hey guys retired at 40 thanks for joining me again on part 4 of the van build today we're gonna put a subfloor in because on our last video we put these
seats in right here some back seats in the Promaster so in order to cover up
the seat tracks I want to make a flush mount floor and we're gonna put some
insulation or something that gives us a little bit of r rating and also
something that'll help with the road noise so the first thing I'm going to do
is get our seats out that we put in in the last video and then all of these
little tie downs that are kind of strategically located throughout the van
all those need to come out so to get these tie-downs out you just need a t40
Torx bit it looks like that some people call them a star bit and then anything
that's gonna get in the way of putting a new floor in so I think that most of
these panels I don't think these panels normally I think they're an option in
the pro master I think usually they look like that with no cover but it is nice
that these panels are here but I think some of them will come into play so we
need to pull them out and then while I'm at it since the next thing I'm going to
do after I get the floor in as I'm gonna put the bed in so the bed is actually
gonna go below this panel I'm going to take this out as well just so I can see
what's behind it so I can see what I need to attach a cleat to for the bed
alright next I'm going to take all these plugs out if you have a pry bar like
this you can get in them sometimes they'll just pop right out sometimes you
kind of have to work with them a little bit
so I've got everything hollowed-out I've got the side panels off I've got the
other little trim pieces off anything that's gonna get in the way of trying to
put a floor in now the next big challenge is going to be cutting plywood
to fit in here and in the Promaster there is a ton of little nooks and
crannies that you need to cut around to make everything fit so most of the time
this would take a better part of a day you'd have to put it in trim a little
bit after you traced take it back out cut it put it back in and see if it fits
trim a little bit more take it back out cut it and just keep doing that process
over and over again but I have a pretty good shortcut to kind of get around that
so my pro master came with this it's a 3/8 inch rubber mat and I'm actually
gonna leave it down instead of doing a some different kind of floor because
it's really really durable it's waterproof it's easy to sweep out but in
this circumstance it's an excellent template so if you look at all of our
really tough corners to cut out again like we were looking at before it kind
of does all this for you and if you wanted to keep the tie-downs in the same
spot all those holes are cut out as well the wheel wells are all cut out it cuts
off right where you want your but your subfloor to cut off but really the only
tricky part is where my seat brackets were yesterday you can see the little
hump on the floor right here I would just have to cut that out and the
plywood and figure out where that's at so if you're curious what the mopar
number of this mat is there it is right there that's what a whole day's worth of
trial and error would look like
so I really want this to fit about as tight as you can possibly get so I just
need to trim off a little bit but we're almost dead on on the first try so that
took me a few times but it's a lot better than trying to do that just from
scratch the next thing I need to do is try and cut out the area for the tracks
for the seat and that's going to be a total guessing game
I've got a pretty good idea where these tracks are at now so now I'm just gonna
drill a few peekaboo holes just along the whole area because even if I'm off
just a little bit it'll give me an idea of where I'm at as far as what I need to
cut out all right it's pretty good I can see exactly where everything's at now
including where the latches go down I can I have a pretty good idea of where
all that stuff is now so I can cut that all out because that's not just a
straight line it's couple more cuts and then test fit it one more time one more
little trim and it looks like we'll have it made that was way more work than I
thought it was gonna be even with the template it was a lot of work a lot of
trimming and a lot of trial and error but I got this first piece in which
should be the most difficult by far so I'm gonna go do the second piece now
it sure is a lot easier when things fit the first time so unfortunately in
the 118 inch wheelbase model you're left with just a small little
piece back here so I'm going to go ahead and cut that piece so we've got the
plywood subfloor all cut out and fitted which is by far the hardest part so now
it's time to take that back out because we know what fits and we're gonna put
our insulating floor in which is this stuff right here and this is a hundred
square feet and it was about $50 and then I've got some foil tape to fill the
gaps at 100 square feet for $50 it's only about 50 cents a square foot it has
an r-value as well as the sound deadening quality to it and it's
flexible so it can go it can bend and fit into little shapes and nooks
and crannies if it needs to
the really nice thing about this stuff is that you can you can actually tuck it
kind of like carpet so you can really seal up stuff it's really gonna help
with insulating qualities it's really gonna help us sound I'll put a link down
in the description for this stuff so this right here is why I love this stuff
it will Bend and it will you can actually push it in and when you get
some pressure up onto it you're sealing that whole thing whereas if you use some
other stuff you'd have little gaps and stuff where air can get in or sound can
get in and I'm not sure if Dynamat and some of the similar products that people
use I'm not sure I know that it will help us sound but I'm not sure what if
