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Jeffrey Souder Posted: Apr 20, 2007 11:58 PM	Sprinter Foam RIg I am just getting my ducks together to get into the spray foam business, specializing in residential insulation. Has anyone ever thought of or heard of a foam rig built into a Dodge Sprinter. I figure rather than upgrading my truck and buying a trailer, it may be more cost effective to just buy a Sprinter and outfit it, or have it outfitted. Than I would have one vehicle to letter, and drive to all jobs. I was considering a Glascraft Guardian, with a underhood compressor system, to provide all the air needs, and a separate gas generator. With a 5000 lb capacity, in the 3500 series, it should be able to carry most of all of what I would need. Any thoughts or comments appreciated.
Robert Dossett Posted: Apr 21, 2007 12:23 AM	The sprinter is a great rig, but you may be kinda tight once you start getting everything in there. Glascrafts new mobile modular would help you out a lot, as would some well thought out day tanks, so you wouldn't have to try to deal with drums in the confined space. My rig is a 16 foot cube, and its tight with my compressor, generator, mini III some drums and 300 feet of hose, workbench, tool box, ladders now and then, scaffolds, you get the idea. 4 more feet and my truck would be "comfortable". With a small truck like a Sprinter, you get great economy, maneuverability, and it looks cool too. Just plan the fit out of you rig very carefully before lay out the cash.
Posted: Apr 22, 2007 11:58 AM	I wonder if you could outfit a sprinter with a PTO powered generator. That was the generator is under the truck and eliminates the need for on in the box. Then you could get a compact tankless compressor like a Curtis and a Guardian proportioner and I could see it being doable. I doubt you would be able to carry more than a set or two though, but I suppose you could tow a small open trailer with more materials if you needed to! Tim Granite State Spray Foam Co.
Jeffrey Souder Posted: Apr 22, 2007 04:01 PM	Actually I was going to do the compressor as driven by the motor. An underhood 35cfm compressor, with an air tank mounted in the back. No too many list them for the Sprinter though, so I may have to have it custom fabricated. I figure with the turbo diesel and the good fuel mileage, it may use less fuel to idle to truck than run a separate gas powered compressor. I am also researching the PTO generators too, and if I could run everything off of the Sprinter engine, I could have lots of room in the back, and actually may be able to go to the shorter wheelbase van then, and cut the weight of 2 separate gas motors from the generator and air compressor.
Edward Brassington Posted: Apr 22, 2007 11:30 PM	I too have thought about using a sprinter van for a foam rig. However there are some problems with the sprinter. About 18 months ago I had a machine designed and built for cleaning air ducts, the machine was installed and was to run of a split shaft PTO. A split shaft PTO is installed directly in the drive line, by shortening the drive shaft and mounting the PTO directly behind the transmission. The PTO powered a hydraulic pump , which in turn ran two different hydraulic motors that ran the equipment. At that time the only sprinter available in North America came with an automatic transmission. The idea was that the Pto would be engaged, then place the transmission into drive, which would now direct the power to the pto operated equipment. Everything worked well in first gear, but unfortunately we could not get the transmission to change gear to drive the equipment at the right speed. It turns out that Sprinter van has an anti skid device built into the design. There are sensors on the wheels that require three wheels to be spinning at the same speed. If not then the sensors will not allow the transmission to change gear. I also believe the same problem exists with a standard transmission except the engine is restricted from accelerating. This anti slip system is a great idea for driving but it stopped this project. We knew it was a computer program that was preventing the design from working except neither Chrysler nor Mercedes would give us the new computer codes to override the anti slip. I had some top People working on this project for almost a year, had it worked we were going to sell the design for any on board PTO equipment. If you could find a sprinter from 2005, it may work, apparently the new computer system was installed in the 2005 model, the old computer would have allowed us to do what we were trying to do. Now in regards to the compressor, there is a company in British Columbia that builds an under the hood compressor system, it is designed for tire trucks etc, I believe they put out about 150 cfm so they are significant units. They are similair to an alternator in appearance and are belt driven. I don't know if there is enough room under the hood for this set up. I would suggest that if you want to pursue this sprinter set up with a PTO unit, get the dealer involved as they may have the ability to get the right computer codes that you will require. I would be interested to know how this works out for you.

