No list of hurdles I encountered with the Rig would be complete without addressing the engine itself. When the dealership changed the oil in the truck they found a significant amount of metal flakes on the oil drain plug (which is magnetic, just for this purpose). There was enough accumulation that they were prompted to…
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In with a Roar, Out with a Whimper
My time in the garage space I was renting went from an initial three months to more than two years as the owner’s plans to move their business into the building continually extended every couple of months. I was all to happy to keep expanding the scope of my conversion efforts and fill all the…
The Dreaded EGR
Strap in for everything you never wanted to know about diesel engine Exhaust Gas Re-circulation (EGR) systems. I should preface this with the disclosure that I am not an expert, nor do I claim to be. In fact, my diesel engine knowledge was essentially nil when I started this project, so this is basically a…
It Blows
Roof Ventilation Early on I knew I was going to be putting in a roof mounted fan for ventilation. The gold standard for vans and RVs is the MaxxAir fan. They offer several models, though I went with the Deluxe, which includes a powered vent lift and remote. The Deluxe is also rain-proof when open…
Grab Rails
My truck came equipped with six aluminum tube grab rails of various lengths and shapes. There were an angled pair on the back doors, one on the side door as well as two, two foot straight handrails mounted to the ceiling and a single six foot rail just above the squad bench. These were in…
Horns of Plenty
You may have noticed the big shiny chrome trumpets on the front fenders. These are emergency air horns, which are similar to truck and train horns except they apparently have a different tone, designed to be even more annoying and attention-grabbing with what the manufacturer dubs “Stuttertone”. They’re made by a company in Los Angeles…
Blood, Sweat & Beers
Herein I document the notable injuries I’ve sustained as well as my adult beverage of choice for this project. As I write that sentence, it occurs to me some might assume a direct correlation between the two. Or, as I suspect, an inverse correlation; that is, the more beer I drink the fewer injuries I…
Bumpin’
Rear Step/Bumper Repair Other than a few scratches here and there, there were no significant dents or dings in the bodywork and the truck was in amazingly good condition. In fact, the only issue I could find was the rear bumper seemed to be a little askew. It wasn’t really even noticeable unless, like me,…
Engine Turning
Engine turning (also known as engine jeweling) actually has nothing to do with the engine and instead refers to a technique for decorating metal with a repeating, overlapping geometric pattern. Historically, in the 1920’s and 30’s, it was used to decorate automobile dashboards and engine bays while the most famous example is probably the engine…
Floored
This post will detail the module flooring. I’ll tackle the cab floor in another post as it’s completely different from the module floor. As discussed in the ceiling post, a measurement I wanted to maintain was the overall height in the module. I put considerable effort into a ceiling solution that minimized the loss of…