My Chevrolet Express van Class B- camper

[Black95]

I have been camping in my 1990 Chevrolet Silverado Blazer 2-door for the last 20 years. When I removed the back seat there was just enough room for a 3/4 sized (Hollywood, as some people called them) mattress to fit between the wheel wells and from the back of the console to the tailgate.




After all those years with my wife and I getting older, she decided we needed a little more room so she found me a 2001 Chevrolet Express van with low mileage on the internet. After checking it out and taking it for a test drive we bought it on the spot. It was a nice passenger conversion LT model with all the bells and whistles available in 2001. I will chronicle the changes I made to transform it into my Class B- motorhome in the next few postings. I call it my Class B- (B minus) motorhome because it is just a regular van without the raised roof.


Camping at Custer State Park, SD in February, 2015.


Camping and visiting Scott's Bluff National Monument, NE in October, 2014.

[KaLvan]

Really have enjoyed reading through your post and all you have done. We are doing a similar build on a 2014 Chevy Passenger Van. We put a 3/4 inch plywood floor down for our base. We are curious how you have attached your cabinet and bed into the van. At this point, we plan to leave all the factory walls in place, so don't have points of attachment in the van walls, just the plywood floor we have installed.

Also, by any chance, do you know where in the back passenger area there are airbags installed? We don't want to inadvertently set those off with our build!

[SavannahCollins]

Wow! He had the same Chevrolet Silverado Blazer 1990 ))
But it was green! What a great time it was !!

[Black95]

J herb wrote:

Mike, a nice setup to have as you can use a heater that doesn't have a thermostat, if needed can you run both heaters on low at the same time?
Hope that you are able to go camping soon, we are trying to go but we have been having a lot of rain in the valley and snow in the mountains for the last few weeks.

The small heater only has one setting whereas the little floor model does have a high and a low setting. I probably could run both of them because when I wired my van, I used 12/2 house wiring or the equivalent in round extension cord type wire so I think it would be heavy enough. I have never needed more than the little 1500 watt even when it was below freezing outside. So I will probably use one or the other, whichever is more convenient. We cover all the windows and windshield with custom cut Reflectix Al insulation to fit each window. That not only insulates it keeps the light out, so we can sleep in til noon if we wanted. Growing up on the farm as I did means I usually get up early even when I don't need to.

[J_herb]

Black'95 wrote:

J herb wrote:
HI Mike!
good timing on the new post, I was just going to ask you what you used to heat your van with when you are winter camping. Is that little heater AC or DC ?

When I built my kitchen unit for the van I built into it a 110 volt wall thermostat and connected the 110 volt outlet below it.


I have been using a little 1500 watt floor model of heater. This heater utilizes my wall mount thermostat otherwise it would run constantly. It is in the way on the floor sometimes, especially when I have to get up in the middle of the night. When it is cold out we always camp where we have an electrical hookup. As long as I had this little 900 watt heater laying around the garage, I decided to get it a try on our next camping trip which will probably be later this week. This heater doesn't have a built in thermostat either so my wall mount one will be needed for it.

Mike, a nice setup to have as you can use a heater that doesn't have a thermostat, if needed can you run both heaters on low at the same time?
Hope that you are able to go camping soon, we are trying to go but we have been having a lot of rain in the valley and snow in the mountains for the last few weeks.

[Black95]

J herb wrote:
HI Mike!
good timing on the new post, I was just going to ask you what you used to heat your van with when you are winter camping. Is that little heater AC or DC ?

When I built my kitchen unit for the van I built into it a 110 volt wall thermostat and connected the 110 volt outlet below it.


I have been using a little 1500 watt floor model of heater. This heater utilizes my wall mount thermostat otherwise it would run constantly. It is in the way on the floor sometimes, especially when I have to get up in the middle of the night. When it is cold out we always camp where we have an electrical hookup. As long as I had this little 900 watt heater laying around the garage, I decided to get it a try on our next camping trip which will probably be later this week. This heater doesn't have a built in thermostat either so my wall mount one will be needed for it. Both heaters are 110 volt.

