Sensors, Bulkhead, Road Trip & Hill Climbing

As previously discussed, we replaced the radiator and fan right before dragging our race car and trailer the 200 miles north to, once again, attend the Empire Hill Climb. The van was like new. So smooth and cool and it never missed a beat. Such a different story from last year and, as a bonus, we didn’t almost run out of fuel this time either. We did have one little...

Maintenance & Event Prep

The last time we updated the RALIVAN we had just had it rustproofed. Well, we are happy to report that in the 9 months since we had that done it hasn’t gone rusty, yet. We haven’t driven it much either. Perhaps only a couple of hundred miles. You guys are keeping us so busy buying wheels (thanks) that we can’t get out to events like we used to. We’ve been...

Rustproofing Our RALIVAN

Our RALIVAN hasn't seen much authentic action since our last road trip. In fact about the only two outings it has had were to get rustproofed and also a visit to the (not so) local Mercedes dealer. Before that all went down we took it round the corner for a new windshield. Not that there was anything wrong with the old windshield; it just wasn't glued in! We had been...

Interior Lights & Heated Seats

The cargo area in our RALIVAN has always left something to be desired. In our previous RALIVAN we had a 55W halogen spot light on the rear corner. Fortunately we had salvaged that before it was sold so we set about installing it in the new van. We tapped it into the existing interior light circuit so, to avoid overloading that, we changed all the lamps to LED first. This...

Cosmetic Upgrades, WRC & Empire Hill Climb

You may recall we previously replaced the Freightliner grill with a Mercedes grill because we are pretentious/didn’t like all the chrome. We thought we’d be subtle by installing a black Mercedes emblem on the new grill but it looked too plain. Then we realized what it needed; a white star! We whipped out the Plastidip left over from refinishing the wheels and now it matches those and the Hella lights...

White Wheels, Weigh In & Rally Lights

Once the blue panels of the new livery was applied the black BRAID wheels seemed to disappear from view. They looked good on the white with black accents theme but vanished into the blue. Rather than get them refinished, and incase we were wrong, we decided to Plastip-dip them instead. Four cans of white and one can of “Glossifier” were quickly acquired from our local big box hardware store and...

Ralivan2 with our 911

With our new livery applied to the RALIVAN we couldn't resist the temptation to takes a load of pictures, especially as the weather was so nice. Here's some with our 911. What a beautiful couple. And with the 911 and trailer. Race day dress rehearsal! We rented space at M1's Cars and Coffee and invited some friends along from the Woodward Rally Cars (WRC) group.

The Ralivan Gets Lights & A New Grill

No RALIVAN worth it’s salt would be seen out without lights and mudflaps. This iteration came with decent mudflaps from the factory so we just have to add four lights we got from rallylights.com. Unlike those on the previous RALIVAN these are all the same size, though they might be a little small. Fortunately, just like the old van, this one has two big bolts that hold the bumper cover...

We Make The RALIVAN faster!

We make the RALIVAN faster with an age-old proven mod. We applied stickers. If each one adds 5 horse power this should be good for about 220! You may recall our previous RALIVAN had our now traditional livery on so it was obvious this one was going to get the same treatment; especially considering the base color is white. We couldn’t wait to see it next to the 911 with...

Ralivan2 Gets New Seats (Scheel-Mann Vario F Model)

We got some new seats! We didn’t really need any but the OE ones were a bit dirty and had some small holes in them. They didn’t seem as comfortable or as well built as the ones in our old RALIVAN and we love the seats Scheel-Mann USA imports from, of all places, Stuttgart, Germany; the same place the van was made! Scheel-Mann have been making super high quality seats...

Trailer Brake Control and Bigger & Better Things

Last time we updated the new RALIVAN we wired up our new hitch. However, we didn’t do a thorough job because we never fitted the knob for the brake controller. It all works but we just never found a spot for the remote knob on the dash. Well, this week we took care of that. We wanted to put it where we could see it and reach it while driving,...

Wiring Our New Hitch

We may have mentioned before but our new RALIVAN is of such basic specification that we don’t believe it has any factory provision for wiring in a hitch or brake controller so we purchased the works from eTrailer. Surprisingly, despite the hitch living outside the van, obviously, the instructions called for running all the wiring inside the vehicle and were very specific. We forged ahead fueled by curiosity and spent...

WE GOT HITCHED!

No, not that, for towing things, like our trailer, which we use to drag our cars to events. Well, we used to in the before times. There’s a chance we’ll be able to do that again so we thought we better be prepared. In the previous blog we removed the step bumper so we could get the height of the hitch ball just right. When we put the livery on...

Commissioning the RALIVAN, Dog Box and More!

We said we were going to install a “dog box” in the last update and here it is. We hope you’re not disappointed but did you really think this was getting a dog box transmission? This sits between the seats and came out of our old RALIVAN. The previous owner of that van built it so his dog could sit next to him on road trips. Hence “dog box”. It...

Is It A Ralivan Yet?

Well, wheel get to that but perhaps the most important question to answer is: Did it still fit through the doorway? Or, can we get it out of the building? The answer is “yes and no”! As you can see from this picture it is now a lot tighter. The roof actually rubs on the weather strip on the way through the doorway and you can hear it inside the...

Will It Still Fit?

Or more accurately, will we be able to get it out of the building? What are we talking about you might ask. Well, we may have inadvertently made our new van a bit taller and it barely fit through the garage door aperture when we drove it into the building! All we did was install new wheels and new tires. The tires are the stock size: 245/75-16 and so it...

Will it fit?

We always assumed our new van would never fit through our 8’x8’ overhead door to our workshop and were somewhat ok with that. Until it arrived! We soon realized that getting this van ready to use would be a whole lot easier in the middle of a Michigan winter if it were inside. We would have to bite the bullet and get the door enlarged; or would we? We had...

BEHOLD, OUR NEW RALIVAN!

We love our Sprinter, affectionately dubbed the RALIVAN but we felt it was time for a newer, bigger and shinier one so let us introduce you to RALIVAN2. This is a 2015 144” wheelbase V6 Freightliner version we found in Taxes. Literally a rebadged Mercedes. It has 113,000 miles and seems pretty straight. It is a very basic specification which is how we like them. We bought it just before...