DesertTed

Okay, so here I go with posts on our slow progress. I'll be doing one post at a time because of my difficulty in uploading photos. I still haven't figured out how to post photos except to upload when I go back into edit the post. It's going to be a really basic description of what we've done with the photos. We've been winging lot of the things we've done, some just because it's seems like it's a good idea at the time. 1) we took off the wall panels and set them aside for later. Hub took off the factory floor. There's carpet pad under the rubber mat. We then put Noico(Amazon-36 sq ft/box $67) We had three boxes, so we covered the floor once, the wheel wells twice. With the leftover bits and pieces,we stuck them all the rest of the inside as we didn't want to spend more money than we had to. I had read that even covering 1/4 to 1/3 of the area will work. Verdict? Fantastic! We can speak in normal tones while on the freeway. No more loud subwoofer reverberation. Still, there were assorted squeaks while driving on Tucson's awful roads. 2)Next, over the Noico, we put down strips of R-Tech inside the ribs of the floor. It's attached with one can of adhesive, 3M Super 77. Then between the foam, Hub had a blast with Great Stuff for windows and doors, using about six cans. Pix below:

I already suggested that possibility to Hub. He doesn't like it and it's not a battle I choose to win at this time, but that may change depending on our space constraints. The CG on the NV is right behind the console which wouldn't change if the batteries were placed there. The extra stability of having the batteries in the spare tire space is attractive, though the weight up high in our vehicle will be relatively low. No roof rack, no solar panels on top, just portable ones stowed inside. We've spent years of our lives camping, we travel pretty light. Hub pointed it that the weight of the three batteries is not much more than the weight of the average male in the US (195.5lbs per the CDC), so I shouldn't worry too much about the additional weight on the floor. Trying to maintain domestic tranquility while doing this conversation can be trying...

Second fill-up 11.1 mpg with just about all in city stop and go traffic. Third fill-up 14.1 mpg , all highway, averaging about 75 mph. Looking forward to ending the break-in 1200 miles with varying speeds so we can resume our cruise controlled life at 63mph.

I'm going to add to your question. I'm going to put in a three-battery bank for our conversion van as we glamp almost entirely off the grid. We've been thinking of placement behind the driver seat. But, on top of the three batteries, our control panel has lots of goodies: the CTEK charger and Smartpass, the 6 gang switch, the 1100 watt inverter (huge!), the master shut off switch, attachment for the inverter, and last, the remote for the inverter. All of that equipment is going to take a lot of space, so Hub and I have been debating as to where it should be. If we put it aft, under the bed, size wouldn't be a problem. But we would need the 100 watt Renogy folding solar system to be connected to the Smartpass. That necessitates placing the bank where it would block access to at least 1/3 of the underbed area. In addition, as a control freak, I want to be able to monitor the system actively while we're under way. Any suggestions as to our options, folks?

OK, that is good to know. Doing both sound good. But next question is about attaching things to the floor. We're going to put the vented deep cycle battery box in the area behind the driver seat area. Obviously, we need to securely fasten it to the floor. I found this from a blog of a gentleman Wayne Wirs. An interesting fellow, he had this to say about drilling into the NV's floor: "To attach the wood to the deck, I used these Teks 1 7/16″ self-tapping wood to metal screws. What is nice about the NV (and maybe other vans, I dunno) is that the body lies on top of the (about) 3″ frame and all the other stuff under the van bed lies below the frame (including the don’t-drill-a-metal-screw-into-the gas tank). This gives you about three inches of a safety zone so that you can drill into the floor without too much worry (I did a quick eyeball check each time anyway)." Do any of you know about this? It would be nice to not be fearful about attaching the box to the floor. I don't want to drill into a dangerous place, but we do need more purchase than the preexisting small drill holes behind the console which are very limited weight limit.(5 kilo). In the body builder's guide, page 197, the caution is to be careful that I'm not drilling into a critical area. But it doesn't prohibit the drilling. It just says to verify before drilling. So, can I, very carefully, drill into the floor in order to anchor my battery box?

Thanks! I was hoping to hear that. I'll not hold you to that if I ever need to access them, though. I texted myself the picture of the screws so when I go to the Home Despot next time, I'll pick them up. It'll save me the indecision when I stand in front of the plethora of choices.

