Booner

I've posted some photos of my vents in the photo section under "mini camper modifications"

I've installed the roof vents I spoke of in a previous post and I'm very happy with how they turned out. I'm using a tablet as I write this and will try to post some pictures when I'm done. With vents opened all the way it seems that my left ear doesnt get blasted as bad as it used to until I'm going over 45-50 mph. However at freeway speeds when theyre full open you do hear more wind noise. Close the vents down to their smallest open position and they don't make any noise. I've got the weatherguard wind/rain reflectors on the window and when I leave the Windows cracked open a little along with the vents the van does stay cooler We've been getting plenty of rain lately and with the vents closed nothing gets in. If their open at their minimum open setting still now water Their made from aluminum and I painted them white but the spray can white doesnt quite match The vans color so I'll repaint then sometime in the future

It was really easy to add the Windows to the sliding doors-all it took was $$$$ And a dealor who was willing to work with me. The Windows for the sliding doors were something like $350-$400 each and I ordered them through the dealor, who asked their window contractor how hard would it be to install them. "No problem, just remove the plastic place and glue the window in its place" So I ordered the Windows and in about two weeks later they showed up. I called the contractor the dealor used and they said they wouldn't put them in as I didn't buy the Windows from them!!!!! So I went back to the dealor and told them what their contractor said, and he called the contractor, 5 mins later I had an appointment with the contractor to install the Windows. I It took about 20 minutes to install each window. They used this tool that looked like a vibrating paddle to cut through the glue which holds the plastic pannel in place. Ran a line of glue around the opening and set the window in place. Very simple and I'm very satisfied I did it

No problem---really like how you removed the floor plate in the cargo area. I think I'm going to have to do this

What you did buckethead has me rethinking how I'd modify my TC into a mini camper, (i prefer to call it a multipurpose vehicle-- MPV) What's the dimensions of the area that you opened up? Could two regular car batteries fit in there? It would be nice to move my house batteries there, even if I had to mount one on each side of that hump-if there's enough room

I'm not sure I know what your referring too. Can you provide a picture? Your not referring to the back up sensors located just behind the passenger wheel well are you?

Thanks, I plan on taking pictures as I go along. I found a picture on pinterest of someone's TC that they converted to a mini camper. I'm on a new to me tablet and if I could figure out how to copy and paste the picture I'd be happy to post it. In most convertions, there's a cabinet on the passenger side and a bench seat that folds into a bed on the drivers side. In the picture I'm talking about, there was a bench seat that went from the drivers side across to the cabinets on the passengers side so that passengers using this seat were facing forward. Also the seat looked to be mounted just in front of the rear wheel wells or just slightly back from were the factory 2nd row seats would be so the passengers could see out of the Windows in the sliding doors. I've been working on a plan where this seat would unfold into a bed long enough for my 6'5" body. Also, I want to flip the cabinet so it's behind the driver and the seats would be in a more conventional position on the right side of the van. That way passengers would enter from the passengers side/curb side. You would have storage behind the seat when it was in a seat position but would loose some of that storage when the seat was unfolded into a bed. Adding the seat/bed combo makes the vehicle a little more practicable in that it can haul 4 people in a more normal seating configuration. Also, I'm trying to make the cabinet and seat/bed modular, so you could take it out if you wanted to use the camper as a cargo van, or make changes/upgrades to the interior. I'll use the tie down points in the floor and the threaded bolt holes in the side of the van to make it more ridgid/safer in the event of an accident. Half the fun of doing this project is the planning part. Watching it come together is the icing on the cake

I towed a small U-hual trailer with furniture in it from Colorado to Missouri with no problems. The hitch was factory installed. If I was to do more towing behave to figure out a way to reduce the "slop" that the hitch has when you insert it into the receiver. It made a lot of noise Hauling a small camper-not a problem- but you will reduce your gas mileage! From the mid 20's at 80 mph down to the high teens while towing at 70 mph

All I added were the two windows on the sliding doors. A great improvement in visibility. Later I'm going to have them and the rear window tinted as dark as possible. I'm going to order two of these vents to mount up on the roof at the back of the van so I can have a little ventilation. They're bi-directional so you can either pull air in or exhaust it. for some reason they won't let me post an image of the vents.

