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I found the roof rack basket for my van camper. Now I will be able to carry our recliner camp chairs with us as it is 60" long. I had to mount it low on the roof rack brackets due to the clearance with my garage door, but it works quite well. Also got a hook net set-up to hold everything in place. Will add a "packed for travel" picture later.
This modification is not one I made to my conversion van, but to the camera tripod I carry in it. I like the Chevy Express van's large door pockets where I carry my little fold up camp chairs and my tripod, because it is so easy to get at them. I modified my tripod with a slow-motion adapter that I purchased from an astronomy telescope website. It allows me to make fine adjustments as I am tracking a bird or an animal with my telephoto or zoom lens on the camera.
The other modification to the tripod was wire-tying the shutter release cable to one of the ***** on the tripod. Now I do not have to dig through my camera bag looking for it and it is always ready and handy to use when I am trying to take tripod pictures.
Time for another small modification to the camper van. My wife wanted more room for small things, so I used a drawer organizer and added a couple of metal brackets that I bent and shaped to fit the contour of my door window trim with my Pop-Rivet tool. After covering the inside (so things don't rattle while we drive) with sticky-back felt, I slid it over the edge of the trim by the window of one of the side doors. The second picture show how I bent the bracket over to catch the edge of the plastic trim and hold it in place.
Last edited by Black'95; Apr 29, 2017 at 9:15 PM.
Reason: clarification
Time for another small modification to the camper van. My wife wanted more room for small things, so I used a drawer organizer and added a couple of metal brackets that I bent and shaped to fit the contour of my door window trim with my Pop-Rivet tool. After covering the inside (so things don't rattle while we drive) with sticky-back felt, I slid it over the edge of the trim by the window of one of the side doors. The second picture show how I bent the bracket over to catch the edge of the plastic trim and hold it in place.
Wow, really using every nook and cranny huh? Looks pretty slick.
Just wondering how high your garage opening is as I'm in the process of searching for a van , I only have 7ft of clearance and would like to know if this is sufficient.
My garage door opening is 8 feet and my 2001 Chevy Express van fits easily with a roof rack on it. I think my van is about 6 1/2 feet high so it would probably fit without a roof rack.
Now that camping season is here, I am finding small modifications to make again. After mounting my roof rack on the van, I did not have a good place to mount my magnetic TV antenna, so I got a piece of metal from my local home improvement store. I cut it at an angle to fit one corner of the roof rack, painted it black to match, and screwed it in place. Now I have a nice flat location for my magnetic TV antenna while camping and it doesn't interfere with loading my recliner camp chairs for travel.
Just wondering how high your garage opening is as I'm in the process of searching for a van , I only have 7ft of clearance and would like to know if this is sufficient.
Here is 82 1/2" to the weatherstrip on the garage door. I have about 5/8" clearance between the weatherstrip and the roof of the van, (08 1500 empty). These dimensions are with 225 tires (it has 225's from a previous owner), stock is 245's, about 5/8" taller.
