VanZilla |
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VanZilla is a 24 foot stepvan that's been partially camperized (fridge, stove, sink, furnace). Come along with me as I become a van dweller.
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Monday, July 05, 2004
Vanzilla is dead. Long live Vanzilla. Between the time of the previous post in late 2003 and now, I took Vanzilla on a trip around the states my good friend James. He is his live-in truck and my in mine. I was going to make blog updates as I went and put up some pics, but I never got around to it. My goal was to eventually head for Mexico and drive around a bit and work as a English teacher. It was not to be. I Left my friend James in Arizona, and went to stay with my friend MacKenzie in San Fransisco before heading south. But I only made it as far as southern Calfornia before disaster struck. The truck ran out of oil and seized up completely. There was nothing to be done. The engine was ruined and new one with the installation would cost much more than the truck was worth and more than I had anyway. So I've returned to Vancouver, and bumming around here at home. It looks like the school I did my English teaching practicum does have a sister school in Korea, so I might be able to go work there. If so, you will be able to read all about on my all new blog: http://korea.agraham.ca Maybe some day I'll get around to filling in this blog with some pictures of my trip most of the way down the west coast, but maybe not. Wednesday, December 03, 2003
Now I have an inverter which converts power from 12V DC to household 110V AC. With this badboy I can plug in all the stuff I need to be confortable, like my sandwich toaster. Also I can plug in the laptop my friend gave me. It has no batteries, but that's fine for me. I have a WiFi card to plug into it, which allows me to get free internet almost anywhere here in the West End of Vancouver. Gotta love people who leave their wireless access points without any security set up. Monday, February 17, 2003
Got the chest of drawers assembled. It fits so perfectly it's like it was custom made. I still have to get a couple angle irons and clamp it to the wall tho. Also, I need to determine a way of keeping the drawers from falling out when I turn right. I'm going to look for those things that keep babies out of the cabinets next time I'm at the hardware store.
Tuesday, February 11, 2003
Went to the mechanic recently:
I've sure learned a lot over the last little while about batteries. It's easy to forget that most people have never had a need to learn this kind of stuff. Thus: A quick tutorial on batteries:A 12V car battery doesn't necessarily put out 12V. It puts out between 11.4V and 12.9V depending on how charged it is. If it's presenting 12V "open-terminal" ie with no load on the battery it's about 40% charged. In order to charge a battery, you have to apply a voltage higher than the open-terminal voltage. Voltage is like pressure that "pushes" in the amps from the charging source. You can charge a battery at up to about 14.4 volts as long as it has some room to accept charge. If you charge it at much higher voltage, you will push in more power than it can accept and it will begin to electrolyse ("boil"). You may remember this generating of hydrogen and oxygen from salt water using electricity in science class. Once it starts to get full you need to reduce the voltage to 13.2V to keep from boiling it. This 13.2V is just a smidge higher that the 12.9V open-terminal voltage of the fully charged battery. Now, the higher the difference between the terminal voltage of the battery and the applied voltage, the faster the battery charges. A difference of one third of a volt is just going to keep the battery from discharging, not really charge it at all. If you buy a "smart" battery charger, it will monitor the battery and give it 14.4V until it starts to fill up, then drop down to the 13.2 "float" level. A car's regulator, however is dumb. It just pumps in 13.8 all the time. This means your battery takes longer to charge (since it could be pumped at up to 14.4V when it's only half full). If you went driving for days, you might get your battery fully charged, but then the 13.8V is going to start to boil your battery a bit. The solution is to plug in a charger when you can to charge up, or get a "smart regulator" that acts like a smart charger. ($) Batteries have a capacity. It's usually stated in amp-hours. A one amp-hour battery can supply a current of one amp for one hour. A hundred amp-hour battery can supply one amp for a hundred hours, or one hundred amps for one hour. It's a little more complicated than that, but more or less. If you turn on a one amp light for one hour, it's going to suck one amp-hour out of your battery. They also have a rating for how much amperage they can dump out in any instant when it's fully charged. This is the cranking amps. It's a little less when it's cold, hence "cold cranking amps". If you're trying to start your car, and you draw 250 amps for one minute, you're going to use up 250*1/60=4 amp-hours from your battery. Here's the charger I have now. It's a 1.25 amp charger. It could theoretically charge a 1.25 amp-hour battery in one hour. Actually, as the battery fills up it will accept less amps, so it would actually take two or three hours. To charge my 70 amp-hour house battery in the truck would take about a week. A higher current, but more expensive charger (like a 10 or 20 amp one) could do it in one tenth the time, or several hours. Some solar panels would be good. A good panel in direct sunlight on a good day might put out an amp or two. If it did that for one hour, it would put one or two amp-hours of charge into your battery. Of course, good days are hard to come by around here, so I can probably expect to get 2 or 3 amp-hours per day out of a panel.