I ended up going with the dealers window and it did cost about $800. Pricey, but now I can back out of parking spaces without relying on the charity of other drivers

I'm getting ready to start mine ( cargo van) in about a week. The first thing will be to remove a lot of the interior and insulate.

I have a 2015 cargo van and would like to put windows in the sliding doors. My dealer says he can probably do it, windows and install, for around $800 I see you can buy theses windows for the 2013 and earlier vans for around $150 each and then you have to find someone to take out the door panels and install the windows and I assume this could be done for less than $500, so my dealer price of $800 seems a little high. however, if the addition of windows in the sliding door prevents an accident by reducing blind spots, then it's certainly worth it

theres one on e-bay --> yoy could call them up to make sure it fits,, shipping is free Have one to sell? Sell now 2014-2016 Ford Transit Connect Cargo Security Shade - Black ET1Z-1745440-AA

I plan on doing this mod ( adding a "house" battery & inverter, powered by the alternator), to my TC later this spring, after I retire. I've done this type of install on a full sized van and ran it for 1.5 years with no issues. What I would suggest is using 4 ga. wire from the car battery to the "house" battery and then to the inverter. I would strongly advise using a digital 30 amp solar charge controller at the end of the run from the car battery to just before where those wire would have hooked up to the "house" battery. 1. The digital 30 amp solar charge contoller is "smart", meaning that if the house battery is low on charge, it will allow for a full 30 amps of power to the "house battery, but as the house battery gets close to a capacity of charge, the charge controller will lower the amount of power to the house battery, thus protecting it from overcharging 2. The Charge controller will allow power to flow only in one direction; from the car battery to the house battery, thus protecting both batteries 3. The charge controller will show you the amount of charge in the house battery. I connected my + and - 4 ga. wires to the car battery terminal posts, and then a 50 amp fuse on the + wire as close to the terminal as possible. I also mounted another 50 amp breaker on the base of the passengers seat and used that as an "on/off" switch. This would allow me to turn off the power going to the house battery for what ever reason. This is the charge controller I used --> http://www.amazon.com/Sunforce-68032-Coleman-Digital-Controller/dp/B004RCX91E/ref=sr_1_36?ie=UTF8&qid=1451980789&sr=8-36&keywords=solar+charge+controller Sunforce (68032) 30 Amp Coleman Digital Solar Charge ControllerAnd I based everything I did on what I learned from this guy (Steve Harris at)-->http://www.battery1234.com/ You'll want to listen to the 2nd battery bank show. I purchased his video and learned a heck of a lot about batteries, and how to power my house from a battery bank and from my truck, and he goes into great detail on how to set my truck up as I've tried to explain above. I'd be real interested in how things work out for you in your Modification. As I said, I did this to a full sized van, but will be doing it to my TC later this spring best of luck, Booner

I'll be happy to. I'm retiring in April and moving to Missouri, so I won't be doing much until then

Thanks for those pictures. Very helpful!

