Ford E350 Uhaul to Race Hauler conversion - Low Budget Totter Home Build

[2 Trick Rick]

The LED's lights are wired to a large marine battery in one of the cabinets along with a REALLY BRIGHT halogen 110v light for when I might need some serious light. The back is finished.. now I'll start on the front.

[bushpilot]

very nice!

[2 Trick Rick]

Thanks and after a short winter break I'm back at it..

I cut the hole this weekend, I was going to buy a rubber accordion seal but after talking to the body shop guy at General RV I'll be doing something different. His words " Every Class C RV and Most Ford Cube truck have the cab bolted to the chassis" it wont twist, if it does you bent your frame and will have bigger issues.. The advantage for me is only cosmetic, a rubber seal wont look as nice..



Also most people don't like the a table/bed combo and would prefer a couch. So I punted and will install a couch.. one problem I ran into is finding a couch small enough to get into the area and thrw a 24" door way.

Problem solved (i Think) I found a 74" W couch for 169.99, but its short.. so I'll cut off the legs and build a base from Overhead kitchen cabinets to raise it up to normal tall people height. This will also add a little more storage..

[bushpilot]

we make good use of our pull-out sleeper sofa....either with the kids (when they come meet us now, that theyre on their own)....OR when i go to the track(s).

generally speaking i don't like having more than 2 couples or 3 singles in the coach - it gets too crowded.

SO on those track weekends where there might be a 3rd (guy) - someone draws the short straw and gets the jackknife sofa (no one seems to mind or complain). We also use the jack knife sofa going down the road - folding it flat (and tossing a thick quilt over it) for the dog.

[2 Trick Rick]

RV Panel is up and glued into place. I also used the plastic snap pieces between the planes for a clean finished look.




Upper crown molding is 9" chip board with carpet glued on. Each piece is 4ft long and attached with screws to a wood block that was fastened to the box. This way I can remove it to run my lights or to install speakers.





Between the doors I had a funky size gap that would have been difficult to finish, so I wrapped some carpet and screwed it in.

[2 Trick Rick]

Total cost including the truck and mechanical repair is around 4k so far.


I bought CHEAP carpet with padding already attached (.64 cents) sqft
from Menards. It was thin enough to roll around round corners yet has a
little insulation and sound deadening properties.




The thin trim board is nothing more than OSB with the carpet stapled to it.
The reason I need todo this was the corners are metal so to cover them I
need wider wood to reach over to the box area.

[hot rod]

Is $4k the real number, or what you're telling the wife? lol.

Beautiful work. Having done that, and knowing what a trip to Home Depot costs, I can't believe $4k unless you didn't add in all the receipts for every time you went to the hardware store for $50 or $100 worth of screws and glue and wood and what not. That's what got me on my build, not the big $$ items. But if you really pulled it off for that kind of money, you are our new hero here.

[2 Trick Rick]

I'm at 1823.80 to this point (truck not included). The plus is I didn't have to buy electrical wire, some outlets and switches and most every self tapping screw, build plates, bolts, finishing nails and glues. I'm sure that I lost a couple receipts along the way, but I'm normally pretty good at keep track for taxes.

[2 Trick Rick]

Found another a couple hundred in receipts in the garage. lol

so I'm at
2000k truck
300k brakes, rotors, sway bar thing.
2155.63 parts
4455.63 so far... now the trick will be windows and wrap for under 550.00 to stay under my 5k budget..lol

But thanks for the kind words, I do enjoy killing time in the back yard working on this kind of stuff.

[2 Trick Rick]

It was a nice Febuary weekend for Michigan so I spent a few hours
finishing up the back of the van.

I finished up the end cap on the drivers side boxes along with finishing
the aluminum trim around the boxes. I also mounted a dry erase board
on the wall for race times, lane assignments and general info.





Also finished up the floor trim with that "plastic" molding and found a great
(REALLY GREAT) Deal and a Flexsteel leather RV couch that folds out into a
bed. I wanted something with more brown, but I could not pass on this..
and the wife likes it so I'm happy



Now my one negative.. I removed some wrap material over a bump in the
outside. I knew it was damaged, just did not know to what extent.
The FRP was cracked and never sealed allowing water into the wood rotting
it out. I just cut the fiberglass layer back to dry wood and will dig out the
rot, much like a transom in a boat.. should be pretty simple, but will add some
time onto the project.

*The white patch was done by U Haul, not the best but I can work with it.

[bushpilot]

nice! keep up the progress!

[2 Trick Rick]

Getting closer to the summer race season so I must keep moving even though the weather sucks ... :/

* ran into a problem I never thought of.. My small kitchen area cabinets are to big to fit into the standard 24" RV doorway. So I was going to use overhead cabinets and build a toe-kick, but I used a Bathroom vanity instead. The vanity offered draws witch IMHO offer more storage.

I found this on Craigslist for 100 BUCKS! Score.....

I looked at building a counter as my width is only 20" instead of the standard 24" but after a quick trip to Menard's picked up a *Blem 4ft counter top.. 16$ :smokin:




I had to saw cut off the backsplash and will finish it clean at a later date.




It's filling up quick...

[Bob86ZZ4]

If you're using residential style cabinets how are you going to secure the doors and drawers when going down the road?

[2 Trick Rick]

Originally Posted by Bob86ZZ4

If you're using residential style cabinets how are you going to secure the doors and drawers when going down the road?

Marine cabinet magnets and if I find out I need more I'll attach Marine latches.

[hot rod]

I used residential cabinets in my trailer, just went to the local rv robbery store and picked up rv latches. Just used the kind that are sort of a plastic button on the door sided that snaps into the bracket on the cabinet side. worked fine even for a cabinet where the door faces forward.

[2 Trick Rick]

Yesterday at the salvage yard I picked up a new RV window for only 50 bucks! .. I need to start watching my pennys to come in under 5000.00 budget.

I hung the window in place with a couple drywall screws, outlined the inside lip (or smallest ring) and cut with a jigsaw.








Window slide into place with little effort.

[2 Trick Rick]

*One thing I found is most RV windows don't have finish trim rings inside when bought off eBay or the salvage yards. So simply run upto your big box store and buy some cabinet finish screws. They offer black, have large heads with a aggressive thread. I drilled and screwed the window in from the outside aluminum lip.

The inside trim ring was made by 1 x 3 wrapped with a tan fabric. The corners are cut at a 22.5 degree angles to mimic the rounded window corners.




Finished project for Saturday..

[Bob86ZZ4]

Looks great!

[Mntom]

Dang, that window looks great!

[bushpilot]

very nice....almost too bad it doesn't look "u-haul"-ish anymore....very stealth!