Vannin' Home Forums General Discussion Readers Rides Lost Dakota....(a build thread)

Hey now.....figured before I got too far along, I should create a build thread. Pointers and tips, always welcomed....otherwise, here we goooooooooo....................

Why Lost Dakota.....Easy, it's from South Dakota...lol..

She's a, bare bone ex-contractor van, rust free and full of spunk....(well kinda)...

The goal......a multi purpose vehical for now, being a E250- able tow haul, tow and then become a camper of sorts. Being in the off-road business....my thoughts are to make the van lean towards this in a low budget way-

Not 4wd, but rather a SoCal, ridge-runner kind of way for now, again a multi-purpose vehical for now, but with that sort of look. The front and rear bumpers will go away, I'll fabricate ARB style bumpers as shown, off set rims, flares, and perhaps a small lift, but....it must be able to tow to include my rock crawling Cherokee..

Soooo......I purchased it for cheap with a high idle issue...a new TSP cured that, seems to run very well for now, so I moved on to getting rid of 18 years of contractor spilled coffee and stink.......ugg.....the gutting...

Nothing a gallon of Castrol Super Clean wont fix! Everything within the dash has been unbolted and cleaned.....rewired, it's crazy this thing had'nt caught on fire. Reconfiguring and reassembling...I added some Lowes indoor/outdoor carpet to some areas which will continue through the build.....

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Seating has been changed to Grand Cherokee buckets, little welding and anything is possible....

The carpet combo will be light gray/black charcoal...all from Lowes for now, easy to work with, easy to secure, low profile and hopefully easy to clean....All the front humps are done, now its just padding & trim to fit...digg'in it!

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More to come!

Today, I figured out my doors.....
This is the stock plastic BS I started with with crap speaker up high and mis-mounted in the doors....

Making some changes, I removed the crap speakers, resealed the doors, trimmed the uppers in charcoal carpet, cut the plastic leaving only the upper, armrest is from a Jeep Cherokee....the lower section will be configured from wood, to include front speakers down low....poor for high volumn, but best for conversation and tunes......

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Awsome! Looking good. It is fun to play with some carpet AYE? (as they say in Canada)

Great start. Cant wait to see the finished product. Oughta be durable and look good. I like the ZJ seats. what year?

I'm looking forward to seeing your build.

They're actually WJ, 2002....I stripped the Jeep bracketry leaving only the sliders, I reused the Ford bases, just extended the top area with 1.5" x 1/4" flat bar welded to base, positioned the seat & welded the sliders to the flat stock.
Size wise, they measure the same, but they have a much better wrap around feel to them. The passenger Ford seat will be positioned behind, slightly offset towards the driver for our 6 year old, to his left I'm going to fabricate a console of sorts for the VCR, Lego's (of course) and other entertaining items.
Next, I should probably get into some wiring for 12 volt items and outside 110 while it's still bare bones....Kinda looking forward to a Lowes trip today! ;-)

I find myself fighting off a contact cement hangover this morning, heeeheeeee....the price we pay!

Alrighty, finished up the passenger door......


I decided to stick with carpet over 1/4" birch furniture grade plywood, I kinda wanted to do some sort of wood.....but, this will be better for road noise I figure....I went ahead and installed some fancy German speakers at the same time, I have yet to decide on tweeter location.....


Anywhooo, managed to get rid of 'most' of the door plastic which was the goal....looks like each door has/will cost me 20 bucks to convert, not bad!

That looks Sweet

Looks REAL nice!