Monday, January 20, 2003
Well it's been a couple of months, and I haven't been posting. Partly because I was in far-off Britain. Check it out. Things with the van are slowly coming together, and at the same time falling apart: Fixed: My friend is a seamstress, and she made me some awesome light-blocking curtains. I replaced the starter and house batteries rather than mess around any more. I've got most of the parts I need to permanently fix that catalytic heater. Broken: The lamp fell down again while I was driving and broke. I'm going to try gluing it, but I don't know if glue will hold under the very high temperatures the lamp burner gets to. I still have to fix the oil leak, and I think the power steering fluid is leaking too. It's getting harder to steer. I really shouldn't drive it around in this condition, but I just haven't had a chance to take it to the shop. Sometimes it doesn't seem to be charging at a high enough voltage. I have to debug the charging system some more I guess. As for the catalytic heater, the original plan of putting a T in the low pressure line that runs through the appliances won't work. The heater is designed to run on high pressure, not low pressure gas. So I figure I'll just put another propane bottle in the truck, attach a coleman adapter to it, and run the heater off of that. Tuesday, November 26, 2002
Took the van to the mechanic today. He sent me on to an electrics specialist off on Mitchell Island. They took out my alternator, and put in one with an integral regulator. Now all the wires that used to do the field exciting and whatever are just hanging there, since they're no longer needed. It feels good knowing I'm not murdering my batteries all the time anymore. We didn't have time to look at the oil problem tho, so I'll pick that up again next week. Monday, November 25th, 2002 Well the trip to the hotsprings was good. Pretty cold tho. I couldn't leave the heater running at night, because there's no room for it in the tent without it touching the tent walls or sleeping bags. It runs so hot it would instantly melt any non-natural fabrics that touched it. It did a good job of warming the tent in the evening tho, as well drying the towels between dips. Friday, November 22nd, 2002 Went to Candian Tire today, and got a bunch of cool stuff:
The catalytic heater can be easily converted to a bulk system. All I need is a way to cut the propane line that goes to the lantern, and put a T in. They didn't have hardware for that at the Candian Tire, so I'll have to figure out who to call. Maybe an RV shop, and they can fix my fridge and furnace at the same time. I'm taking my heater on a trip to some hotsprings tomorrow. I also got a small propane bottle to connect to it. We'll see how warm it keeps me in the tent. I made a reservation for Tuesday with Bruce at Troubleshooters to bring in the van to look at the electrics and the oil thing. Tuesday, November 19, 2002
Another update today. I wanted to mention the other stuff I've got happening. I got myself one of these badboys. With this thing I can figure out exactly what the draw is of all the various stuff in the van. With this info, I should be able to figure out exactly what kind of solar and battery business I need, and whether my battery is indeed faulty. The furnace really seems to suck a lot of juice. I left it on for an hour or two today while I was at the drapery store, and the battery was dead when I got back. It looked like it was half charged when I left. Of course, you can't really judge a battery's charge unless you let it sit for a couple of hours I've learned. It can look very charged, but it's acutally only charged on the surface. The other thing I've got coming is a few "superbright" LEDs. These should be very cool. They take very little power in relation to the light they produce, and I can arrange them to point out from the walls. My current problem is that when I'm lying down reading with the light in the centre of the van, my book is totally unlit. The LEDs take 3V, so I figure I can just put four them in parallel, and turn them all on and off together. And finally I wanted to mention this. It's a heater that doesn't use an open flame, but instead some kind of catalytic process with propane and platinum. Andy from the Urban Technomads list (and former owner of Vanzilla) has researched their safety and everything, and it running a couple of them. 3 Vets seems to be the only place to get them, and they are out right now (probably due to a run by technomads), but when