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.

[Black95]

Naio wrote:
I juat read this entire thread. Thank you for posting your beautiful work! It gave me many ideas for my own van :).

You are welcome. Many of the ideas I gleaned from other's postings on this forum and other camper forums and websites. The only real originality is adapting them to my van camper conversion.

[Black95]

omjones wrote:
Ok so when you are in and on the seat, how do you get the step in? Do you use a cane? That's a long way down to reach for it.
john 'I am Canadian'

I guess I did not make my use clear enough. We do not use the step for getting in and out of the driver's and passenger's seats. We use it only on the side door for getting into and out of the "camper" part of the van conversion. We only have to put the step in from the outside when we are "breaking camp" and heading out on the road. It is a convenience for the camping part of the van.

[omjones]

Ok so when you are in and on the seat, how do you get the step in? Do you use a cane? That's a long way down to reach for it.
john 'I am Canadian'

[Naio]

I juat read this entire thread. Thank you for posting your beautiful work! It gave me many ideas for my own van :).

[drsolo]

I thought about that too especially for my elderly dogs then I discovered that there are two steps and I could train myself to use both of them. The dog having trouble recently shuffled off the mortal coil.

[Black95]

Today's addition to my conversion van is a step box to make it easier for an older guy like me to get up and into it. I made it about 5 1/2" high, 12" deep, and 20" wide so that it would fit in the door well opening when we travel. Now to paint it blue to go with my rear box and the color of the van.


I talked my wife into painting my step for me, then I added some black rubber step tread with stickie back and a "Cookie Monster" vinyl stickie on front. Now it is done.

[Black95]

falconbrother wrote:
That is too cool. .............. Anyway, we traveled out of state in the old motorhome and it did fine for the entire trip. Still, I want to convert another van into a camper some day. It's better than a motorhome for road trips, keeps the panic down on those lost mountain winding roads.

Thanks. I am having fun with my van in my retirement. I, too, have a bigger camper, it being a 23 foot trailer camper. But I find myself using and liking the van camper conversion more than the big camper. Next week I am taking the van camper to the Minnesota Renaisance Festival and on to the northern part of Minnesota for some time off in the north woods.

[falconbrother]

That is too cool. I had to sell my project van. My mother died suddenly and I needed to generate some cash so I sold it. The buyer wanted a professional mechanic to look at it and turns out it was in amazing shape, even had a newly rebuilt transmission. I didn't even know that part. Anyway, we traveled out of state in the old motorhome and it did fine for the entire trip. Still, I want to convert another van into a camper some day. It's better than a motorhome for road trips, keeps the panic down on those lost mountain winding roads.

[Black95]

Next I am hoping to replace all the reading lights with LED bulbs but haven't found any that fit yet. I have extra blue LED's for the door/courtesy lights if you like that color. Yours for the shipping. I bought a pack of ten and only needed three.

[goreds2]

I like it! Good idea about the lights. I may try that.

[Black95]

The latest addition to my camper van was to upgrade the door/courtesy lights to blue LED's. My van is indigo blue metallic.


Then I added the name tag to the door that my sister gave me, as we call the big blue van the "Cookie Monster."


I just updated my "Cookie Monster" name tag with a "stickie."



We have this guy sitting on the dash:

[Black95]

Traveler7 wrote:
Your work is inspiring!

Thanks! Just a farm boy who became a science teacher in a small rural school for 41 years. I love to tinker, make old things look new again, repair and innovate. I am having loads of fun in my retirement with my old Corvette and van camper. Like my wife says, "That van camper is never finished" because I am always looking for ways to improve it.

[Traveler7]

Your work is inspiring!

[Black95]

I was not completely happy with the clamps I used to secure my awning to the drip edge of my van. They were modified clamps that would swivel too easily in the wind. (See previous post:http://www.rv.net/forum/index.cfm/fuseaction/thread/tid/28113784/gotomsg/28907433.cfm#28907433) I searched the internet for various clamp styles and made some new ones out of 1/8 inch aluminum sheeting, a metal piece from a farm sprayer parts store, a carriage bolt and a large plastic wing nut. I made three of them, one for each end and one to secure the middle.


I made them flat and 3 inches wide to fit in the drip edge, covered the parts that would touch the van's paint with sticky-backed step/running board rubber. With the large wing nuts, they are easy to tighten by hand -- no wrenches needed. I used a file to file the round hole square for the head of the carriage bolt. The large nut is a spacer because my carriage bolt was too long. I plan to replace it with a shorter one soon.

[Black95]

It is approximately 10" x 13" x 13" and I found a nice little corner in my van for it to travel in. When we are camping using it, I put it outside in the shade. It makes little finger-tip ice cubes which you have to remove often to your cooler or freezer (at home) because the storage container is really not refrigerated. It makes cubes in about 8-10 minutes and the longer you run it the bigger the ice gets. We like it and think it works out great for us even though some people don't give it good reviews.