First, find a nice cheap full size cargo van.
I found a great one, with some problems. More on that later. Do you like chocolate milkshakes? If so, read on...

Found me a 1998 Ford factory built CNG fuel only model. Sold by a professional plumber downsizing his crew and fleet and moving in just a few days and losing storage spot.

The van was taken off the road and left sitting for about 5 years. "No reason" it was stopped being driven other than 'economic'.
Not so. More later.


Steps involved:
Ride your motorcycle out to the van (even if the tires are bald and the chain is about to snap as it's so worn and the rear sprocket is toast).
See van.
See van (already) running. (red flag)
See van chocolate milkshake pouring out (huge red flag. Run?)
Make killer deal. Hand over $700 in cash.
Cram motorcycle into rear of van.
Drive new van home.
Watch temp gauge anxiously.
Sweat.
Hang out with municipal garbage men to get rare CNG fuel at unmarked, unmanned spot.
Have no idea how to hook up fuel nozzle.
Have garbage men connect nozzle.
Answer the 'why' Qs to the city employees.
---
Van as purchased (fuzzed plumbing co. name out):

 

Park van at spot.
Spend 2.5 days peeling 360 degree body wrap of vinyl off truck.
(Gasp at the new paint and body panels underneath! 'Showroom' actually means it here!)

Next steps:
Get thrown off property.
Panic.
Bypass oil cooler and flush cooling system all day until midnight. (See "Brown trouble overflowing" post, this is the chocolate milkshake maker).
Skip dinner.
Drive off property and park in public streets.
Find out later expired tags will get van impounded and $2000 fees if seen by meter maid - but not a problem if across country right? Why worry?
Register van out of state.
Fedex plates to nearby shop.
Pull huge favor with friends.
Have van tagged remotely.
Relax.
Sell off the conduit carrier diamond steel box that was thrown in on the deal for $200 cash. Van cost now = $500.

 

and now... the actual start of the conversion process...

FIRST,
I cleaned the hell out of the van. I found all the junk in the pics crammed down below the floor in the passenger side body drains in pic 2 & 3.
Before:

 

I got some 'duvateen' (heavy duty black material) leftovers and I draped that over the partition wall holes in the front.
I then measured and cut some black sided foamcore to stuff in the one rear window and black it out. (the other window was smashed out in a break in and replaced with sheet metal by prior owner).
Begin stealth urban camping for weeks with camping inflatable pad on the floor over a tarp between towering metal racks on dirty floor of van.

Craigslist sell off all of the rear racks to clear out space!!!!
Put $640 cash back in profit. Now the van cost, well, actually now I was effectively paid $140 to take the van!! I shed tons of weight, and got tons of space back!! This was the best day so far.
The racks took up so much space:

Racks FINALLY gone!:

 

Walls and insulation (first):

This van will reside near the mild / temperate coastal areas pretty much all the time. It will hardly ever see truly cold climates and not often see scorching 100+ degrees either. So I decided insulation was a great idea, and helpful but I didn't have to go crazy with it either.

I wrenched out / broke the spare tire jack mounts at the passenger rear to have better open walls.
I decided to leave the stock headliner for now and mostly rely on the Adrian Tools rubber mat for the floor - although I flew out a 5 x 8 rug with me and a bubble foam padding for insulation there as well.


I would focus on the walls now. I had little time to spare and almost no nighttime down time, so I had to get on with it. Doors could wait until later.

 

I also made decisions on how to maximize interior space and have reasonable insulation. After a lot of research I decided on 'poly iso' insulation. Not the pink foam stuff. Not the Reflectix silver wrap stuff I read a lot is misrepresented junk (for insulation). A 1" thick Poly Iso sheet with foil facing on both sides makes for an impressive R6 value that seems to be very legitimate. Well reviewed online in the campervan communities and a good compromise for space needs.


So I would just use that and not really fill in the opening in the lower panels (much. I later tossed in some scraps in the holes down towards the drains on the passenger side).
I purchased:

for walls:
(2) 4 x 8' sheets of poly iso at about $20 each.
(2) luan 'underlayment' 4' x 8' 1/4" thick sheets for the actual wall / hold in the poly iso. about $11 ea.
(1) box self tapping sheet metal screws - truss head style with flatter head profile. about $6

for the bed frame platform:
(1) 4' x 8' plywood 5/8" sheet for about $20

The rest of the materials I scrounged back east and flew back with me in a snowboard roller bag (60lbs).

Since one van wall is short and the other is about 9 feet you can very easily borrow materials from the short side to complete the longer than 8 foot side. Also, I discovered with the factory headliner, the wall is actually shorter than 4 feet tall, so that's great, I can install the long panels lengthwise and only have 1 seam in the walls!
At the one seam in the driver wall, I staggered the insulation and luan panel segments so they would stay attached to the walls better and insulate better than a vertical hole through both pieces (That's hard to see in the pics, but I had to shove / slide the small piece of Poly Iso behind the first long 8' luan panel).

