Gutting the Van | Ford Transit Van Conversion | Van 01 Log 07

10 min readNov 29, 2020

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So you decided to buy a passenger van instead of a cargo van like me? Great! Before you can start the painful process of building, you have to tear out the ford build. Here are the steps I took and some things to consider before starting.

This panoramic shot actually turned out okay, and that is pretty neat.

Considerations

Taking it out means you will have a bear metal van left and will need to cover it with something. In some tight turns and corners, this is frustrating. So consider keeping some panels if you like them.
If you are buying a used van, there will be dirt under all the panels and floor. Taking it apart will require some cleaning before you can start building.
Panels, seats, rails, and parts can be sold to people who had some brake or were involved in an accident. Keeping them in good shape when removing them could get you some cash back!
Service. If you remove light or panel and cover it with something else, remember Ford might need to get in here and do some service at some point.

Floor

I am a taller human, so removing the floor to insulate and lower it was a necessity. Where the stock floor is about 1.5 inches tall, I ended up finishing my floor with:

.25 inches of minicell on top of corrugations
.5 inches of birch plywood on top of that
.1 inches of vinyl fake-wood on top of that

That gives me a good amount of room back, about .75 inches!

The floor can be cut down the middle and taken out in halves.

This is a dull pocket knife. I recommend not losing your razor blade.

Save the 2 halves for templating purposes for your next floor! Very useful.

Here is what the underside of the 2 halves looks like when you fold them up!

That's it! Just a bit of gravity holding the floor down.

Note: A lot of builds I have seen just tear the carpet off the floor and put vinyl or wood flooring on top of it. This is probably a huge time saver. But if you want your floor insulated or you want it lowered, it's not an option!

Ceiling

This is the easiest part of the whole removal. Just be careful of the wires and lights. Also, be careful not to yank on any airbag cables or airbags. You will know if you yanked on an airbag because you will be in the hospital with a broken arm.

The ceiling comes out easy. I started with my rearmost panel.

The ceiling panels feel so much bigger when they are down.

Consider keeping the venting and air conditioning pieces out of the panels.

Then tie the lights back up to deal with them later in the build.

I am writing a whole other log on how I dealt with these lights.

Super easy! Enjoy this. Not many parts of the build or tear down are this easy.

Wall Panels

This part is just tedious. Just pull hard. I recommend getting a small set of auto trim removal tools.

Here is the link to the set I used.

https://www.amazon.com/MICTUNING-Removal-Molding-Fastener-Remover/dp/B07917TDL6/ref=sr_1_7?crid=2EIIDS0TRDKGZ&dchild=1&keywords=auto+trim+removal+tool+set&qid=1606674873&sprefix=auto+trim+remo%2Caps%2C232&sr=8-7

Now just pick a panel and pull. You will notice some panels have a dependency on others to be removed. So as you go, you will see a pattern.

Pick a panel:

This image might be hard to look at because my seat is lying flat on the ground.

Pull it off:

Remove any plugs or fasteners that did not come along with it:

Be ready for your hands to be sore for a day or two if you remove all these panels at once—lots of prying and pulling.

Good luck!

Rear Doors

These were the easiest to tear out. So easy, I did not take photos. Just pull the panels off. Here is a photo of how I framed it after the fact!

Side Door

I did not remove any side door paneling yet. This is because it gets incredibly close to the van when it opens and closes. It will take some more serious planning to frame and insulate and panel and still allow it to close. I recommend looking at the gap area while opening and closing it to plan yours. This article will be updated if I finish the door!

Note: My door handle broke when I first got the van. This was an easy $40 fix to get the part from ford. If you want them to do the work and fix it, how you build around the handle probably matters. Consider this!

Steps and Entry Ways

Often people will keep their step and entryway finishes. These people are smart.

These are complex shapes you have to make yourself.
It will save you a ton of time.

I did not keep mine!

I wanted to lower the floor because I am tall.
I wanted to extend the sliding doorstep to create more surface area.
I wanted to extend the rear floor usable area as well.

I could not find any photos of the step itself. But just look at yours. Here is the removed step.

You can see below why I removed it and did my own. Much smaller step, but more floor surface area! The step is still 8 inches deep and 18n inches wide. Plenty to get in and out safely!

Here is my extended floor area with my custom step.

For the rear, you can see how much the step trim took up. About 8–12 inches or so!

the white area in the back was all covered by the rear step trim

I removed it and extended the floor as far as the back doors would allow!