Author

Comments

Jeffrey Souder

Posted: Apr 20, 2007 11:58 PM

Sprinter Foam RIg

I am just getting my ducks together to get into the spray foam business, specializing in residential insulation. Has anyone ever thought of or heard of a foam rig built into a Dodge Sprinter. I figure rather than upgrading my truck and buying a trailer, it may be more cost effective to just buy a Sprinter and outfit it, or have it outfitted. Than I would have one vehicle to letter, and drive to all jobs. I was considering a Glascraft Guardian, with a underhood compressor system, to provide all the air needs, and a separate gas generator. With a 5000 lb capacity, in the 3500 series, it should be able to carry most of all of what I would need.
Any thoughts or comments appreciated.

Robert Dossett

Posted: Apr 21, 2007 12:23 AM

The sprinter is a great rig, but you may be kinda tight once you start getting everything in there. Glascrafts new mobile modular would help you out a lot, as would some well thought out day tanks, so you wouldn't have to try to deal with drums in the confined space. My rig is a 16 foot cube, and its tight with my compressor, generator, mini III some drums and 300 feet of hose, workbench, tool box, ladders now and then, scaffolds, you get the idea. 4 more feet and my truck would be "comfortable".

With a small truck like a Sprinter, you get great economy, maneuverability, and it looks cool too. Just plan the fit out of you rig very carefully before lay out the cash.

Posted: Apr 22, 2007 11:58 AM

I wonder if you could outfit a sprinter with a PTO powered generator. That was the generator is under the truck and eliminates the need for on in the box. Then you could get a compact tankless compressor like a Curtis and a Guardian proportioner and I could see it being doable. I doubt you would be able to carry more than a set or two though, but I suppose you could tow a small open trailer with more materials if you needed to!

Tim
Granite State Spray Foam Co.

Jeffrey Souder

Posted: Apr 22, 2007 04:01 PM

Actually I was going to do the compressor as driven by the motor. An underhood 35cfm compressor, with an air tank mounted in the back. No too many list them for the Sprinter though, so I may have to have it custom fabricated. I figure with the turbo diesel and the good fuel mileage, it may use less fuel to idle to truck than run a separate gas powered compressor. I am also researching the PTO generators too, and if I could run everything off of the Sprinter engine, I could have lots of room in the back, and actually may be able to go to the shorter wheelbase van then, and cut the weight of 2 separate gas motors from the generator and air compressor.

Edward Brassington

Posted: Apr 22, 2007 11:30 PM

I too have thought about using a sprinter van for a foam rig. However there are some problems with the sprinter. About 18 months ago I had a machine designed and built for cleaning air ducts, the machine was installed and was to run of a split shaft PTO. A split shaft PTO is installed directly in the drive line, by shortening the drive shaft and mounting the PTO directly behind the transmission. The PTO powered a hydraulic pump , which in turn ran two different hydraulic motors that ran the equipment. At that time the only sprinter available in North America came with an automatic transmission.

The idea was that the Pto would be engaged, then place the transmission into drive, which would now direct the power to the pto operated equipment. Everything worked well in first gear, but unfortunately we could not get the transmission to change gear to drive the equipment at the right speed. It turns out that Sprinter van has an anti skid device built into the design. There are sensors on the wheels that require three wheels to be spinning at the same speed. If not then the sensors will not allow the transmission to change gear. I also believe the same problem exists with a standard transmission except the engine is restricted from accelerating. This anti slip system is a great idea for driving but it stopped this project.

We knew it was a computer program that was preventing the design from working except neither Chrysler nor Mercedes would give us the new computer codes to override the anti slip. I had some top People working on this project for almost a year, had it worked we were going to sell the design for any on board PTO equipment.

If you could find a sprinter from 2005, it may work, apparently the new computer system was installed in the 2005 model, the old computer would have allowed us to do what we were trying to do.

Now in regards to the compressor, there is a company in British Columbia that builds an under the hood compressor system, it is designed for tire trucks etc, I believe they put out about 150 cfm so they are significant units. They are similair to an alternator in appearance and are belt driven. I don't know if there is enough room under the hood for this set up.

I would suggest that if you want to pursue this sprinter set up with a PTO unit, get the dealer involved as they may have the ability to get the right computer codes that you will require. I would be interested to know how this works out for you.

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