Black screw-in plates on floorby the rear wheel wells : what did you do? We've gotten to the point where we are ready to put the plywood sheet and vinyl flooring over the two layers of foam and joists. (The bottom layer is R-Tech cut into strips between the ribs and then covered with Great Stuff in the cracked and crevices). My question for all of you who've put on a floor, did you cover the plates? Did you cut out around them? Are we likely to ever need access? What are they for? Hub unscrewed one, looked inside and then shrugged his shoulders,"I don't know". Once we put the plywood on, it will be a hell of a mess to access them. Thank you, you've all been wonderful with your knowledge and help! I needed to edit this so I could put a photo, is the only way I know how to upload pix. Once again, the van isn't on its side, I just don't know how to rotate them on the tablet:

My name may be Ted, but in bear country (Glacier, etc.), even though we had been camping in our old Nissan Quest, we left the van with its smell of food and stayed in a tent! Humans are much more dangerous than any wild animal. Maybe living in the barrio and Hub growing up in Washington Heights(two brothers and father mugged) made us a just a little security conscious. Locked gates, rejas (security bars) on the windows and doors and other measures are second nature. Though, between the two of us, in the total time that we've camping, probably two years or more total, we've never once had a human problem. That aside, the smallest opening window I've found is too large, unless it will be cut outside the the existing small area that I wanted to use. Maybe we should think about coloring outside the lines. I really appreciate the input from both of you, although it has added more complexity to our window/ventilation conundrum.

Points well taken. I have to sort out all our options and then confer with the Hub. The lower OEM windows would be ideal, but between the bed base and mattress, likely we'll be too far above what we want. Hub also wants to be able to look outside. The hatch is a good possibility. It would kinda sorta look like a window from outside the van. I'll let that Tasmanian devil in my head deal with all the data for a while...

From what I've found, there are no OEM windows made for those top spaces, even though it looks like windows could be installed. I can't even find any non-OEM window that would fit. The smallest I could find are too tall. I could have custom windows made, but just the engineering would cost about $250 and then the windows are additional. I will continue to research. But Wollip, you're right. Ms.Liveaboard boats for years suddenly had a"duh!" moment just after I turned off my tablet last night. Yes, opening portholes with screens would work up there. They would be smaller than the cutouts on the inside, but since the outside is flush, it wouldn't make any difference as we were planning to finish the inside of the doors. And Hub came up with another positive for portholes-since the height is relatively short by necessity, it would be well nigh on to impossible to break in, as the cutout would be too small to do whatever nefarious deeds a "bad guy" may want to attempt. I did check out the Outside Van windows, but they are too wide to put in the rear doors. Their vans are sure nice, though! We were planning to put in a Fantastic fan with the cowl-type covering so the casual observer wouln't see that it was open. But we do a fair amount of semi-warm camping, so every little bit of air flow counts. We've already begun putting in two opening (but sealable with deck plates) floor vents too. Between the floor vents and the hidden,but open fantastic fan, and the wind deflectors on the cracked cab windows, stealth camping should be a piece of cake. After we spend this pretty penny to convert the van, we'll need free or cheap camping as much as possible! We're very slowly moving along and plan to do the back doors last, so we have ample time to investigate all our options. If I had my druthers, I'd prefer to put in an opening automotive windows. Portholes would look strange, but having fresh air and natural light by our heads while sleeping is not a negotiable item. Finding ports is easy, so I'm continuing to search for automotive type windows.

Hi all. I've had a new 3500 a couple of weeks now. To you Hightop owners out there: has anyone put windows in the tops of the rear doors? There is the 14"high by 17 inches wide rectangle that looks like it could be for a small window. Hub and I are doing a conversion and will be having the bed very high to accommodate bicycles. It would be perfect to have opening windows up there. Is there anyone who has them, or knows if there are some available? Thank you. I was just able to post the picture, but I don't know how to turn the photo upright. So, no, the van is not on its side!

Oops, I forgot to say thank you. My mother beyond the grave reminded me! It's funny how it can be so many years and just yesterday.

I'll tell that to Hub. It was all I could do to convince him to get an angle grinder! He thinks doing things by hand is better. Even though his arthritic hands tell him differently. I just shake my head sometimes...