I was able to go almost an inch from the rear doors, and they still close fine!

And I later finished it with some metal stair trim.

The metal stair trim really helps with the durability of the vinyl on the entryways.

Warning: depending on how you do the rear trim and floor, you can cover up the spare tire release spot.

Bottom Line: I am happy I removed the step trims in the sliding door entryway and the rear door entryway. But it took a good amount of time to measure and plan and build. Keeping them is always easier.

AC and Heat Ducting

The rear heat comes out from under the passenger seat and circulates through the floor vents. Rear AC comes out from the back AC unit and circulates through the ceiling vents.

Here are the upper AC ducting and vents on the passenger side of the vehicle. It is the black ducting, not the green airbags and silver airbag charges.

Here is the ducting on the driver's side of the vehicle.

The ducting bridges on the back of the vehicle above the rear door opening.

See the black ducting bridge in the back ceiling of the van.

And here is all the ducting removed except for the main black “chimney” where it starts.

See the black chimney in the back right of the van.

Below you can see the rear ac in the bottom left with no ducting or main chimney attached. This is how I have been running it with no issues!

You can also see the load of shit I have pulled out of this van.

Here is a photo that is not mine from a van that is not mine of how the rear AC can be finished. It is super well done. I cannot find where this image is from! I will give credit when I find it!

Not my image. Not my van. Just some ideas on how to make the rear AC finished.

I kept the rear AC and rear heat but removed all ducting. It will still come out of those places and fill up the van just fine.

When removing the floor, you will notice the heat ducting will come up. I pretty much did the same as I did for the AC. Just removed all the ducting and let it come out from the source. You can see the large black strip of ducting on the floor that routes it to the floor vents.

Note: The floor vents are rectangular cut-outs. The plus-cross-like cutouts are for the seat rails attachments.

this as a template saved me hours on my custom floor install

Bottom Line: The van is small, 200 cubic feet give-or-take a depending on your model. When you fill this up with cabinets, beds, bikes, and clothes, there is not a whole lot of volume to cool or heat. Removing the ducting has really not made any difference in how the van heats/cools.

Note: My upper ducting was disconnected at 2 spots when I removed the ceiling. So it was already NOT doing its job. I would have never known unless I removed the ceiling.

Seats and Seat Rails

Keeping all 12 seats would not work for my build (and I can’t imagine a build it would work in). However, having a safe and seat belt outfitted seat can help take more than just the driver and passenger. Consider keeping the jump seat (the 1 seater by the door), or more. I kept the entire back row, which is 4 rails and 4 seats split into two 2-seaters.

Removing the seat rails takes some torque! It is a T35 or T30 star bit. I also purchased an extendable breaker bar to get them out. Very helpful!

Here is the jump seat by the door. Let’s remove it!

The bolts holding the seat rails go into nuts that ARE fixed to the van. This is great news. You don't have to worry about getting under the van to catch the nut or getting a friend to hold the nut under the van. Very happy when I learned this!

You will notice the bolts are very rusty. They protrude from the bottom of the van and live outside.

Likewise, the hole they came from can be a bit rusty and dirty as well. It's not the van or the van frame, though, just the nut.

In my case, I wanted to keep a few rails that were extensions of others. To remove them, I unbolted the one I wanted to remove and kicked it with a hammer to dislodge it from the other one. It will come free.

You can see how they are layered together.

Now that the layered space is free, I filled this gap with a washer and bolted the one I kept back in! A little trial and error in the home depot washers section will find you the perfect diameter and thickness for this gap.

Then snug it up!

You will notice you see through your van where all the holes are revealed. Make sure to cover these up. The original bolts easily cover the bolt holes. I also added some anti-rust compound and paint to keep them safer in the future. There are some “thumb” holes along the rails as well. Cover these up with rubber, flex seal tape, or something because water will find its way into the van.

Below you can see the bolt put back in with a super slim washer that is stainless steel. Again, this is some little trial and error in the home depot washer section. This will keep out any dirt and grime that was getting in before. I also added some Rustoleum to the bolt and hole to keep it rust-free for the future.

Above, you can see the small thumb hole that is revealed by the seat rail being removed. Below you can see the waterproof seal tape I used to cover it.

Here is a preview of me finishing the floor around the seat rails that I kept! Read my article on the floor and floor insulation if you want to see how that went!