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Shiny things you no longer want / FS: 2002 EuroVan GLS

« on: September 25, 2020, 04:51:36 pm »

We need to let this van go as we acquired a used Sprinter (the 118" passenger van AKA an oversized Eurovan).

~200,500 miles.  Green with tan interior. The van has a VW bed installed and CaveVan flooring. We do have maintenance/repair records for our ownership and the previous owner. The van runs fine but needs a new front heater core. It is a salvage title so it is definitely AS-IS condition. Asking 3,000 OBO.

We are in the Corvallis OR area - either pm me (Sherry) or text 408-310-2672 (Terry).

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Interior! / Re: Battery Drain

« on: August 21, 2016, 10:34:52 am »

Ooh, I do like the idea of the switch but I literally pulled the radio out (it's sitting on the back seat) and he pulled the door lock fuse -- so this leads me to believe it is something else. Back to the drawing board (or mechanic).

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Interior! / Battery Drain

« on: August 21, 2016, 03:10:25 am »

Not sure where to post this but here goes:

The FrankenVan has been draining the battery - and we can't figure out why. Electrical we have had done: both door wiring harnesses have been replaced. The driver door harness in June 2015 and the passenger door in September 2015. In April, I installed a new radio. Everything was fine. This summer we were in the NW -- no problem with the van on the way up. Stayed with a friend, parked the van on Sunday night, tried to leave on Tuesday morning -- dead battery. Made it back to California with the friend's battery charger just in case. (side note: battery is 2 years old, according to previous owner's paperwork).

A few more instances of charge the battery and have it drain over night -- after some electrical sleuthing, DH thinks it's the new radio and/or the door locks causing a parasitic drain. Disconnect the battery while parked and reconnect to drive works.  Of course, I'm not so thrilled with this "solution".

After a couple of weeks, we do replace the battery. Drain still occurs. Next solution is to pull the radio out and pull the fuse for the locks (which means each door must be manually opened by the key). I went to start the van today and of course, the battery is drained. Any clues where to look for the culprit?

Honestly, we were thinking of selling the van later this year but my car, a NB TDI probably will be totaled this week (DH was side-gouged and the rear axle damage will cost more than it's worth) and I need a reliable vehicle until we can replace the Beetle.

(If anyone wants a perfectly maintained 1.9L TDi engine with 101k miles, check the Sacramento salvage yards later this week).

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Westfalia / Flooring & Bed Install

« on: August 21, 2016, 02:22:10 am »

Last August I bought the CaveVan Official Flooring and tore out a bed/bench from a 1993 for install into our 2002 salvage EuroVan. My husband and I have some definite ideas of what to do with the van, of course it's been a lot of back and forth.   A few things got in the way (thank you Valley Fire 2015), but now I have time for some pictures and notes.

Bed/bench Notes:  Sanding rust and painting every metal piece of the bench frame & storage boxes was fine. I like painting. On the other hand, cleaning the seat itself was a chore I don't want to repeat! It took two days with a carpet/vac cleaner from the hardware store. I intend(ed) to reupholster the bench and seats in a retro green plaid as the van is a tan interior and the grey seat simply doesn't match.

Flooring Notes: Seeing a few posts on the Interwebs about the carpet being glued to the floor, I expected a mess in removing it. Big surprise, the only glued section was around the floor vent (and not very much). We decided to keep the option for installing the seat behind the driver. This meant cutting holes in the plywood and vinyl. The holes edges are beveled to allow the flooring to be gently pulled into the well created by the bolts/posts (no sharp edge to cut the flooring). You can see one of the seat posts in the floor in the third picture.

Disagreement ensued with the method of attaching the flooring to the plywood. I am a chemist. He is an engineer. I wanted adhesive. He went with fasteners along the edges (basically screw/washers painted the same color as the flooring. Several months later I could point out why this was not a good idea... My intent was to pull the bench out and glue this over this summer but fixing the fire damage took priority (FYI, we won the fire lottery and still have a home). So, the floor is still fastened mechanically.

Once the flooring was installed, the bench and storage boxes went in easily. The van is now usable for light camping and hauling people and/or things.

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Interior! / Re: Adding back side windows that open?

« on: August 21, 2016, 01:16:55 am »

I too added one of these to the EV -- we had to drill a new hole in window track to secure the screen in place. The screen fit fine but its locking pin position was significantly different than the window locking position. Like @Meesh said, it's not quite the same as an open window in the back.

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Westfalia / Re: Replacing the carpet with vinyl (or other) flooring.

« on: November 19, 2015, 05:19:59 pm »

Thanks for the adhesive recommendations.

Of course, there is one more thing. Using the mat as a template, no problem. The new question.... does the geometry of the plywood pieces under the mat make a difference?

I see cutting from 2 pieces, using 8' as width, with left over wood cut away. He sees 1 piece running front to back and use smaller pieces <which we have> to fill in the spaces where it is wider than 4'. Obviously, I'm for fewer pieces under the vinyl and he's going for economy of materials.

<edit> Measured several times, cut once -- in two pieces (much easier than the jig-saw puzzle method)

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Westfalia / Re: Replacing the carpet with vinyl (or other) flooring.

