After my inaugural van camping trip to Galveston Island State Park, I was chomping at the bit to install the beautiful ceiling boards I picked out for Zatara. I found these gorgeous 12ft wood boards with grey grain throughout at Lowes and they had been teasing me from the garage floor for months. At this point in the build, though, several steps needed to be accomplished before those beauties would be installed. One of those steps was to finally bite the bullet and cut a hole in the roof of the van so the MaxxAir fan could be dropped in, wired, and installed. I won’t lie to you; this part of the build made me so incredibly nervous. Too many things could go wrong, so I had been putting it off for as long as I could. You may have noticed in the pictures from the post written on staying at Galveston SP that the ceiling was still raw metal with wires exposed and no insulation. I could no longer put off cutting this hole or else the van build would be at a permanent stand still.

On a birthday trip back to Galveston, I was able to spend some time with one of my oldest friends since kindergarten, Smitty, and reconnect with my high school sweetheart, Derek. While Smit and I speak regularly and see each other often, Derek and I hadn’t seen each other in over 15yrs, and that’s just too damn long! I was sitting out on the balcony of the condo waiting for the guys to show up and watching for Smitty’s car when I heard her… Derek decided that our first time to reconnect in almost 20yrs needed to include a day cruising in a classic American hotrod. A 1950s gasser!

Derek has always been a car guy, and he used to take me to car shows all the time where we would spend weekends drooling and dreaming over classic muscle and hot rods. I was in the surf at dawn and cruising car shows by sunset. My teenage years were a perfect groovy blend of flip flops and rock and roll.

There could not have been a more perfect way to reconnect with someone after all this time than to see them 100% in their element. The three of us cruised the island in that 1950 gasser as people turned their heads, drooled and dreamed and reminisced every time Derek popped the hood, gladly moved tables out of the way so we could pull right up to the very front of the bar, and begged us to burn out at every stop light.

Before the night was over, I showed the van to Smitty and Derek, discussing my plans for her and apprehensions about the next step in her build out. Derek, having built out a few vans himself, kindly offered to cut the hole in the roof for me, so we made plans to do just that a few weekends later.

Mother’s Day weekend, I found myself back on the coast hanging out with my guys and the task of finally cutting the hole in the roof of the van. After another car show on the island, we made our way back to Derek’s and he got straight to work. I am forever grateful for his willingness to help with this part of the build out. We covered as much of the interior as possible to protect it from the sparks and metal pieces that would soon be flying around the van. Derek made his measurements, checking them twice, and then went for it! In a matter of seconds, we could see sunlight from the inside of the van.

Once the hole was completely cut, and the raw metal sanded, we prepped the fan and readied the sealant.

The local RV dealership and service center near my house in NETX recommended using self-leveling caulk, however, we found this to be extremely hard to work with and very messy. Having the hole in the roof of the van caused the caulk to just keep running as it was trying to find a barrier so it could stop and level itself out.

In addition to the caulk, we also used a bonding tape that was recommended on another van build site. This was a great tool, and I would definitely use it again should there ever be a need.

Despite the mess and slight frustration with the caulk, the fan fit perfectly in the cut hole and was sealing up nicely.

I left the van under Derek’s carport overnight to dry as it was starting to rain. We wanted it to get as dry as possible before heading home the next day as the forecast predicted my entire 5hr drive would be a very wet one!

My drive home was completely leak free, and I spent the whole 5hrs thinking about what would come next once I arrived back in East TX. I was one step closer to finishing this build. One step closer to finally getting to install those beautiful wood ceiling boards!