DesertTed

Hello all! I've been lurking until now. Hubby and I just bought a new 3500 last week. We are going to convert it into an RV. We can live with the smaller cargo area, there really was no consideration of the other manufacturers'vans. We've had three Nissan's and hope the trouble-free experiences we have had continue. The unexpected bonus with the NV3500 is how wonderfully comfortable the driver and passenger seats are. So, tomorrow, we start our project by applying Noico sound deadening matting to reduce the racket! Driving at high speeds and on Tucson's terrible streets (our potholes have potholes) makes the back of the empty van almost too noisy to hold a conversation in front. So, we have 108 square feet of the Noico matting to apply. We plan on posting our photos of our progress. One thing we have decided, though: we are not terribly well-off but we aren't going to spare reasonable expense to do this project well. Full-time living part of the year is our plan. Hubby and I spend months each year tent camping. During the late 90s, I had a Nissan Quest with which we did a fair amount of stealth camping. Stealth camping will be a lot more enjoyable with a full sized cargo van this time around. So here we go on this adventure!

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!

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.

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.

Hello all! I've been lurking until now. Hubby and I just bought a new 3500 last week. We are going to convert it into an RV. We can live with the smaller cargo area, there really was no consideration of the other manufacturers'vans. We've had three Nissan's and hope the trouble-free experiences we have had continue. The unexpected bonus with the NV3500 is how wonderfully comfortable the driver and passenger seats are. So, tomorrow, we start our project by applying Noico sound deadening matting to reduce the racket! Driving at high speeds and on Tucson's terrible streets (our potholes have potholes) makes the back of the empty van almost too noisy to hold a conversation in front. So, we have 108 square feet of the Noico matting to apply. We plan on posting our photos of our progress. One thing we have decided, though: we are not terribly well-off but we aren't going to spare reasonable expense to do this project well. Full-time living part of the year is our plan. Hubby and I spend months each year tent camping. During the late 90s, I had a Nissan Quest with which we did a fair amount of stealth camping. Stealth camping will be a lot more enjoyable with a full sized cargo van this time around. So here we go on this adventure!