Nimbus

After we had everything removed, we came up with a plan for the interior. We were looking for as open of floor plan as possible while still having the ability to haul mountain bikes. I am pretty tall, so an East-West bed arrangement wasn't really an option. After much head scratching, we decided to go with a settee behind the driver's seat that converts to a full-sized bed, a galley on the passenger side and a head with shower and cassette toilet at the driver's side rear door. Other amenities we wanted included hot and cold running water, a diesel heater, a 12 volt refrigerator, a shower, and solar panels to charge a lithium house battery. Here is the basic plan; we did change a few things as the build progressed.

The first order of business was tearing out the shelving and bulkhead and carving down the spay foam to the level of the ribs and roof cross members.

We bought our van "Nimbus" a couple years ago with 66,000 miles on the odometer. Its previous life was as an electrician's rig. It had been spray-foamed and had steel shelving and bulkhead. We had been looking for a van in decent shape for a camper conversion but there wasn't much available used. When this one went up for sale, we jumped on it.

Thanks. Yes, propane water heater mounted permanently and vented through the roof using a wind-proof baffled marine vent cap. We are just putting in the final touches and will post up a build sequence hopefully soon.

We installed our MaxxAir fan using one of Hein's adapters in our 2012 Nissan 3500 and it works exactly as advertised. It does limit placement to the roof centerline, though. We had originally wanted to mount it slightly off-center in order to allow room for a bathroom bulkhead and we ended up having to build the bulkhead with an angled step-back so it would clear the fan. In retrospect I'm glad we did that -- it makes the center aisle seem a lot roomier. Anyway... it's been installed for two years now with no leaks or any other problems.