1979 Dodge MB400 cube van conversion

[Pntyrmvr]

I'll always be a professional grinder and amateur welder. I get too little practice although my results improved markedly when I started wearing my reading glasses under my helmet and lightened up the dimming function. Night and day! Literally.

I bolted the driver's seat base up to the tracks and installed the seat cover on the upper section.

Dropped the whole thing in the truck. Good angle, firm seat, more leg room than I need, more headroom, and it reclines way back. Enough forward seat travel to let Legz drive her shift. I am hopeful that the center folding seat will be far enough back to allow the dog house to come out easily. We'll see...

Recall the factory seat went no further back than the cab side of the box wall.

 

[Pntyrmvr]

Next the passenger seat and center folding seat/console installation.

All the seat covers have been run through the washer twice. Never have 20 year old seats smelled so good.

I had the driver's seat lower section repaired. He did a good match. I do note that the fabric across all 3 seats is different. Gotta love wrecking yards and classified ads.

I had a 96 Dodge with this same seat setup. I really like the console. It's great for keeping items hidden. I'll add a USB and cigarette combination outlet inside it that will run off the house battery.

Still haven't tried pulling the dog house off to see if it clears the seats...

 

[Pntyrmvr]

Test drive day. Happy.

Weighed it with me in it and a quarter tank of fuel; 7450 lbs. GVWR is 10,500 lbs so lots of load to spare. Gauge on propane tank needed a bounce or two as it now reads above empty.

Still need to get it out onto a highway to see how it behaves with the air dam, but trucks coming opposite me at 50 mph were hard to feel with any buffeting. Time will tell. AC still cold.

 

[Pntyrmvr]

Test drive revealed noisy drawer pulls. Grrrr.

 

[Pntyrmvr]

Pulled an old battery box from a van in the paddock. I had wired up 3 light locations back when I installed the white pine ceiling boards so next up was hooking the lights up to a battery.

I found the tilting switched conversion van lights for $5 each. I kept the original internally switched ceiling light fixture from the cargo box and reinstalled it. Its practically an antique. Looks like one anyway.

The black framed tilt lights are double fed. A switch turns them on as is, but when the light is off you can reach up and tilt one or both lenses to get them to light. Standard conversion van items.

Enough room in the battery box to tuck in a battery tender. Neat and tidy.

The wooden box attached to it has a combination propane and carbon monoxide detector mounted in it. Beside that unit is a combo of a marine cigarette lighter outlet and a back lit double USB setup.

The battery box is screwed to the floor over the wheel well. It will be moved aft as there is limited space to get around the side of the bed when it's down flat and I don't like the idea of toe stubbing the battery box after a late night trip to the latrine.

Mounted 2 small clothing hooks near the side door. Cheap and cheerful.

 

[Pntyrmvr]

All 3 lights on as I work on my GPS routing for the next trip.

Bright enough for me.

 

[Proteus-TC]

Job well done here!

 

[Pntyrmvr]

Merçi Proteus!

A two hour test drive revealed a few issues.

The air conditioning blows cold although the air flow could be improved. It has also produced a chemical smell from day one. It is an aftermarket unit added by the RV maker that built the box so everything is crammed under the dashboard. The outboard vents produce 50°F air from a background of 100°F along the firewall. Not bad, but insulation along the roasting cab floor and up the firewall would really help. Future project! The problem with the system that had to be addressed was the smoke coming up from the back of the AC control panel. A quick look at the back of the panel revealed a corroded power supply wire that had slowly burned away its insulation and finally broke off completely. Soldered on a new connector and used heat shrink tubing to make it sealed. No idea how a California truck stored for years gets a single corroded connector, but it does set minds awandering... Works great and no more chemical smell as the insulation slowly burns off.

The second issue is a result of the aftermarket AC as well. The truck came with a 60 amp alternator which is limited with the running lights and headlights, and AC fan running on high. In fact the fan speed drops when the full lights are put on. At idle the ammeter is showing a discharge. All the alternator juice comes through a spindly 10 gauge wire. If the 100 amp alternator had been specified the idle output would have been better and the wire would have been 8 gauge. I want to put a modern alternator with a serpentine belt in it. Future project. The wiring harness will need some upgrading as well. Chrysler's rocket scientist designers run the entire alternator output through the ammeter in the dash. Eventually the corrosion steps in and destroys its connections. Very common to have an old Dodge stop dead in its tracks with absolutely no electrics at all. I'll put in a shunt style ammeter as a future project. The connection looks good for now. An inspection did reveal the connection at the back of the alternator was corroded. Same as the AC power wire.

I replaced the first 16 inches of the 10 ga wire with 8 ga wire. I also spliced in a new 8 ga wire to help feed the battery directly. Sadly with it hooked up the ammeter won't show a charge only a discharge, but the battery charging voltage is up by half a volt. Obviously the factory harness is a restriction.

All the connectors used were soldered in copper with heat shrink tubing over the connections. Take that Chrysler!

