VAN BUILD: Walls
Once the wall insulation was in, we turned our attention to the walls themselves. This was one of the trickiest parts of the build, with many head-scratching moments as we tried to figure out how to create a flat surface within a very out-of-square, bumpy metal box.
We debated many strategies for approaching this and in the end, went with 1/4" finish ply. For the lower walls, we decided to attach the panels directly through T-nuts installed in the pre-existing holes in the van body and let the panels be inset, exposing the metal ribs. For the upper more visible portions of the walls, we furred out the surface everywhere except the bed, where we inset the panels to allow for a critical extra 2" of width.
Prior to installing the wall panels, we used Thinsulate to insulate the funky shapes of the van — inside the structural ribs, in weird corners, and in the hollow portions of the doors. This process was pretty enjoyable — the Thinsulate was very easy to cut with scissors, and I used a metal coat hanger to feed it through the ribs. The rear wheel wells were insulated using EZ-Cool insulation, adhered with spray adhesive.
After insulation was complete, we primed all the 1/4" plywood sheets to make our jobs easier down the line. Next we installed cross-nuts in the factory holes of the van, adding more holes where we needed additional connection points. We would highly recommend buying this installation tool — it made the installation process much easier and we were thankful we spent the money for it, especially after installing exactly 100 cross nuts in various places in the van!
Next up was making templates for the lower wall panels, which Dave crafted out of thick construction paper. We then cut the panels, located and drilled the cross nut holes and did a test fit. We set these aside for their finish coat of paint.
Furring out the upper walls was an exciting adventure. We used some leftover cedar 2x’s Dave had in the shop, so we didn’t have to seal them. We aimed to create as flat a surface as we could, with bump-outs for the window and either side of the bed. The bump-outs were built as units that were then installed, with the outer layer of 1/4" ply coming in last. Before doing the final install on these pieces, they received two coats of Behr white paint on the outside face and we sealed the back side to prevent moisture absorption.
The final task was to attach the plywood to the bump-outs and furring strips. This gave us a bit of heartache, because we ended up using a nail gun instead of screws. It definitely provides a cleaner finished look, with fewer fasteners scattered throughout, but it means if we ever want to change anything or repair something behind the wall we’ll be prying it off — a process it probably won’t survive. But nail gunning the walls on definitely took very little time and allowed us to finish the build on our planned schedule! Where the panel attached to the area around the window, we used snap-head screws to attach it so we could snap our curtain in place down the road.
In a few places, we used automotive carpet to tackle the odd geometries of the van body. This was primarily around the back and sliding doors, where the metal would have been prominently exposed. Installing the carpet, while tedious, was pretty straightforward and we found ourselves wishing we had used this in a few more places instead of trying to making the paneling work.
We learned a very important lesson during this process: do NOT paint the backside of a wall panel with anything glossy. If it touches metal, it will squeak as you drive down the road. We learned this with sinking hearts as we backed out of the driveway, but it didn’t impact anything structurally and the squeaks have diminished significantly as the paint cured over time. If we were to do it again, we would avoid painting these surfaces with semi-gloss and we would likely use a piece of underlayment to prevent the surfaces from touching in the first place.
