We went to Portland during Spring Break and we took the Sprinter on its first road trip. We got the seat installed but don’t have windows in the slider door or the area behind driver’s seat so it is a bit of a tunnel view for the second row passengers.

Lucinda and I (and Ava and Luna) slept in the van on the street in front of Joe’s house. I haven’t built beds or interior furniture yet so we slept on our trusty green mat that we’ve been using for the last 23 years, it made it’s first road trip to Costa Rica in 1993 with Cindy and I when we got married, and it is in surprisingly good condition. For the last 1500 miles we’ve averaged about 24 mpg and cruised right on down the road.

The body of our Sprinter has a lot of small (and a couple of big) rust spots. The passenger side seems to have a lot more rusty spots than the driver’s side. You can see from the pictures. When I sanded down the spots most of them seem to have started with just a small chip in the paint and were nothing more than surface rust. The spots at the bottom of the slider door and by the slider door handle were a lot larger and required some grinding as well as sanding. I used bondo and then glazing compound to fill and smooth the spots.

This is my favorite job and It feels like I’ve been doing this job since I was born.

It took a while but Savina, Tressanna and I finally wrestled the seat into submission. We put sound deadener on the entire floor surface, we reinstalled the factory sound deadening and then the factory floor. I had to drop the fuel tank to get to the bottom of the bolts that hold the factory seat cups in place, it was easy to drop but a little harder to get back into place.

I am really excited for the Summer trip with my family! I’ve aways wanted to go to California. This is like a dream come true! It’s going to be warm and I can’t wait to go to the beaches. We’re going to camp in our Sprinter van and see the sights. You can see me below helping to get the van prepared for the trip. There is a lot of work to do and Brad appreciates the help.

I started out the day by pulling the fibrous factory sound deadening material and
saving it to reinstall after I’ve put the 80 mil Noico butyl rubber material on the floor. I cleaned and de-greased the floor I had to use a brillo pad to get it clean. There was  oil that had seeped into the factory material in a few places that made a mess and took a couple of hours to clean up.

There were quite a few holes drilled in the floor that needed patching so I sprayed them with Rust-oleum Rust Reformer on the topside and bottom side (turns rust into a paintable surface). I then plugged the painted holes with waterproof Goop sealant. I used a degreaser again to try and prepare the surface for the sound deadening material.

Savina helped me install the Noico material. We cut pieces to fit in the low spots and then heated and rolled it to make it stick. I bought a $23.00 Wagner heat gun and it made the material stickier and also easier to roll out. The Noico has a grid pattern that can be used as a guide so you can tell where you’ve done a good job of rolling it.

Here is the floor about 2/3 done.

It took a while to decide on how to sound deaden the van and I finally decided to purchase some Stinger Roadkill Expert mat and some 80 mil Noico foil backed butyl material on Amazon. I visited one of the local auto sound/accessory stores and the Roadkill was $249.00. I like to purchase locally but on Amazon the Roadkill was about $95.00 for 36 square feet and Noico $65.00 for the same amount. I can’t justify paying over 2 and 1/2 times the price just to purchase locally. The Roadkill seems heavier but I haven’t weighed them yet. I’ll put the material on the floor then build a 1 inch framework to add some polyiso insulation and a vapor barrier then reinstall the factory floor panels.

I found someone parting out a wrecked Sprinter in the Seattle area and I made a deal to purchase the driver’s side 2nd row window. When I get the seat installed the passengers will be able to see out. The windows are glued in but I’ll have to cut a hole in the side of the van. Luckily the panels have the window shaped pressed into them so there is a “guideline to follow”. Thanks to my sister for meeting a guy in a Fred Meyer parking lot and then going over to his house to get the window. The guy also has a door with a window already installed he is trying to sell, the door looks rust free but has a small dent at the bottom. My door needs a bit of rust repair but isn’t dented.

That was a lot of dirt and grease! I used a de-greaser to get the floor clean now I’ve got to use the rubber floor mat as a template and get it cut for the seat floor mounting brackets. I also cut the channels for the seat tracks. I’ll drill the floor in the factory locations so I can attach the seat tracks and then, after a good cleaning, I’ll mount the 3 person second row seat.

I bought a used seat and now need to drill the floor for seat mounting. The passenger Sprinters come with mounting bolts attached to the frame (seems even one in the frame rail) and floor. I got the factory seat mounts with the seats but I’ll need to drill the floor and add bolts to the factory mounting hardware. Yesterday when I got my used vents I also picked up the rubber floor mat from a wrecked Sprinter. I can use the rubber mat as a template to cut my floor as it already has the seat cutouts. Using the floor mat will make the job of cutting the floor easier and more accurate.