Sprinter Update 3

Oh my goodness gracious, it's been too long. I'm a slacker, my camera died, and I missed some exciting installs.

I don't have photos of the install, but below are some pictures of the window that was installed in the sliding door. It was surprisingly easy to install. Simply cut out the factory stamped panel with a sawz-all, line the inside and outside edge of your hole with weather stripping. Drop the window in from the outside, and secure it from the inside with the supplied flange, that will sandwich the edge of your cutout between the window and the flange. This was my first time installing a window. They were ordered from C.R. Laurence Company, the only supplier I could find for 2004 Sprinter windows. There is a second window going behind the driver as well, but this one has damaged TWICE in shipping, both times UPS delivered a box full of bits of safety glass, the box damaged in the same spot. (Update, C.R. Laurence finally delivered an intact window today, but it had clearly already been installed, uninstalled and returned. small marks on the inside of the window and flange as well as pre-worn sheet metal screw holes, they are goign to get a piece of my mind on monday morning, completely unacceptable, but I'm not risking a third shattered window, just happy to have one that isn't broken.) See below.

I put in a cargo wall to protect the band from betting impaled with guitar headstocks in the event of a high speed crash or an abrupt stop. This my first experience with expanded metal sheet, it's 1/8" thick, and is super sturdy, and much lighter than a solid steel wall. See Below.

The loft got a plywood platform to support a mattress, and also you can see that I finished the framing for the hinged bench seats, there will be lots of storage below them. The hinges are secured to the plywood bench seat with bolts, and to the steel bench frame with large sheet metal screws.

Hinges!

I needed to think more before proceeding, so I moved on to the cargo areas which I had a firm grasp on how to finish. Step 1 was to insulate it. The custom cut panels are similar to the closed cell bubble wrap you would use in packaging, often used as sun shields in car windshields. So the outside is shiny, and the inside is white. They came from sprinteraccessories.com. They definitely were easy to install, using double stick tape (included in the kit) and came with a self explanatory map of where each panel needed to go, but they took FOREVER to process my order and deliver, beware. The insulated cargo area, is shown below. Then I cut the original plastic side walls of the van to fit the new cargo area.

Okay! So we settled on a rooftop AC/Heat Unit from Carrier, It is a low profile design, only adding 7" to the clearance of the van. Which is good, because it is tall enough as is, and I didn't want to go under a bridge and end up with a shattered mangled ac unit. I decided that the easiest thing to do would be to frame out a hole for the unit out of angle iron, so that the sheet metal in the roof isn't too floppy. The manufacturer specs out a 14"x14" hole in the roof, so I fabricated a frame to that spec and then welded it to the roof. Shown below is the frame in place, and paint sanded away from where I am going to secure it. An angle grinder with a sanding disc is just fine for this.

Next it was time to insulate the rest of the van. I had extra hand available (my band mates), so this went pretty quick. I was dreading doign this alone.

Shown below is the Ac framing, welded and insulated.

I got up the nerve to install the AC unit. After testing it indoors to make sure I wasn't installing a broken unit, I cut a hole in the roof!

Makes me wish a moon roof was in the budget.

AC unit hoisted on the roof. It was fairly easy to slide up the front of the sloped van front.

AC Unit in place

Vent from top unit installed.

Next, the inside unit gets bolted to the outside unit, and the vent is sealed to the inside unit. the Ac is secured to the roof just by these 4 bolts that are sandwiching the ceiling of the van. Its rather secure, and tightening the bolts also compressed the thick rubber foam gasket on the roof around the hole, creating a water tight seal.

Next up is a detailed installation of the driver side window which just arrived un-shattered!!