OpenRoad

They have been under the hood for 3 years with no change in their condition and I have had to use them a couple of times. The only difference from being inside the van is the temperature from engine heat, there is no dirt or moisture. I know it is unusual to store things in the engine compartment but during the van conversion inside space limitations drove me to think "outside the box". It is a huge engine compartment, especially with the V6 engine.

A continual conundrum for me is where to store things in the van. I have found that there is a lot of space under the hood with the V6 engine (may not be true with the v8, I don't know) which somewhat offsets the drawback of the V6, i.e. somewhat lacking on power. My most recent addition to the under hood storage are leveling ramps. I purchased these at Harbor Freight and they fit with almost an inch of clearance to the hood when closed. So my total list of things that are now stored there are: - pair of leveling ramps - come-along winch - tow strap - spare qt of oil - small storage box for miscellaneous - OEM jack and jack handle packet - awning tarp and extendable poles There is room to fit another pair of leveling ramps behind the first pair if I find that I need them. I have now traveled many thousands of miles with these items under the hood with no complications. As a side note I recently downloaded an app to my android phone for helping on leveling called "Camper Leveler". It automatically calculates how many inches are needed at each wheel to bring the van to level. I haven't used it yet but expecting it to make things easier than guessing while looking at the bubble level I have used in the past.

I am embarrassed to post this but figured out my issue with the Torchbeam. File this under operator stupidity. The LED bulb housing only seemed to go in one way but with fussing around I reinstalled 180 degrees different and wallah the high beams work when supposed to. In addition didn't realize that the LED bulb itself has a small amount of rotation adjustment within the housing so it can be lined up properly with the LED's at 3 and 9 o'clock positions. All the neurons were not firing on the day I first tried to install.

One last update to this thread. I thought that I had a successful install but... Installed Torchbeams during the day and tested that headlights came on which they did. Finally got around to checking headlight aim (during the night) and discovered that the Torchbeam T6 style, H13/9008 model is wired wrong for the NV. When low beams are selected the high beams are on and vice versa. Could possibly live with this but really don't want to see the high beam indicator in the instrument cluster on all the time. Can't flip the plug around because it has a tab and can only go one way. So the stock OEM headlights are back in and the Torchbeams are being returned. Will have to research what other options are out there.

Glad to hear you had success. I had the same problem with the fuse tray. Left side seemed stuck. It appeared to be held in with locking tabs and I worked with screwdriver to make sure they released. Pulling and pushing with no result and then suddenly it came out easily. Like you I'm not sure what I did to free it but happy to be able to as there is no way to reach the F3 fuse without elevating the tray a bit.

After reading this thread it prompted me to upgrade my headlights as the stock lights are not that great. Followed recommendation and purchased the Torchbeam LED's off of Amazon. It doesn't seem that they are selling the T2 style anymore but just the T6 (which seem very similar). So the units I installed were the T6 style, H13/9008 model. Appreciate the heads up on needing to remove the F3 fuse from the IPDM box in the engine compartment. How the Daytime Running Light relay 1 switches the lowbeams to run in series to act as DRL's is kind of strange and I would not have probably picked up on that until I had potentially damaged the new LED's by running them at 6V. So no more DRL's after this upgrade but don't think I will ever miss them. Torchbeam recommended that the installed LED chips be facing at 3 and 9 o'clock positions but mine ended up at a 45 degree offset from that after seating them in headlight housing. Hopefully that doesn't matter much. New lights (hi & low) seem to be working fine but still need to check headlight vertical adjustment but will wait until the van is loaded for our next trip. Nissaron, Sorry to hear about the problems of removing your IPDM box cover. Mine came right off. It did take some effort to loosen the vertical fuse tray inside the box so that I could raise it up to access the F3 fuse. Good luck on figuring out why yours is so difficult to remove.

OUCH!

