautiful country. It is such a shame that it belongs to so many lazy, over-entitled, complacent, and greedy Americans. Solar works for me though, it is perfect for being mobile. I'm sure photovoltaics will become more viable on a larger scale as the technology progresses but the technology just isn't there yet. If you don't need to be mobile and are looking for power alternatives, look at wind power. Wind turbines put out much more power than PV and cost less.

That's all for now, more pictures coming soon!

Conversion Photo Journal 1

2008-10-11T23:58:00.012-04:00

Chapter 1: The Demolition and Sub-Floor.

Here is what the interior of the van looked like when I got it. Pretty nice looking on the surface but not built very well as I discovered when tearing it all out.

I took out all of the back seats in a day. They were bolted through the floor and then the foam and carpet were installed on top of that. So I had to tear out the carpet and foam before I could get to the bolts. You can also faintly see the rear AC unit in the back that I had disconnected. The two captains chairs were heavy! They weighed about 60lbs each. The back chair was no lightweight either. The whole van will probably the same after I'm done turning it into a home.
View from the rear.

Clean. All of the floor, walls and ceiling have been stripped. That ugly yellow stuff is adhesive that they used to glue the carpet to the wheel wells. I couldn't scrape it off without also removing the paint. You can also see three large holes in the floor from the previous conversion. I took out all of the upholstered stuff because it was filled with cheap nasty rotting foam.
The screws that hold the top to the body were rusting so I sealed them. It's not pretty but it serves a purpose and I'll make it prettier later.

I covered and sealed the large holes in the floor with aluminum flashing. Then I cut some of the better 1/4 inch plywood that I salvaged into rough strips to even out the ridges in the floor so that I would have a level surface to put the sub floor on. And then I glued it down.Say hello to my little friend... That is one hell of a caulking device. I was working well into the night with a halogen work light. Here is a picture of the various levels of my sub floor. On the bottom is the van body w/plywood strips, then there is 1/2 inch of insulating foam and then there is 1/4 inch of plywood. The foam helps insulate the van and also dampens the vibrations when walking around inside.

My finished sub-floor!

That's all for now. What's coming next? Well, on top of this beutifuly built sub-floor I'm going to install the hardwood flooring that my brother was kind enough to acquire for me. Then I'm going to build my kitchen counter and cabinets and install my solar panels. I'll probably devote an entire entry about solar panel workings and how to install and wire them correctly. It's going to be interesting stuff!

"they did whatever the hell they wanted"

2008-09-24T23:39:00.008-04:00

Lately I've been going to school and working on the van whenever I have had enough free time. This has all taken place over the last month.

Now the van is completely stripped out inside. I can't believe how much shit was in this thing and how it was all held together. When I got the van I figured I'd keep most of the walls and ceiling but there's not a chance of that now and for good reason.

By the way, I've been taking pictures of the entire process but I haven't got them uploaded yet so I'll probably post them all together later. Words will have to suffice for now, so use your imagination.

The captains chairs and bench seat were the first step. Once they were out I could strip out the carpet and then the walls.

I sold the two captains chairs to a guy who just moved to NC from New York, he was amazed at the condition of my van. Of course, a van 20 years old in NY would have already been reduced to nothing but rust. I guess that's one good thing about living in the south. Hopefully I can sell the bench seat too, if not it might make a nice couch in some kid's tree house.

Once the seats were out I started tearing out the carpet. The carpet wasn't in bad condition at all but I think that carpet is disgusting in any condition. Carpet holds allergens and releases the chemicals that it is made from as it ages and degrades. Gross cancer carpet. Underneath the carpet was about two inches of cheap polyurethane foam that was glued to two pieces of 1/4 inch plywood which was then screwed to the body floor with wood screws. I would later discover that the entire conversion was held together with a few hundred wood screws. I had to scrape up all the foam to find all the screws before I could pull up the plywood.

I got all of the seats out and pulled out the carpet and foam in one day. I also got started on the smaller wall and pulled out the rear overhead "storage" compartment.

