How about removing a seat or two from the van ??
That should make more space for gear ?
But I guess it will depend on the size of your family !!

I think a box trailer is great, but that brings us again to the idle BOV syndrome or BOV economics.

Not nearly as bad though, because there is no engine and transmission to maintain with a trailer and the licensing and insurance will be much less than a whole nother vehilce.

Depends on the van and bus. most buses are much longer than your original picture and most vans are not that long.

If your wanting a something to live out of then pick a cargo van to start with, that way you don't have to remove any seats since its already empty and doesn't have all the windows that you would need to cover. It will be somewhat stealthy too since a van that looks like it belongs to a plumber or electrician or phone company will probably not have any useful supplies in it.

Dual wheels don't give better traction, they give wider weight distribution. They are fine for pavement but if you need to detour off the pavement for some reason, even if just to make a U turn in the highway then your going to get stuck as they tend to float on top of the grass/dirt/mud/snow and can't dig in to get any traction. Also if your carrying a heavy enough load to need dual wheels then you don't get an instant spare if one goes flat because the remaining wheel can't carry the load by itsself so you still need to pull off and change the tire. And then the inner one is a pain to change and you have the hassel of keeping pressure balanced between the two plus the extra wear becaus on a turn the inner and outer wheels have a slightly different turning radius, thats also part of their off pavement problems too, since they are kind of slipping a little when turning its easy to break traction. Go over to some RV forums and look at the debates between dual and single wheels for people pulling large trailers or hauling large campers. They always try to get by with single wheels rather than dual so they won't loose traction when parking at the campground and once one of them has to go to duals to carry their road weight they get very limited as to where they can park and usually have to have a dry level campground as the duals can't get them up hills off pavement.

I feel more enlightened Eugene . Thanks.

But this one still cant get in my brain


When you go up hill most of the vehicle weight goes on the back wheels. I thought that actually if they are single wheels there is so much weight on them that they will be forced to spin and sink (loose dirt or mud).

Another thing. What is it about duall conversion if duals have all these limitations. There is lots of websites and companies that offer duall conversions. Here are two.

http://www.coachcraftindustries.com/dually.htm

http://www.duallyfendersusa.com/

They spin going up hill because they can't get any traction, doesn't matter about weight if you can't get the traction. Look at people who think their heavy vehicles can stop on ice and take off sliding. A little damp grass is like ice.

The dual conversions are out there for people that need the weight carrying ability for pulling a large 5th wheel trailer or carrying a truck camper or dump bed. My father converted a truck to dual wheels for use on the farm and we had to tow it out of everything so he pulled the bed off of that truck and sold it then put it on a 4x4 truck. You'll notice in winter the big 18 wheelers get stuck real easily or slide and jackknife even with all their weight because the weight is spread between so many tiny patches of wheel touching the ground.

If you don't need the extra weight carrying capacity at the back, it's always better to have single tires.

That way, the back tires run in the tracks created by the front tire. This provides better traction and lower rolling resistance.

If I couldn't get the payload capacity from single tires, and I was going offroad a lot, I'd go up a size in vehicle - rather than get a dually and introduce a whole new set of problems.

An acquaintance of mine bought an old school bus to convert to live in. He specifically chose a school bus, he said, because the states impose stricter requirements on school bus construction than on regular vans and RVs. He wanted the real steel to base his new home on, and he says he got it.

Everything is a compromise, so you have to know what you're giving up and what you're getting. His point of view was that he wanted serious construction for his RV converstion, so he went with the bus. If you get what you need from a bus that you don't get from other vehicles, then your decision is made.

There's SCORES of those for sale right down the road from me at the bus company. They get 8 miles per gallon, they have 250,000 miles of part-time drivers on them, so that's why they are so CHEAP.

That said....yeah, I'd love to have one.

As long as it's an IH.

I'm with OBG on this one: motor homes, 5th Wheels & RV trailers are the way to go for a BOV. They are also great fun for vacationing or if you like, practicing bugging out.