So Much To Do, Where Do You Start?
On January 6th 2017 we bring home the van. We searched CraigsList and eBay for a few weeks with no luck. Everything listed seemed to be really beat up and or they were WAY out of our price range for what they were. Finally we found someone who hade two different Sprinters. Both were retired FedEx Express Vans. 2005 158” wheel base and the high roof. The biggest model they made for that generation. Although it had 197k miles we seem to think that it would be fine considering that it was a fleet vehicle, meaning all regular maintenance should have been done. Keyword “should”. Going off of that theory, I’ve talked to Sprinter mechanics and they say with regular maintenance these vans will last a million miles. So we went ahead and bought it for $8,000.
We were stoked to have finally purchased the van, and couldn’t wait to start ripping everything out to begin the build. Being an old FedEx Van it had these massive fold down shelves inside. Before even purchasing the van we had them posted on Craigslist to try and have them sold before we brought the van home. Unlucky for us that didn’t happen. We couldn’t even give the shelves away! Being so large we couldn’t just take them down because we had no where to put them. Finally we had someone that wanted them 2 months later. In the process of selling those shelves we were very limited to what we could do to start the build. We started by peeling off the old FedEx decals that were covered in white paint. Boy oh boy was that a mission. Hours of using a heat gun, multiple razor blades and trying different chemicals to see if one would help out. We eventually removed all the paint and decals. Next came the paint job! Yes we did it at my house, in the driveway, with a roller!
Click here to see how we went about getting our paint job!
