Black'95

With the weather outside hovering around -2 to -20 degrees F, I am spending most of my time in my heated wood shop and my heated garage. I started and completed a modification to the TV mount in my DIY camper van. I created a new wooden mount that utilized the top bracket of the seat belt, the nearest cup holder, and the kitchen unit.

I enjoy fabricating things from scratch without any plans and this shot shows the basic wood frame. I was not happy with the old mount because it placed the TV to close to my sink and faucet. Now it is moved one window towards the back.




This picture show the old mounting with the wedge removed that previously slid down between the window lower plastic and the kitchen unit. It squeaked and was not a very solid mounting. I mounted the hinge unit to the new mount, painted the wood flat black, and covered all surfaces that might touch any part of the van with sticky back felt. Now the TV is mounted much more solidly and still hinges out so we can watch the news in bed. I added a hinge and bracket so that I can fold the TV out for viewing from the bed area.




I utilized the bottom frame board to mount my indoor/outdoor thermometer and a small container for the remote control. Not something new for my DIY van camper, but an improvement of the old.

Black'95

I am always looking to repurpose things laying around my garage. We had been using a little floor electric heater to heat the van when camping during colder weather. I had this car heater laying around from my wife's old Jeep Cherokee that we used to heat the car's interior before she went to work each morning during the winter months. Now that she is retired and the Jeep has been upgraded to a 2018 Equinox the heater is no longer used. I created a mount from plastic and wood that I mounted to one of the headliner attachment points off to one side partially over the kitchen unit so we should not be bumping our heads on it. Also it is easily removed by sliding it out of the mount. We plan on trying it out camping in the next week or so to see if we like it better than the floor heater which seemed to be in the way some of the time. If it passes the "wife" test, I will paint the mount flat black like the rest of my DIY stuff in the van.

dankellyweir

Thanks again for all of your detailed posts - they are really helping be plan as I finally did purchase a used 2012 Express 2500 and begin my build.
You showed your mini-levels mounted to try and find a level camp spot. My question is - have you used any successful methods to manually level your van?
I don't know if some sort of mini-ramps, blocks etc. are practical. I figured if anyone has come up with a solution - you have!
Thanks,

Black'95

Thanks for the kind words. I am having fun in my retirement with my DIY camper conversion van and am always looking for ways to improve it. I use some home made ramps from 4 pieces of 2 x 8 x 10 1/2 inches for the larger ones and 2 x 8 x 9 inches for the smaller ones. When finished cutting them I added a piece of sticky back step tread material. Some of the tread material is rubber only but the stuff I used has a sandpaper like finish and I stapled it to keep the ends from curling up. I can use 1 ramp per tire to go up 1 1/2 inches and a long one and a short one to go up 3 inches. Sometimes I use a double on one wheel and a single on the other wheel if I am sitting on a slant. I have even used a double on one wheel, a single on the other side and a single on one of the front wheels if I am both slanted and lower in the back.



I store them in my blue box attached to the bumper hitch of my van where I store my camp chairs, camp stove, little propane tanks, fire tongs, ax, etc. I find that backing up on to the ramps works better than driving forward on to them.

dankellyweir

Lol - I was pretty certain that you had attacked the issue!
I've been a Deck Builder for the last 31 years so I have LOTS of 2" X 8" and 2" X 10" scraps laying around!
I knew the concept would work, I just didn't know if there was some hidden non-practicality issue but it looks like you've addressed those. Particularly the gripping surface to keep them from popping out.
Thanks very much for your prompt reply and information!

Black'95

Somewhere while checking Facebook I came across an ad for a Radiate brand portable campfire. Being an avid DIY'er (growing up on the farm and being a high school science teacher for 39 years may have something to do with it) I decided I could make something like that.



I purloined a 7 1/2 inch fruitcake tin from my wife and started melting wax in my woodshed. I cut up some paper egg cartons and distributed the pieces throughout the wax, then let the wax set and harden. It seems to work great.



To put it out, I just put the cover back on. You do want to let it set awhile after putting it out so the melted wax from using it doesn't slosh over and leak onto your hands. Yes! I speak from experience because the lid does not seal it up so it is leak proof. It will never replace a real campfire, but we could use it on the picnic table under the awning on a rainy day.



The camping trip we were on when I tried my new DIY campfire on was an Easter camping trip to Oahe Downstream Campground which is below the dam and north of Pierre, SD. With temps in the high 70's for the first week in April it was fine camping weather. We heard this cardinal before we finally saw him. He is small in the picture because I knew I could not take the time to swap to my 800mm lens before he decided to fly.



It must have been a fine weekend for fishing as the bay below the dam's stilling pond was pretty crowded. I am guessing the fish were biting in this area.

Black'95

I recently ran across a new use for our ice maker on one of the posts I frequently visit. I may have to try this on our next camping trip. The bottles melt the ice into water which is reused by the ice maker!

Black'95

We are using our van camper conversion a lot the last couple of years due to COVID. We can go off by ourselves camping without much people contact. Now I don't make any major changes, just a few small incremental improvements is what I like to call them.

Recently I upgraded my 110 volt system by adding an external outside outlet box on the van frame closer to the front end. This gives me a place to plug in my blue rope lights and a small maintenance battery charger for the van main battery. When we are camping for several days we often turn on the vehicle accessory mode to activate our WiFi hotspot in the van. The trickle charger guarantees that we do not run down the van's main starter battery.

Black'95

As I and my wife are getting up there in age, we grew tired of the small 4 inch screen of our GPS unit in the van. Recently I upgraded to a Garmin RV 890 model with an 8 inch screen. We both can see it much better and love all the extra features that our little one did not have. I made a larger DIY mounting for the slot in the van's dash and it works very well.

Black'95

I have not done any camping since back in August. Not that the weather wasn't nice, it has been great for this time of year. Today, in northern South Dakota we had temps in the 60's which is really great for this time of year. What has taken me away from camping was selling our big house in the small town of Roscoe and moving to our smaller house near the campus of Northern State University in Aberdeen, SD. It was my wife's winter house when she worked for the University and now that we have been retired we decided it was time to downsize and rid ourselves of 40 years of accumulated "stuff." We went from a four bedroom house with a four car garage down to a two bedroom home with a one car garage. That meant that a lot of the "stuff" had to go. Good turnout at our rummage sales and good response from local online rummage sales helped a lot. Naturally I had to get a storage space big enough to put the Corvette and the camper conversion van in for the winter. We are really enjoying our retirement in a larger town and, especially, with the University so close we can attend a lot of free music recitals, etc. But today with such nice weather I decided it was time to upgrade the conversion van camper with an Maxi-Trac 8 foot awning from NAPA. Installation was a breeze. I just drilled four holes in my roof rack mount and bolted it up. Now I am going to plan a camping trip in the near future and try it out. I am sure it will work slicker than our old 9x9 Gander Mountain one. We will keep it and maybe use it as a free standing one for a picnic table. I will update this post with a picture of the awning extended in use on our next camping adventure.