[J_herb]

We camp at State Parks in the winter and they all have electric and we have a real nice 750 to 1500 watt elect heater with a fan and thermostat and it does a good job keeping the van warm.
We also carry a Buddy Heater for backup if the electric went down.

The heating strip in my roof mount AC doesnt heat enough when temp gets near freezing so I carry a quartz 400/800 heater. I am somewhat obsessive about being warm but havent needed it in the van, but, at our campground my husband uses one to heat the trailer since we arent charged for electricity but have to fill our own propane tanks for the furnace. The furnace is noisy as it cycles on and off, the quartz heater is silent.

drsolo,
We have the heat strip on our trailer and it's does a good job.
The portable elect heater that I got to use in the van works great to keep the van warm even down to freezing temps. We don't like keeping in too warm when sleeping so we set the thermostat to around 60, we also have a smoke alarm in the van.

[drsolo]

J herb wrote:
HI Mike!
good timing on the new post, I was just going to ask you what you used to heat your van with when you are winter camping. Is that little heater AC or DC ?

We camp at State Parks in the winter and they all have electric and we have a real nice 750 to 1500 watt elect heater with a fan and thermostat and it does a good job keeping the van warm.
We also carry a Buddy Heater for backup if the electric went down.

The heating strip in my roof mount AC doesnt heat enough when temp gets near freezing so I carry a quartz 400/800 heater. I am somewhat obsessive about being warm but havent needed it in the van, but, at our campground my husband uses one to heat the trailer since we arent charged for electricity but have to fill our own propane tanks for the furnace. The furnace is noisy as it cycles on and off, the quartz heater is silent.

[J_herb]

HI Mike!
good timing on the new post, I was just going to ask you what you used to heat your van with when you are winter camping. Is that little heater AC or DC ?

We camp at State Parks in the winter and they all have electric and we have a real nice 750 to 1500 watt elect heater with a fan and thermostat and it does a good job keeping the van warm.
We also carry a Buddy Heater for backup if the electric went down.

[Black95]

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. This little heater is the type they sell in North Dakota and Canada to warm up cars in the morning before you drive to work. In fact, I bought it in Grand Forks, ND while visiting my son who worked there for a time.

[Black95]

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 mounted a hinge and bracket so the TV can fold 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.

[drsolo]

J herb wrote:

Checked out your van link and your van looks good and it's 29 years old, I see a few of the same type of GM vans around here and they are used all the time. It's nice that you can remove things to go get things that you need to do projects around the home. I can take one cabinet out with just removing 4 screws and that give me extra room to put bigger things into the van. I have a 4'x8' utility trailer for bigger and heaver things for home projects.

We sold our rarely used 4x8 when there really wasnt anyplace we could stash it without it getting stolen.
Only the 3 drawer over the frig is screwed to the wood molding at the top of the wall/ceiling. The microwave is screwed to the counter, but the counter cabinets are not screwed down. They pack pretty tightly to each other. The drawers have metal tabs that dangle and stop the drawers shooting out when rounding a corner. We dont make sharp corners or sudden stops tho.. LOL.
The van is rusting and I have gouged it, it has dents and dings. Dan has promised to work on the rust while we are down here. We are planning on getting a newer little bit bigger van, we gotta watch cause they got tight rules what can be parked on the street.

[J_herb]

drsolo wrote:
My RVan link

here is link to my RVan

Checked out your van link and your van looks good and it's 29 years old, I see a few of the same type of GM vans around here and they are used all the time. It's nice that you can remove things to go get things that you need to do projects around the home. I can take one cabinet out with just removing 4 screws and that give me extra room to put bigger things into the van. I have a 4'x8' utility trailer for bigger and heaver things for home projects.

[Black95]

Seon wrote:


Here's the link to the thread I started. Thx.

http://www.rvforum.net/SMF_forum/index.php/topic,130161.0.html

drsolo wrote:
My RVan link

here is link to my RVan

Thanks for the links, I look forward to following your posts.

[drsolo]

My RVan link

here is link to my RVan

[Seon]

Black'95 wrote:
... please, post some picture of your van or give us the link here if you decide to start your own thread.

Here's the link to the thread I started. Thx.

http://www.rvforum.net/SMF_forum/index.php/topic,130161.0.html