Building the Escape Pod
We’ve got L-track mounted in the floor of our van. It’s ideal for placing bike fork mounts pretty much wherever you need them. Here’s how to build your own fork mount that attaches to any piece of L-track on your floor or wall.
If you have an alarm in your Sprinter, or if you specified the overhead cubby option, there’s a neat source of power you can hook in to for things like dash cams or equipment that would fit in the DIN cubby hole.
Continue reading “Getting power from the (optional) overhead cubby”
There are lots of holes in the metal van walls that you can use for mounting your wall panels. It’s not always easy to accurately find those holes and mark them on the panel. But, like most things, there’s a tool for that.
We use our van to camp close to the trails we want to ride. That doesn’t mean we want the contents of those trails in our van. Keeping ourselves, our bikes, and the van clean takes some creativity.
A while back we made a joke about voiding the warranty on the van by cutting a hole in the roof. Some people took it seriously and we still get questions about what really is OK to do on a van conversion without voiding the manufacturer’s warranty.
The short answer is, it’s completely up to your dealer and Mercedes what they say they will cover or not cover, but knowing what the manufacturer warranty claims to cover and knowing what the law states about warranties is a good starting point for any warranty-based claim you might need to make.
Continue reading “What things really void your vehicle warranty?”
No matter how much you insulate the rest of the vehicle, The glass in a Sprinter van is a massive heat gain/loss area. We bought a sun shade made specially for the windshield and made ones for all the other windows from Low-E foil faced foam with magnets around the edges.
Continue reading “Window covers – insulation where it’s most needed”
The Sprinter van’s starter battery is under the driver’s feet. If you see a battery under the hood, it’s an auxiliary one. Connecting another car’s battery to it won’t help with starting the engine.
But you don’t have to tear the van apart to jump it – Mercedes gave you a special connector in the engine bay.
The front end of our bed platform is right above the passenger bench seat. We added foam pipe insulation to the platform to protect our noggins from getting whacked.
To make it look fancy, we covered the pipe insulation in black vinyl. It’s not exactly the same color as the seat upholstery, but it looks just fine.
Continue reading “Foam pipe insulation for bed-to-head protection”
Along with oil, antifreeze, transmission fluid, brake fluid, and fuel, modern diesel engines also need DEF to run properly. All North American Sprinters built after 2010 have DEF tanks.
DEF helps with emissions control and the computer in your van will stop you from driving if it detects an empty DEF tank. But don’t panic if the DEF light on your dash comes on. You’ve got plenty of time to fill up.
So, what is DEF, why does your engine need it, and what’s the best way to fill the DEF tank?
Continue reading “DEF (Diesel Exhaust Fluid) – the other engine fluid”
Our latest entry in the “Why didn’t we do this two years ago?” category is buying a bench mounted drill press. This thing is so much easier to work with than a hand drill.
We’ve been able to borrow access to our neighbor’s floor mounted monster drill on occasion, but he’s a woodworker and aluminum swarf is a bad idea to have around his shop. Now we have our own hole maker.
Continue reading “Drill press: the proper tool for drilling straight, round holes”