A must follow for everything that you need in absolute detail. A master of making things simple and some great SketchUp Sprinter van designs

Check out Greg Virgoe’s YouTube where he has some 69k subscribers who glean all manner of nuggets when it comes to converting a Sprinter van.

Arguably my biggest inspiration as to the feasibility of going it alone on a Sprinter van conversion powered by the contributors on YouTube.

Greg speaks in a clear way throughout his videos and rarely dips into technical jargon.

Several key takeaways from Greg Virgoe videos include:-

FITTING RIVNUTS

To be totally honest, I had never stumbled upon a rivnut. Just the sheer manliness of the word rivnut meant that I just had to spend 4:41 minutes to get to the depth of understanding what this vital tool that was missing from my locker is.

A rivnut is simply genius and definitely my way forward to supporting my bed frame. Somehow I feel more in control of drilling the right size hole – be it an M3 or right through to the M12 – and the slapping one of these bad boys in.

Great video that explains it really simply and a gentle introduction to some Greg Virgoe’isms including:-

  • Raw metal edges – Greg references this throughout his builds and is a clear lesson to ensure that I treat any raw metal edges with Primer
  • Watch iron filings with your life  – seen this across quite a few van conversion videos when people don’t clean off their metal filings after installing ventilation or windows. Any leftover swarf can just sit on the surface and start to penetrate the paintwork leaving a rusty mess months later

Fitting Rivnuts - Sprinter van conversion tool tips from Greg Virgoe

INSULATION PINS AND NO GLUE

Haven’t seen many if any other Sprinter van conversion videos where they use self-adhesive insulation pins. Think this is genius. Saves on spraying loads of nasty glue that makes any future repairs pretty tricky as the cellotex will be stuck to the ceiling. Slight concern about how well these pins would stick to any sound deadening material on the ceiling and they would become right rattling buggers against the raw metal?

For more on self-adhesive insulation pins skip to 7:30 minutes

Sprinter Van Conversion - Insulation by Greg Virgoe