Leaderboard

Vinyl is good. Easy to clean. And you won't cry over it when it rips or gets a cigarette burn. Plus, pleather, naugahyde, and vinyl gives you that 70's feel.

Yes, there are just a some T50 (if I remember correctly) headed bolts at each corner. The front ones are easy to access just by pulling the plug fasteners and lifting the carpet. In my case I was only removing the center mount, so reaching the back ones was harder since the carpet was still attached at the front corners by the trim on the side mounts. But I left those installed primarily to protect the plastic trim. And it had little effect on usability. The side mounts actually provided nice extra mounting points for anchor straps. I used a T-handled ratchet wrench that allows operating it from the end instead of swinging which is what kept the frustration of installing/removing those center mount bolts down to a tolerable level. The carpet only lifts enough to get one arm in to reach the bolts. But if you are pulling the side mounts also and lift and fold back the entire front section of the carpet, access will be much easier even though removing the plastic trim will involve extra work. I was planning on removing the seats again and reinstalling the plywood floor on my vacation which is in it's last 2 days right now. But I never got around to it out of sheer laziness and some light rain. But when I do, I plan to leave the center mount in place and add an extra cutout to allow for it. That will greatly simplify swapping back and forth since rinstalling that mount was the only hard part about putting the seats back in. Once I run with that for a while and see how it works, I'm going to look at maybe re-doing it as the 3-piece folding design I thought of afterwards. I still need to ask the folks across the street for help getting the single piece design moved in and out since it requires tipping at an angle and holding it that way as you slide it in/out.

I've been camping and driving, and or camping off a motorcycle for my whole life. I have near 15k miles on this van and it's 6 months and 3 days old. weve been staying at camp grounds, mostly KOA's as they're easy to pull in late, and usually have openings. The hot showers are definite bonus (don't forget your flip flops) night 3 we stayed in a army corps of engineers property, was neat, on a bayou, but man, the bugs were horrible, and the showers........ pass. But a cool spot to knock out for the night. Did 720 miles today. Only 60 or so more to go til overland expo east. Van is pulling the little trailer fine, it's got about 1600lbs of weight total behind it, and it tows it very well. Hammer down.

Alright! Unistrut Frame is bolted in and tight,,,FYI,,,Its a LOT easier fitting a 17mm wrench and socket through the Unistrut and onto M10x1.5 hardware then it is to fit a 3/4" wrench over 1/2" Hardware....so stock up on M10x1.50 hardware,,,I weighed each post at about 2lbs each and the long top bar is 3lbs. All together the frame and hardware weighs approximately 12-15lbs. Taking a break and then ripping some wood tomorrow before the rest of my dynamat comes in. The plywood will bolt into the unistrut using tapered head 1/2" bolts, will run the width of the van and will rest on the small ledge (slightly above it)

Got 36sq. ft of Xtreme Dynamat yesterday,,,went to work all morning,,I removed the plastic ductwork up to that hub so I could lay the sheets down on that sheetmetal under it. fun process,,,I'm kidding. Kind of a pain in the butt. I never enjoyed wrapping presents let alone trying to work this tacky stuff into nooks and crannies and there are plenty in here lol.

Now onto the awkward floor fix,,,after lots of careful thought with weight and strength in mind,,,I decided to go with a galvanized Unistrut base and either a 1/2" oak or birch ply cut to fit the entire area from door to door and screwed down into the unistrut. if the 1/2" ends up being too flimsy I can go to 3/4". No carpeting will be cut and all existing M10x1.50 threaded holes are being used. This photo is simply mocking up what I'm doing here. It should explain itself if you know what you're looking at under that carpet. All Unistrut purchased from Home depot and the M10x1.50 hardware from Ace. The small 2x4 to the left will be replaced with another one of the small vertical risers I'm bolting in (Had to call it quits for the night because I didn't want to continue pissing my neighbors off cutting unitstrut with my mitre saw lol)

When I was researching my 2015 TC purchase I saw mention of removable seats in the online manual. After I ended up buying a LWB wagon, I was surprised when I saw no way to just pop out the seats. It turns out only the short wheel base 5 passenger version has the removable 2nd row seats. However, I decided to remove the seats in my wagon anyway to install the seat covers. Each seat is held in with four T50 bolts and only takes a few minutes to remove. The 3rd row seats have the bolts at each corner of the seat frame and you do need to slide the seat forward and back to access each set of two. The second row seats have pairs of bolts at the front end of each seat rail. These are easy to access with the seat unfolded. Once the bolts are removed it does take a little lifting and wiggling to break the seats loose because there are also locating posts on the bottom of the rails that fit into holes in the floor. But once these are popped out, the seats just lift out. With just myself, the wider part of the 2nd row was a bit heavy but the others were no problem. It is easier to lift out the 2nd row if you fold them flat after unbolting. In the end, I liked the extra space available with the seats out so decided to leave it that way since I rarely have more than one passenger. I've been slowly working on modifications over the last couple weeks making a flat load floor for the area and using the extra space for storage. I probably need to do a write up with photos to share the info.