Yes, the "Magic" video inspired plenty envy. Our conversion will be functional, but not terribly attractive since neither Hubby or I are carpenters and don't have the skill set to make it as beautiful. But we're taking our time, which gives us plenty of time to make sure that we will not regret some of our design plans. So far I change my mind on specific plans every three minutes, which is driving Hub mad. We're done putting down the Noico. The noise level is less than half than it was before the Noico, if I can quantify it. We covered the floor behind the seats completely. The wheel wells are Noico'd twice (that's a nice confabulated word). We only bought three packages at $63.90 a piece (36square feet each box),necessitating pretty thin coverage for the sides and roof. Maybe a total of 50% of the total surface of the cargo area is covered, but we're quite satisfied. The three boxes weighed 84 lbs! We're now working on the floor, currently cutting the narrow strips of R-Tech (3/4 inch thick) between the ribs on the floor. We'll be spraying Great Stuff in the rest of the nooks and crannies between the strips and the horizontally trim the excess with a hacksaw blade. On top of that, we are laying 1 inch of the pink Owens Corning R-5 insulating board. The pine joists will be set into channels cut out of the foam board. The vapor barrier is next and the 5/8 inch plywood will finish it off until we get the messy stuff done on the rest of the cargo area. We plan to put waterproof vinyl flooring down after that. I chose waterproof because we kayak and often can't get our gear completely dry before leaving wherever we've been paddling. Our kayaks are skin on frame and go into bags that will be stowed under our bed. When we get finish the above work, I'll post photos of each step.

We just bought the same vehicle this month. I don't know about the shop manual, but the body builders guide is available, which does show how to do simple things like changing oil and other like chores. The site is listed somewhere in this forum, but I can't remember where it is. I did find the bbg online, but am not able to find it now. But I do have the PDF of it. I'll try to upload it here. I'm new to the forum thing, so if I can make it work, private message me and I'll email it to you. Don't know if that is any answer to your question. 2012-2016-Nissan-NV1500-2500-3500-Cargo-Van-BBGv1.pdf

KMG, thank you much! I will use the CTEC accessories as they have worked for you and they looks perfect for my set up. My remaining questions for now, are how is your system hooked into the vehicle's electric? When you hooked into the passed through prewiring, how is it actually hooked up? Is it just wire to wire? Do you ground it there? Do I need anything more than the fuse? Is the prewiring hot only when the engine switch is on? I know this probably super basic information. I can set up the battery bank, the fusebox, inverter and the outlets, et cetera. But I don't know more about this prewiring than I see in the body builders guide. And it has no particulars beyond the fact that it is present. Hubby feels comfortable having me set up the system, but "I don't want you to break anything in a brand new truck!" I just feel silly going into a shop and asking how to attach one wire. Thank you once again.

Hi all, I know very little about vehicle wiring besides 12 volt systems on the sailboats I grew up with and the commercial fishing boats I worked on (as a fisherwoman, not a marine electrician). So this knowledge is decades old. I'm going to put in an auxiliary battery system in my camper van conversion. In the body builders guide, they have the upfit prewired with a 50 amp circuit behind the left kick panel, already passed through. I've never had such a luxury, so I don't have to worry about isolators, which I understand are not used nowadays anyway. How do I connect my auxiliary battery to that circuit? Would I need a solenoid in addition to a nice fuse? Do I just attach it and then attach the ground, or is it already grounded? Or is it too complicated and should I leave this to a professional? In case you're curious, the diagrams on the prewiring for upfitting auxiliary equipment are on pages 155 and 156 of the body builders guide. It looks like it should be a piece of cake. Any input will be quite welcome! Thank you. Oh, one last question. Where would be the best place to get a DC to DC in vehicle smart battery charger. It doesn't need to be high powered, just enough to run a Dometic fridge, LEDs and charge laptop, tablet and phones. For a permanent install. Thanks again.

Radin2son, I'm sorry I put in that info. I just copied and pasted, but it's been deleted. Good old backspace key¡ I've been looking at other sites, doing much research on our conversion. You should see my Amazon shopping cart! My"save for later" list is very, very long. There's just not a lot of info directly relevant to the NVs. As for the photo posting, it was interesting that when I went into the post to edit out your info, I saw an option to upload images. Thank you for your help!

