You will need to do repairs on your vehicle, and probably sooner than later. If you are going to be living in your van, you really want to keep track of any and all maintenance that you perform. It is easy to lose track of time for regular scheduled maintenance, and a maintenance log will help keep things on schedule. A maintenance log is a detailed list of all the maintenance performed and any additional relevant info, like location and company or person doing the work. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy. I use plain text notes for most of my lists and notes. You will simply want to be able to recount what work was done, when, where, and by whom so that you can know when similar maintenance should be done again, or what the next interval should be. You can also use the log to troubleshoot problems if you notice that certain maintenance is being done too often. Keeping track of added fluids like oil, trans fluid, coolant, brake fluid, and power steering fluid can give you insight into the health of those systems.
When you live in a house, you have a house and cars and extra stuff to maintain, so tracking all of it tends to not happen. As a vandweller, you only have one thing to track. You can do this. It isn’t too much or too time consuming. I’d also note that keeping your vehicle in good repair reduces stress and surprise costs like tow bills and extra damage from failed equipment. You also might want to reference a particular shop or person again for future repairs. As a nomad, you will be moving around and it is easy to forget or lose track of where work was performed.
Tires are a relatively easy thing to maintain that can make a big difference in both mpg and driving performance. Check the air pressure in your tires at least once every two weeks and adjust as necessary. You will want to rotate your tires fairly often, like every 5000 miles. Vehicles constantly loaded with weight are more likely to have cupping on the front tires. Because of this, you will want to make sure that you rotate them out before they get too bad. Cupping can also be caused by bad shocks as well, which are easy to replace.
I recommend repairing or replacing any visibly rusty parts on your vehicle as soon as possible. Rust is one of the biggest factors in the way others form judgements about a vehicle, and the people inside. As much as I hate to admit it, people had a vastly different opinion about my van once it was repainted and had the rusty hardware replaced. Still pretty much the same van, it just looks and feels better.
I’ve mentioned it elsewhere, but Mill Supply is THE place to get stepvan replacement parts. It is truly awesome. They have parts for both body and chassis. They don’t stock everything that you would want or need, but they have a ton. You can often get many chassis parts from typical auto parts stores, but body parts will be from Mill Supply.
On a practical note, I would recommend replacing the stock headlights with quality LED headlights. The amount of light that older stock halogen lights put out compared to modern LED’s is laughable. I have been driving down a dark highway at night and had a modern car with LED headlights pull behind me, and the extra light that shone AROUND my van from their car was more than the amount my headlights were putting out in front of me. An added benefit is that the whiter color temp of the LED’s tends to say “new vehicle” to others and helps put off a better vibe. You might also want to replace your brake and reverse lights with LED versions as well. There is no such thing as too much reverse light at night.
A stepvan body is really easy to work on. Most parts are simple and modular and even sometimes interchangeable. Things like running lights, door handles, bumpers, mirrors, hinges, wipers, are often used on multiple different makes and are very generic. Even if you are in a pinch and can’t get exactly what you need, the mechanisms are often so simple that you can make something work. The body panels are literally just sheet aluminum riveted together.
If you start replacing rusty hardware on your van, you may be tempted to switch out bolts and such to stainless steel. If you have an aluminum body, do not do this. Mixing aluminum and stainless steel can cause galvanic corrosion over time. Stainless steel is also not as strong as regular steel hardware. You are better off using regular zinc or black hardware, and painting it to prevent future rusting.