they get some more I'm definately going to get one. This one has a battery operated fan, but it works fine without the fan, and I can probably adapt it to run off of 12V power if I can remember Ohm law. I'm back. I haven't posted in a while because things have been a bit crazy at work. But now I have some time again. That battery is totally toasted I think. It never seems to work for more than an hour or two even after charging by driving around for a couple hours. I need to get that regulator, and then I can think about getting a new battery. Of course, it would be better if I had a solar panel to keep the battery charged. You can't really charge a battery from running a motor for a few minutes a day. You can for a starter battery, since the only time you are drawing from it is when it's being charged. This time of year tho, there's only two or three hours daylight when the sun is high enough to fall on the van, and what daylight hours there are overcast with the sun still not that high in the sky, so you can probably only get half the output from a solar panel. If I get a 2 amp system like this one: http://www.icp.ca/html/pk30.htm I'll probably only get 60 watt-hours per day out of it, which wouldn't help a whole lot I don't think. Still, it wouldn't hurt. Job one tho, is still the regulator, so I gotta talk to Bruce at Troubleshooters about that. Today I took the morning off work and went over to a friend's house. Jane is a professional seamstress, and she's going to help me make some curtains for vanzilla. I'm going to use them to separate the cab from the rest of the van, and to separate the back, including the bathroom area, from the bed area. This way, not only will they block light from leaking out of the van, but they should prevent some draftiness too. Now I won't have to use the pull-down shades on the front windows, which should keep vanzilla from looking too much like someone is living inside. First we went to the draperies wholesaler to look at the rails. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to get this particular kind of hardware I need. Home Depot refered me to Sears who referred me to Ikea who referred me to Linens 'n Things who just shook their heads. But Jane has the connections, and I've got it now. Plus this drapery place can have the rails bent to match the curve of the roof exactly. Then we went to the fabric store and I picked out the fabric she'll be using for them. I decided on denim for the back (I wanted something I could throw in the washing machine since they'll be near the bathroom), and aphaulstery fabric and denim for the front. The denim side will face the front windows, so it will look dark, and with the two layers of fabric no light should leak out the front. Went shopping for drawers last week. I need to figure out some way of storing my clothes. Nothing has piqued my interest yet tho, so I guess I'll just stack most of them in laundry baskets and hang up as much as I can when I get a clothes bar installed. I think I still have too many clothes depite my best efforts to get rid of them. I did a pretty good job this last weekend tho at cleaning the kitchen and bathroom so I could get some stuff put away. It's looking pretty good right now, and ready for another batch of stuff. Hopefully I can get everything in there this weekend so I can be completely moved out of the g/f's place. Her roommate is getting tired of seeing my things all over the place, which I can totally understand. Update: called Troubleshooters about my regulator issues, and he said most likely my alternator has a built in regulator. If that's the case, I wonder why the battery was dry when I looked inside? Perhaps I was all worried for no reason? In any case, I'll be bringing him the van on Tuesday of next week to look at that and to look at the leaking oil situation. Monday, October 28, 2002
Battery dead again this morning. Argh! Stumbled around in the cold, started the engine, and lo and behold, the water pump starts up. Oops, it seems someone left it running last night. Humped that battery back to work again, and now it's charging under my desk. Van is leaking a little more oil than I thought. I'd better take it to the shop and have that looked at. Saturday, October 26, 2002 Went to a Gypsey Party tonight. Several folks showed up with their vans. We had tours of each other's digs, and hung out talking about heating and sewage and all that stuff a house on wheels has to consider. Fun was had by all, and I was introduced to a neat parking spot.