Adding a heating system is probably one of the harder items to figure out but it certainly adds a lot of comfort to the van living experience. Here is my long winded two cents worth and you may know all this already but there is a lot to consider. This is just my viewpoint and others may have different input. The simplest heat is to use a portable electric radiant heater if you have access to plug-in electricity at your camping location (i.e. the heater uses a lot of energy and would quickly drain a battery system) or as some have done is to use an in-door propane space heater. BUT with the propane space heater choice you have the very real danger of carbon monoxide poisoning, fire danger and moisture buildup in the van. I would say definitely not go that route. The other option is to use some type of forced air heating system that uses outside air for the flame and directs the combustion gases outside. This then requires that a hole be cut in the van wall for the heater ducting. If you peruse the many sights/blogs that detail van build outs (vast majority Sprinter, Promaster and Transit with very few NV) the popular choices are products made by either Webasto or Propex. Webasto is popular because it can use either gasoline or diesel fuel and so can be supplied from the fuel source that powers the van, in the NV case gasoline. This choice then leads to the complexity of having to tap into the van fuel supply somehow or have a separate small dedicated fuel tank located somewhere. The Propex uses propane so requires a propane fuel tank. Having a propane fuel tank has its' own inherent dangers due to the very explosive nature of a propane leak in an enclosed space. So you either need to locate the propane tank outside the van (probably either in back or underneath) or if inside it must be located in a sealed enclosure with a lower drain vent routed outside. (If there is a leak the propane being heavier than air will flow through the vent and outside where it will quickly dissipate.) One advantage to using propane is that it burns very clean and therefore there is very little cleaning maintenance needed for the heater. For our build we went with a propane heater manufactured by Suburban (model NT-16SEQ). It needs to be located in some type of enclosure, either as part of your cabinetry or in a separate dedicated box. The Suburban product is much less costly than Webasto or Propex (they seem way overpriced) but is a quality product. It runs clean and quiet and so far after 4 years service has not needed any maintenance or repair. I am including a few pictures so that you can see the installation. The hardest part for me was building a box for the propane tank as I wanted it to be inside and take up as little space as possible. It has a lot of angles to it so that it can fit back into a cavity in the outside wall. I would highly recommend also installing a propane gas detector/alarm and carbon monoxide gas detector/alarm in your van. These are not costly items and well worth the expense. So with all the above blah blah blah, now to answer your original simple question of finding an installer for a heater. With the popularity of van living there have been a lot of van retrofit shops opening all across the country. From your picture it appears you are at one to have your roof vent installed. Most of them are very busy so finding one that will do just a heater install may take some leg work, time and perhaps travel. Unfortunately I don't have any recommendations but hopefully the info above will help you to make an informed decision when you finally do find one to deal with. You might mention the area of the country you are in and someone else might have a suggestion. Hope your van project goes well.

Yes, we installed an aftermarket window in the sliding door. The window was from C.R. Laurence and I have attached a pdf brochure I have from them. See page 2, catalog number FW805R. Have been very happy with it (no leaks) and the screened vent windows are nice to have for use in conjunctiCR Laurence Nissan Windows Brochure.pdfon with the overhead vent fan to control inside temperatures and moisture.

That is a beautiful area. I really like this area of Arizona including the east side of the Chiricahua around Portal and west across the valley to Cochise Stronghold. It has been a couple of years since we were there. Wasn't able to stay at the National Monument campground last time so did explore the Pinery Canyon Rd and dispersed camped there. At that time, was very washboard so made for slow going in the van. Thanks for sharing. As always, nice pictures.

Thanks. When I have the belt off I was going to check all the pulleys to see if there is any play in them. When the engine is running there are no odd sounds and visually all the pulleys seem to run true, i.e no discernible wobble. Probably won't be able to get to it until after Christmas. Was planning on replacing the belt, tensioner and idler assembly. These are the low hanging fruit items, easy to replace and relatively low cost so around <$200 for OEM equipment. May be awhile before I find out if this makes a difference as 1000's of miles and months pass between when the belt comes off.

I was thinking about that too. There is an indicating line and scale on the side of the tensioner that shows whether it is keeping the belt tight. The line is well within the range of the scale and also the tensioner seems to flex smoothly when I have had to rotate it to put the belt back into place. So it seems good but as long as I am messing with replacing the belt I might as well replace it also. I am baffled as to why this only happens at engine shutdown but should count my lucky stars that this is the case and not while driving in heavy traffic on the interstate. Thanks for your response.

I have had my serpentine drive belt come off the pulleys on my 4.0L V6 engine three times now. Every time it occurs at engine shutdown, i.e. everything is fine during a normal drive but discover the problem next time I go to start the engine. Luckily it hasn't happened while driving as I would loose power steering assist and the situation could become very dangerous. I replaced the drive belt about 20k miles ago as it was making noise (thought it was a bearing issue but turned out to be the drive belt). The issue with the drive belt coming off has only occurred since the new replacement was installed. Visually the drive belt looks in excellent shape and the drive belt auto-tensioner pulley is within spec per the shop manual. It makes no sense to me why this has only occurred at engine shutdown but I am also happy this is the case and not while driving. The first time it happened I found a dead bird in the engine compartment and the second time a chunk of ice. So I attributed the belt jumping off the pulleys to foreign objects somehow getting under the belt and throwing it off. This last time there was no evidence of anything strange in the engine compartment. Obviously this is a concerning issue for safety reasons. I am going to replace the drive belt even though it looks fine. Anyone else have drive belt issues or thoughts on the issue? Thanks.

Sorry to read about the bad luck on your latest trip. Good thing it was a rear tire that failed at interstate speeds, a front tire may have been more problematic to keep control. Thanks for posting.

Sorry for the slow reply, had things come up. So any suggestions I might make are strictly from a wag perspective (not a trained professional mechanic) so take them for what they are worth (not much). Since there is sound but no vibration, and the sound frequency increases with speed (not engine rpm) then some rotating equipment (drive line, axles, wheels, ..) but not necessarily due to imbalance. Since it doesn't seem tied to engine load (going uphill versus coasting down) and the sound changes when cornering I would suspect something in the front wheel hubs or rear differential/axles. If you can safely elevate the rear of your van on stable jack stands you might try running the engine up to the 40mph equivalent to see if you can hear anything and perhaps pinpoint the location more. Low frequency noise is inherently hard to place where it is coming from, especially with other road noise when you are inside the vehicle. Sorry, this isn't much help. There is always the run it till the problem gets worse and you can more easily identify it. Good luck.