Ford E350 Uhaul to Race Hauler conversion - Low Budget Totter Home Build

Also most people don't like the a rv dinette bed combo, they tell me its not all that comfortable and would prefer a couch. So I punted and will install a couch.. one problem I ran into is finding a couch small enough to get into the area and threw a 24" door way.

Problem solved (i Think) I found a 74" W couch for 169.99, but its short.. so I'll cut off the legs and build a base from Overhead kitchen cabinets to raise it up to normal tall people height. This will also add a little more storage..

RV Panel is up and glued into place. I also used the plastic snap pieces between the planes for a clean finished look.




Upper crown molding is 9" chip board with carpet glued on. Each piece is 4ft long and attached with screws to a wood block that was fastened to the box. This way I can remove it to run my lights or to install speakers.





Between the doors I had a funky size gap that would have been difficult to finish, so I wrapped some carpet and screwed it in.

Total cost including the truck and mechanical repair is around 4k so far.


I bought CHEAP carpet with padding already attached (.64 cents) sqft from Menards. It was thin
enough to roll around round corners yet has a little insulation and sound deadening properties.




The thicj trim board is nothing more than OSB with the carpet stapled to it. The reason I need to
do this was the corners are metal so to cover them I need wider wood to reach over to the box area.




I already have offers .. lol, if I can talk my wife into allowing me to buy a NASCAR rig this one will
be sold asap.. lol

It was a nice Febuary weekend for Michigan so I spent a few hours
finishing up the back of the van.

I finished up the end cap on the drivers side boxes along with finishing
the aluminum trim around the boxes. I also mounted a dry erase board
on the wall for race times, lane assignments and general info.





Also finished up the floor trim with that "plastic" molding and found a great
(REALLY GREAT) Deal and a Flexsteel leather RV couch that folds out into a
bed. I wanted something with more brown, but I could not pass on this..
and the wife likes it so I'm happy



Now my one negative.. I removed some wrap material over a bump in the
outside. I knew it was damaged, just did not know to what extent.
The FRP was cracked and never sealed allowing water into the wood rotting
it out. I just cut the fiberglass layer back to dry wood and will dig out the
rot, much like a transom in a boat.. should be pretty simple, but will add some
time onto the project.

*The white patch was done by U Haul, not the best but I can work with it.

Getting closer to the summer race season so I must keep moving even though the weather sucks ... :/

* ran into a problem I never thought of.. My small kitchen area cabinets are to big to fit into the standard 24" RV doorway. So I was going to use overhead cabinets and build a toe-kick, but I used a Bathroom vanity instead. The vanity offered draws witch IMHO offer more storage.

I found this on Craigslist for 100 BUCKS! Score.....

I looked at building a counter as my width is only 20" instead of the standard 24" but after a quick trip to Menard's picked up a *Blem 4ft counter top.. 16$ :smokin:




I had to saw cut off the backsplash and will finish it clean at a later date.




It's filling up quick...

Yesterday at the salvage yard I picked up a new RV window for only 50 bucks! .. I need to start watching my spending to come in under 5000.00 for the project.



I hung the window in place, outlined the inside (or smallest ring) and cut.. pretty easy.







Window slide into place with little effort. One thing I found is most RV windows don't have finish trim rings inside when bought off eBay or the salvage yards.

So I bought some nice button head screws and drilled the outside aluminum lip and attached the window from the outside.



The inside trim ring was made by 1 x 3 wrapped with a tan fabric. The corners are cut at a 22.5 degree angles to mimic the rounded of the windows.



Finished project for Saturday..

*Figured I should post a finished picture and update

The Uhaul stickers have been removed and the truck box was painted a gloss white for now. I used a "roller" to paint the box.. seriously. The FRP board on the box has a texture, so a fine 4" roller worked perfect. I used a Rustoleum machine paint mixed with some harder/gloss agent and reducer... Turned out pretty great!

The front U-Haul doors I just sanded, spray primed and spray painted with dupli-color fleet white. I taped her at the body line for a nice break in the white.

Truck pulls great, with the 10 cyl. engine you would not even know its behind you even up hill. I locked the cruise at 60mph and seem to average 9-11mpg and I'm good with that.