Summer Update #6

I am starting to accrue piles of parts and gear again…. Now I just need to find time to install it all. Working a day job is makes it tough to have van hobbies.

Here are some photos of the Websasto FCF 5000 AC unit. As you can see it’s quite compact. Construction quality seems to be good. A few loose zip ties, and a scratch here or there.







Here it is mounted. The factory supplied mounting brackets are not strong enough for an automotive application, so I added some larger brackets with through bolts for the floor.





I did some testing on the unit using a garden hose for water supply. The unit moves quite a bit of air. It was able to drop the ambient air 20 degrees (88F to 68F). Humidity was around 55%. The water stream was heated about 5F which a bit higher than my estimates. Power consumption was 4AAC (according to the inverter, not sure how accurate this is). DC power usage was about 55A on high. This is a bit higher than my initial estimates. Apparently the inverter is only 80-70% efficient at these low power levels. There will also be power draws from the yet to be installed water pump and radiator fan(s).








I installed a couple of grab handles to aid ingress/egress.









I took a good part of the day on Saturday to mount the bumper. It was not a simple bolt on job for 2 reasons. The first was due to the mounting holes not lining up. The second is that I want to strengthen the fairly weak stock mounting points. The factory mounting points for the bumper cover are just 2 rivnuts. (this bumper also uses the step mounts). I drilled out the center 2 rivnuts and installed ½” through bolts with backing plates.





The bumper has little or no resistance to twisting backwards. So I added a mounting bolt into the fender panel skirt on each side near the rear. This adds substantial rigidity, and hopefully will keep wildlife from rotating the bumper into the hood.

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Summer Update #5

The bumper arrived a few days ago. Packaging was a bit Spartan, but it is a bumper… It’s fairly beefy, but not overly so. I am not satisfied with the mounting provisions, so I will be making some brackets to attach it to the vans “frame” tubes.






A friend of mine plasma cut and bent some steel sheet for me. It will become a fairly unusually shaped fuel tank. 16 gauge would have been ideal, but beggars cannot be choosers. So I will have a 10 gauge galvanized tank welded up soon. One of the bends is off a hair, so I will need to trim one edge before assembly. This may be a challenge with my limited tools.

The tank fits in the space under the sliding door and should be around 14 gallons. I could have gotten an 19 gallon tank to fit, but the alternator charging wire interferes, and it wasn’t worth the cost to make a new one.

Summer Update #4

The inevitable progress towards completion continues. Although, the more items I complete, the longer the list becomes? I keep finding more small (but time consuming) things to do.

At the top of my list is fixing the maddening rattling of the Maxxair fan. In the closed position it is quiet when driving under 65mph or when there are no cross winds. However, any substantial cross wind, or high speed driving makes it rattle excessively. My fan has the plastic bushings on the mechanism arms, so this is not the cause. Instead the wind over the van roof causes the top to shake. It’s not much motion, but it makes the rain guard and hardware rattle loudly.

Upon disassembly I discovered three sources of noise. The first is the forward pivot. It is plastic on plastic; some heat shrink tubing fixed this rattle.





The second is contact between the lid and a mounting screw. Some judicious trimming fixed this one.



The third is the aft hinge. This unit has tons of slop and is very poor quality. I pressed the pin out and covered it with heat shrink tubing to increase its diameter. Hopefully this will stop the rattling completely.





I replaced the lower sliding door roller. I was astonished how easy to operate and quite the slider is now! It even latches better!



I have added some insulation to the fridge drip tray. The freezer is not as cold as I would like. Hopefully this will increase the temperature differential between the fridge and freezer.



One of the reading lights is installed.



Finally the over-cab door has been installed. A Blum assist bar keeps it open.





I ordered a Webasto FCF 5000 unit yesterday. After some budget analysis and consideration it made sense. We will likely run it off the batteries occasionally to keep the sleeping area cool/dehumidified at night. When we are driving it can be run from the alternator. It will fit under or behind the bench seat. A radiator, pump, and lines still need to be sourced. One more thing to mount under the van…