the buget explorer express van build

david.lemke

Adventurer
this is a 2005 express van standard length that I got from the place I work and decided to make another camping van or explorer van, my first one was great but I did learn a lot of things and wish I had done things differently, so this one is getting a little more attention than expected.

it has 345k on the 4.3 v-6, never been opened up either, come to think about it neither had the other van I had........lol.........got to love chevy, but as you can see this is a rubber mat cargo van and I did pull the divider and shelving units out as well, did got to the quarter wash as well and did hose her out from pop that had exploded over the winter months when it hit 20 below.

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more to be posted so stay right there and give me a few as I have a lot of posting to do tonight to get caught up and bring everyone up to speed
 

david.lemke

Adventurer
in the las van I built I would have killed for a sink, so off to the internet to shop for a sink and faucet for a camper style, everything I ran into was just not what I was looking for or way to big, finally I found a nice unit fron a vw that was being sold and when I went to ask the guy from ebay for a little price break and told him what I was doing with them he refused to sell them to me, but he did help me in finding a like sink and faucet that would work with my set up and forwarded me the links to the items, I searched for a full month and couldn't find a thing but this guy helped me out in 10 min., hope he sold them sink items to a vw guy that is restoring a vw van, but anyways, under 60 buck for both...................

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real3175

Observer
Great pictures, really looking forward to this build. I'm hoping to do something like this in the near future...
 

david.lemke

Adventurer
storage space

this is the big problem we had with the last van, we didn't have enough

so I decided to find a cooer as well that would make a great mini fridge and low and behold, walmart had a sale on this baby, time to build a cabinet behind the drivers seat to do some storage and build it around the mini fridge, the bottom section is going to be for all my electronics, house batteries, invertor, shore power fuse box, giving a easy access at anytime to anything including the solar that will be done in the later part of the summer

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david.lemke

Adventurer
we were hunting around memorial day weekend and I had to run to the bone yard to get some comfy seats for me and the wifey to sit in for those long runs, well I had this down to a science since there was no complaints on the last van we built. found a nice set of brown seats, ok I will live with the color, but the best is yet to come guys.

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as we were looking around we saw a high top conversion van all in blue........NICE........

well after a hour and a half I had all the interior striped out of it including tv, vcr, all sound equipment, and I mean everything, we were even going to buy the high top, you all that have had tops installed are going to be mad at me when you find out the price.......lol

being the holiday as I said it was all on sale, take a wild guess as to what I paid for all the interior, but I will tell you I paid $12.50 yes that's right, less the 13 dollars for the high top and nothing wrong with it, but in total we spent less than $275 for everything from the bone yard, including the conversion company wiring harness included in the deal
 

david.lemke

Adventurer
being this is a budget build and all and I figured we have saved so much that we would see how far we could go...........

the wife started to hunt for foam to make a split bed that would turn into a full size bed, which we did find a local company here in our area that does make custom size beds, so we ordered one.........pics and info to come on this when we receive the bed either this week or next

but anyways, she was shopping around for material to wrap the cabinets and bed frame in and ran into jo ann fabrics sale where the real soft material she bought was 50% off and she got another 20% off when she signed up for internet adds from them as well, 5 bolts of soft blue color fabric here we come for less than what our water bill is...........and its a close match to the original blue of the conversion van as well

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david.lemke

Adventurer
well after the fabric ordeal, again she went on a mission to find carpet for the van, and I will be damed if she didn't do it again on a deal, very nice piece of matching brown, to our seats, with pad and all for less than a !00 bucks, 18 foot by 7 foot, rolled in the corner that the customer never came back to get and they were selling it to cut there losses, I tell you what, this stuff is softer than what I have in my house........lol

got it installed after a few hours of cutting and trimming, put all the cabinets back in the van and started mounting my drivers seat on the original chevy floor box due to a fuse box there, added a piece of 2x3 box tube to each side of the frame for a higher seat height that I had in the last van and loved, but mama is getting a swivel seat in the passenger side all I have left to do is drill mounting holes and level the thing out, oh and cut another swivel lock into the other side of the base 180 degrees from the original one.

but after a month of fighting with the bone yard and all, this past Friday I went out there, taking a vacation day, and had a long talk with the manager, finally had room behind the van to get the top off to carry it out of the yard, called in a buddy from the glass company I deal with and he cut the urethane with a thin paddle on a saws all, another tool I must have........lol

after 3 hours of finding help we finally got the high top home in the back of a toooo short of a trailer, story for another time, and threw her on top of the van, the next day we went out and cut the van roof to fit the high top, hoping this week I will get her glued back down

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david.lemke

Adventurer
I SCREWED UP.............

can a admin please move this thread to the 2wd / 4wd campers please, I posted in the wrong area
 

chilliwak

Expedition Leader
Good work there David. Cool to see an old Chevy work truck transformed into something new. I give you the big thumbs up for seeing the potential in that rig. Keep it up mate and post pics that you can turn right side up. All good here and thanks for posting. Cheers, Chilli..:wings:
 

david.lemke

Adventurer
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Well after the last few days I finally am about to wrap up my house battery box, all sealed, vent lines attached that will vent to the outside of the van, wireing is just about done, just wish I had the solar stuff but it will be here soon enough.

Tommarows project is to lift the high top up, support it with 2x4 boards and attach it to the van useing urethane and a lot of people hopefully to help as long as the weather holds out.

As far as the comment of moving quickly, it has taken a month to get this far, but I still have my goal of getting it explorer ready by the end of July, I have the next 3 days off so let the fun begin.
 

david.lemke

Adventurer
Sorry it's takin this long for an update but after last weekend and I had turned into a lobster, I didn't do much this week

But here is a little sneak of what we did do last weekend

........

My phone is hateing me, let me post pics at a computer
 

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