 

I traced out a lot of angles and cuts at the front here to get around a few wiring harnesses, and plastic cut out boxes but try to maximize insulation (without being crazy about it).


After the middle wall spines I planned to push the insulation into to the open window cutouts - Again my priority was to maximize interior space here and some uninsulated areas on the front and back vertical ribs I didn't think would be that big of a deal.
See how I went around some of the ribs that stick out into the space:


The stock Ford interior has a little shelf like thing a few inches off the ground. Rather than run the insulation inside (over) it all and therefore have the finished wall jut out another inch off the wall - you know what I did here. I had the insulation and walls run flush right to that spot and figured I may pack the small area below it with thin poly iso strips and maybe floor trim style molding if I feel a fair bit of cold air leaking thru that region - we shall see.

I got a box of 1 5/8" self taping metal screws - in fact they are flush head 'lathe' screws - again on purpose to keep the final walls cleaner looking. However, they are barely long enough and to try to cram the wall board luan and insulation in to the metal walls and simultaneously screw them in and actually hit metal behind it was not good - i had about 7 misses in a row, so I went back and got longer 2" screws at a different store. Those should be much better to work with. You obviously want to be careful here and not screw through the outer sheet metal body and you must also measure and mark where the middle horizontal rib is to screw the walls into.
For now I simply have the insulation and wall luan sheets held in with two screws apiece at the front and back of each panel. I will add the longer ones later (tick tock on the clock).

 

The wall work took me a full day - 12 hours. I used pencil, sharpies, tape measures, right angle, and most importantly a jigsaw / reciprocating saw to make the curved and angled cuts. I used a regular box cutter to cut the poly iso sheets and then used packing and then duct tape to seal the edges before installing.
Passenger side work:

 

Day two fabrication:

The bed frame / platform:

I had been designing a custom built bed frame for the back for awhile - the 'cocktail napkin' type of thing. I knew I wanted to maximize available space, and have a big bed, so for me that meant a full size bed. As I am well past 6 feet tall setting up a bed in the back sideways was not going to work. I measured and plotted a lot, and figured a regular length full size would hopefully allow me 3 feet of clear open space in front of the bed by the side doors.

I also liked the full size 54" wide bed for maximizing storage underneath. I need to store a lot of items - more than the typical van dweller. So I really had to have a lot of storage. I also wanted the max height to slide in plastic bins from the front for clothing. So I did not want to have long 2x6 or long 2x8 studs under the bed taking up that precious space.

I custom chopped up spare bed frames. Standard Skilsaw type saw with an inexpensive (about $3) metal cutting blade. These things work amazing. I chopped a fair bit of metal with one blade before it finally fell apart.

 

I initially calculated with my best guess a width of 50" for the outer two wide bars. That would be the amount of space to plan between the 2x8 long wood members. Later, I forgot my plan to cut the middle two metal bars longer by 2" and copied the length to 50" This would present problems later, but I solved those.
Although full beds are alleged to be 54" x 75" in practice manufacturers keep shrinking the dimensions - like yogurt retailers and pasta 12 oz packages (to save money and fool customers and not hand over the price savings of course). So not knowing what bed I would buy I planned to make the entire frame 53" wide. I figured if I really found a 54" wide one it could overhang a little.
I also chopped up some spare 4 x 4" fir posts I had. I figured the tallest I could go and just squeeze by with enough space to maybe sit up in bed was 14.5". In fact that's really too high for my height but I figured the 5 - 9" thick mattress will compress when sitting on it, and I could not add height later but I could always shorten the legs on the frame if need be. 14.5" height seemed like a good conservative compromise - again not knowing what actual mattress (and it's actual thickness) I might find.

But for the platform itself, I later figured to go even narrower, and then planned to nail a 2 x 3 on the end to support the final 1.5" of width of the plywood and then be able to accommodate the curvature of the van's walls.

As I cut the four metal bars all the same length (oversight / mistake) I then had to figure out how to salvage them. I decided to shrink the width of the actual perimeter frame to about 48.5". This way I figured I could chisel out 3/4" or half the width of the long 2 x 8 supports and still retain support and strength of the cross members if everything was screwed together and could not slide around (and loose).
My friend hooked me up with some sort of wunder wood - a very expensive builder's grade construction wood. He showed me how the grain was all straight as an arrow through the whole 2" x 8". And there were no knots or imperfections. This wood was rock hard. The grain is straight heart wood from the tree and does not cup or bow looking at the cross angle of the wood. It also doesn't deflect sitting on the middle of it on a 6 foot span! Its that strong. He assured me that he could rip the 2x8 in half and give me (2) 2 x 4 wood that would be super strong. It is.
So the nominal 2 x 6 (really an actual measured 2"x5" from big box stores) I had planned to get became the super hard 2 x 4" (true 4" wide).

