Ram Promaster Work/Travel Van Build - Ep.4 Installing Windows

Hi, I'm Mike with House on the Mend, and in Episode 4 of our ongoing series where we are building out this work-slash-travel van on a Ram 2500 high-roof platform, we are going to be installing windows. So let's get started. We're going to be installing a total of four windows into our van, two up front here right behind the front driver and passenger seats, one of which being on the sliding door, and then two on the back, on the back doors, and those slide open and closed for improved ventilation when we're camping or sleeping in the van. I sourced my windows from Van Windows Direct, that is an American company, and I chose them because they had great ratings from other videos I'd watched, and then also because their website is very easy to navigate to input your exact make, model, and year of van, and they'll show you a list of all the various windows that they have for your van. Now, the majority of the video is going to be focusing on how I installed the rear two windows. Since those are a little bit more complex, I thought I would focus my attention on those, and when it came time for the two front windows, really everything is pretty much the same, with the exception of a few key features that I'll point out in the video. So let's get going. So I've ordered a total of four windows from Van Windows Direct. The two larger windows came in their own individual packaging, and it looks like this time the two back windows are bundled together, maybe taped together, but in two different boxes. Now I'm not sponsored by Van Windows Direct, I paid for these with my own money, but I must say the packaging for shipment is amazing, so you have no fear if you buy from them. All right, let's unbox it so you can see what we get inside. These look like the little release tabs for when you slide open the window. And then within this box is another box. All right, there they are. There's one. All right, it's in perfect condition. All right, so the overall measurements, left to right and top to bottom, are the exact measurements of the square area where the window is going to go. So there's no worry about that, it's going to line up perfectly. One thing I did want to point out, however, is the actual viewing area throughout, through this window, is from here to here and here to here. And that translates to right here in this opening on the back door itself. So here you have the slider opening and closing, you've got the plastic frame going around the slider, and this is the actual viewing window. And what that tells us is we're going to have a tremendous amount of surface area around here for the adhesive to adhere to. Now that roughly translates to this outline on the inside of the van. So that shows us that we have about an inch and a half or so on either side, and then about, man, two and a half inches or so. Yeah, almost. Top and bottom. So why is that important? Two reasons. One, if you had an idea where you wanted to put some sort of trim piece in here that you're carpeting or doing to make up for this gap that is naturally between these two panels, then you would know now, going into it, you're going to have the freedom to design something like that. Secondly, let's talk about these gaps, because you may not be able to see it so much here, but there is quite a bit of gap between this metal piece and the actual outer wall. And I see a lot of videos where they were just using this as their trace line, and they were cutting all the way around here, and it made me wonder how they were using that little bit of to make up for these two gaps. So instead, what I think I'm going to do is go around maybe a half an inch all the way around and leave that space. And then when I put the black trim all the way around, I think it's going to look a lot cleaner than trying to make up for that gap. Oh, look what just came in the mail. 28 gallon water tank. That's a later episode. All right, here is our outside cutting line. So just like we talked about, I did three quarter inch on this side, and then the rest of the area I went ahead and did an inch all the way around. And for the corners, I just used my compass. I set up on this line and then came over and set up on that line. Like that, and was able to draw that rounded corner on all four sides. So now I am going to drill holes to mark this outer perimeter line. I only need a couple along the long runs just to, so I can transfer this line on the outside. But I'm going to pay real close attention to the radius on all four corners so that I can transfer that line very easily on the outside of the van door. Might as well start with the sharpest drill bit possible. Nice. So the jigsaw is going to be my method for cutting these rounded corners. The jigsaw could do the whole thing, but one of the byproducts of this blade cutting is that it makes kind of a jagged cut that needs to be filed down a little bit. So I'm only going to use the jigsaw for these corners. And instead of taping the whole thing, let's remember that the window's coming all the way here and here. So any minor scratches that you get, you can just cover with the same primer that you're going to put all the way around this bare metal. But if you're sensitive about that, I'm just putting some tape right on the jigsaw pad itself, and that way I won't get or I'll minimize any scratches that I get. But for the field, I'm using this guy. This is a double cut shear. And this little guy inside has two blades like scissors on either side of it, and it makes a nice clean cut. And the byproduct is this little spiral. So it's not very good at making corners, but it does straight lines like a boss. All right, I got all four main fields cut. Now I just have the corners. So I put tape on these two edges all the way around so that this panel doesn't flop too much when I'm cutting. And also, more importantly, it doesn't fall down and scratch the paint. So now I'm going to get these corners