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

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.

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.