I then marked and chiseled out the wood in slots so I could get the steel bed frames to slip into the openings and stay in place. Both planes had to be cut. For the deeper inserts I used a garden variety Skilsaw and insert chopped down. As it's rounded I used a drill to finalize the vertical removal areas. The two tools worked well for the task.

I deliberately offset the driver side front post and biased it backwards 2" to make sure it would easily clear the fuel filler cutout. I could have chopped into the leg itself, but I thought I would get better stability overall with this method.
I bolted on the 14.5" posts onto the long 2x4" supports using 2.5" or 3" carriage bolts. A diagonal pattern seemed to be strongest.
I then rough fit it all together outside to make sure it would work. It all looked great and functional.
I cut up the plywood into a 53.5" x 4' sheet. I used the scraps and cut two other parts to fit in at the rear.

 

I moved the new materials into the van and did the final assembly there:

I nailed the middle 2 x 6" in two spots inside the van to the long 2 x 4 supports. Then mounted the 4 bed frame rails. I used the right angle to try to ensure it was square - but the only square I had on hand was short and this did me in later.
I did place one screw through each side of 3 of the 4 metal cross bars.

I mounted the front and rear bed frame bars 'up' so they would help hold the mattress in place and not slide off when I peg the brakes.

Of note: Under the driver side front leg / fuel filler leg post I custom cut two scraps of the 1/4" thick luan to stack together and put under the rubber mat there to level the floor for the post. You can see the ribs and height differences in the floor through the rubber mat. For the rest of most of the floor I just used 1 piece in each slot and cut long strips about 2 - 2 5/8" width and slid them up under the mat to level the floor better - especially in the area in front of the bed where there would be my foot traffic.

 

In the van I screwed in the whole 53.5 x 48 inch sheet first, and then later trying to cram in the two smaller rear pieces I discovered the frame was NOT square at all. So I unscrewed the driver side and shoved and wiggled the frame until all 3 pieces of plywood fit inside the flipped up outer two bed frame rails. Then screwed it all in. Voila! I finally had my bed frame and available storage space to begin filling!


The bed frame is very strong and does not move under my weight. I was almost surprised how solid it turned out to be.

I raised the frame and slid under the bubble foam layer and then the rug and made some cuts on both layers to get around the fuel filler cutout and wheel arch area. Having a cleaner rug under foot makes a huge difference.

 

Very happy. The next night I picked up a barely used full mattress that was highly rated for $23!
Thanks again Craig! This was an awesome find and I slept so well on it that night. Finally a big bed off the floor!

SO where do I camp with this? Wherever the hell I want! This van is invisible. It's a perfect solution for me.
I've camped right across from urban Park official vans. As urban as you can get - you can camp there with something like this.

That's 3 feet of open space in front of the mattress. I plan to install a very comfy easy type chair here.

I re-installed the cleaned up Ikea "Omar" metro rack that I got free a few years back. These are 14" deep with fully adjustable height shelves and rugged and easily fit between the bed and walls with some space to spare. A full size std. commercial kitchen metro rack probably won't fit here unfortunately (the shelves are 18" deep).

Next projects for this van:
- get a pop out rear window to replace the missing one filled with sheet metal.
- get a sunroof to install over the clamshell side door area for more light but retaining full stealth.
- get a nice comfy up to 3 foot wide and maybe 15-20" deep arm chair type thing for the rear.
- maybe get a swing out table / laptop tray for over the chair.
- figure out how to best store all the longer term storage items
- black window tint rear window(s)
- insulate the doors and panel them as well. I may simply go for used interior panels from finished vans.
- Maybe install a (2nd) marine deep cycle battery for device power. And a split charger device.
- Maybe install a solar panel to keep marine battery charged.

 

So you are homeless?

 

Super !


The cargo area sucks in dirt, ag chemicals, insecticides, road kill...


A full platform roof rack ...I'll send a photo...will shade roof, allow cables run out of roof under pot dome. Insulation goes on the outside. But not stealthy. A roof rack would allow venting the wall space.


Recommend Optima batts with Ctek chargers and a 200 amp alternator: Summit Racing


Sleep in the front. Cut a 3/8th's plywood spanner ears resting on seats, rearward member held up against partition with an angle iron. Need 3" steel strap on spanner bottom with one bolt hole for a stud out of the partition angle ledge as locator.


Mosquito mesh from Seattle Fabrics or REI on windows with 2" masking tape. Holmes clip on hospital fan on hand holds running back to a Black n Decker inverter ( Home Depot)


That is deluxe.


Crawl under the rear with a sharp screw driver, inside rear wheel well corners, door wells, whatever goes for the windshield drip pan in engine compartment. Uneedan A/C !


clean n CRC silicone spray lube the door seals. $$$ Check Rock Auto online.


When stopping to camp or whenever open the hood n let the heat out.


Stock headlamps are garbage see Hella Conversions at Summit.