Vannin' Home
Posted By: cornfarmer Van-na White - January 23rd 2018 7:04 pm
I am digging it so far. Lots of features (working even) and very little fixing to do.

devil

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Posted By: Sparkynm Re: Stay Puft - January 23rd 2018 7:42 pm
Looks very nice. The less fixin', the better !!!
Posted By: frscke1 Re: Stay Puft - January 23rd 2018 9:57 pm
What a SWEET van .....looking good !
Posted By: Dyno_Dave Re: Stay Puft - January 24th 2018 1:04 am
That's a good looking van!
Posted By: newkirkinc1 Re: Stay Puft - January 24th 2018 12:39 pm
Very nice indeed!
Posted By: oldskool73 Re: Stay Puft - January 24th 2018 11:40 pm
Clean !
Posted By: lukester Re: Stay Puft - January 25th 2018 12:26 am
Sweet van.
Posted By: Lettercraft Re: Stay Puft - January 25th 2018 12:58 pm
Cool Van,
I'm looking for one too.

https://baltimore.craigslist.org/cto/d/1983-dodge-van/6460465604.html
Posted By: frscke1 Re: Stay Puft - January 25th 2018 2:46 pm
https://sandiego.craigslist.org/esd/cto/d/van-1983-dodge-b250-price-drop/6443874459.html

https://sandiego.craigslist.org/esd/cto/d/converted-camper-van/6471184398.html
Posted By: Dyno_Dave Re: Stay Puft - January 26th 2018 12:56 am
I like the Plymouth.
Posted By: cornfarmer Re: Van-na White - January 26th 2018 6:52 pm
Not sure about naming this van. My wife-to-be came up with 'Moby Dick'.





Posted By: cornfarmer Re: Van-na White - February 05th 2018 7:20 pm
New mobile sink project started

I started building a sink that could be easily be shuffled in/out without much hassle. There are holes in the van's floor already that could be used for drainage, but I'm not sure how I feel about dribbling water near metal and any rust that might appear.

Got this off craigslist:

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Got a steam table pan, thanks to a tip from frscke1, which cost a lot less than any other small sink out there. Cut out the drain hole, it was in the ballpark.

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Carving up IKEA stuff is easy, because their crap is basically made of cardboard. Believe it or not, it's still structurally sound.

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The heater/blower in the back was the only real obstacle. I cut out the back corner, and bent some flashing to fit and bolted it all down. Then used some 3M foil heating/duct tape to seal it up. More pics later, as I'm waiting for the glue/silicone to set after I got everything together. Also the tank I ordered from Amazon had a hole in it, so I'm waiting on a new one......

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Posted By: frscke1 Re: Van-na White - February 05th 2018 10:13 pm
Originally Posted by cornfarmer

Carving up IKEA stuff is easy, because their crap is basically made of cardboard. Believe it or not, it's still structurally sound.

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We will see when you splash water out of the sink ....

I would replace the top with a good pc of wood & seal it, with bar topping resin.

A little work now & save a lot of work later ....

Posted By: cornfarmer Re: Van-na White - February 06th 2018 1:35 am
Eh, I'm just going to hit the top and inside with a couple of coats of heavy duty spray water sealer. If no bueno after that I'll rethink the top surface.
Posted By: whyitsdone Re: Van-na White - February 06th 2018 7:50 am
Looking great man!
Posted By: newkirkinc1 Re: Van-na White - February 06th 2018 12:33 pm
Seal it good.
Posted By: cornfarmer Re: Van-na White - February 20th 2018 6:29 pm
My waterproofing scheme came to a standstill when the Ikea laminate rejected the spray sealer. Got a piece of plywood, sprayed it, then glued and screwed to the top. Added a latch for the front. then everything else came together pretty easily, though the plumbing was a little fiddly. Only thing left is to bolt it somehow to the van's wall and add a tie down strap to the tank so it's not sliding around inside the cabinet.

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Posted By: frscke1 Re: Van-na White - February 20th 2018 7:01 pm
Nice ! !
Posted By: Dyno_Dave Re: Van-na White - February 20th 2018 7:39 pm
Nicely done.
Posted By: Gladiator Re: Van-na White - February 21st 2018 4:53 pm
Good looking Ram Van, great job on the sink.
Posted By: cornfarmer Re: Van-na White - February 26th 2018 6:38 pm
Maiden camping trip to Mt. Diablo. Didn't get much photos because 1) forgot to bring a real camera and 2) cell phones turn off in cold weather a lot

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Posted By: lukester Re: Van-na White - February 27th 2018 2:42 am
Nice work.
Posted By: Dyno_Dave Re: Van-na White - March 02nd 2018 1:07 pm
Looks good. How did it work out for you?
Posted By: cornfarmer Re: Van-na White - March 02nd 2018 6:16 pm
Originally Posted by Dyno_Dave
Looks good. How did it work out for you?