One thing that was keeping me from finishing my demolition work was the rear AC unit. It was connected through a hole in the body to about 5 or 6 hoses that lead to the engine area. I knew that AC units use freon or some other refrigerant that is pressurized so I wasn't about to cut those hoses. It was just one of those things that had to be done by a professional with the right tools. So I bit the bullet and took it to ford again.

I learned that Ford dealerships hate conversion vans. Ford didn't want to work on it but they sent me to an AC specialist named Tim. I brought my books so I could study while waiting on it. Tim was a cool guy. I could tell that he wasn't used to having customers wait on stuff in his shop, mainly because of his "lobby/office" area. It was a 10x10 foot room with a couch, a micro fridge, a small TV, his old computer, a messy desk, and about a thousand papers scattered all over the place. Only half of the couch was fit for sitting on, the rest was covered in car manuals, receipts and boxes of old doughnuts. I also noticed a guitar in the room. I didn't want to play it though, I could tell just by the case that the poor thing wouldn't be worthwhile to get in tune.

Tim, who has been working in automotive AC for thirty years said, "Ford doesn't like to work on these conversion vans so they send 'em to me. 'Cause the folks who did the conversions, they did whatever the hell they wanted." He had another late 80's ford van in the parking lot and a dodge conversion too. So I was pretty confident that he knew what he was doing. I said "yeah I know, everything inside is held together with wood screws." he laughed and asked what I was going to do with the van. I told him that I was turning it into a camper so that I could travel and go climbing, which is mostly true. I left out the "living in it" part. He said "I knew a fella' that used to teach rock climbing, he builds motor cycles too." I only know of one hardcore biker who used to climb and the guy he was describing sounded allot like mike the "dude man." So I asked, "You talking about Mike?" And it so happens that it was Mike, that crazy hippie/biker/climber who took me out to crowders mountain and table rock when I was just starting to climb. Small world.

The rear AC was also a rear heat unit, which means that it was hooked up to the engine coolant system which I just fixed. Its a good thing I didn't just decide to cut those hoses, I would have leaked all of the freon and engine coolant, that wouldn't have been good. Tim did a great job though. When I went to pay him he realized that his printer was out of paper so he couldn't print off a bill or receipt, he told me that he would just mail it. After watching him struggle through using the computer I realized that Tim was computer illiterate. The best mechanics always are.

With the rear AC unit taken out I finally could finish the demolition. I ripped out the remaining floorboard and also pulled out the other wall recently.

Tons of wood screws and cheap plywood. I'm glad I'm taking this crap out. Whats worse than that though is what I have named "the disintegrating foam of death." In the upholstered walls they decided to use a quarter inch of cheap foam to help fill out the fabric. However, that foam has since biodegraded and will disintegrate as soon as it is touched to form a sticky powder that gets everywhere and makes me sneeze a lot. It's a good thing that I decided to take those walls out, otherwise I probably would have died prematurely from breathing in the poison particles from the desintegrating foam of death.

I've got just about everything I need to start building inside. Once building starts I'll get the photo journal started. Its going to be NICE.

A stubborn bolt. van update

2008-08-19T22:49:00.012-04:00

Reality check! I thought that I would have gotten much more work done before the fall semester started. In my head I envisioned it being at least ready to sleep in by the end of July. I have been working on it regularly but I haven't even got the seats out of the back yet or started on anything inside. I wanted to get all the drive-ability issues resolved first so that I wouldn't end up building my new home in an immobile vehicle.

The van really is in great shape for being almost 20 years old. It got many compliments from the guys at the Ford dealership when I took it in. Mike the service guy said, "Man, that is a nice looking van. Most of the 89's we get in here are beat to shit. Yours looks like it was babied"

That's a plus on several levels. Firstly, it should serve me well and be a reliable ride. Secondly, it keeps up appearances. It looks more like a family vacation van than a sketch rapist van. So it won't draw much attention if I have to stealth park.

