Van conversion

My daughter bought a high roof, camper Hiace to use for summer camping and winter skiing.  The van partially contained some camping items, but not what she needed.  

I flew to Washington state to help her with this process.  Not the best climate in winter to be doing outdoor modifications, but also, not the worst.

Thought I would share a few items, its not complete, but a work in progress.

Maintenance wise I had to change the oil & filter, and the glow plugs.  The filter was previously put on by Godzilla and required a tool to get it off.  The glow plugs worried me, but they were soaked for 4 days with liquid wrench and came out easily.

She stripped everything out by the time I got there.  We were able to get it completely insulated with sheep wool.  She didnt want fiberglass and I dont blame her.  Wool has so many advantages over fiberglass, the most important is no itchy arms and no mask needed.  Its a bit more expensive, but well worth it.

We ran wires before laying the subfloor for all possible future items.  The subfloor and insulation was just time consuming.  we put vinyl floor planking on top of the subfloor for a better finish look.

A diesel heater went in the back, and the electrical panel over the R/H wheel.

We put 250 watt solar on the roof which was difficult only due to the weather.  We had to use flexible panels due to the curvature of the front of the roof.   She decided on the Renogy solar system, so we went with all items from them.  We also wired the van battery to charge the solar batteries, so its a dual charge system.  The electrical was not difficult, but time consuming cutting and terminating all the wires.  We also added a shore power outlet on the outside of the van.

In the end everything worked great.  She used it on a weekend ski trip where the night temps got down to 12 degrees.  The diesel heater worked great.  The Renogy system app is really nice.  You can monitor every aspect of the system and the batteries from your phone.  

Alot more needs to be done, but its currently liveable and working great.

I have a hand drawn schematic of the electrical system if anyone is interested. just IM me -

Looks great. I used strips of 10mm twinwall polycarbonate to avoid overheating the flexi solar panel. This maintains max. output and avoids roof paint scorch.
I'll also cut some access panels to the shock absorber heads as they cant be changed without through the floor access.

A really nice job you have done. I used polystyrene foam, and that worked really well too. Did not think of wool. Really nice idea.

geoffreyKZH138V:

Our first attempt in November we tried to use the polycorbonate, but had issues with the adhesive holding the polycarbonate to the curvature on the front of the roof. Instead, we used Velcro extreme outdoor tape. The upper and lower layers of the velcro tape gave a nice gap of about 1/8" under the panels, so that worked out great. We also used EternaBond RSB-3-50 tape along the edges. The velcro worked beyond my expectations, only put the Eternabond tape as an extra precaution.

Your suggestion for access panels to the shock heads is interesting. Is this limited access on all Hiace models? That worries me as I had plans to put a 2" lift on the vehicle.

N3870V wrote:

Your suggestion for access panels to the shock heads is interesting.  Is this limited access on all Hiace models?

I don’t know. The rear shocks (and springs) on leaf spring models can be removed from below without access inside the cabin. The front torsion bars can be adjusted from below but if you mangle the front torsion bar tensioning bolts then you’ll need to access these through the floor. There are some other through-floor fasteners but I think these depend on model. You can remove the transmission without accessing through the top panel (as the engine / gearbox is sort of shared with vehicles that don’t have an access panel) but it’s easier if you can remove the access panel.

For a camper conversion the best YT advice I’ve seen is here: https://www.youtube.com/@GregVirgoe

Cheers!