Everything worked out decent. The 5 gal tank is overkill for a short weekend trip though.....It was 90% full, and we barely put a dent in it seeing how we had running water at the campground. The best thing is that I can move it in and out of the van on my own.
Posted By: cornfarmer Re: Van-na White - April 17th 2018 6:46 pm
At Yosemitie.

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Posted By: Reed Re: Van-na White - April 17th 2018 7:27 pm
Nice! I am jealous!
Posted By: frscke1 Re: Van-na White - April 17th 2018 8:08 pm
Very Nice ! !
Posted By: cornfarmer Re: Van-na White - April 24th 2018 4:45 pm
One from the next day.

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Posted By: newkirkinc1 Re: Van-na White - April 24th 2018 8:02 pm
Nice for sure.
Posted By: lukester Re: Van-na White - April 25th 2018 2:14 am
Great photos
Posted By: Gladiator Re: Van-na White - April 25th 2018 7:19 pm
Love it, keep up the great photos.

Been thinking of getting a hitch mounted bike rack, what kind do you have?
Posted By: cornfarmer Re: Van-na White - April 26th 2018 12:14 am
It's made by Yakima, holds 2 bikes, and swings down so you can open the doors without taking it off the hitch. I don't know how old it is, but it's solid other than the rubber straps getting kind of rotted out - none of them have broke yet though. Got it for $40 on craigslist.

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Posted By: cornfarmer Re: Van-na White - May 07th 2018 5:34 pm
Sometimes I need to haul some amps around.

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Posted By: Astrocreep66 Re: Van-na White - May 07th 2018 6:59 pm
Bass player? Great picture vans and tube amps yep love em.
Posted By: Turnkey Re: Van-na White - May 21st 2018 12:10 pm
Tube amps! Tube amps rule! Almost as much as custom vans! Hey, I have a stack of em! A 1978 Fender Twin Amp (aka the monster twin) a 1977 Fender Studio Bass Amp (yep, the parametric EQ job thats the same chassis as the Super Twin that Nugent played back in the day) a modified Peavey Delta Blues, a Fender Super Champ X2 (ya, I know, well...it tries real hard to be a real tube amp) a 1974 Earth Sound Research Revival 410 that I fully rebuilt top to bottom, cab, caps, wiring, a matched set of NOS Emminence tens I came across and all, that just kills now with its NOS "beautiful girls" verb tank, a cherry one owner 1967 Fender Deluxe Reverb with original reciept and owners manual, which was my buddies who got it for Christmas back in 67 and stuck it in a closet and left it there until last year....yep, caps were hit, but otherwise its MINT! GOTTA LOVE EM, even if ya cant crank em often enough dangit... Theres lots more but I dont wanna bore ya'll.
Hey, on van sinks here's a little something I did a few times back in the day that worked out really great. At most any discount store you can find polished stainless steel salad bowls in any size ya want. Big twelve inch down to little things. Punch an appropriate size hole in the middle bottom (easier said than done, but yer all pretty handy) to mount the smaller RV size drain fixtures and viola, for under ten bucks you have a darn nice looking van sink that you can mount right into a countertop just easy a heck, they have the perfect flange around the edge on em. I routed a channel for the flange to drop in neatly and used construction adhesive to mount it and it never popped outta there. Nobody ever knew it wasnt an expensive fifty dollar or more RV sink, they look exactly the same once yer done, minus the drain flange sits up a sixtenth of an inch or so. Wasnt ever a problem. Sure does save a lot of money for more beerz!
Posted By: Wedgy Re: Van-na White - October 16th 2018 5:19 pm
Originally Posted by cornfarmer
At Yosemitie.

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Van-na White be looking good there in the Valley!
Posted By: newkirkinc1 Re: Van-na White - October 17th 2018 11:23 am
I bet , keep the pics coming.
Posted By: cornfarmer Re: Van-na White - January 12th 2019 12:19 am
Been mooning over the damn van only because the rain has kept me from working on it.

Tearing out the carpet due to a leak around the passenger door jamb and foot well. Van-na got really smelly, and I thought I fixed the weatherstripping where the rain was coming in, but after getting a helluva lot more rain, it seems either I missed another leak around the same area or my fix didn't do jack. It's somewhere in the passenger door corner, maybe under the dash or coming from the windshield, which I got replaced early last year so I hope it isn't something with the new windshield's gasket. I haven't had a chance to put in the new carpet yet, which I've been itching to do, so I guess it's fortunate I didn't yet and ruin the new stuff. Tomorrow we get a break in the weather, so I hope I can just plug the leaks with some silicone. Her floors will get the scrub-a-dub treatment, and I'll clean & reuse the dirty 'padding' foam panels that were under the shag.......then it's just a matter of waiting to see if it all worked when the next round of rain hits us the day/week after. THEN it'll be new carpet install time....

