stanger_missle Posted May 22, 2019 Share Posted May 22, 2019 (edited) Hello all, I have been lurking for a bit so I thought I'd finally say hi to everybody. I bought a 2015 XLT Van in March of this year. The van had a little higher miles than I wanted (108k miles) but it was local-ish and seemed to be well maintained. I bought it from an automotive shop that used it for an in-town roadside assistance vehicle. It was very dirty but in good shape and drove well. I paid $8,000 for it. My plan is to clean it up, use it as a daily driver and slowly convert it to a micro camper. I bought this over a pickup since my commute is about 60 miles a day and a truck would kill me in fuel costs. I've already cleaned all the decals and residue off of the exterior. I pulled the entire interior out except the dash and scrubbed everything. It was FILTHY and smelled pretty terrible. When I pulled the carpet out, I discovered the van was infested with cockroaches, which was a nice surprise (yay Florida!). I have all of the interior reinstalled now but had to throw away the rubber cargo mat because it was contaminated with ATF and was moldy on the underside. I bought a Bedrug kit from Amazon for $50 (no way was I paying $200+ for a piece of carpet). It will be a slow moving project. Edited May 22, 2019 by stanger_missle Bill Jackson 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fifty150 Posted May 22, 2019 Share Posted May 22, 2019 If roaches & insects are a concern, you could dust with boric acid. Won't hurt you. It looks like you had the perfect opportunity to add some Dynamat I would have gone the cheap route. Spray foam and carpet tiles. Looks good. Good job. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhotoAl Posted May 22, 2019 Share Posted May 22, 2019 Welcome, I see you chose the most popular color :-) same as mine. Nice van, a fair number of miles but shouldn't be too bad as it probably spent a lot of time on the interstate and not stop and go. I've had good success with diatamiatious earth (Im an engineer so can't spell) for roaches and bugs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Jackson Posted May 22, 2019 Share Posted May 22, 2019 Great van and nice start on the conversion. Looking forward to more pictures as you progress. I have spent a long time head scratching in my conversion process trying to keep as much open floor space as possible. Have finally come to a conclusion on the layout. I'd be interested in your discoveries along that line as you work through it. Keep it going and enjoy the journey. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Double Nickels Posted May 22, 2019 Share Posted May 22, 2019 Good find. Good call tearing everything out. Good that there wasn't corrosion. Who knows what chemicals they spilled. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stanger_missle Posted May 23, 2019 Author Share Posted May 23, 2019 I bought a 4 pack of Raid bug bombs. I used 3. I probably could of gotten away with just using 2 but I wanted to make damn sure nothing was still moving. Roaches gross me out more than anything. 17 hours ago, Fifty150 said: If roaches & insects are a concern, you could dust with boric acid. Won't hurt you. It looks like you had the perfect opportunity to add some Dynamat I would have gone the cheap route. Spray foam and carpet tiles. Looks good. Good job. I really wanted to go nuts with soundproofing. I was planning on using Noico 80 mil sheets on the floor, walls and ceiling but I got impatient. Plus it was like my van turned inside out inside my garage: I'm still planning on installing soundproofing down the road. This was just practice taking the interior out haha. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stanger_missle Posted May 23, 2019 Author Share Posted May 23, 2019 7 hours ago, PhotoAl said: Welcome, I see you chose the most popular color :-) same as mine. Nice van, a fair number of miles but shouldn't be too bad as it probably spent a lot of time on the interstate and not stop and go. I've had good success with diatamiatious earth (Im an engineer so can't spell) for roaches and bugs. Haha, yeah, I think like 98% of the van versions are white. Although, I did find a really nice 2015 XLT Van in Miami that was dark blue and had the 1.6L Ecoboost with about half the miles of this one. The dealer wanted over $16k for it though. Too rich for my blood. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stanger_missle Posted May 23, 2019 Author Share Posted May 23, 2019 7 hours ago, Bill Jackson said: Great van and nice start on the conversion. Looking forward to more pictures as you progress. I have spent a long time head scratching in my conversion process trying to keep as much open floor space as possible. Have finally come to a conclusion on the layout. I'd be interested in your discoveries along that line as you work through it. Keep it going and enjoy the journey. I kinda bought this thing with a rough idea in my head that I would convert it to a camper but with no real plan. There are a lot of very nice builds out there but this will be like a 5 year project for me. So it will probably be a cot and some plastic totes for awhile haha. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Jackson Posted May 23, 2019 Share Posted May 23, 2019 That's what I call a modular build where everything can be removed...haha. It works better then building in a full kitchen/bedroom/bathroom with furniture all in a 6X4 space and then wondering why you never use the van. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrm223 Posted May 23, 2019 Share Posted May 23, 2019 14 hours ago, stanger_missle said: Although, I did find a really nice 2015 XLT Van in Miami that was dark blue and had the 1.6L Ecoboost with about half the miles of this one. The dealer wanted over $16k for it though. Too rich for my blood. Since that other one had the 1.6L Ecoboost, it was a SWB instead of LWB - you would have lost roughly a foot in length (I forget the exact amount now). The 1.6L only came in the SWB versions. Good job on the cleanup of your new van! I'm not a carpet fan, but that looks pretty spiffy now, lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Double Nickels Posted May 23, 2019 Share Posted May 23, 2019 What a clean garage! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidparker Posted May 23, 2019 Share Posted May 23, 2019 Congrats on the new toy! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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