I had the oil changed and transmission serviced at the ford dealership. I've changed oil before and while its an easy task to do, its a pain to properly dispose of the used oil and you usually get it all over the place. So I opted to have them do it for the 20ish dollars which is well worth it. While it was in the shop I had Wade work on it. Wade is a good ol' union county guy, I went to high school with his son and our families went to the same church when I was younger. He's a nice guy. I felt more comfortable having him work on it than some other joe-shmo at ford. I told him about the overheating problems and so he checked over the coolant system and found a leak in the water pump. It was going to be about $500 to have them replace the water pump and another 80 for the coolant flush and refill. Yikes. My brother thought it was the water pump when I called him on my first night driving home after I got the van. He said that it is fairly simple to change the water pump but it is time consuming and you have to take a lot of stuff apart in order to get to it. I'm good with my hands and very mechanically inclined so I opted to do it myself. I picked up a new water pump for about $30 and I got a new thermostat since I would be able to change it while I was in there.

It was a lot of work but I learned a lot in the process. The old adage, "There is no greater teacher than experience" rings true again. The only hang up I ran into was when I torqued the head off of one of the old water pump bolts. All of the bolts were seized and bonded together with corrosion to the engine block which made them very difficult to get out, but one bolt in particular was a real pain in the ass and would not budge. I tried every single trick to get a stuck bolt loose but it just laughed in my face. I tried liquid wrench, tapping, torching and cranking the wrench like hell. Still nothing. That last one, "cranking like hell" got me into trouble though. While I was wrenching with all of my studly might I felt a budge and the wrench moved. I thought, "I have it for sure now!" as it got easier to turn. Then it got too easy. Then there was no resistance at all and I knew that something was not right. I thought, "I couldn't have stripped it. What is wrong?" I took off the ratchet and the head of the bolt was gone and the shaft of the bolt defiantly laughed at me, still unmoved and now stuck in the block with no way to turn it.

When the bolt broke it was one of those "Fuck it." moments. I can work tirelessly until something like that happens and then I have to give it a rest before I get frustrated and start bashing things like a primate while endlessly spattering profanities. Once my emotions are gone I can come back and work with a clear head and think out more graceful solutions.

The van sat for a couple of weeks before I attempted to work on it again. Then I called in the cavalry. My brother Jeff is really great with cars and knows a lot more than I do. I think he's one of the few male role models I would admit to having. My father obviously isn't one of them.

The silver lining of the broken bolt was that the portion of the shaft that passed through the water pump was not threaded. So we were able to get the water pump off after some persuasion. That exposed about two inches of the broken bolt, which we now had to extract before putting the new water pump on.

We broke about 6 tools before removing that damn bolt. One of which was a high torque industrial power drill. Also KIA were 3 drill bits and a titanium & diamond cutting wheel. It was getting ridiculous but also pretty ironic and funny. We would think of an idea, try it, and then the tool would break. After two fruitless hours and multiple failed ideas Jeff brings out a 2 foot long pipe wrench, a large and crude plumbing tool. And it works! I get a smaller one that fits better in the tight space and we spent the next hour taking this bolt out at a sluggish pace, a quarter turn at a time but we got it out nonetheless. A lesson in patience for sure.

We still needed a replacement bolt. I thought that the Ford dealership would most certainly have them. Nope. We went to 2 other stores before finding what we needed at ACE hardware.

Everything went back together without a problem. Saved a few hundred dollars.

Tonight I topped off the radiator with coolant flush and water, to clean out the radiator and everything. Started it up and went for a spin to get it warmed up and to check for any leaks. She ran like a dream. I really melded with the van for the first time and it really became easy to drive. I was so used to driving the small civic I dubbed "the little honda that could...sometimes" that getting behind the wheel of this huge elephant of a van was intimidating at first.

