A way for me to chronicle the building of the great white whale, and then record the trips I will hopefully take in it.
Part 1) This van is currently my 9th car, I bought it for vanning (it's like taking a long drive in a car, except you do it in a van)
It was originally a mail van. Although it was pretty stripped down when I bought it, it gave me the opportunity to build it the way I wanted. It has no A/C, came with no radio or speakers, no cruise, and no rear seats. Perfect. What it does have is a more than capable 4.0 V6, a great maintenance record, and 4 wheel drive.
We'll start in the front and work back. I installed the head unit that's been in the last 3 cars I've had. I also put in 4 Sony explodes... nothing too fancy but they still sound decent.
The van didn't come with a center console, so I took an idea from a friend and used an ammo box. It's a 50 cal. ammo box that cost me around fifteen dollars at an army surplus store. bolted two legs built from angle iron to level it on the transmission hump. Under the ammo box there are three 12V outlets that have been hard wired into the original 12V outlet with an in line fuse to keep everything safe.
To the side of the Ammo box there is another piece of angle iron that will serve as a switch bored (right now only the siren switch is mounted). And next to the switch bored I have my CB mounted. I decided to hard wire it in too seeing as it stays in the vehicle permanently. To accommodate all these hard wires I put in a 6 space auto fuse box. I used a 10 gauge wire straight from the battery, then grounded it to the fire wall.
This is the Ammo box, with all the accessories mounted.
This is a bad picture of my extra fuse box, its mounted on the driver side under the dash just below the regular fuse box
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