I seen an opportunity so it took it haha. That van has been on there awhile.

 

You're getting better at that too! LOL!!!

Well, I feel like I should apologize now that we have ripped this poor guy's thread totally apart.......but I blame Nick!

 

Hey it happens

 

Just think Bill, when your wife says 'trucks, trucks, trucks', now you can say 'well, one of them is a Van!'

 

I'm sure that would go over like a turd in a whirl wind! LOL!!

 

Cherry vans with sweet camo sheets and turds in whirlwinds aside, thanks all for the thoughts. We're off for a 4-5 day dirt roads bounce test of everything but when I get back I'll get out the elec/vac manual and figure out wire colors and locations and get cracking, I appreciate the thoughts. Looks like injectors, cam pos sensor, or pcm itself can be interrupted. I like the idea of cam pos sensor or injectors so that the van tries to start but won't run, will deter a determined thief longer.

As well, the van in a prior life was a gov surveillance van that had all the factory wiring harnesses cut into and has splices now but previously had extra bits of wire run everywhere. Beyond that, I've added my spaghetti of **** under the dash and in the engine bay. With a lock on the hood and my cluster**** under the dash, I challenge any would be thief to actually chase all the wires or find what's really going on... There are 4 switches, a gauge, an LCD monitor, a wall timer, a kill switch, four or five power and ignition wires running back and forth between the house systems and the steering column/dash, a couple power taps off the fuse panel for aux fuel pump and the like, all sorts of fun stuff under there, and about 20 zip ties holding things together Between two kill switches and a hood lock and a club, I feel pretty good about safety. Any vehicle can be stolen, but you don't encounter as many well equipped, pro thieves in latin america, it is more a question of stopping the resourceful local when you leave the car parked all day at the end of a dirt road in BFE. And all THAT said, we had zero issues with our Taco in 15 months in Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panamá, and we parked at the end of a dirt road basically every day.

 

Stick to what your good at right lol Good luck with the trip. I hope it works well

 

That's a great looking build! You should be proud of what you have there. For some reason I've always thought those 4x4 diesel vans would make the ultimate camping/exploring machine. That would be a LOT of fun.

Keep us updated on the progress. That sort of stuff is way cool because it's a bit out of the ordinary.

 

You see a lot of class C Ford motorhomes but very few of them are diesels and I don't know why. If I ever got rid of my setup and wanted something smaller, I would want one.

 

Ooh Bill, that's a shame. That's a nice looking van, and for the price, and 4x4 to boot! Wow, that's not bad at all!

 

Couldn't the op buy a tuner set it to no start and remove the switch?

 

Or just hide the switch somewhere it's out of sight....

I'd imagine a high idle tune would be helpful with the added electrical requirements of the camper setup anyway.

 

Seems like the best idea for a killswitch w multiple benefits. Unless this can by bypassed to start the vehicle.

Access to the PCM in a van sounds kinda tight

 

Yeah that's the cheap no start custom tune.
But I would chose the option just incase you did not want to remove the switch every time.

 

Heya all,

Just to loop back on this, thanks for all the input. I'm finally going to go digging for wires today, we'll see how getting at the PCM vs the PCM control relay is and how it looks to cut into the wire bundle and get it rewrapped reasonably. We'll have a hood lock which will help with people getting under the hood and seeing what we've done under there but nonetheless I'd rather not make a mess of the wiring bundles or leave an obvious trail of what I've done.

As far as our build goes, thanks for the feedback, it has been tons of fun and I've learned a ****load, mostly involving how to weld and machine aluminum and what various glues will and will not adhere!

We don't have a custom tuning chip, and don't want one. I don't want more power or anything like that, I just want MAX reliability. No need for high idle, we have 200AH of LiFePo batteries and 270W of solar on the roof, runs our 12V fridge, lights, water pump, water kettle, fan, sundry other things, and all the stereo we can listen to indefinitely with just a couple of hours of sun per day. If we park in a cave we have about a 5 day power supply. We can also charge from the alternator whenever we're driving if we want to but should rarely need to. The 200AH of batteries, being LiFePo, give about 180AH usable and weigh 53 lbs. The same USABLE capacity of AGM would be about 250lbs, physically much larger, and would still cost about 60% as much. LiFePo is really getting reasonable and I would really urge anyone who's going the camper route to consider it strongly. On the panels, we glued down two flexible modules, 21% efficiency, 270W total power, under 9 lbs total weight, only adds about 1/3" vertically to the van and no wind issues with panels standing a few inches above the roof.

Anyways, back to kill switches, I'll let everyone know what I do, it will mostly have to do with accessibility, and thanks again for the ideas / thoughts / etc. Learning as I go...