I did not have the chance to work on the van for the last 2 weeks as we were away to Panama.
But today I finally managed to free myself for the afternoon. Senjay got the van smogged when we were gone - passed with flying colors!!! I am really excited about that, it was a bit of a stress as the van comes from Georgia and I wasn't totally positive about the emission components being the same as California.
The only other mechanical thing the van needed was new steering parts (tie rod end, etc). So today we replaced the whole linkage assembly (4 components) and got a new alignment for the van. It drives nice now. It does feel more like a big American van (which is what it is...) than a tight and sporty German car...like my Westfalia Syncro.
While Senjay was replacing the parts, I crawled under and proceeded to remove the grey water tank. A couple reasons for that...I don't like the way it looks with two brackets hanging too low, but mostly there is a smell in the van which I believe is caused by the vapor coming back from the tank.
As you will see in the pictures, the tank does need a good cleanup. There's a seal that should prevent the odors, but I am not sure how good it fits around the pipe (drain from the sink).
Also, please make sure to notice how Sportsmobile engineers filled up the gap between the tank and the body...by putting a few 2x4 held with a couple wood screws. Sweet. I am going to have to redo this job.
I am still trying to find the grey molding that goes around the cabinets. I may try to work some more on those tomorrow. I also need to decide on what I want to use to replace the carpet. Industrial grey carpet from Home Depot is an option - cheap and easy to work with. But I like the marine vinyl carpet that I have seen on some vans/boats. We'll see.
I also worked a bit more on the cabinets removal, but it was hot as hell in Richmond today so not much progress there.
2 comments:
The location of the gray water tank seems strange - why leave it hanging down so low? Now that I see how there were 2x4s in that space, I have to wonder why they used a tank that was so high, instead of one that was wider. The sink seems to be in a fairly standard Sportsmobile location, and I don't recall seeing them hang down on others - then again, perhaps they are merely less visible on other vans due to the presence of running boards.
On an unrelated note, it seems strange that the 2x4s look to be in such good condition - I'd expect them to be all warped and twisted.
How did I not see that the 2x4s are, in fact, warped, before I made my previous comment?
Also, I could have sworn that there was a better picture over at badgertrek, but this is the best image I can find of a battery hanging underneath the van. It's in the top of the first picture. They made the battery holder out of angle iron (or perhaps angle aluminum?) and insulated it to prevent loss of capacity when it is colder.
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