Hey everyone! I have fallen behind on my blog these past 2 months, mainly due to a couple of backpacking trips and lots of editing on Youtube videos. I will spend some time over the next few weeks to catch up on van build stuff here with some added commentary to accompany our videos.
So, what are flares and why add them? Flares, offered by the company Flarespace Flares | Flarespace, allow us to be able to place our bed sideways in the van, giving us room to have a queen size sleeping system and room underneath for storage. Those extra 3-4 inches on each side means my feet and head won't be crunched into the side of the van by sleeping sideways! These arrive gel-coat ready to paint, and so the first thing we had to do was find a local paint shop who could color match and paint these to match our Abyss Grey van. The paint shop did an amazing job, and the painted flares match perfectly!
After cutting 2 holes in the roof for the A/C and the fan, you think this would get easier, right? I was so stressed at the thought of Ryan cutting two very large holes in the rear of the van for the flares, I couldn't even watch him cut the first one out. He did a great job, by the way, and so it got easier as we went along.
Once the cuts were made, adhering the flares to the van were pretty straightforward. But before we did this, we covered the inside of the flare with landau foam and our Duramax tweed fabric that we will eventually use to cover all of our wall panels inside the van. This will provide a nice finished edge once the flare trim ring and wall panel get installed.
The flares were attached with an adhesive provided by FlareSpace. It is essentially a waterproof butyl sealant. We did notice a small leak in one flare after doing a water test once installed, and upon further investigation, we noted that the sealant was kind of thin in that area around the flare trim. Ryan was able to add some more sealant in that section from inside the van and it did the trick.
We let the sealant cure for 3 days per the manufacturer recommendations. One thing to note, we had to wait to do this when it was a little warmer outside so the sealant would cure properly per the manufacturer recommendations. Not something you want to attempt if it going to be below 50F. After 3 days, we were able to remove the painters tape and finish up by installing the windows into the flares.
I love how these turned out, and we finally have some small windows in the rear of the van!
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