cut with the jigsaw. So the jigsaw works fast. The only difference is, one, it's constantly throwing little bits of metal all over your sleeves, your hands. They're even flying into my neckline. And then the cut is, to the feel, is more jagged than the double cut shears. That's really smooth. That doesn't need any attention with the file. But this area here, I'm going to run with a file. All right, let's do the rest and then we'll take it off. Okay, like I said, those double cut areas are nice and smooth. So I'm just going to address these corners. All right, inside and out gets wiped down with acetone. All right, I'm going to use some Rust-Oleum black paint and this little dauber to go all the way around this bare metal. The black paint, I had it on hand and it also just helps me to see where I've covered. All right, once this dries, we can put the trim all the way around. While we're waiting for it to dry, I'm going to do the exact same steps to the other door. All right, this Rust-Oleum is dried, so now we can put in the trim. And they call it U-Channel. I got this off of Amazon. There's two different types that I have. I'll leave links to both. This one is very smooth and then the other one was a bit more robust, like harder to open and stronger and had like a semi-reptilian kind of texture to it. So I'm going to use that up front because it was a longer run. But all we have to do is just slide this right over the metal. This one goes on real easy. You won't even need a mallet or anything to get it to seat. The other one is a little tougher. At least it seems like it. All right, now before I cut it right here, you can see that it's kind of moved. So I need to hold it down and get it all tucked in. It seems to stay pretty good if you kind of move it back on itself. Theoretically making it like a wider semi-circle. All right, this stuff right here is real easy to cut. I'm just going to use some tin snips. Nice, look at that. All right, now it's time to apply the 3M primer on the metal of the door. And then the windows came with a different 3M primer product. So it's an adhesion promoter. So I'm going to use that on the windows and use the the other stuff here on the metal. And then we'll be ready to put down the adhesive and attach a window. So for reference, the bag I bought was 15 feet of this U-channel trim. And I've got, what, about two feet left. So doing both these windows with the standoff I did took about, what, 12-13 feet of this U-channel. All right, so I'm using this 3M single-step primer. It's the recommended product for doing this kind of work. I'll leave links for it in the description. It comes with this incredibly long little warning label that has about two boxes worth of instructions. And basically, you need to shake it for 60 seconds to make sure it's thoroughly mixed. You need to make sure that it's within 41 degrees Fahrenheit to 104 degrees Fahrenheit to apply it. So we're actually pushing it here today. It's like 104, 105, but we're inside with no direct sunlight, so we're going to do it anyway. And then it says allow 10 minutes to dry. So let's get that off of there. I shook it. There's like a little something in there, almost like a paint can. Hear that? Wow, it dries really fast. Now we're good down to this line, so I'm making sure that I don't get a runny spot going down there, otherwise I'll have to clean it up with acetone or something else. Let that dry for 10 minutes, and I'll prep the windows with the little pads that were included with that. All right, so it's been 10 minutes. I got these cool suction cups off of Amazon that I'm using just to do a last-minute check to make sure everything's good and that none of the primer got around the hinge. And I did the same thing with this window over here, and it was too close. You could actually see the primer, so good news. All it takes is a little bit of acetone, and this 3M primer comes right off. All right, we are ready to start putting on the adhesive. For the adhesive, I'm using Sikaflex, S-I-K-A-F-E, excuse me, F-L-E-X-P-2-G. It is easily punctured up here with a screwdriver, but just wiping off that screwdriver with a paper towel made my hands a mess, so you definitely want to wear rubber gloves. They also come with this little screw-on nozzle, so you do not need to buy one. That was a mistake I made on Amazon originally. All right, something else you're going to definitely want for your comfort is an electric caulking gun. This one happens to be a Ryobi. I did a review on it. It's really good, but RIDGID makes them, Milwaukee makes them, just about every big tool manufacturer makes them. So, whatever your battery platform is, definitely think about getting one of these. It'll make you much more comfortable. All right, moment of truth. Let's see how big of a bead we get at about a halfway setting. It's really hot here right now, so I'm going to start right along the side. Oh, this isn't runny at all. It's just a big, thick, gooey bead. Now, make sure you don't have a dip in the middle for water to collect. Go straight across with a gentle decline. Yeah, all right. That just about used an entire tube, so hopefully that's not too much. Grab the window with the suction cups on it. Moment of truth. I'm just slowly pressing it in. I'm looking at this line up here to make sure that's good. Down here looks good. I pre-loaded this tape. Probably put more on. How great were those suction cups? There's all kinds of them on Amazon. I'll leave a link to the ones I'm using. They're pretty robust. I think they're, rather than plastic, I think they're like aluminum. They're nice. All right, so I'm watching this line across here to make sure it still looks nice. Our reveals on the other side are good. Yeah, everything looks really good in here. I'm just kind of squeezing just to make sure we're really squeezing out that adhesive. Okay, same thing for the next one. All right, all done. So, I actually did make it through both windows on one tube of