Van America Custom Van Build Details – Interior Foundation (Ceiling, Walls, Floor, Insulation)
The idea of building out a van’s interior from scratch and fabricating components to fit the curvature of a Sprinter’s walls seems daunting. I admire those that have tackled this project in their own garage. We don’t have a garage with tools or time to tackle a full-blown DIY build. That’s why we were so excited to meet Adventure Wagon at the 2021 Adventure Van Expo in Hood River, Oregon.
Adventure Wagon’s modular interior system includes pre-cut wall and ceiling panels, insulation, sound dampening, and L-track for select Mercedes-Benz Sprinter and Ford Transit vans. You can install it yourself in a few weekends with only a few tools, go with a factory install by AdWag, or you can hire a professional van builder. We chose the latter and hired All Advantures (now Van America) to install AdWag’s Sprinter system, in addition to other features that aren’t standard to AdWag.
AdWag’s standard kit also includes an electrical wiring harness, Blue Sea Systems corrosion resistant USB and 12 Volt outlets, 6 German-engineered LumiCoin LiLu dimmable LED lights, and Maxxair Maxxfan Deluxe. We also chose to add on their Moab Traverse Bed, Mule Bag, and Mini Mule Bag, as well as other components that you can purchase from AdWag directly or purchase separately.
Wall and ceiling panels
AdWag offers different material options for your wall and ceiling panels. You can go with bamboo, black hexa-ply plastic-coated plywood, or marine-grade plywood and ABS-molded plastic covered with Marathon Tweed upholstery in different colors and patterns. When we visited Adventure Wagon in Oregon, they gave us a sample box which we fortunately still had by the time we met All Advantures.
All of our panels are either plywood, ABS-molded plastic, or hexa-ply.
We covered the panels running down the middle of the ceiling with Marathon Tweed in Pewter. We chose the same fabric for the headliner.
We chose hexa-ply for the lower wall panels closest to the floor in the rear, the panels in the rear doors below the windows, and the panel below the window in our slider. All Advantures recommended hexa-ply for the lower panels as they are the most likely to get damaged as we move items in and out of the van. We agreed.
For the remaining wall and ceiling panels, we did not use Marathon Tweed options from AdWag. We instead chose a light-colored material from Nassimi called Moxie in the color Muslin.
We wanted a lighter color to make the van feel larger inside. Due to the amount of time we spend in the van, especially in cold, gloomy winters, we wanted to avoid a dark and dingy space. We also wanted a material that would be easy to wipe clean. Dogs have accidents, especially one that’s aging. Bruce Leroy was almost 17 years old when we committed to our new van. We want pee, poop, and throw up to come off surfaces without excessive scrubbing, special tools, or hard-to-find cleaning solutions. Also, humans have accidents too. We’ve definitely had coffee explode inside the van which managed to leave a mark on everything.
6-month review: The wall and ceiling panels don’t show any signs of shifting, bending, or warping. The only weak point I’ve found is in the driver-side flare panel. We sleep with our heads within the passenger-side flare and our feet within the driver-side flare. If I press my feet against the driver-side flare panel, the panel collapses around the sides and bottom of the window. This does not happen on the passenger-side. It’s rather solid. It’s almost like insulation or some other supporting material is missing from the driver-side.
Also, I’m really appreciating the Nassimi Moxie material which covers most of our panels. It easily wipes clean with a wet paper towel. At one point, we noticed a blood-like substance that appeared to be soaked into the material. It came right off without using a cleaning solution. While we wanted a light color to keep our space bright, I was still worried that noticeable stains would form. Nothing so far. I’m waiting to see what happens when we spend a lot of time in Utah red dust.
Flooring
Adventure Wagon normally offers RRE-Global’s Smartfloor as an option, but it wasn’t the right fit for us. We had no intention of including passenger seats which is the main purpose of the Smartfloor. Plus, as All Advantures cautioned, the L-track in the Smartfloor is not comfortable to walk on. I was also concerned about our little dog’s paws getting caught, and if any sort of doggie excrement ends up in the track, it would be tedious to clean. So, we ended up with Lonseal’s Lonwood Peforma in Morning Fog.
