Since my "Delica" no-go, I am looking at high top cargo van to make into an RV. I want something to live in for 2-3 month periods while I travel, vacation, and generally be useless and semi-retired. Sprinters have been my main focus... another consideration I had was a small shuttle bus or short bus. Beyond the solar stuff, I have almost all of my conversion material already on hand.. and of course, an obligatory thread will follow to show the build as I do it.

It will be just me and 2 under-30 lb dogs. Cooking is a big deal for me, not eating out... as well as bathroom and shower comforts. I am not digging campers because they don't seem like they could make it through an accident. I even considered an ambulance... that would take care of the inverter issue immediately.

The one thing I do know is it has to have a diesel engine, and I am weighing the l5 and the 6 from Mercedes vs big v8 diesels like the 7.3.

Any ideas are welcome.

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Seems the Nissan cargo van is a full frame strong monster that is tall and wide and would be less costly to repair than a m/b based sprinter

an old gmc like ateam had

I ended up going with a 2006 Sprinter 2500. It has 213,000 miles and a nice oil leak..otherwise she's pretty good. Let the wrenching begin. (Thread to follow)

Should be cool to see progress.

I have been looking at short busses (not for my dysfunctional family) to convert to what you're looking for. This site has both the high top vans and busses occasionally: https://www.govdeals.com/in...ngType=&category=94H

The short busses seem best for what I want but the tall vans seem to be popular. I like to check out the cop cars and other areas that interest me.

Here are a couple other surplus sites that may interest you: http://www.publicsurplus.com/sms/browse/home This one has fewer busses and vans but it seems to list better equipment.

This one has a ton of stuff: http://www.govliquidation.com/bu/locations/ I didn't see any vans or busses but it is interesting.

Good luck,

Richard

Cool, thanks for the links and encouragement. Work begins in earnest on Sunday with valve cover gasket, trans fluid flush and a new door latch. After that I start the conversion. Thread coming soon.

quote Originally posted by tbone42: Cool, thanks for the links and encouragement. Work begins in earnest on Sunday with valve cover gasket, trans fluid flush and a new door latch. After that I start the conversion. Thread coming soon.

I didn't see your post that your already had the van. Since I am looking to converting a short bus, I stumbled across this site that shows a humongous long bus conversion but it has some good ideas: https://tinyhomebusconversion.wordpress.com/

There seems to be a lot of people with this same idea on the web and the info is very good. Please do post a progress report rom time to time.