Or you could build it all down from the ceiling if you wanted a challenge.
At this point I already have the basic floor grid installed, and some of the early structure (wheelwells, bathroom walls). Time to get the floor in. And again, this was happening during the same time as the solar and electrical installs, all within a week or two of leaving for Utah and NM.
I would be following the "Dave Orton" design for the flooring 'system'. (you can find his work at the Sprinter or Transit forums) It started out with the plywood already laid down, and then the 80/20 grid secured on top of that. From there it would be 1" of polyiso insulation, a sheet of 1/8" plastic to spread point loads, and then some 3/8" heavy rubber mat on top.
It all started off by making my custom death blade. The blade in the utility knife didn't stick out far enough to cut the 1" thick foam. Holding the loose blade by itself wasn't going to work. So... vise grips.
Working away on one of the cut lines. Even with a new blade I had to do a bit of 'sawing' motion at times.
Not shown is the reuse of the cardboard templates that I saved from doing the plywood earlier. Made use of those for the wheelwell shapes. Two main flooring grids were set to be 4' wide, to allow easy use of a full width sheet of insulation, plastic, and flooring. The middle section is narrower and the rear was broken up to even smaller areas for other reasons.
Finally went out and bought a 'plastic blade' for the saw. Much easier to work with than a standard wood combo blade. Still had to be careful not to melt the ABS plastic too much.
Foam fit into the first section, ready for test fitting the plastic sheet.
Had to do this flooring section in two pieces to be able to slide things underneath the wheelwell structures.
First layout of the rubber mat. Its quite heavy, and I know it won't stay nice and black for long. But we have found it is very good at keeping things from sliding around. That has proven quite handy on several trips.
Most of the wheelwell structure would be floating above the floor, but for whatever reason I wanted this corner to be fully supported. It would have the weight of the inverter and then the countertop above, so not a bad idea. Just made it a challenge to cut the flooring around the support post.
On the bathroom side all three layers slid under the structure. Had to loosen things up a bit to do so, but that's part of what I like about the 80/20 stuff, you can do that, and then just put it back.
Patchwork around the support post on the right wheelwell.
Putting the batteries into their final location.
Hard part done with all the curves and fitting around the wheelwells, now on to the easy stuff. You can see the full width 4' front flooring section, and then the narrower middle section (which turned out to be a nice width for the fridge structure, almost sort of planned it that way)
Cutting the rubber sheeting. This went just fine with a fresh blade in the utility knife.
Had to trim the corners to clear the brackets. I made these brackets with the holes offset. The plan was to have the plastic and rubber sheets sit on top of them. Didn't quite work out that way, had to trim the corners of the plastic sheet as well, but the top rubber mat fits nicely into the corners.
Plastic ABS sheet, installed.
Working on the smaller pieces of flooring at the rear of the van. I was initially going to leave this as one piece, but wanted the center bar to provide an anchor point to tie down dog crates, bicycles, or whatever. Then I found the rear edge piece needed something attached to it to resist rotation when being stepped on. So... three small flooring bits at the rear.
Its starting to look like something. now.
Flooring in, bathroom walls up with temporary sheeting, temporary countertop in place. Nearly ready for the first big road trip. Far, far, FAR from finished, but functional enough to manage.
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