School just started and I've had a hectic first couple days. Today was the worst, but when I started driving the van it all went away. I just kept driving it even though I didn't have a place to go. It was a great feeling. The cool, sweet summer night air blowing through the windows, the moon orange on the horizon, and the only thing I heard was the the engine, the road, and the crickets. Had it been ready to sleep in there is a good chance I would have parked it at school and stayed overnight. Needless to say there were no leaks. It ran like a dream and didn't even break a sweat doing it.

Now to get started on the inside. First order of business- gut it. Out with the back seats, out with the carpet and floor padding, out with the curtains and trim, etc. The seats are in great shape, hopefully I can sell those. I've got insulation to put in and Jeff is going to help me acquire hardwood flooring. He's got the hook up because he runs his own sub-floor business. Once I've got the floor and walls done I'll be able to start on the furnishings. I've prioritized everything in order of basic needs.

First I'll put in the water reservoir and sink, then the bed, porta-potty, roof vent, and stove. Once I have the stove done I'll mount my catalytic heater and various fans. So that's my food, water, shelter, hygiene, and a little comfort too. From there I'll have to work out a system for organizing where everything will go and also work out my electricity system. I'm planning on using a 12 volt system with two deep cycle marine batteries, charging via solar panel. I've got a sweet concept I'm going to use for internal lighting, *nerd alert* I'm going to run about 30 LEDs on a regulated 555 timer circuit configured so that they are drawing half the current they normally would while still providing the same amount of light.

How it works:
The human eye can only detect changes in light that last more than several milliseconds. For instance, when you watch a movie you are actually watching a series of still images flashed at a high rate. Your eyes can't see fast enough to notice the individual flashes, so they all blur together to form what we see as a single constant moving picture.

Now knowing that I don't need constant light to see effectively, I can take the human eye's limits and use them to my advantage. By using a special circuit to flash the light on and off at a high rate, I can essentially have the light OFF for half of the time that it is in operation without ever noticing the difference. If the light flashes on and off at equal intervals thousands of times per second, it will in effect be off for half of each second but my eyes won't be able to notice.

That's an efficiency increase of almost 100% if you neglect the small amount of current draw the switching circuit needs. Pretty bad ass.

That's all for now. the next few months will feature a photo-journal documenting my progress in converting my conversion van into a home.

I need to think of a name for my van. It is big and white. I was thinking white elephant, because it is both a blessing and a burden sometimes but I'd rather it be a name or something with more character. Maybe it will have to earn its name like the "little honda that could" did.

"the why"

2008-06-02T02:22:00.017-04:00

I've been asked "why?" and "how?" more times than I can count. This is for all those folks who want to know about why.

I'm going to attempt to explain the various reasons why I'm choosing to live in a van. "The why" will be easier to understand when you also understand "the how" but I'll focus this entry on "the why" because the details of "the how" are what the rest of the blog will be about and will develop over time. This post is a bit unique because it is mostly me explaining and defending my ideology behind van-dwelling.

First off, let me make it clear that this is my choice. I'm not destitute or desperate, I do have other options. I could live a more conventional life if I wanted to but I don't. Not now anyway. Also, let me go ahead and clarify that this is temporary. I don't plan on living in the van indefinitely. It will serve as my home until I finish school and then as a means for my travels and adventures in the years soon after I graduate (hiking AT, climbing everywhere, etc.). Though there are no dates set in stone for anything yet. I'm just focused on getting school finished right now.

So why would I choose to do this?

I'm doing this because I want to and because I can. I'm doing this because this fits me. This fits my needs, wants, beliefs, and circumstances.

It boils down to Freedom. I like doing things my own way. If you know me, you know that.

1. Financial freedom: Like I said, I'm not in dire need but I'm not rich either. As a college student there is not much time to make money and there are not many substantial jobs available. I've done fairly well to make money with my handmade guitar effects business but its not enough to live a conventional life by itself. Maybe someday it will be, maybe not. I'm not putting too much stock in it. Most college students are still dependent on their parents but as soon as I move out I will be on my own and everything I need to survive will be paid for out of my pocket. My parents are face deep in debt and have been my whole life. I've seen first hand what hell that can be so there is no way that I'm going to let that happen to me. I'm completely opposed to any kind of debt.