And I gotta fix the damn window blind cords that got snapped while I was dragging out the bench seat/bed. Then we should be ready for some springtime campin'.

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Posted By: cornfarmer Re: Van-na White - January 13th 2019 1:34 am
Seems like the new windshield gasket might be suspect. The glass guy I usually use has done me right in the past, and he's cheap, but clearly the replacement gasket he used on the new windshield last year wasn't quite an exact match, close though. Put a bead of silicone around the outside, especially in the void I noticed at the top, we'll see how it goes when the rain returns. I hope it works, because I don't want to redo the windshield again.

Ripped out the remaining carpet and cleaned some. I ended up just cutting around the brackets for the bench seat and seat belts so I wouldn't have to take out those bolts. The white foam padding between the carpet and the black deadening material on the floor is probably not salvageable because of the mildew-looking stuff that won't seem to come off it.

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Posted By: cornfarmer Re: Van-na White - January 21st 2019 12:16 am
New carpet! I am effing tired

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Posted By: newkirkinc1 Re: Van-na White - January 21st 2019 1:22 am
Looks great!
Posted By: lukester Re: Van-na White - January 21st 2019 5:05 am
Very nice.
Posted By: cornfarmer Re: Van-na White - February 25th 2019 7:54 pm
Short weekend getaway to christen the new carpet with sand and puppy hair. I'm thinking the IKEA sink I built isn't working out logistically, and we really need some better storage in general......it looks like a bomb went off inside once we're a day or so into camping. Thinking more and more about upgrading to a bigger vehicle in general, but I think I'd miss this guy and regret it.

Only real picture I took.

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Posted By: CatFish Re: Van-na White - February 26th 2019 12:14 am
Originally Posted by cornfarmer
I'm thinking the IKEA sink I built isn't working out logistically,


Don't ever give up.....

Building it and changing it are part of the fun.

We would (and still do sometimes) sit out in the GMC and brainstorm how things would work and where different stuff needed to be. We took some short trips and actually set up camp in the driveway a couple of times to see what worked and what was a hassle. What we really needed and what we didn't. Talked about and planned what it would be like to be stuck inside all day on a rainy or stormy day. Came in handy too. We were caught in a tropical storm in Florida a few years back and were inside the van camped at the beach for about 3 days. The wind and rain destroyed our EZ-up and a lot of our camp gear.
Last year we spent 30 straight nights in the van during a trip out to Oregon and back. It was a great trip.
It's a very small space and that much togetherness is not for everybody.
Our number one: Don't take stuff with you that you don't need. This can sometimes take a little trial and error. And whatever it is, when you are finished with it, put it back in it's place. Otherwise you end up stepping over it.
And if you're someplace you're not happy, never forget what Sally said to Burt in Smokey and the Bandit:

"Does this thing move?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU5VSIcNsQU
Posted By: tvullo Re: Van-na White - February 26th 2019 12:46 pm
Looks great Man!

Catfish Hit the nail on the head!

Originally Posted by CatFish
Originally Posted by cornfarmer
I'm thinking the IKEA sink I built isn't working out logistically,


Building it and changing it are part of the fun.

We would (and still do sometimes) sit out in the GMC and brainstorm how things would work and where different stuff needed to be. We took some short trips and actually set up camp in the driveway a couple of times to see what worked and what was a hassle. What we really needed and what we didn't. Talked about and planned what it would be like to be stuck inside all day on a rainy or stormy day. Came in handy too. We were caught in a tropical storm in Florida a few years back and were inside the van camped at the beach for about 3 days. The wind and rain destroyed our EZ-up and a lot of our camp gear.
Last year we spent 30 straight nights in the van during a trip out to Oregon and back. It was a great trip.
It's a very small space and that much togetherness is not for everybody.
Our number one: Don't take stuff with you that you don't need. This can sometimes take a little trial and error. And whatever it is, when you are finished with it, put it back in it's place. Otherwise you end up stepping over it.
And if you're someplace you're not happy, never forget what Sally said to Burt in Smokey and the Bandit:

"Does this thing move?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU5VSIcNsQU
Posted By: cornfarmer Re: Van-na White - February 27th 2019 6:27 pm
cheers

Mrs. cornfarmer has some cabinets/storage from her day job sitting in the garage, so we've got some options to try out. I think the water dispenser unit is going to be simplified more like the Catfish method - mount the tank somewhere, put the spigot back on, position the sink underneath (if at all). Next camping trip is in April so we've got some time to dick around with it grin
Posted By: cornfarmer Re: Van-na White - May 14th 2019 6:00 pm
Got the van back after a long wait getting the intake manifold leak, etc. fixed, promptly went up the coast to Fort Bragg for some camping. Switched from the IKEA sink apparatus to just sticking the water tank on top of a crate, which seemed to work fine, if not better. Overthunk that one I guess.