this caulk. I think I should have been a little more sparing on the first one. When I got to the last one, there was a little spot about right here where I actually had to take off the nozzle with my rubber gloves, push the caulk through to get that bead to go all the way. But, if you use a pretty decent amount, one bead all the way around, you can make it on one 10 fluid ounce tube of this Sikaflex. So, I got everything taped off, and I went to the front seat and looked through the rearview mirror that I installed. It didn't come with one because it didn't have any windows before, but it's going to be really nice to see out the windows. More importantly than that, because it's so far back and so high, it's going to be great to have ventilation here because, as we talked about, there's going to be a bed right back here in my garage with all my tools underneath. So, that's going to do it for tonight. I'm going to back this into the garage, close it down so it's not in direct sunlight as it dries, and tomorrow morning we're going to get started on the two big windows on the driver and passenger side. Let's put the finishing touches on our window. We have first the clasp, and the piece with the rubber backing that's flat goes on the outside because we're obviously going to want to have control of opening and closing it from the inside. And that just kind of clamshells together right there in the two holes. And then it comes with two screws, and you'd probably be fine to use a screwdriver, or excuse me, like an electric cordless drill or something. I don't want to take the risk of stripping those threads, so I'm just going to do it by hand. There we go. Locked in place, squeeze it, push that way to open. Pretty simple. I didn't point this out, but I wanted to let you know. So, if water gets in this track here, there is a channel here, like a weeping hole on windowsills, and this channel will feed water down and out the bottom of the glass. So, this little guy you see here goes all the way down to the bottom of the glass, and that's a pretty neat feature. Wouldn't you know it, the water softener just kicked on over there. It's very noisy. So, this screen is going to go right here, and it has an adhesive backing on three sides because obviously this side is basically open, and then it's got a little rubber guy here, maybe, so it can press against the window and not scratch it. So, I took acetone and I cleaned these three sides where the adhesive strips are going to go. Oh, and it's velcro. Look at that. Well, that's cool. I was wondering how they were going to do that. If you ever wanted to remove it. That was easily the worst backing wax paper I've ever peeled off of an adhesive strip. I guess no one can be completely perfect, and parts suppliers and things, and Windows Direct must not be immune to those struggles. All right, let's stick this in place. Easy. Every time I've ever had two surfaces of velcro stuck to something, it always eventually fails, and with the heat here in Las Vegas, I wonder how long before that falls off. If any of you have come up with alternate methods for securing this that make you feel a little bit more comfortable about bombing down the road at highway speeds, let me know in the comments. And it actually has a very thin cover layer of plastic that you can peel off. Now that looks a whole lot better. A couple quick ways to differentiate between the driver's side window and the passenger side window. There's really not a lot of markings on the windows themselves. There's a little emblem that for Van Windows Direct, and that tells you which way to orient it, you know, top and bottom. But which one is which, as far as driver's side or passenger side. Now, if you happen to still have the plastic on with the stickers, there's a very long code that ends in R on this one and an L on this one, so left and right. But then the question becomes, well, is that me standing in front of the car looking at it, or is that me sitting in the driver's seat? It's actually left for driver's side, R for passenger side. But what if you took the plastic off and now you don't remember which is which? The absolute best way to confirm is measuring the window because they're slightly different. So this window for the passenger side is the exact dimensions of the rectangle on the sliding glass door, and that is 26 and a quarter by 55 and a quarter. Whereas on the driver's side, since it's not an opening door in my particular model, it is a quarter inch longer at 55 and a half, and that's how you can tell. It was really tempting to just do the same thing as yesterday and measure off an inch from where the two pieces of metal join on the inside of the door, but I wanted to be sure, so I took the exact measurements of what you can see out of the window and plotted those on the door here. And I'm so glad that I did because it revealed I'm going to have less than an inch going all the way around. So I took a look and the gaps between the outer panel and this inner trim are very minimal on the door, the side unlike the back doors where it was quite a bit of gap. So I tested the different trim that we're going to be using today on two pieces of a piano hinge, which are roughly the same gauge as this metal. This is a thicker metal than the back doors, probably because it gets so much work being open and closed. And this trim, which has like a metal inside that's going to keep it really tight against the the two pieces of metal, fits just fine. It doesn't splay out too far where I think it would obstruct the adhesive. So that's the plan for this door. Now on the driver's side window behind where the girls are going to sit, there is spray foam insulation from the original manufacturer of the van, and that has created an unacceptable gap between this rigid panel and the outer panel. So I'm not going to be able to sandwich those two together with the u-channel. Instead, I am going to come out where you see these drill holes and cut