The batteries I have are the regular wet cell type so I'll need to have the somewhere where they can be easily serviced. So they'll probably be in the rear of the van under a bench that will run along the drivers side. This bench will be for sitting on with a storage area under the bench and then expand into a bed. A cabinet will be on the passenger side of the van that will hold a sink, refrigerator and storage. I'll also have a microwave that will be mounted on the floor in the bench. I don't want anything heavy mounted high enough to turn into a missile if something happens. Since there are tie down holders built into the floor, I thought the bench and cabinet would be bolted to the tie down holders and that would allow me to remove them if I needed a cargo van again. My biggest problem is running the 6 gauge wire from the car battery to the rear of the van, especially from the left front fender past the drivers area. I understand that the floor in the cargo area comes out so that's not a problem, It's getting the wires from the battery to the inside if the van that will take some thought. In my full sized van, I ran the wires from the posts on the battery ( the + wire had a 50 amp fuse on it real close to the battery) through the inner fender on the passenger side (the battery was on the passenger side) and then into the passenger area down by the foot well. Then the wires were under the floor mat and under the passenger seat I mounted another 50 amp relay that I used as a switch. Then the wires ran to the drivers side of the van and along the wall to the rear of the van. The wire go into a solar charge "smart" controller that limits the amp to a maximum of 30 amps, and does not allow power from the "house" batteries to flow back to the truck battery. As the batteries reach full charge, the controller chokes down the input amps to a trickle charge so you don't overcharge the batteries. From the solar controller, the power goes to the batteries. And from the batteries, the power goes to a 12 volt fuse panel and to a 1600 watt inverter to run the microwave or anything else that needed 120 volts I ran this set up on my full-sized van for about two years with no problems and rarely taxed the "House" batteries, and never had a problem with the van's alternator or truck battery. I had enough power to run a small window-type A/C for a short amount of time too. As I understand it, the alternator on the T/C is 150 amps so there shouldn't be a problem with keeping everything charged. And though I never had to do it, if something happened to my houses grid power, I always thought I could run my house off of my truck.

I've installed sunroofs and vents ( as in post 25) on the roofs of full sized vans with ribbed roofs with no problems with leaking. Make a template of the hole your going to cut and mark it on the roof. drill a hole big enough for a saber saw blade to fit in and cut your hole. The lower portion of the rib is probably less than a 1/2 inch from the raised portion of the roof and I've fill in the lower ribbed area with aluminum or plastic strips. The key to prevent leaking is a good sealer, and I've always used clear silicone sealer, the 30 year kind. lay a good healthy bead all the way around the hole, and what ever you' going to installed will be screwed into the roof so pre-drill the holes for the screws and run sealer around the holes. if your using a filler in the low ribbed area, run another bead on top of the filler and set whatever your installing on the sealer. run some extra sealer in the low ribbed area and smooth it out. screw down the vent, sunroof,whatever and wipe away the sealer that squeezed out. I've installed windows in vans in this way also, and have never had a leak. It takes about 24 hours for the silicone to fully set up. I"m thinking of mounting two vents in the roof at the rear of the van, and now I'm thinking about mounting two in the roof right behind the driver and passenger area. I'm modifying a cargo van into a camper so I like the idea of plenty of roof ventilation. The nice things about the vent like I posted in post 25 is that when you open the vent, they can be positioned so they are scooping air into the van or exhausting out. So I could position then so the ones behind the driver/passenger area are bringing air into the van and the ones in the rear area are exhausting air. And its been my experience that if you forget and leave them open and it rains, they don't let in that much. And they have screens on them so bugs aren't getting in.

Give these guys a call. They may not do it themselves, but they may know who sells/install a pop top. http://www.coloradocampervan.com

I put a CR Lawrence window in my full sized van and it worked real well, But i'd like to put something a little more streamed-line on my TC. Been wondering how well a sunroof would work in the sliding doors. Obviously, the sunroof would be installed sideways. Next spring I'll retire and move to Missouri. The CR Lawrence factory will be about 100 miles away. Looks like a road trip for me to see what would work. If nothing else, I'd take the factory glued-in windows. Having a side window on the sliders would increase the safety factor a bunch.

side window covers? I put some on from Weather tech which I ordered from Amazon. You have to be careful when you order as they'll send you covers for a gen 1 vehicle ( Mine is a gen II) so it took a little to get the correct ones. But they do fit and work real well. The other thing i purchased on amazon was a side mirror rain visor for about $17.00.. It really helps to keep rain & snow off the mirror and would recommend them to everyone with a TC. You order them vehicle specific but I really think they are a universal fit for all small side mirrors