Friday, October 25, 2002
Battery only lasted a few hours tonight. Was woken up around midnight by the sounds of the furnace blower stuggling with low power. This is very strange... it should have been charged up to 90% by being on the charger for eight hours yesterday. Took it to work again. Was thinking perhaps it needs some more water since it tends to get overcharged since the truck has no regulator, so I bought some distilled water on the way in. When I opened it up, it looked distressingly dry. I knew it was boiling a bit, but I had no idea how much. By the time I'd filled all the cells, I think I'd used almost a litre of water. I hope the battery survives this, but I'm not sure it will. My foam stuff is in. Yay! Thursday, October 24, 2002 Battery pretty much dead this morning, despite driving around a bit last night. I took the battery to work with me (ugh! heavy!) and charged it up under my desk.
Wednesday, October 23, 2002
Cleaned out the apartment's fridge and freezer this morning (in the dark -- no power yet). It's been off for a week. Yuck. On the plus side, looking around there's no damage. And the stinky smell is a lot better. Once the workers clean the walls and I launder my clothes, it will be back to normal. Actually, I don't know if that's good since I can't claim anything on my insurance - even the stuff I still have to sell. Ironically I was one of the few people in the building who had insurance, and it's not doing me any good. Other people have lost everything and didn't have it. Tuesday, October 22, 2002 I thought I'd be allowed to go home tonight, so I dragged my pillows, comforter, toothbrush and girlfriend -- all the bare essentials for comfortable living :-) -- and when I showed up they said we weren't allowed in!
So I borrowed a wrench from work, hooked up the propane tanks I bought the other day, and the two of us slept in the van. Lighting the furnace was no problem, as Andy had shown me how. He'd also left me a BBQ lighter to spark the stove with. Now that the stove's pilot light is on, the stove actually works better than the gas stove at my apartment which doesn't light itself. It's at least twenty years newer than the apartment one too. One more thing I need -- a bumper sticker -- "If the van's a rockin', don't come a knockin'." Monday, October 21, 2002
Went to the Foam Store today after talking to the insurance adjuster. I ordered up some foam bits to make my bed out of. I have a pretty neat design I think:  There's five pieces of firm foam with a three inch soft foam cover. Each piece is in a zippered cover. When the bed is turned into a pair of benches, the rectangular piece that was in the middle becomes the backrest for the left bench. The two wedge shaped pieces become lumbar backrests for both benches. It cost me almost $600 for all the bits and the labour, but it's gonna be worth it. Sunday, October 20, 2002 Switched to a cheaper hotel that is paid for by the province, since I can't really afford $130 a night for too long. Thanks must go to the BC Disaster Relief Fund for putting everybody up in the Sandman hotel for three days. Hopefully we will be allowed back in on Monday or Tuesday, although we don't know for sure. Went back to Home Depot today for propane and a "thermocouple" which is what the fridge needs to make it work again. I couldn't figure out how to install the thermocouple tho, so maybe I'll hang onto it until I can find someone who's done this before. I'm going to a gathering of van-dwellers on the 28th, and I imagine someone there will know how to do it. I don't have a wrench to hook up the propane either, since the security guards at my building aren't letting anybody in. Saturday, October 19, 2002 Went scuba diving today in Sechelt. We were originally going to take VanZilla, but we decided to take Gillian's mother's car instead, since it will be quite a bit cheaper on the ferry.