Like Nassimi Moxie, it was another material that appeared easy to clean, mostly impenetrable, and would hide scratches well. The thickness also felt like it would be kinder to our feet, bones, and joints.
We knew what the floor felt like, but picking the color was a little scary because we couldn’t get a hold of a sample. We made our choice by looking online where colors can be deceiving. We felt a little better after seeing a lighter version in Field Van’s booth at the 2022 Adventure Van Expo in San Juan Capistrano. We hoped for the best and were super happy when we took delivery of the van.
6-month review: I still love the color, minor scratches blend well, and the floor wipes up easily with a wet paper towel or Clorox wipe. We have yet to puncture through it or leave any sort of gashes. However, I would say the Lonseal Lonwood Performa flooring is not as resistant to surface scratches as the flooring in our 2019 Revel. I’m really the only one that probably notices them at the right angle and amount of sunlight, but I couldn’t detect a single surface scratch in our Revel after three-and-a-half years of ownership. Our Lonseal flooring also feels grittier under my bare feet with the daily dirt that is a normal part of van life. Regardless, I would install the same flooring again.
Insulation and sound dampening
Pre-cut 3M Thinsulate wall and ceiling insulation is standard with an Adventure Wagon kit, as well as Hushmat sound dampening. Floor insulation is not, but All Advantures installed some for us since we spend half the year skiing and snowboarding. They also included additional wall and ceiling insulation beyond what the AdWag kit provides for extra warmth in the winter and cooling in the summer.
6-month review: It’s hard to do a fair comparison of our new van to our 2019 Revel. We have experienced -20 degrees Fahrenheit in both and our Revel was warmer. However, we chose more and larger windows in lieu of more insulated walls in our new van. We don’t want to feel like we live in a box and decided to prioritize our view. It’s especially nice when the weather is crappy. I also like windows for safety reasons. If there are strange noises outside, I want the ability to see what’s around us from all angles. Regardless of all the windows, our new van keeps us comfortable down to roughly 0 degrees Fahrenheit with help from our diesel heater. Once temperatures dip lower, we start manually insulating parts of the van depending on wind, moisture, and how low the mercury goes.
L-track
L-track is included with AdWag’s kit and was one of the biggest draws we had to their product. The L-track instantly creates a modular system, because you can attach and remove features on the fly such as a bed platform, storage, electronic device mounts, and even hammocks. There are so many possibilities. The L-track is bolted to the A-frame of the van, so it can handle the weight of components you attach to it. I’m unsure of the actual weight limit, and I haven’t seen any documentation that specifies limitations. But as an example, the max weight our L-track currently holds includes a bed platform with rails, a mattress, and our physical weight which is roughly 300 pounds combined. Maybe call it 400 pounds total.
We chose black anodized L-track at an extra cost instead of going with the default bare aluminum. We wanted to match other black trim found throughout the van, and we just like the look more.
Our hard-sided galley cabinet and mule bags are currently attached to our L-track, so we can rearrange the upper half of our van at any time. Our bed platform can also be moved up and down the L-track, but we haven’t actually tried this out yet. We need to do some rearranging under the bed soon and the process will be easier if we raise the bed when we do. I’ll provide an update once we get around to it. We also have D-Rings and straps for securing items like our telescoping ladder underneath the bed. And my favorite purchases for the L-track were the following products from 67 Designs for mounting our iPad. I love being able to move it to any location along the L-track for the best viewing angle depending on if I’m lying in bed, cooking dinner, or hanging out in our dinette space.
6-month review: We haven’t moved anything major affixed to the L-track yet such as our bed or overhead storage, but I can say that all the heavy items feel very secure along the L-track. Nothing feels loose or rattles
Overall thoughts on the Adventure Wagon kit after 6 months
We’re still enamored with AdWag’s modular interior system. I look around at similar products entering the van life market, and I haven’t found anything yet that I would’ve rather had. Not to say that other systems are subpar. They just aren’t the right fit for us. I think the AdWag kit will allow us to modify the interior of our van with minimal effort as our lifestyle changes over the 5 years or more that we hope to own this van.
