The Roadtrek Nav6 / N6 Active NV Conversions Thread

[radin2son]

From the photo, it looks like the bench back is too upright and needs a second position or the bench seat is too low. Yet, they fit in bed mode. You may have to live with this. 

 

Re seat belts. Our SMB bench has a shoulder (3 point?) belt on the passenger side (anchors above the window) plus 2 lap belts. Lap belts may be a better than nothing solution. In our case, the belts are unused and under the bench. 

 

 

[WanderlustAV]

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.

 

[WanderlustAV]

@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.  

[AdventureMartens]

Hey WanderlustAV

Yes - this is the one from Idaho. Imported into vancouver, BC.  Been looking years for this van - so hard to find anywhere near our part of the world.  
PO added the dometic fridge, and I think rerouted the 30amp plug to the rear bumper:  I hear some versions had this under thr running board.

im trying to figure out a use for the sink/storage area as it’s useless.  The micro maybe on occasion.  Any conversion ideas?

 

thx for the pics from your N6 bench.  Will compare and see about adjusting. I’m sure they did this for a reason, but can’t imagine what.  
 

Cheers

 

[WanderlustAV]

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.  

 

 

[WanderlustAV]

 @AdventureMartens my van was ironically imported from Canada to the US, lol. 

 

Decided to go ahead and start the process of making the van a proper winter rig/ski and hunting chalet.

 

First up, winter appropriate batteries:

• cleaned up the rusty tray, deleted the FLA hold downs and repainted w. rust converter and enamel
• Tossed the poorly crimped Roadtrek terminal cable.  Had a nice gentleman at NAPA solder me up a pair of proper ones. 
• I previously tried to get a Battle Born in there but it sadly didn't fit.  2x 100a Renogy self heating lifepo4 fit magically.  These have 2x RJ45 on them.  One puts them in/out of shelf mode (much appreciated as installer), the other is for com and linking the batts.  I can run a cat cable between them and add a Bluetooth module for monitoring.  Other Renogy product does the same and will all feed wirelessly to an app.  Very neat for a personal van but trying to avoid this tech and stick to hard wire and easy physical readouts to keep it simple for rental clients.
• little reflectix wrap just to keep them from getting totally nasty.    

At long last, I chopped off those gawd awful running boards and the stupid inlet box.   

 

Deleted the low hanging grey water tank and piped straight to ground.  

 

*Noticed some lower body rot where Roadtrek did a total shit job of tacking on hangers for the grey tank.  These people just drilled into and welded onto the van willy nilly for the conversion- no proper prep, no paint, nothing.   Lifetime non-Roadtrek customer here.    Hit it with rust converter for now, will follow up with cutting and replacing when I figure out what I want to put in this space.

 

Reflected on the irony that there is now ample space for a much larger battery tray and array and that my careful hunt to fit these two 100a batts into the existing tray was probably needless.   

 

Winter tread:  scored some dodge ram alloys that fit great and wrapped them in new blizzaks.   I know everything costs more these days but folks wanted a small ransom for 4x steelies, happy to have chanced upon these.  Love that the running boards and stupid inlet box are gone, missing the extra lift from my big K02s, van looks kinda weird to me at stock height.   

 

Next up- relocate shore inlet with proper marine grade fixture.  Figure out how I'm going to properly charge these sweet batteries with the van's existing system and how to get a physical readout on SOC.   The existing gear thinks the batteries are FLA/AGM so I'm thinking it won't charge these Lifepo4s and will always display them as full.   Renogy has robust BMS, "smart" battery as they say, so there's no risk here but I want to get full advantage of the doubled amp hours and treat the batts right. 

 

 

Edited October 30, 2022 by WanderlustAV

[Barrel Rider]

@WanderlustAV Thanks for the pics of the battery setup.

 

I’ll be interested to see how the Renogy setup does. I’m about to be in the market for new batteries… and hopefully not too much else.

 

I just bought a N6 Active last week and I’m slowly backing my way into figuring out this wacky N6 conversion. I’m so thankful to have found at least a few people on here chatting about them. 
 

Also a question: does anyone know how the rear heat/air in these work?
 

All mine does is blow cold air …I’m sure I’ll eventually take it apart enough to find out, but I thought I’d ask first. 

 

Edited November 19, 2022 by Barrel Rider
Correcting autocorrect

[Barrel Rider]

Well, it seems that the heater core on the rear unit is clogged. The line is warm going in but the line is cold coming back out.

 

I truly see what everyone is talking about on the Roadtrek “build quality” on these. I took out the microwave and the drawers and did some looking around. And I must say, I’ve seen lots of home built conversions done with more care.  
 

Also @AdventureMartensmy van has the weird gap in the back seat. It’s almost like it was put together incorrectly in the first place. I’m tempted to drill new holes and adjust the seat position, but I worry that it wouldn’t fold down in to a bed correctly at that point. 

Edited November 19, 2022 by Barrel Rider

[rvivian]

WanderlustAV -

 

Any pictures and hints concerning relocation of the Power and water inlets after you removed the running boards?

thanks

 

RWV

[WanderlustAV]

Water inlet just runs to the little hose in back correct?  I don't see the point in relocating that.   Does your inlet supply the faucet?

 

Shore inlet location is tbd after getting my bumper replaced early next year.   I'd like it driver side and up and out of harm's way.  Heavily considered pass side (behind slider of course) for a short run straight into the electrical area but it's so cramped in there already that I think driver's side is going to be best.  

[rvivian]

It is still cold here and I can't check whether the water fill feeds more than the shower until I flush the antifreeze. 

 

But I have real interest in how the power and water shore connections would be relocated to the van wall because I'm installing a Wallas Nordic dt in a cabinet behind the drivers seat and I haven't found a route for the exhaust to go under the van there due to fuel tank, batteries, etc.  I'm considering installing the hot exhaust through the van wall.  That is regularly done through fiberglass and metal boat hulls, and I've seen one Brit you -uber rdo it through the wall of his van ).  Aside from thoughts about CO / exhaust below the window: how do you treat the edges of the hole through the metal to inhibit rust, what are the chances the hot exhaust and metal thru-hull fitting damaging the paint?

 

Any and all comments appreciated.

[WanderlustAV]

I don't think you'll have a problem venting the diesel stove/heater thru the wall.  Cut the hole, vacuum the burrs up, paint exposed metal.  (and let it completely dry/cure before continuing)  Insulated pipe.

 

Talk to me to me about how you mounted that fiamma. 

[rvivian]

The Fiamma awning was already mounted when I bought the van.  The manual for it showing three mounting brackets bolted to the van came with it but the mounting brackets on my van look different.  

 

The look like they are made from 3/8" aluminum.  Here are a couple of pictures I took while the sun was shining just now:

 

 

 

[Jon S.]

Hi everyone, I'm the owner of a 2012 N6 Active with the pop top. Had it since 2016, when we took it on a cross country trip from NC to CA and visited a bunch of national parks over several weeks.

 

I've enjoyed reading about your upgrades and seeing your observations of the "quirkiness" of this vehicle (observations which I wholeheartedly share). The only changes I've made were to build a wooden platform that I could slide out to extend the sleeping area in the pop top so that my boys could sleep up there -- mine didn't come with any sort of sleeping platform aside from the 3' or so of shelf above the third row.

 

Back in 2016 I exchanged a few emails with a gentleman at RoadTrek who confirmed that no manual was ever created for these vehicles. And I can't remember where I got this info, but I distinctly remember reading that only about 80 of these vehicles were ever sold.

 

As someone else in this thread noted, the seating upholstery is just awful -- my front and 2nd row seats are just a mess of peeling and shredded vinyl. Anyone have a lead on a full seat covers that would fit the 2nd row seats and accommodate the integrated seat belt? 

[WanderlustAV]

These are great for the front seats if you're looking for something waterproof and durable.  Not the most comfortable.  

https://www.covercraft.com/us/en/sku/SS3434WFGY/

 

For the mid swivels, I think I found a few generic covers for this style but nothing that was a direct fit. 

 

How's the platform working out?   The heavy aluminum and carpeted plywood platform that came with mine didn't fit or stow safely-.  I modified it to be safe and only travel with it in the sleep position.  Added a mattress so it's pretty comfy up there now, if not a bit tight around the toes, and provides a place to store bedding.

[rvivian]

The best seat covers I've found are:  https://www.wetokole.com/

They make them for captain seats and will customize if you want.

$$$ though

[Jon S.]

(Sorry for the late reply, I thought I'd get an email notification of any responses and didn't see these until now.) 

 

@WanderlustAV The platforms have worked out well -- I built two, each of them is a 55" x 24" piece of 1/2" plywood, with a 2"x2" that runs the full 55" length on each side of the plywood. When not in use I keep them stacked on top of each other right in front of the built-in platform, and secured with a ratchet strap just to make sure they don't fly around if we had an incident.

 

I'm now in the process of removing the running boards -- got the passenger side off, but I'm trying to decide what do with the driver side and the power inlet -- need to figure out where that will get rerouted. There is a LOT of plastic exterior molding on my 2012 compared to the later models (at least based on what I can see from googling images of the N6), and the molding that extends around the front wheel wells down to the running boards is in awful shape. I can see why they ditched it.

 

Thanks to you and @rvivian for the seat cover suggestions -- I'll check them out.

[Jetfxr27]

Anyone know the years produced? From what I can tell it’s 2012-2014

[rvivian]

I need help with new shocks. 

 

My N-5 has a 3" Weldtech lift but they have left the original 2012 shocks in place with an adapter and say they cannot get replacement shocks.  

At 70,000 miles and the additional weight of the rear swing bumper and boxes I need new shocks.  The Nissan dealership said they will not work on my van because of the modifications.

 

Anyone have recommendations for new shocks for both the front and back?

[Local Apparent Friday]

So, while I do see that they offer a king shock upgrade, looking at the directions, it looks like their lift kit is designed to use factory struts and shocks.  As such, why not just go that route?  Monroe makes a strut for the front, and the rear you can get either monroe or gabriel.  You can also go OEM if you want to drop coin.  Hold up i'll get part numbers for you.

Edited May 9, 2023 by Local Apparent Friday

[Local Apparent Friday]

K so for the rears, your name brand choices are Gabriel G64164 or Monroe 66420, with the Monroe being the heavier duty.

For the front, Monroe 553004.

[rvivian]

Thanks for the quick reply.  I agree, I don't want the front King coilovers.  

I'm concerned about the extra weight on the rear from having the two boxes on the rear swing bumper, 

Do you think the Monroe 66420 is hefty enough or should I look for something like Bilstein 5100?

[rvivian]

It seems to ride alright, so I think the springs are OK, but she is getting a bit bumpy.

[Local Apparent Friday]

Bilstein has no drop in. If you're worried about the ride amd weight, id look at the titan airbag adaptation in addition to the Monroe. 

[rvivian]

Thanks/  I think I'll go to Les Schwab and have them install the Monroes unless they have other recommendations'.