WanderlustAV

This is wise, thank you. My sonar is currently busted due to a client smashing in the bumper but I bet I can line them up for testing, presuming they are just misaligned and not damaged.

If I locate my shore power inlet to the rear bumper is the sonar going to go off? I figure it reaches out a bit more than something protruding just a bit from the bumper but I can't tell from the manual and fsm.

In case it's helpful, I scored some 52013663ac rims off a ram ( I think from an '08/'09) that seem to fit great. 17x8 with a 43mm offset. 2" of clearance from the rim to the leafs, same clearance to the door. Going to put some new 245/75R-17 blizzaks on them today . My current rims are 17x8.5 which is adequate for mounting the big 285/70R17 K02s but I prefer a narrower tire and more of an OEM size for winter.

@GoNV thanks for this very crisp writeup! How has the performance of the 2000 STC been?

Still available. Shipping is actually quite high, a bit over $300. Asking $300 for the unit.

Ah! I thought it looked familiar. Heavily considered that van since it was so close to me. Mine has the shore plug on the terrible running boards. My whole lower trim is basically dog crap. The later models look much better in that regard. Sink/storage suggestion- pull the micro and the weird drawer and use that space for a functional sink and faucet. Delete or bring the greywater up and into the bottom of that space if you use the grey tank in winter. A square 7gal aquatainer fits in the spot where Roadtrek had a 5gal water bottle in the back. See if you can use that for a freshwater tank, put a real pump on it instead of the weird drinking water dispenser and I think you'd a decent setup for not an excessive amount of work and remodeling.

@AdventureMartens, did you buy that van from Idaho? Looks a lot like one I looked at. I like what you or the PO did with the fridge replacement.

That bench seat looks out of adjustment to me. Mine is like this attached. Find the two bolts on each side of the front of bench when folded out and adjust fore/aft.

The pass side 2nd row captains chair made it comically difficult to get in the van so I pulled it. Nice and roomy now. Fantastic concept for a weekender layout- the production models had swivel fronts so that you could have a dinette and still leave both beds out -just poor execution. If the bench had belting for three and the pass side captains was located better you'd have a real minivan seating capacity of 7 for daily driving.

Howdy! That's sad to hear the seats and belts in the production models are just as rough as on my prototype model. They do function but the belts are dumb and the comfort of the bench is pretty bad. Solution for the belts is to have the rear bed portion lifted up when buckling (very annoying). The bench will need padding added to it to gain any comfort. My version's bench also has a nice thunky rattle from the hardware. It is a very comfy bed tho! Awning mounts will need to be a bolt through the skin. I have another, very different, pop top a '94 Delica that has curved bracket mounts that the pop top falls over. They're glued on. Could possibly have someone manufacture something like that. If putting an awning on this van I'd definitely go w a 270. This "sink" is a hoot. I haven't but would recommend deleting the micro and putting a deeper one in as a fairly straightforward solution. Otherwise, not much point in using it or the water supply. I think you could pretty easily add a regular 12v water pump and an aquatainer to the water jug storage area and get a nice, functional faucet but not much point with that silly sink. I tried to drop in self heating lithium and found a lot of work needed downstream- got flickering led puck lights for instance, presumably due to the higher voltage. Those pucks would probably need replaced with better spec lights to make lithium work. I can't find an upgrade charger/inverter that would fit in that area where the tripplite is shoehorned in. This is where this build can feel very all or nothing when determining how to approach it. Reworking the electrical area to accommodate a more modern charger/inverter with MPPT, properly hardwiring that charger/inverter instead of using plugs, upgrading the puck lights, junk 12v and 110v receptacles (and adding usb), cleaning up the wiring while yer in there and dropping 2k on heated lithium would bring the van up to speed. That's a lot of time and cash but seeing as the basic wiring is already in place it would still be a bangin' deal for what you would get. You would still have all the 110v to deal with which is going to draw hard on 200ah of lithium but might make it usable off grid. My struggle with this van has been the above + all the 110v appliances. It's simply made to be plugged in at camp. My solution is to clean up what I can while honoring it's original design intent as a plug in class B. Adding a 12v dometic fridge has been a great addition to allow boondocking and provide a center arm rest. Taking it much further is a decent size can of worms. I tallied up around 10k to gut the galley, add windows, ventilation, electrical upgrade and bring it fully into a 4 season build I would use personally. Again, still a very good bargain but a lot of time and work. I've settled on leaving this as a 3 season rig designed to be plugged in or driven daily but able to boondock a little when desired thanks to the 12v fridge. Not my personal cup of tea but it's a popular rental rig for my company as is.