Got a look at the apartment when I came back to town. It seems at least one apartment is gutted. The fourth floor has been totally damaged by smoke. Much of the building was flooded by the firefighting. Not too bad for me, just a little smoke damage (I'm down on the 1st floor). Some people lost everything. It just means I must put the live-in-a-van operation on the front burner. There's no power or gas, so we aren't allowed in unescorted. I'm living in a hotel across the street until I get the propane and bed issues sorted out in the van. Friday, October 18, 2002
Apartment building caught fire today. The alarm wend off, and I just wanted to go to bed -- "It's a false alarm" I said. "Besides, we're on the ground floor, and we can leave from the balcony whenever we want." Well it wasn't a false alarm. When we went outside, there was smoke pouring from the top of the building. After a while one apartment became fully engulfed with flame. Once the firement arrived tho, they nonchalantly put out the fire in about 15 minutes. The city brought a bus and parked it out front for people to keep warm in. Props to Translink for that. We're not allowed back in the building tonight, so Gill and I are going to go crash on our friend John's floor. I wish I could go stay in my van, but I don't have propane yet, or a decent sleeping surface. Thursday, October 17, 2002
As with most anything, once you look into it, you realize there's a whole lot more to it then you thought. Case in point: foam. The Foam Shop has a little primer on what foam is and all kinds of options. I'll do a little research, do some measurements in the van, and hopefully get some ordered tomorrow. Wednesday, October 16, 2002 Cruised down to the Home Depot today. I thought I'd take my dad's advice, and add a light-blocking curtain between the cab area and the back, and do away with the the blinds on the front windows. It's gonna make the van look more "delivery" and less "RV" which is good for parking in front of people's houses. I wanted something that I could attach to the curved roof, but Home Depot doesn't have "C-Rails", only "I-Beams" which wont work for me. Before I could buy some propane, then closed up and kicked us out. Dah. I liked it when they were open 24 hours. Went and got a Robson North parking pass this morning. $12 to park in any of these spots until November 30th. It's OK, but I spent half and hour driving around this evening before I could find a spot five blocks from my place. I wish I had a West End address - there's way more parking available there. Some of which is beside parks which would be nice. Oh well, it's a good spot I've got at least. Tuesday, October 15, 2002 Took the van to the airport today to see my sister off to England. Had to park in the economy lot, as it's too tall to go in the parkade. I wasn't allowed in the parkade with the motorcycle either, although I could just park it by the bicycle rack for free. After that I used it to help the new guy from work move apartments. At night the dark green color looks like black, and the super for the building we were moving into said he thought we were a SWAT team or something. :-) Sunday, October 14, 2002 Ah slept quite well. Wound up cleaning until 1 or 2 a.m. Got a little cold in the morning, but I think with a proper bed and a furnace instead of a space heater it will be warmer. After a delicious breakfast -- my stepmom is a great cook -- I thought I'd do a little work on the van before heading back. First I spraypainted the tag back to green. At first it looked kinda funny, the new green was much lighter than the old green. I was hoping they would be the same since they're both tramclad green. I guessed perhaps the brush-on was slightly different in color from the spray-on. As it dried tho, it darkened up quite nicely, until now you can hardly tell if it's not in direct sunlight. Then I got to work cleaning again. Borrowed the shop-vac and did a little vacuming of all the nooks and crannies. Must have vacuumed up a million rodent-turds (don't worry, they're just guiney-pig droppings, the previous owners had one). The folks helped out too, with dad pulling out the built-in child's bunk-bed. It was fastened it with about a million partially-stripped screws, but with a bunch of elbow-grease and cursing it all came apart. Sunday, October 13, 2002 Argh! Somebody spraypainted my van last night! It's got some bastard's tag on the left side. At least the tag doesn't go over the windows. Finally got insurance today. Bought a year's worth since I have a 35% discount. That's pretty cool, I thought it would take years to get to that level since I had that motorcycle accident. InsuranceSource down by Corwall and Burrard is open 7 days a week. Lucky for me. The woman there really knew her stuff, and she was all business. I demand either efficiency or service-with-a-smile. In this case I got the former, so I'm making InsuranceSource my new insurance place. Since there was a Canadian Tire there I bought a spray can of Tremclad Green to cover the tag with. I tried to put it on, but the wind was blowing it all away, and I thought I'd better stop rather than paint all the surrounding