I recently bought a 21' Connect as my first work van. I'm upfitting it with some shelving (among other things) and I went to pull up a bit of the flooring near the rear doors to see if I could find a third rear D ring bolt hole to bolt the rear of the shelving unit down to. I noticed that the padding/ underlaying insulation under the rubber flooring was wet. It had rained recently, but I don't think that really mattered. The rest of the van seems water tight. The rubber floor liner has always been sticky and I haven't had a chance to clean it yet. I believe that the previous owner was using the van for a mobile car detailing business, and I guess the stickiness is from some sort of chemical/ wax that had been spilled at some point. It's hard to tell if the wetness in the padding underneath is from water somehow or perhaps more of whatever cleaning solution was spilled and made the liner sticky. in either case, I'm not sure what to do about it. I don't know if I can dry it out somehow. Do I need to get a new floor liner? If it is standing water, I am concerned about mold, as I do have asthma and am very sensitive to all kinds of mold. Thoughts?

 

Just to verify, is the van a cargo haul (meaning it doesn't have second or third row seats) or is it the wagon which had all the seats but the previous owner took them all out. Either way if it was used for a mobile detailer, chances are you'll find water in other places. I would take the rubber flooring out completely which means having to take up the sliding door scuff panels. reason I'm suggesting this is that if there's even been a water containment system in the van it prob leaked at some point or spilled out. So once you remove the flooring, look right behind the front seats as there is a hidden storage area just under the extended floor panels. if you have water in that area, best get that cleaned up and wiring harnesses run through there. As for a general wet cargo floor. I'd remove the rear side molded panels and check for the plugs located right at the back of the van in the corner nearest the rear door. if one or most of these have been removed or fallen out.. the previous owner could have used these hole for drainage. Has the shark fin antenna been removed or is there a roof top vent if so, you may have to close these up. The only other thing is that maybe the rubber seal is missing from the tail gate. Just depends on what and how the previous owner did when they ran the hoses/tube to and from the van.

 

Yes, it is a Cargo van. I did take a look a little further at the underpadding. There's a bit of mildew at the very edge, but the rest seems surprisingly clean. I haven't pulled up the whole thing yet, but I suspect that the mildew is going to be confined to the very back edge that I've found already. I have a couple of working theories. One possibility is that the liquid isn't water (possibly a liquid soap of some sort), and therefore wouldn't get moldy, and the outer edge of mold was just from a little bit of water that got in otherwise. Another possibility is that I also put up a roof rack recently. The holes themselves are sealed just fine, but the rack came with these big industrial velcro straps to tie down a ladder. Perhaps I accidentally shut the straps in the doors over a recent rainstorm, and that compromised the weather gasket, and water got in that way. That could explain why there isn't a lot of mold as that would have happened very recently. It doesn't change the stickiness on the top of the floor mat, which I do believe is from a soap or wax spill of some sort. It just makes it a separate issue.

 

Not our van, Not saying your van went to this extreme, but this is a basic idea of what and how the vans are set up, assuming one has the money to set the van up this way. We've never had a water issue with van *knock on wood*

 

That's gorgeous. My setup isn't going to be quite as elaborate I don't believe. I have a single 60" long shelf that I'm attaching packout boxes to for most of my tools and supplies, and I plan on maybe getting a slide out box for some misc. tools on the passenger side, and an inverter to run a tool battery charger and probably most importantly, a coffee maker. I think that's probably the most important thing I want to put in this van. LOL. I've watched dozens of videos on van tool load outs, but it's still kind of up in the air still. A lot of the van's I see are bigger than my Connect, so they have more space for shelving/ storage. The problem, is that I can't even get everything set up until I deal with this floor liner issue. Once I get the floor liner issue resolved, then I can put get the shelving in, and then I can start organizing/ figuring out what kind of space I have to work with.