So if I'm going to pay for school and for my living expenses without going into debt I'll have to be creative. The van is my solution.

Why not just take on some debt?

I'm fundamentally against the idea of debt. I think debt makes you a slave until you pay it off. You're stuck working so you can make those payments and in the end you end up paying more than what you bought was worth. It just doesn't seem like a good deal. We wouldn't be having the current economic crisis in the US if people just lived within their means instead of taking on more debt than they can pay off reasonably. I just want to live within my means. I don't feel like I should own something until I've earned it somehow. Debt makes it easy now but you will have to pay it back sometime. It is like bad karma. Taking on debt is nothing but a bad short term solution that will come back and kick your ass later. It is all about "getting what you want now" isn't it? In the times before loans and credit cards, if you couldn't pay off your debts you were made a slave, a servant, or a prisoner. The banks and credit card companies just figured out that you are worth more to them when you are trying to dig your way out of the hole of high interest debt with the spoon of minimum payments. They make you a comfortable slave, you get what you want but a comfortable slave is still a slave nonetheless. You are their profits. Not that I'm against making profit...I mean, I'm not that much of a socialist. I just don't want to feed the debt fire that is already out of control in so many people and places. Without any debt, the money I make will go for what I need and the rest will be saved for living the life I want to live. No middle man and no big man either, just me. The van will save me thousands on rent each year and I'll still have everything I need. But the van isn't just about saving money, its also about reducing the need for money.

Some folks have asked me why I don't think an apartment would be worth the extra money. Well, I don't need all that extra space and I don't need the things that I would put in all that extra space. It would cost a ton of "extra" money that I don't have. I've got enough room in the van for everything that I'll really need. I realize I'm sacrificing the comfort of a homey apartment but I'm OK with that. The van is plenty homey for me. It will be like camping in a small and roomy RV and I love camping even when I'm in a shitty tent. For one person it is more than enough. I know I won't love it all the time but I accept that as part of life no matter where I live. Living in a van has its advantages too. I won't have to deal with a roommate or noisy neighbors. I'll be able to go anywhere I want without ever having to think about finding a place to stay. I'll be able to live well on next to nothing. I won't have to work all the time to pay for it and I will have more free time. The money saved by living in the van will go towards doing the things that I really want to do and to me, that is worth it. It all about quality.

2. Personal freedom: so in a way "doing the things I want to do" is tied with financial freedom. I can only do what I can afford to do. Lucky for me the things I like to do are either free or really cheap. Hiking and climbing are great free fun that happen to go hand in hand with "living light." When hiking, its important to take only what you need and nothing more or else it slows you down and makes the difficult terrain harder and more dangerous. I heard someone say once, "light packs like to hike, heavy packs like to camp." The more luxuries you bring the more comfortable you are, but you can't go as far. Stuff weighs you down. I believe this is true in everyday life too. Things can own you just as much as you own them. I don't want things to control my life. As long as I have what I need my happiness will never depend on what I have or don't have. I'm separating my identity from my possessions. I'm separating my wants from my needs and my happiness from my materialistic ideas of happiness. The van is a way for me to strip down to the bare necessities and simplify my life. It is about personal development, this will make me more self-reliant and responsible. I'll learn allot from this. Personal freedom isn't just about doing things and life experiences, it is also about the freedom to be who I want to be. I'm weird. I get allot of joy and satisfaction from doing things on my own and figuring out my own way of doing them. I have a DIY lifestyle and it is very much a part of who I am. I've always been like this, my parents have evidence on tape of a 2 year old me who's favorite saying was "me do it."

Some folks may think I need to get over myself and "fall in line."

