Exterior

Roof rack and awning

The roof rack is from Remora, a Quebec company making modular van gear. We’ve been happy with it — good quality, well designed, and the modular system meant we could sort out the awning problem that nobody tells you about when you’re buying a Transit.

Here’s the thing: the Transit has a very long ‘forehead.’ The roof peaks well back from the sliding door, so the most roof racks sit about 18 inches behind where the door opening ends. Mount an awning in the default spot — which is what most people do — and you’ll get shade but there’s a pretty big gap on the right hand side of the door that still gets rained on. We’ve seen a lot of Transit builds with awnings in the ‘default’ position and it puzzles us — have they not been rained on yet?

Remora makes a rack extension that pushes the awning forward far enough to actually cover the sliding door. The awning ends up poking out a bit further than looks quite normal, and you have to watch for low branches, but the doorway gets much better coverage. Our awning is a Fiama manual awning (no-one needs electric)

The roof rack also gives us a clean mount for the solar panels, and as a side benefit it’s what makes the van look like something other than an Amazon delivery vehicle.

Roof deck

Remora fabricated custom powder-coated aluminum deck panels to our spec. They cover about two thirds of the roof, with room for two people easily and three if you’re friendly.

It’s tall up there and there’s not much to hang onto. We’ve talked about making a sign: “this bar, two drink maximum.” But watching the sunset from the top of the van is one of those things that genuinely doesn’t get old, and we love the deck.

Rear door and ladder

We have an Owl Vans spare tire carrier on the rear door with an integrated ladder — that’s how you get up to the roof. Some people put a side ladder on the van, which is reasonable too. We went with rear-integrated partly because it’s less immediately obvious that you can climb it. Not actually more secure, just slightly less of an invitation.

Suspension and tires

Done by Wilderness Vans in Lethbridge — a full custom van shop close to Calgary that also handles upgrades and accessories. They installed the Van Compass Topo Stage 4 kit: new front springs and spacers, extra rear leaf pack, adjustable rear shocks, roughly two inch lift.

The handling difference is noticeable in a way we didn’t expect. Body roll is essentially gone. We didn’t think the stock handling was particularly bad before, but handling is something I think about a lot less nowadays.

The tires are KO3 all-terrains. They did the Dempster without complaint. Fair warning on the road noise: it’s genuinely surprising. The first few drives we thought something was wrong with the drivetrain — a high-pitched whomp whomp whomp at highway speed that doesn’t go away. That’s just the KO3s. Quieter all-terrain options exist, but they are probably slightly worse off-road. We’d choose the KO3s again.

The lift, and especially the tires, also change how the van looks. It goes from cargo van to something a bit more “grrrr” and that’s cool. I spent half the time on the Dempster trip taking portraits of the van looking rugged.

Brakes

We haven’t upgraded the brakes and so far we haven’t needed to. Our approach is engine braking — manually selecting a lower gear on the way down a mountain pass and letting the drivetrain do the work. It takes some getting used to; the engine runs at high revs and sounds like it’s unhappy, but modern cargo vans are designed with this usage in mind. It’s very effective and it keeps you out of “brake fade” territory that fully loaded vans can find on long descents.

If we were planning a Mexico or South America trip — lots of mountain passes, hot weather, heavy load — we’d think harder about a brake upgrade. The least intrusive option is a pads and rotors swap: same size hardware, better components, meaningfully improved braking without major surgery. Going to bigger discs and pads is a much larger job and considerably more expensive. We haven’t felt the need for either. At just under 9,000 lbs loaded, with engine braking as a regular tool, we’ve been comfortable. If that changes, we’ll do something about it.

What we haven’t done yet

Lighting: mostly summer travel, 2021 Transit headlights are fine, we haven’t needed more. Light bars are an option but they add road noise. Maybe ditch lights at some point.

Front bumper: the Transit’s stock bumper has a significantly worse approach angle than the Sprinter’s, and aftermarket replacements fix that while adding spots for a winch and lights. We haven’t been anywhere the approach angle actually stopped us. Van 2 might get something — probably not a full heavy bumper, maybe a nudge bar, which is tubular aluminum that helps give you some protection and mounts lights without the full bumper replacement. I think honestly, unless you’re going into fairly gnarly off road situations regularly, you don’t need this. We’ve been to a variety of BC rec sites with fairly lumpy roads and haven’t worried about our approach angle so far.