Well I guess I could've googled the flickering issue before posting....looks like the higher voltage of lithium causes flickering to occur with cheaper LEDs. Answering my own question here- probably need to upgrade the led pucks (which are harsh imo anyways) if upgrading the battery array. Could also wire resistors into the lighting circuit I suppose. While the N6 has a lot of great value built into the build of the van I think I've spent more time trying to sort out which way to go when updating components than I have doing the actual work to update them, lol. The build is very specific to nightly, plug in camping.

Super late reply here but I looked at one in ID that the owner had put racks on (and a side ladder for access) and he had no issues. The lifts for the pop top are 12v motors and should have enough grunt for a bit more weight. However, I recommend getting in there to inspect the lifts as I found mine had some sloppy welds where they mount (one was totally broken off) and needed reinforcement. My recommendation would be flexible solar where it fits easily + maxxair fan up there and skip the racks. Has anyone retrofitted heated lithium into the battery bank? I made a hard attempt at getting a very nice Battle Born GC3 format in there but it sadly did not fit despite my efforts. Regrouping and planning to put in 2x GC2 or similar. When I tested the GC3 that didn't fit it made my led lights flicker. Concerned that the next battery might do the same and curious if anyone's been down this road already. I'm not sure what would cause that and I'm pretty sure I can't fit another brand of inverter/charger where that tripplite is shoehorned.

Dang, I can't find that in my 2012 fsm.

No clue! I will ask them to see to this next time it's in. The "custom" alignment feels pretty great, steering wheel vibrates a little, like a tight vibration but that's my only complaint. Did the 2012 have a steering control system?

Lots of thanks to all on this thread. I installed a Bosch HEPA 6017C today. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01JYSW5XI?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

Ditto. Multiple alignments needed so far. Had a bit of confusion on the last alignment where they didn't give me the read out and it was still pulling right. I assumed they didn't even do the alignment since it still pulled so hard. Was nice about it and the shop boss took care of me and dug into it. He had to put it to the attached, with the camber out of spec a bit. The steering wheel vibrates in an odd way now but the pull isn't there like before. To be fair, our roads here are heavily crowned and rutted here so this could be a factor but is this a thing with our vans?

Ah, I see. Was hoping to keep the factory seat, it's nice! The conversion I have (mine's a prototype model) had driver swivel but it was an after market seat, which is the way I'll prob have to go if I want that driver swivel. Swore I saw somebody on her homebrewed a driver swivel tho...

Very good to know. I've learned the hard way (not with my NV but with another van) that proper lugs are important and they are a part that wears and needs replacement. Makes me wonder about studs as well....

Is there an option to add a swivel to the factory driver's seat on our vans? I see the pair of options from discountvantruck.com and swivelsrus but they're listed as pass side only. Not having done either, was curious. Thanks in advance!

Still available. Shipping may be a bit high depending on your location, console ships from 59802.

Also watching this! If Eberspacher made a gas version of their coolant heater I'd recommend that if the safety of the system checks out (also not sure abt gas parking heaters and safety) and it could be installed properly in the NV w. out problematic routing, etc. A coolant heater is more useful with a diesel of course but I think it's a slick way to go in any rig as it warms your engine while also utilizing the existing heat delivery system. If you don't need the high altitude kit you can pair it with a remote (remote's non compatible with the high alt kit sadly)- flip it on from your house, climb into a warm, defrosted cabin and start a happy engine. Otherwise, why not add an undermount propane tank? Then you get two birds stoned- easy/safe propane parking heater install + propane for cooking, etc. Looks like plenty of space under there for a small undermount but also might take a good grip of fab work to properly guard it. Or, put a proper locker inside and you can even use propane exchanges if desired. Safety of onboard propane is still a consideration tho; not sure where it would be safest to install since we don't really have crash footage/data on these vans.