Photos are alternator factory connector, new added battery feed connector, and comparison of factory 10 ga feed cable versus new 8 ga cable.

 

[Pntyrmvr]

Two hour trip to the edge of Lake Erie netted a better behaved truck when being passed. Not common here with speed limiters, but really annoying without the air dam on 75 mph roads.

AC cold all the way although the drain below the evaporator is not doing its job. Ice cold water dripping on your feet isn't too bad but needs fixing. The drain tubes are my target. Cab roof cooler so less heat load. Hung a quilt from ceiling to floor behind cab cutout to hold in the cool air. Worked fine. Dogs stayed cool just behind new bench, but box did warm up. Need blinds on all those windows to reduce solar gain.

All in a fine ride.

 

[Pntyrmvr]

The cab floor does heat up noticeably once all 440 cubic inches start working. Not enough to affect AC output temp, but feet do warm at speed.

 

[Pntyrmvr]

Crawled underneath for some heat relief or maybe just curiosity. Rear leaf spring and shackle bushings are failing. Called Bob Disco at ATS and he's sending replacements. I'm amazed he can still supply them.

Mounted a 35 year old propane fridge on the wall beside the entrance door. Bought it years ago. The owner had mounted it in a plywood box lined with 1" foam insulation so I trimmed that up a bit, built an aluminum duct to vent it to the wall as per the manual, and got a cold box out of it. That fridge sat in a shed for 10 years and still works.

Back to the beach.

 

[Pntyrmvr]

Installed red cedar trim painted white over the gaps in the cargo doors. EPDM ribbed weatherstrip across the top to keep out any rain that makes it past the aluminum gutter mounted just below the roof frame.

Another photo of the mounted fridge this time right side up.

 

[Pntyrmvr]

Out for a wander through the Big Empty, Québec. Rough roads and great views. Not many people around.

 

[Pntyrmvr]

Hood is up to dissipate the heat while stopped. That old big block warms things up.

Heater core leaking. Of course.

 

[Pntyrmvr]

Out on Manitoulin island for 14 days. No electricity or phones.

Found replacement for old propane freezer online for $115!

It runs off a 20 lb cylinder along with a propane chest cooler full of beer. The two run 9 days on a cylinder making it cheaper than unobtainable ice to operate.

We leave them tucked into the bush on the east side of the Cubicle with a towel over top of them to minimize sun exposure.

I'd like to build in the freezer. The chest cooler can stay outside and run off the chassis tank for shorter trips.

The already mounted fridge is working surprisingly well considering it sat in the shed for 10 years.

Sink is now hooked up to 5 gal water cooler jug and an empty one for grey water. I have tanks for both but no time.

Folding queen bed does its job and the table below is great on rainy days.

Even in August we've had a few cool nights. A heater is in order. Or more blankets.

Chassis works fine. Creaks and groans now and they will be fixed with a box full of bushings.

Leggz happy too so life is good.


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[Pntyrmvr]

Added up total propane consumption on our last 14 day expedition.

All propane units:

freezer
beer cooler
24 inch fridge
small bbq
2 burner range
3 burner Coleman

$22.00

Yup. About a buck and a half a day.

 

[Pntyrmvr]

Snapped the AC belt on our way home last week. Luckily it didn't push off the alternator/fan belt so we carried on.

I'd always had a little voice in my head about how the AC belt sat in its pulleys. Too low I reckoned.



A great friend of mine in the auto parts biz did some research and reminded me that old Mopars used different width belts depending on load requirements.

So I ordered a 1 inch longer belt the next width up and here we are.



Now this is not a factory AC setup. For our younger readers it is/was called "dealer air". Even so the crank pulley, idler, and compressor all use the wider belt.

Who knew? Probably me at some point in the foggy past, but not lately.

Thanks Ed!

 

[Pntyrmvr]

Stopped after 3 hours driving 60 mph at 90° and the overflow puked out some coolant. I ran the overflow above the MAX mark to help bleed the air out of it when I bypassed the heater core.

Checked it later and it had settled in at the MAX mark. Boy those Mopar engineers were smart 41 years ago.

Factory thermostat is an oddball 180° high flow unit. Fan is a solid 8 blade with a thermal clutch. The clutch locks up, but I wonder if it isn't a bit lazy. Unsure as to how a 220° set point thermal clutch is supposed to keep a motor at 180°. New clutch is cheaper than a rad so I'll try that first. Not so sure about tranny temperature though.

 

[Pntyrmvr]

What do you say when a friend offers you a perfectly good 205ah AGM battery that is less than 3 years old and fully charges?

I'll pick it up. ASAP!

It was used in a transit bus as an emergency backup for lighting. Mandatory replacement after 2 years service.

Built in Germany by a division of Exide.

140 lbs. Good thing it has handles.

Gotta add another alternator.

 

[Pntyrmvr]

175 ah at 0°C or 205 ah at 20° C.

Thanks Simon!