13.3 MPG with first tank. Combination city and highway. We varied the highway speeds up to 75 mph, as the break-in period is the 1200 miles which requires changing speeds. Once the break-in period is done, we'll not drive more than 60-65 mph. "Hurry" is not in our vocabulary. We run the a/c at full blast here in the central/south desert of Arizona. That will not change during any warm weather. We've purchased the NV with full foreknowledge of the abysmal fuel mileage. The minimal number of miles we drive doesn't equate into huge fuel bills in the whole scheme of things. The only factor concerning us is the paucity of gas stations when we're in the middle of nowhere on our journeys. I'll periodically post our mileage.

In case anyone is curious, we don't need to carry kayaks on racks as we have "skin on frame" kayaks. Each 16.5 foot long kayak fits in one (big) backpack.

Last question of the day- I'm on my tablet and have tried to figure out how to post fotos, to no avail. How do I do that? Copy and paste doesn't work for that. You can see what a newbie I am, so please be tolerant...

Last copy and pasted post from another thread: Today, 07:58 AM We'll be using the extruded poly styrene for the floor and then denim insulation for the walls and roof. It's got a better insulation value than either the polyiso or the styrene. It's also quite easy to use and no fiberglass to deal with. On the roof we will be putting reflectix right next to the sheet metal and then the denim insulation. Gravity should keep the reflectix the ideal distance from the ceiling. But first, on the walls, floor and ceiling, we're putting on Noico adhesive matting to reduce noise. Theoretically, the Noico is supposed to help insulate.

From the introduction forum: Today, 10:03 PM We bought the van up at Nissan Autonation Chandler. We were originally going to get the 2500 8 cylinder one advertised on their site, but it ended up that one was ”in transit" (it's listed that way now, but not when we started considering it at first). The commercial salesperson, Terry Rogers understood that we were coming up from Tucson, so when he called to tell me that, I believed that it was a bait and switch situation, especially since we would have the hassle to be coming up with two vehicles to trade in. I was very wrong, as Terry was calling to let me know that, since we had negotiated a price on the non-existent 2500, he would give us a 3500 SL for the negotiated price. So we have the upgraded van with bells and whistles we would have liked to have (like the towing package), but didn't want to spend the money on. The transaction was painless, I guess because it is a commercial vehicle which is handled differently. We would have preferred to go with the local dealer, but the salesperson (who will remain unnamed) dropped the ball big time. I'm hoping Jim Click service will do better than the sales department! My hubby and I are retired, so we will be working diligently and steadily on the conversion. We hope to make steady progress and look forward to our maiden voyage next Summer. In the couple of years we've been doing most of our camping on Mt.Lemmon and Lake Patagonia, in the summer and winter,respectively. We look forward to going further afield, especially some we will no longer have to fill our Honda Element to the gills, carrying our kayaking gear, too. He was a great car, just not big enough for our "glamping". I will take your suggestion to start our own conversion thread. As I said, I'm not very experienced with online forums, so I'll attempt not to do it wrong. Since I've already commenced discussing our conversion, I'm hoping it will not be a violation here to copy and paste my four posts there. But I'm sure if I mess it up someone will correct me!

From another member's post, Radin2son: Posted Today, 06:19 PM Welcome. You will have the 3rd camperized NV in Tucson. The other is Daydreamer (?) but she hasn't posted in awhile. Did you buy your NV at Jim Click? Or did you go north? Jim Click has been good for service, mainly oil changes. Very few warranty issues and no recalls for years. Ask for Jeff if you call to set up service. Start your own build thread under Conversions"

Our next post from the introduction thread: I'm not really up on the mechanics of forums, so, having forgotten to answer your question, the answer is: we will not have any fresh water, grey water or black water tanks. Porta-potty prepped with newspaper and kitty litter will do, with bio-degradeble bags to bury if we are away from civilization and trash receptacles. Generally we use the outhouses or toilets if they are available. At night Hubby uses a Gatorade bottle. As a chick, I can't aim that well, so I do use the porta-potty. We will have a sink basin that will drain into a 5 gallon trash can. Grey water tanks/jugs will stink, so to prevent that, I can clean the bucket thoroughly as needed. And we can just dump it outside on a bush when we're done using it. We've always done very simple camping. Keeping things simple is important. The more complicated things are, the more stuff to break.