there. And then later on, I'll come in with a razor knife and I'll figure some way to disguise this area. Other than the things I pointed out, the rest of the drilling and cutting and filing the corners has all been pretty much the same. Man, getting this u-channel around the inner and outer piece of metal was a real chore. Inside of this rubber is this thin metal sleeve. So when it was getting around corners and other spots where the metal was a little bit more separated than other spots, it was flailing out a bit. So I actually went around with a pair of channel locks and just compressed that metal sleeve around all the edges where it was flailing out like this to get it nice and tight. And that worked really well. But if you're going to do two pieces of metal, maybe see if they have u-channel that's just like a 16th of an inch wider in the gap. And that might make your job a lot easier because this took me about an hour. So the rest of the install, like I figured, for these two front windows was the same as the back. So I won't bore you with all those details, but what a difference these windows have made. You know, I'm surprised that I really like, from the driver's perspective, the side windows up front here the most. I really thought the back windows would give me a lot more comfort that I could look out this rear view mirror. But as you see here, there is a huge pillar, for lack of another word, right in the center between the two windows. And that's where most vehicles that are in the lane behind me seem to sit. So those windows really haven't been as helpful as I thought they would be. However, the mirrors on this van are so good that it's great to be able to just give a quick peek over either shoulder and have that peace of mind that there isn't a car right there in any possible blind spot. Now as I said up front, the biggest pro so far to installing these windows is the driver experience with the increased visibility. I also have to say my daughter and her teammate sat back here when we recently went to California for a softball tournament, and they were very comfortable. They love these seats. If you haven't already, please check out that video where I put in these seats. That was the previous video. But they really enjoyed being able to see out the window in front of them and also have the window behind them for natural lighting. Now we've actually had these windows in for about a year, and I haven't had any leaks in them through rainstorms and also going to a self-serve car wash and pressure washing the van. So everything about them is awesome with the exception of the rear screens. I had a premonition that these weren't going to work out, and sure enough, they didn't. It took no time in the Las Vegas heat for both screens to get soft around the adhesive and fall off. Thankfully, one fell off at a job site, and I was able to find it right there before I left. And this one fell off in our gravel rear drive area, and you can see there's still gravel stuck to it. I haven't put them back on. I figure I'll wait and do that once we're actually going to go camping and open the windows. In the meantime, just like when you partially roll down the front windows, I've opened those back ones for ventilation. We don't have a lot of bugs here in Las Vegas, but I was very disappointed in the adhesive that came with these window screens. So if you found this video helpful, will you please give it a thumbs up? It really helps the channel. Also, please consider subscribing. I'm working really hard to put out good quality content. We've got a lot more tool reviews and episodes of this van build out to come. It's free and easy. All you have to do is log into your account and just click subscribe, or if you're on Rumble, follow, and it's really helpful. Now in the description below, I'm going to leave the website for Van Windows Direct. I'm also going to leave links for all of the various tools and adhesives and primers that I used on this project. Full disclosure, those will be Amazon affiliate links. So if you click on them and end up making a purchase, it won't cost you a thing, but I do get a small reward at the end of the month. And for example, it's right around the cost of the primer and the Sikaflex and the suction cups that I used for this project. It's very helpful and I appreciate everyone who uses my links. So before we go, we've been keeping a running tally on the cost of this van build, as well as how much weight we're adding since this Ram 2500 has a payload of around 4,000 pounds. So the rear windows cost $613. They're smaller than these windows, but there's a lot more complexity there, so they're more expensive. The front windows were $441. Now that's with tax and shipping. They added about 80 pounds, but when you consider we cut out around an estimated 10 pounds of metal, I'm putting it as a total of 70 pounds added to the vehicle. The U-channel was the stuff we put in the back that had the slick surface. And then the trim lock is what they call this tougher stuff here that had the metal insert. Those were $14 and $21 respectively, and I'm guessing they added about five pounds. 3M primer, I ended up using two vials of that. One for the back and part of the front, and then the other one for the other part of the front, and this window over here. So that was a total of $40. I needed three tubes of Sikaflex P2G when it was all said and done. That was $30, and that stuff's kind of heavy, so I'm guessing about five pounds added. And then the suction cups aren't really still here on the van, but since there's such a specific tool for this install, I'm counting them on the price. They were $22. So that gives us a subtotal of $1,181 for this particular build and 80 pounds in weight. When you add that to episodes one through three, then we get a total of $3,361, 549 pounds added. So in our next video, we're climbing up onto the roof and installing 700 watts of flexible solar power. Until then, thank you for watching!