what if it has any kind of insulating quality and I know this has both and
this is also about four times cheaper
I'm just going to take a couple small pieces of our foil tape and we can kind
of just place it strategically to hold things in place so they don't move
around and another thing that I really like about this stuff is water does not
affect it it's fine if it gets wet so I'm just taking some extra pieces and
filling in little gaps nooks crannies and then you just use your foil tape and
fill that in it gives you a nice clean look it gives you a nice clean solid
soundproof area and and cold and heat proof area and this is also why you want
to overlap because I'm just focusing on the floor today but when we do these
walls then you have something that's overlapping those walls and will fill in
that dead space as well and then until I figure out how I'm going to finish this
out I'm actually going to wrap this with tape on the bottom if water or dirt gets
on there that what it will actually shed that off the foil tape sticks to paint
really really well
all right and then for our slider door I'm actually gonna take it and wrap it
around the bottom so the same thing it will shed dirt it'll shed water so
there's the finished product nice and clean and smooth let's go to the last
part on this side it's what I want to do why I left space extra up here is so I
can take this and just tuck it underneath the the factory floor mat and
then we can actually we can carpet this or do something else and then put a trim
piece across here gives you a nice clean installation and it gives you an area
that can be sealed off with a piece of trim along here and really give a clean
look a finished look
I'm gonna tape my seam first and that way it'll hold everything in place and
won't move around after I start trying to fit things together I went ahead and
finish this out skipped ahead a bit I figured you didn't need to see the you
saw the other side so you don't need to see this side again but left extra up
here again so when we tuck on insulation back here and then put our panel back on
it'll suck that all in nice and nice and tight I've also decided I think I'm just
gonna do one layer of this because with this all being buttoned up as tight as
it is and then 3/4 inch plywood on top of it and then insulating the walls I
think it'll be plenty and it'll actually line up really nice to give us the flush
flush mount with our brackets I also just got a notification that my van
windows have been shipped so I'm really looking forward to that we're taking
this on our maiden voyage here pretty soon that'll also give me a chance to
see if this insulation and the wall insulation is going to suffice for what
we need it for and if not it'll give us an idea of where we need to button it up
a little bit better so what I need to do now is put the plywood back in I'm gonna
sand it down and I'm going to clean up the edges with a router just on the the
sides that show so in the back here and then on the door side where you can see
it eventually I'll probably put some kind of polyurethane or some kind of
coating on top of it just to kind of keep it clean and then I'll put my
rubber floor mat back in cut it out for the brackets and we'll be good to go
all right got the last piece nice and sanded up and with the with the
insulation and everything fits fits in really tight and really nice now I took
a router and edged this so you have a nice clean seam at the end and then I
also rounded this edge so let's go grab the mat and get that installed and get
it cut for the brackets so you'll notice that I'm not gluing anything down I kind
of want this to be totally modular just like everything else I want to be able
to remove the floor I want to be able to remove the mat I want to be able to get
to anything beneath it if there was ever a water issue or if I need to replace
one of the panels but now that everything's in everything fits way way
better just because of that insulation everything is real real tight and I've
got a feeling it's gonna it's gonna work really well so now all I need to do is
just cut out my access for where the backseats gonna go where it clips into
so I'm just gonna basically have four holes right here and then that'll sit
down flush the rest of it'll be completely flat you can't even you can't
even feel where the track was at so I test fitted the chair (back seat) to make sure that
I only cut out as much as I needed to because the rest of this is all flush
mount now so now the only thing left is to put the chair back in so as promised
I'm going to give you a running total of a van build so far but first I want to
remind you to take a moment to subscribe if you haven't already we're gonna do
lots more van build videos we also do some frugal living some off-grid some
cooking some camping some food preservation and you get to join me and
my family on our journey on our retirement at the age of 40 all so give
me a thumbs up it helps get this video out to people who want to see it and
feel free to leave me a comment I always love hearing from the community if
you're doing a van build your self or if you have any suggestions for me on mine
so from the last video our total was eighteen thousand eight
hundred and eighty eight dollars and this video we had one hundred and ninety
one dollars in materials that's with the sanded plywood you can save a little bit
of money if you don't want to use the same
I would highly recommend going with the sanded and that includes the insulation
and the foil tape also there's a link down in the description below for the
stuff that I used so that brings our total to 19,000 $79 make sure you stay
tuned for parts 5 & 6 we're going to put some windows in here and we're also
going to put a bed in here in the meantime this is retired at 40
reminding you to live life simple we'll catch you next week
you