Auxiliary/ House Battery system

 I finally decided on what electrical plant to install in the van. I have decided on 2x6V golf-cart batteries wired together in series to make a 12V battery. This gives me 260 Amp hours, overkill for what I will need. More info about wiring AUX batteries in Series, and Parallel.

1500W Inverter

Also we added a permanently mounted 150W solar panel on top. We have been watching movies and running the new ARB fridge nonstop since installing the system. With the stock dometic fridge out of the way we have tons of extra storage space.

Picture of broken shift lever. I drove around shifting with a pair of vice grips for a few days. If you drive a syncro I highly recommend sourcing a spare shift lever from a 2wd vanagon. My thoughts are the syncro levers wear out due to the added abuse of the Low Gear.

Life in the van

From July '12 to March '13 I lived out of my van in Utah. The winter was cold, however with kind friends allowing me to park in their front yard and plug into some electricity I survived with a space heater. It wasn't bad. I made some insulation for the windows out of some thin insulation sewn into fleece fabric squares cut to fit the windows on the van. It kept me much warmer, the addition of a front cab divider also made it extremely stealthy, and nearly impossible to tell anyone was in the van with lights blazing watching a movie.

 It was extremely dry running a heater all the time. I purchased a personal space humidifier to restore balance to my environment. Cold winter with lots of great powder days.