cars. When I was done tho, I noticed I had green paint on my hands. Normally this wouldn't be a big deal, it's only paint right? But as I looked at my hand I was struck by a memory of a time a got a tour of somebody's hippy bus. Is was just a couple of months ago... me and Gill were in Harrison Hot Springs doing some hiking with friends. As we were filling up at a gas station, I noticed someone in the parking lot with a school bus. Not a full sized one, but not a shorty either. I'd say it was probly about 30 feet long. So I went up to ask him about it. He invited me in, and told me about how he'd put in the cabinets himself, and how he'd driven all over Canada. As I was leaving I stuck out my hand, and when he stuck his out, I noticed it was totally dirty. I winced and shook it, and then ran off to the station bathroom to wash my hands. As I washed my hands I told myself -- never allow living in a bus to change my sense of what acceptable levels of hygiene are. I don't want to become someone people have to supress the gag-reflex in order to shake their hand. Next, off to Victoria on the ferry. $70 for the van and me. Apparently it's 24 feet long. Jees, I didn't even realize myself how long it was. Flora flew over and I met the familly, plus some visiting cousins at a restaurant downtown. Flora suggested I keep the tag -- she says it looks fresh. I concur actually, but if there's gonna be a tag on, it'll be mine. Also, the tag is going to make the van more obvious, and I want to go incognito. Sleeping in the van tonight. I don't have propane tanks yet, so dad lent me a space heater and an extension cord. I don't have a bed setup either, but I'm borrowing some foam pieces which actually fit quite well. First I'm gonna do some cleaning tho. Saturday, October 12, 2002 Drove all the way to the 176th street border crossing to get the truck weighed. All the closer scales are closed due to the long weekend. 4000Kg the thing weighs! Holy crap. Too late to go get insurance. Hope I can get some tomorrow. I did want to take the truck to Victoria for thanksgiving at my dad's place. Parked the truck in the alley beside my house tonight. It's not officially legal parking, since it's a commercial lane, but the building there is a half-demolished shell, so I'm gonna risk it. The only reason I worry is because Gill got her car towed away the other day along with all the other cars there. This to make room for movie trucks for something they were filming nearby. Damn those movie people. It's fine to tow away illegally parked cars (or have the city do it that is), but why wouldn't they just come around and put up a notice - "move your car tomorrow or it gets towed." That's just polite. Friday, October 11, 2002 My tires came in finally. Since the van was parked at 53rd and Main, and I had to take a taxi to it and come back, I wasn't able to get there in time to have them installed tho, so I'll have to do it first thing Tuesday morning. Got the safety sticker pending the putting on of tires. I must give map props to Bruce and Troubleshooters (604) 873-9901. He's an honest dude, and he knows what he's doing. Back to the Yaletown insurance place. What a cock-up. There was a new guy there, which is no problem, it's not a crime to be new, but the more experienced guy was a total jerk to him and kept hassling him every time he called ICBC for help filling out the forms. Not cool to do in front of your customers. Then they tell me I need to have the truck weighed before I can get the insurance. Jesus Christ! Why didn't he tell me last time I was there when I was buying temporary insurance so I could get the safety inspection. It's already past closing time for the insurance place so I guess I'll have to come back tomorrow. Then annoying-man says I can come back tomorrow, but he's working alone so be prepared to wait. The message was delivered in a "don't-come-back-tomorrow-it's-not-convenient-for-me" way that I didn't like. Well guess what pal, you don't have to worry about ever seeing me again. Intervening time Still have to jot down my foibles with learning to drive, getting inspections, ordering tires. etc. Monday, September 29, 2002 Got a message today on the Urban Technomads list: We have a new unit and so VanZilla is for sale, 1500$ to the Oh oh oh! Me! You best believe I pounced on this message right away. Middle of September some time There was a magazine lying around at work today. "THIS" magazine. It has an article about van living. Here's a link to the article I read. Sounds cool. I've always thought about doing exactly this. When checking out this fellow's website to get more info, I noticed a link to a discussion group for urban van-dwellers. Urban technomads. I like that sound of that.
Sunday, September 15, 2002
There was a magazine lying around at work today. "THIS" magazine. It has an article about van living. Here's a link to the article I read. Sounds cool. I've always thought about doing exactly this. When checking out this fellow's website to get more info, I noticed a link to a discussion group for urban van-dwellers. Urban technomads. I like that sound of that. |
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