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.
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.
I made the big jump this month to a much newer van. It is a 2018 Chevrolet Express with 15K miles. I have spent the last several weeks transferring everything from the old van (2001) to the newer van. It was fairly easy because Chevrolet has not changed the body style of the Express van in over 20 years. Not much new to add -- just the changeover. I will post some improvements in future posts. One of the big improvements was that this newer van had OnStar and a WiFi hotspot. Now we can check our email, download our newspapers, and keep in touch as we drive which we couldn't do before because our cell phones are fairly simple TracFones.
Thanks to your patience while my pictures were not accessible on this site. I lost my storage on my homepage when my web provider no longer provided users with webpages and storage. I have used RV.NET:Photo Posting now, so I should not have that problem again.
My latest modification has been to the mounting of my dashcam. I had it mounted in a sandbag type device on the dash. I recently went to the swivel mounting unit on the rear-view mirror. Now it is up out of the way. I also threaded the power cable along the edge of the window and along the A-Pillar so it, too, is out of the way.
My latest modification has been to the mounting of my dashcam. I had it mounted in a sandbag type device on the dash. I recently went to the swivel mounting unit on the rear-view mirror. Now it is up out of the way. I also threaded the power cable along the edge of the window and along the A-Pillar so it, too, is out of the way.
I have not been modifying my van camper much, just using it to travel and camp. This weekend it was time for another modification that I have been contemplating for quite some time, especially ever since the previous solar eclipse that I viewed from central Wyoming. I have always thought that my roof rack would make a good observation deck as well as able to carry stuff. In addition, items carried on top will not fall through the bars and scratch the paint on the roof of the van. To that effect I purchased several diamond tread aluminum panels that would fit between the reinforcement bars of my roof rack. Today I mounted them and screwed them down. Now my rear roof rack ladder leads to my new observation deck.
It is time for another modification to my camper van. I ordered a Surco 103H hook over door ladder and installed it today. It is made for an even square door and my van's door slants down a little towards the tail lights, so I had to borrow a tube bender from my local hardware store and modify it just a little bit to get it to look vertically straight on the door. That wasn't too hard with the right tools. It feels very sturdy and I am looking forward to using it on camping trips.
As my wife says, my van is never finished. I am always looking for little ways to improve on it.
As my wife says, my van is never finished. I am always looking for little ways to improve on it.
I finally got around to adding a controller to my solar panels. The panels were mentioned back on this post:
http://www.rv.net/forum/index.cfm/fuseaction/thread/tid/28113784/gotomsg/29095241.cfm#29095241
This is the controller I added to the back of the solar panel board. I like it because it also has USB charging ports for my USB devices.
http://www.rv.net/forum/index.cfm/fuseaction/thread/tid/28113784/gotomsg/29095241.cfm#29095241
This is the controller I added to the back of the solar panel board. I like it because it also has USB charging ports for my USB devices.
The latest little addition to my camper van was a set of levels to let me know how level the camp pad is and where to use my leveling blocks. The front-to-back level was placed on the door.
The side-to-side level was placed on the flat region below my steering wheel. It does not interfere with the tilting feature of the steering wheel.
These levels are not a big deal addition but they sure help when I reach a campsite that is not completely level. Like I mentioned before, my van is basically done and now I am just making minor changes and improvements. They were both mounted with 3M body molding tape.
The side-to-side level was placed on the flat region below my steering wheel. It does not interfere with the tilting feature of the steering wheel.
These levels are not a big deal addition but they sure help when I reach a campsite that is not completely level. Like I mentioned before, my van is basically done and now I am just making minor changes and improvements. They were both mounted with 3M body molding tape.
Black'95 wrote:
This week's improvement to my camper van was a very minor item, but one that my wife really likes. I added a Post-It note holder to her side of the center console. Very minor item, but she really likes having them that handy and it even has a pen holder.
Great idea! I usually have a small notebook handy, because I get some of my best ideas while on long drives; but at my age, if I don't write them down, they're gone by the time I get to our destination.....LOL!!
I also make notes about pictures I take or someplace/something I want to research on the computer once we get stopped.
This week's improvement to my camper van was a very minor item, but one that my wife really likes. I added a Post-It note holder to her side of the center console. Very minor item, but she really likes having them that handy and it even has a pen holder.
