savannals

Spring has sprung. Which is awesome! And it also means that we've had to do a lot of yard-work-type-stuff of late. I did manage a small projectlet in the van this weekend, though!

Back when we installed the seat swivels, we learned (by way of breaking both of them) that the covers over the seat belt buckle assemblies on each seat did not clear the base frame as the seat was rotated. Here's what they were covering. I assume that it's probably a good thing to keep this stuff covered, and probably for reasons beyond the aesthetic.

It turned out to be fairly easy and affordable to get replacement pieces for these, so I ordered new ones. But they still needed to be modified to cleanly move through the rotation path.

After a bit of a break from van things during which we worked on Planet Comicon things, we're back on it! This weekend: prepping for and beginning insulation.

I started out by removing the wood rails along the sides of the cargo area. Don't need those when you've got (plans for) actual walls! I also wiped the walls down with alcohol (not the drinking kind) to remove stuff on the wall that might interfere with sticking things to it. Got a lot of grime off!

I also decided that I wanted to try to take the wiring that was clipped to the top of the wall and re-route it inside the channel behind where it was clipped. So I started loosening that, which you can see above.

In a major development in the get-things-out-of-our-house-and-into-the-van front, we put the solar panels on the roof this weekend!

I am very glad that's done and I really, truly hope we don't have to mess with the solar panels for a long time. Getting those up there was not easy.

And achievement unlocked: first installation of neat stuff!

Today we added seat swivels to both seats in the van, so they can turn around when it's parked. Melinda May might be pretty fortitudinous compared to your average passenger vehicle, but she's on the small side for a van. Seat swivels will add more interior space when parked, while also adding seats for us to hang out in if the weather is unpleasant outside.

The seats in the van are bolted to a base, which itself is bolted to the floor of the van. We removed the seat from the base: