This afternoon I pulled the Suburban heater out of the Sprinter. It took a couple of hours with the only tool used being a screw driver. In its place, under the gaucho will be a storage cabinet big enough to at least hold a couple of pillows. They must be the hardest thing to store out of site in a B.

While I was removing it I noticed a metal bar from the gaucho has been rubbing against the water tank – enough to build up some plastic dust. I’ll be at Sportsmobile in a couple of weeks to fix the gray water tank and I’ll let them look and tell me if it is normal or not.

I have the chrome inlet/outlet for the heater still on the side of the bus. Wish I could think of some creative way to cover the holes. Any ideas?

The rear of our Sprinter looks good but needed a little extra bling. I went to see Scott at A-1 Muffler who worked on the Eurovan and half-hour latter – bling!

Remember Darling – it is not how you feel but how you look and you look marvelous!

Sitting here day after day counting raindrops gives you lots of time for thinking of modifications to do on your Sprinter configeration. I think we all do them. Winnebago owners, Country Coach, Sports Mobile – everyone wants to put their mark on their RV. The problem is, the longer it rains, the more ideas come to mind and pretty soon you are thinking of big changes!

First let me say Sportsmobile does an excellent job in building out the Sprinter. I got just what I designed and everything works great. Alan, from Sportsmobile, told me that by the time I did my third build, I would have everything perfect. I think he has it right. Since my next one is not scheduled until the 2016 model, I’ll have to make some corrections as I go along and who ever ends up with my current Sprinter will get a perfect one!

Currently on the driver’s side of the Sprinter I have me, fuel tank, water tank, propane tank, black water tank, spare tire, my AGM battery, Suburban heater and all of the electrical. I have had no problems with this arrangement but I think redistributing some of the weight cannot be bad. That is one reason for the modifications I want to make. Also I find the Suburban heater, while definitely keeping us warm, uses more electricity than I want to use – another reason for modification. Lastly, although we designed it without an air conditioner, and have done fine without one, the fact that some of the grand kids now live in Arizona, makes us rethink that design decision.

What is planned then, is to drop the propane tank totally along with the Suburban heater and the propane connections to the stove-top. I will add an Espar D2 heater and a Danhard A/C on the passenger side. I plan to replumb the stove to use propane cannisters. I will end up with some additional storage under the gaucho and take a little away on the galley side plus a more effiecient (diesel fueled) heater, air conditioning and a little better load balance.

I was looking at the refrigerator the other day and found the wood panel  put in the door was not thick enough to fill the space. Ah Ha! Yet another place to add insulation.

I pulled the door off and the plastic side on the left comes off easily. It will be the side without the door handle. Then I slid the wood panel out and used it as a template to cut the Reflexit. I cut it smaller than the panel because I knew it would be a tight fit going in.

First I tried laying the new insulation on the door and sliding the panel in. No go that way. I put the panel part way in and fed the insulation under it and that worked great. I probably should have stopped there and put the sides back on but . . . I didn’t. There was about a 1″ wide strip not insulated that was behind the plastic strip is the last piece to snap into place. I added some Reflexit there and then I tried to snap the plastic back onto the door to hold the panel in place. Then I tried to snap the plastic back onto the door to hold the panel in place. Did I mention that then I tried to snap the plastic back onto the door to hold the panel in place? Everything was correct except the ends which protruded away from the panel about 1/8″.

Finally using clamps, and some clear silicon sealant I was able to get the the ends to stay in place.

Will this help lower the refrigerator cycles or lesson noise? I do think it will help in holding the cold in and the noise is no longer an issue.

And now I am done with the refrigerator – I promise!

Having moved the spare tire to a door mount I was left with an empty tire rack under the bus. I decided to add a basement in that space. I could use it to carry the nice to have but hope I never need items like chains, tow rope, a 2-gallon can of diesel, etc.

I went out to see Tony at Livermore Ironworks and liking a challenge, he figured he could come up with something that would work – light as possible, self-draining and strong.

I went out last week and looked and we decided to also replace the original hinges where it attaches to the frame with more solid steel.

This came in weighing 27 pounds. I figure I can carry 100 pounds pretty easy. Of course, the more weight the harder it is to lift and lower. Tony left a place where I can use the jack handle as in the original tire rack for raising and lowering.

Darn, the title might be longer that the post! I better get busy!

For a long time now the headliner has been hanging down. Well, not really hanging down but from behind I could see about 3/16″ between it and the roof. The gap was all black so no big deal but you know how I am.

I pulled the headliner down a little taking care not to put too much strain on  it and could see a hole just in front of the motion detector that would be perfect for raising the headliner by using a nylon fastener. I also noted that there was no insulation here. I slid my hand in and it was hot! The headliner seemed to insulate the passenger compartment. Bare metal (the roof) and open space and then the fiberboard/fabric (what is it called?) headliner material. BTW, only a stock Sprinter would have this. If you had shelves added here by your RV converter you can stop reading now as this would have been removed.

I put a plastic screw anchor in the hole with the idea I would find something to screw in at the store. Wrong. All I found was something to press in and it worked fine. I removed the screw anchor I had put in and drilled a hole into the headliner. I pressed in the new clip and now my headliner is raised by almost 3/4″ at the motion detector.

All right! Oh, the insulation. Before I fastened the headliner up I slid in a large piece of Reflectix insulation. That is the bubble type with both sides covered in aluminum foil -they call it metalized aluminum. I don’t know how you can metalize aluminum – I thought it all ready was – metal. Will it help lessen the heat? Don’t know but it seemed like a good idea.

While I had the Reflectix out I decided to add some to the refrigerator compartment. You will recall we spent time on this previously trying to get rid of the refrigerator vibration (we never did, just lessened it). Pulling the refrig (I am a pro at that now) I cut four pieces of Reflectix and stapled them on top of the insulation (by Sportsmobile). The top was not insulated so I added that. Putting the refrig back in now was a perfect fit on the sides. The insulation presses right up against the refrigerator which is what I wanted. Insulating the top also helped the noise. It is much quieter than the original installion and seems to cycle a lot less. I wish I had “before” data but I don’t. That part of the project took about 40 minutes with more time spent on the trim than anything else.