What for? What will I learn from living life the way everyone else does already? Those who risk nothing also gain nothing. So many people hate their 9-5 rat-race lives but accept it only because they haven't thought about living any other way. Anything radically different is too dangerous. They live a life of monotony because it is safe. They buy into this idea that they need to have security. That they need to have a secure job with secure income and live in a secure house in a secure neighborhood. How do they get this security? Well of course, they have to buy it. They buy the secure job with an expensive degree, they buy the house in the gated community, they buy insurance for the house, the cars, themselves, and even the dog. In the end it doesn't matter how "secure" your life is. Shit happens to everyone. The things that matter the most can't be secure, that is how life works. Stop living in fear and accept everything life has to offer and stop trying to protect yourself from it. I understand that the van could break down, burn up, get stolen, etc. but I'm not going to let fear keep me from what I want to do. I never will.

Once again, I'm doing this because this fits me and because it fits my current needs, wants, beliefs, and circumstances. I don't think its something just anyone could do. I know it is not normal. I know it has a huge stigma attached to it. I'm aware of the risks.

Not only am I going to make it work, I'm going to make it awesome.

Moving forward.

2008-05-30T23:11:00.005-04:00

So it is 2008. I've changed allot in the past two years and there is allot of change still to come. Its good. Its allot of things. Exciting, scary, fun, confusing, and about 100 other feelings. I'm getting ready to live in a van. Yes, you heard right. I'm going to live in a van.

Why am I going to live in a van? Allot of reasons. Some of which I don't even know yet. But I do have allot of good reasons. I'll talk about "the why" later. I'll also go more in depth with "the how" eventually too... I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

I've already got one. Its a 1989 Ford E-150 with a raised roof and pretty sweet captains chairs. I got it from a man named Ricky Dean for $1750. Only 74000 miles, but needs some work (which I plan on doing myself). The exterior is in great shape because it has been garaged most of its life. Really pretty. Brand new tires. Mr. Ricky Dean was the second or third owner. He bought it from a sweet old widow who had bought the van in 1994 when she and her husband had retired. After her husband died she rarely drove it, so it has been sitting for a good portion of its life. That's both a good thing and a bad thing. The van has very little miles for its age but when cars sit for a long time the things somehow forget how to work right.

So last Friday night I drove the van home from Burlington, about an hour and a half away from Charlotte. After about 15 miles on the highway it was overheating really bad. Gas station. Steam spewing from around the radiator. Waited for it to cool down then filled it up with a 1 liter bottle of water and about 10 trips to the men's room to refill the bottle. Despite being on stress inducing steroids for my poison ivy, I managed to stay calm and not worry too much. I was more tired than anything and it had been a long day. I just wanted to get home and sleep. I was really achy.
The van started up fine, ran fine for about 15 miles and then the same problem. Rest stop. No steam from the radiator this time. I let it cool then checked the coolant level. Still full. hmmm. Checked the oil. About a quart and a half low. Not sure if it was burning oil but the tailpipe wasn't smoking or anything like that. Ricky Dean didn't know when the last time the oil had been changed. So I got on the highway and got off at the next exit to top off the oil.
It was a really sketchy gas station, no working restrooms (though that's not saying much in relation to gas stations in general). There were lots of sketchy people walking around. Sketch guy walks from sketchy car and comes up to me asking for gas money. I felt bad for him but it was a "no can do" at 2am in sketchville. I got two quarts of oil and then got the hell out of there. Still tired and achy.
The engine stayed happy the rest of the way home. It probably hadn't been driven that far in a long time and just needed some kinks worked out. List of first things to do: getting the oil changed, flushing the trans fluid, checking out the coolant system and hoses, new spark plugs. After I get all the mechanical things in order I'll go all "Christopher Lowell" interior designer on the van and make the inside nice and homey.

So that is what has been going on so far. I just got the new tag on today and found out that insurance is going to be really cheap, that is a relief.

I'll take it to the shop this week and have everything checked over and get the fluids flushed and filled. If it doesn't need anything major I will have a killer van for the money. We will see.