Newbie and Pups

[shelbs]

Hi All! Just bought an E350 super duty extended cab (passenger) van and I’m excited to start stripping this baby once everything clears mechanically! It’s a 2000 model year with less than 60k miles (thank you annual service like clockwork church vans!) I’m a bit nervous to strip out the interior but I’d like additional insulation as it’s also my 2 not so small dogs that will be joining me for extended road trips. Does anyone here work remote and does so from the road? Travels with pups? Is rather concerned about pooping?

[Axel]

I have the same van. The benefit of extra insulation beyond what’s already there is pretty minimal. You can save a lot of work and money by keeping the original interior and headliner. Take the rear seats and mounts out and you can use some of those bolts to secure things to the inside of the van; the ones you don’t use fill with silicone sealant. Most of the interior will be covered with stuff like cabinets and other stuff anyway. The headliner insulates pretty well, and contains the rear heat/AC duct. Nice to keep that in place.

Get a seat swivel at least for the passenger seat and it opens up more space and an extra seat while you’re parked.

[Axel]

I travel with a dog. Keep a routine in terms of walks, exercise, feeding, etc. When on the road stop every few hours for the dogs to take care of their business.

Here’s a link to by build:

Made Some Progress

Made some progress in the last couple days. I didn’t want to do anything until I had a title with our names on it, and now that that’s a reality we began work. The van is a 2000 Ford E350 15-passenger version with the extended body, standard low roof. It belonged to one of the Indian Pueblos here before we owned it, and likely spent a lot of time on washboard roads. When I test drove it, it was apparent that it probably needs ball joints and maybe tie rod ends - was a bargaining item which subst…

Heater install:

Pulled the Trigger on a Solid Fuel Heater

Just pulled the trigger on one of these:https://www.go2marine.com/Dickinson-Marine-Newport-Solid-Fuel-Heater-00-NEWSF?gclid=CjwKCAjw8MD7BRArEiwAGZsrBb0uWNvF6K3KHA25cgOIKeQV6pTVC599gV69E5kVoGGJ_AWvNPpe7RoCDw0QAvD_BwE It will burn wood, charcoal briquettes, coal, wood, etc.

[shelbs]

Swivel seat it on the list - the AC/Heat would be nice to keep, but it also takes away space that my plans need. I’m not planning on living full time, it’s looking like 2-4 months out of the year as long as I can get enough power and stay in decent enough cell service areas to still work ( work computer won’t hold a charge longer than 4 hours and is a beast at sucking energy ).

In my experience with cars, the insulation can be pretty decent, but I’m wondering if it’s worth the headache to get back the space. Would you know if the factory stock ac/heat can be adjusted to run w/o the engine running?

[Axel]

There’s really no way to run the installed AC/heat without the engine running. The AC requires the engine to turn a compressor and supply electricity to run the fans and controls. Similarly the heater gets its heat from the heat of the running engine, and the running engine supplies the electricity to run the fans and controls.