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Posted By: lukester Re: Van-na White - May 15th 2019 2:41 am
Great pictures. You will figure out what works best for you in time. It's trial and error. Checking out other vans at a vannin or even online can lead to some good ideas too.
Posted By: cornfarmer Re: Van-na White - May 20th 2019 5:43 pm
Operation: Van Storage Mk II kicked off with 3 of these shelve-y things I picked up for $10. Two of them fit pretty good with the couch-bed extended, and the shelves are easily moved around (so the left one cleared that dang vent sticking out of my floor). The 5 gallon water tank sits nicely on the right hand one. Still need to test fit the cubby storage boxes Mrs. Confarmer has, and find the best way to latch the left one to the right one (which will be anchored to the van wall). This still keeps things modular, as in I can take it all out easily if needed.

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Posted By: kursed Re: Van-na White - May 21st 2019 12:44 am
Gotta love when thrift finds fit like they were meant to be there. Good score and good lookin' van.
Posted By: cornfarmer Re: Van-na White - July 25th 2019 5:51 pm
Mrs. cornfarmer and the pooch started a big eastward road trip, I had to work, but we met up in Idaho and cruised out to Montana for a few days. Lucky me got to go back to work today while she cruises down to Yellowstone and beyond....van's running like a champ.

Glacier Nat'l Park shots

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Sighted this guy at an antiques shop near Flathead Lake MT, was pretty much all there except being used to store a bunch assorted junk inside it

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Posted By: Astrocreep66 Re: Van-na White - July 25th 2019 10:27 pm
That is some beautiful scenery ,everybody be safe,keep on truckin.
Posted By: kursed Re: Van-na White - July 25th 2019 10:57 pm
Gorgeous scenery, and a sweet looking Dodge. Shame they don't see the beauty in it.
Posted By: cornfarmer Re: Van-na White - December 12th 2020 8:48 pm
Been over a year since updating.....not much to report other than general maintenance/upkeep. But this summer we finally got the driver's door fixed, which has been cockeyed since we got it. Pain in the butt to open/close and seal right.

I'd gotten so used to entering/exiting from the passenger doors all these years. Doesn't look like much of a change, but a new hinge made all the difference in the world. It's the little things.......

Before
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After
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Posted By: newkirkinc1 Re: Van-na White - December 12th 2020 10:14 pm
Looks great!
Posted By: SDMickey Re: Van-na White - December 13th 2020 12:43 pm
Man that scenery is off the hook. Those pics are great and I hear you about the little things that make the difference. Man that Dodge in MT looks sweet. Good to see your post kursed; been awhile .

Astrocreep66 's advice is so true: keep safe and Keep on truckin'. I took my first real ride in my 1974 G10 ( about 30 miles ) and I can't begin to tell you how good it felt and the memories that rushed in.
The Best Medicine Ever. chevy
Posted By: frscke1 Re: Van-na White - December 13th 2020 6:27 pm
SO your going back to Flathead to pull that van home when ? Those things outside the van would make a man cave look good.
Posted By: cornfarmer Re: Van-na White - December 14th 2020 1:29 am
Maybe in a few years we'll just move up there. Pretty nice area, although the winters would be.....different
Posted By: lukester Re: Van-na White - December 14th 2020 3:32 am
Those are great pics. Can't believe I missed them. Glad to hear you got the door taken care of.
Posted By: SDMickey Re: Van-na White - December 15th 2020 4:11 am
I hear you cornfarmer : winters brutal cold. We pay a price for our weather; my pop use to call our state: "The Sunshine Tax State".
Posted By: cornfarmer Re: Van-na White - July 16th 2021 11:24 pm
Toll cam shot from crossing the GG bridge, kinda looked cool to me

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Posted By: lukester Re: Van-na White - July 17th 2021 2:06 am
" Riding Easy "
I like that cheers
Posted By: kursed Re: Van-na White - July 17th 2021 2:06 am
Originally Posted by cornfarmer
Toll cam shot from crossing the GG bridge, kinda looked cool to me

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HA! That's cool.
Posted By: newkirkinc1 Re: Van-na White - July 17th 2021 12:54 pm
Nice for sure.
Posted By: cornfarmer Re: Van-na White - November 27th 2021 11:44 pm
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Posted By: kursed Re: Van-na White - December 03rd 2021 12:28 am
Killer shot, LOVE IT! cheers
Posted By: cornfarmer Re: Van-na White - November 11th 2022 2:58 am
She is now for sale:

https://www.vanning.com/threads/ubbthreads.php/topics/798336.html#Post798336
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