In case anyone's in need of one, here's the local post. Can easily ship this for around $50 I'm guessing. Happy to hook it up for a forum member. https://missoula.craigslist.org/pts/d/missoula-nissan-nv3500-nv2500-nv1500/7384036430.html Cheers, -Chris

Yeah, screened windows. The CRL ones do look nice, there's even a pass side option. Doing both pass and driver side would supply a lot of air and convection up thru the pop top or when using a vent fan. I can't tell if you can leave them open while parked and be secure but, if you could, I think these would be top of my list. Also found screens from vanupgrades that have a magnetic split closure. If anyone hasn't done them already the OEM rainguards help a bit and are good quality. The aluminess NV stuff looks super nice but so much coin. Love me some swingouts though. I'm a fan of having a garage outside a rig for all the stuff you just don't want in there but I don't like trasharoos or simlar because bears. BFG KO2s. Oversized for an extra inch of clearance. Like 'em so far. Westy's are perfect to me in terms of layout, size and aesthetic and I love my late 80s/early 90s vehicles; just can't pay that much for an unreliable rig though. The n6 interior is weird in a not fun way and terrible in terms of function imo, not to mention utterly lacking any style of it's own. I'm shocked that nobody is building a modern, production version of the westy's though- how hard can it be to add that as an option to any of the vans being sold by dealers already? Must not be profitable or whatever. I see Metris vans for 98k with a weekender layout. Like everything about that except the mercedes part and lack of awd option on a nearly 100k rig. I plan on looking into self heated lithium batts to replace my agms eventually, depending on how they would jive with the overall electrical system. Would be a serious foundation for house power, imo. My guess is you'll get a lot more amp hours out of a lithiums stuffed into the available space. Fresh AGMs are probably more than enough though and way more cost effective. Did you get more amp hours do you think after updating them?

@NVAD That's a pretty dang good idea for the weird fridge, would be an excellent beer cooler that way. I'm fixing to pull out the whole galley unit at this point since none of it works/makes sense but I like yer style. We pulled one of the captain's so far, you know the one that prevents entering or exiting the vehicle through the sliding door. Pretty spacious in there now! Second captains chair will probably go too if I rebuild the galley. Props to the mysterious builders at roadtrek for installing those chairs securely though- 6 bolts through a solid plate all the way through the floor with proper nuts and washers. Lotta pb blaster and still had to cut a pair of bolts to get that seat out finally. Anybody come up with a decent solution for bug free down stairs ventilation on these? Tempted to see if there's a slider unit that could be installed to replace the driver's side mid window, or the back ones but that's gonna cost a little fortune I imagine. My other thought was to put a screened ventilation setup on the bottom opening mid window behind the driver that would draw air down thru the pop top windows. Not a fan of inoperable windows in cars but I'm spoiled with our other rigs I guess.

Here's a spot to talk about these. ? @radin2son I got ahold of Roadtrek asking about information on these builds and they said they have no information whatsoever. If another owner was willing to scan up a manual that might be a big help to some. Not the biggest deal though because the build, at least on mine, is mostly real bad and I think most owners are going to gut a lot of it pretty quickly anyhow. Mine was a prototype so I hope the production models were better made overall. My advice to anyone looking at one of these is to disregard the RV type components entirely, look at them as work to be done in fact, and focus on the value of an NV with a pop top and a road/crash safe fold out bench bed with belts. Those two items combined are about 16k and up to install in any van so an N6 can still be a damn good buy if you can find one. To that end I think the biggest assist from owner to owner of these rigs are going to be notes from modifications. @Phomollient shared an excellent one with me that I'll share here: "Rerouted the existing 110 wiring and sheath to the rear bumper by removing the inlet socket and then pulling the sheath and wires to gain enough slack. No need to shorten or lengthen." The running boards are probably going to be up first on anyone's chopping block if they need the van's natural clearance. Removing them requires relocating the RV hookups.