« on: November 18, 2015, 10:58:06 pm »

Cole (and others who have done this)

Do you use an adhesive between the flooring and the plywood? If so, any recommendations? After the fire delay, we finally have some time to do van work. <yay!>

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Westfalia / Re: And so it begins... GLS to MV to Weekender

« on: September 02, 2015, 09:31:32 pm »

@ Itsamoto
I am taking pictures of all the prep work. Once we begin working on the van itself, I'll start another thread. No doubt we'll make some mistakes along the way and help others avoid them!

@ cole
That's good to know about the passenger door (I was sorely tempted to pull it when we were at the salvage yard). Of course, It was a very hot day, time was short and >smacking self on forehead< and it just didn't register when I took this photo of the donor van:

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Westfalia / And so it begins... GLS to MV to Weekender

« on: September 01, 2015, 10:33:41 pm »

Winter is coming so I have been gathering the parts necessary to convert the Eurovan GLS to an MV (and someday, I hope, a Weekender).  We pulled out the rear seat/bed, frame including every bolt plus the rails and supporting cargo boxes from a 1993 MV. I also pulled the side trim panel for the table and the trim around the window as well.

The rails & frame have been sanded, primed and painted. The plastic back of the trim panel was a bit cracked so that required some repair also. Parts are now sitting in the cabin and I await the wonderful CaveVan flooring (just ordered it tonight!).

He has a question – he was reading somewhere on the interwebs that when the bed is in the down position there is hardware to lock the bed in place. Is this true and if so, what is it? Does any one have a picture? We pulled everything we could (including the longer rear catches).

My question is how much of the '93 interior can I use in the '02 – specifically, can the rear left interior panel (around the wheel well) be swapped in? (the non AC side).  I can see that the rear AC unit would interfere on the right side. Can the rear door/hatch panel be swapped in? Would the front passenger door panel work?  I confess it is a bit OCD to want the interior to be uniform (I know it will function no matter what color). Parts vans are hard enough to find much less vans with tan interiors (and I like the grey better).

I did mention this van was a salvage title? 

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Westfalia / Re: Replacing the carpet with vinyl (or other) flooring.

« on: August 11, 2015, 11:45:29 am »

Thanks for those pictures -- that will help a lot!

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Westfalia / Re: Replacing the carpet with vinyl (or other) flooring.

« on: August 11, 2015, 12:28:20 am »

The second option is to order some of my vinyl flooring and use it as the templet. It will be cut for the bed mounts already. 

Do you have the rear bed assembly? Table assembly? I've got a full set of both.

We have no parts yet. I am going to order the vinyl flooring in the near future (one short road trip with carpet was enough to convince him).

Looking at your Blue 1.0/2.0, my husband  commented on the painted rails – he said this is not how the 93 bed is attached. Is this to accommodate the GLS interior body rather than a Weekender/Camper? By any chance would your parts happen to be match the tan interior? ;-) I'm thinking of calling the van Rocky as it's a bit of a Franken-van (tan interior with a grey driver door).

Sorry for the newbie questions – this is the first project car/van for me (and him). We are mechanically inclined folks (engineer & science teacher) but we leave the engine/mechanicals to the pros.

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Exterior / Re: Bike Racks

« on: August 04, 2015, 10:34:08 pm »

My rack is slightly different -- holds 2 bikes -- it's more of an inverted and flattened J where the top tubes rest and are clamped down. It has been so long I don't remember what make/model (bought it for my 02 Beetle) but it was a Rack 'n' Road special. The one 'feature' I'd change is the bikes should be lashed down to prevent a lot of movement (a tire tray would be my choice, I think).  It does fold down but never used that feature with the NB. As soon as the hitch is installed on the van, the folding will come in very handy.

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Westfalia / Re: Replacing the carpet with vinyl (or other) flooring.

« on: July 11, 2015, 11:38:16 pm »

You could probably do it two ways.
>snip>
The second option is to order some of my vinyl flooring and use it as the templet. It will be cut for the bed mounts already. 
Do you have the rear bed assembly? Table assembly? I've got a full set of both.

I'm all about *not* reinventing the wheel but before I order your flooring (I've been drooling over your posts on multiple forums!) I have to have the  van checked out by my VW/TDi-guru (I have a 2006 Beetle TDI) before we sink serious cash into the van. I don't want to call it an impulse buy as we wanted a EV of this vintage but he found this salvage title from Craigslist while I was attending a meeting out of town.   

The other issue with the van -- it must be the only tan interior on the planet. 

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Westfalia / Re: Replacing the carpet with vinyl (or other) flooring.

« on: July 05, 2015, 02:48:56 am »

First -- thank you for this site. As posted elsewhere, it's wonderful to see a site specifically for Eurovans.

It's possible to replace the stock GL/GLS carpet with a wood floor but I'll get into that later.

We recently acquired a 2002 EV GLS that needs some TLC and modifications to make it even better. Right now my better half is mulling over installing the bed/seat from a 1993 Weekender, no actual work done yet. I am more than curious to know how to do add the wood sub-floor. Do you have any advice from experience (or even a thought experiment!)