The golden shower

We moved the shower from out original plan from by the door, to over the wheel arch, the shower tray i bought was very small 585x585cms so moving the shower around the wheel arch meant a bit of extra elbow room, dad raised the profile of the wheel arch when he boxed it in making a shelf/seat, with storage underneath. he then cut out the floor so the tray would sit down, to give some extra headroom. he cut some thin ply to put in the bottom and will eventually fill the gaps with expanding foam

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 earlier in the week dad cut two panels for the side walls and profiled them beautifully to fit the curve of the van, I managed to get a 20 metre roll of lino from ebay for £20 and collected it from five minutes up the road, convenient and cheap but not my first choice of colour but its growing on me, we cut the lino to fit the panels and then bonded it on with smart tack spray from tool station.

one panel was then put into place and leveled so we could use it as a guide to stick a sheet of pre cut lino to the van wall and down the wheel arch, now this lino turned out to be pretty tough so to get it to bend over the wheel arch we used a heat gun which softened it up so we could bend it and bonded it section by section, once it was in place we put strips of wood and clamps onto the curves to hold it.

the magic carpet

so i have been off work the last couple of days so with an extra pair of hands things have been going a little (very little) bit faster. while dad was busy making the shower panels and cutting the floor, i got on with carpeting the ceiling of the van and some of the panels, i got this from ebay a 2 metre by 10 meter roll of carpet and 8 cans or spray glue was £100, its like veltrim but the seller said its more flexable while sealing (he would say that as its not brand named veltrim) however it was pretty easy to work with and quite stretchy. I roped in my girlfriend in to help, first we did the panel above the drivers cab as it was a small section so we could get used to the material.

we chose grey/silver carpet because we wanted something light, and once it was put up it matches the trim of the van so a bit of a result, to get the carpet into the small cracks and spaces i used a thin chisel. the ceiling was a different kettle of fish, as we wanted it to be one piece with no joints we cut it to size then rolled the end up, dad came up with the genius idea of using three poles across the van to lay the carpet out on so we could stick it on in sections, this worked a treat, we didnt stick the very end as we are waiting for the shower cubicle to finish going in!

you've been framed

lots of progress which has been visable this week, so i thought i would do an update for the week rather then daily ones. lots of goodies ordered in the internet and ebay turned up this week i am just waiting to order cushions which i will do on monday.
The ceiling is now fully insulated and boarded, just needs covering, the sink/cooker is now in place and the framework has been built, it will have a very small worktop next to it, and the 12v fridge i had from my chevy day van sits nicely underneath it, we will also be putting the gas bottles underneath here. once they have been boxed in we will need to cut a vent hole.

Also the space abouve the cab has been insulated and boarded, the shelf was carpeted with carpet origonally on the van roof, and it was boarded off with two cutouts left for doors.

Dad started work on the seat/bed concertina, this is a L shaped seat which will pull out into the bed,
however after some discussion i decided to go for a wider bed so we decided to wait till the cushions arrive before continuing.

and instead started on the shower, which has now been mocked up, it is next to the wheel arch to give some extra elbow room as the shower tray is only 585 by 585, i bought a 20 foot roll of lino from ebay which we will be using to waterproof the walls. There is also some storage above the wheel arch which we can access from both sides.

Dad has an impending sense of doom as we are leaving on the 21st february so are on a tight schedule, i have monday and tuesday off work so hopefully i can crack on with carpeting the ceiling and other panels!

plans

So we had rough sketchs and designs we have been working from for the layout of the van, however i have had to work out what size foam/cushions i needed to make the bed and seating area, this has turned out to be one of the biggest expenses of the van around £300 for the foam cut, upholstered and delivered, and this is quite cheap! believe me i shopped around.

so one of the main prioritys on the list when we started to plan the van was a decent sized bed, that was comfortable, as we will be spednign a lot of time in it, we have gone with a 6ft long 5ft wide bed, as a good nights sleep is pretty important here is the day layout for the van (not to scale) and a layout of all the cushions with sizes on!

Also the hole in the roof from the flashing light has been sanded and primed, just needs a lick of paint and we will seal the plastic plug into place!

the roof the roof the roof is on fire!

lots of work happened on the roof this week, the roof vent was installed, this was a fiamma vent from ebay, it said it was a rooflight however the plastic is too dark to let any light through, but i have come to the conclusion this is a good thing as it means we don't need a blind to cover it, and we won't get woken up by light early in the morning. a hole was cut in the roof, then it clips into place, the inside hasn't been fixed yet as we are waiting to ply the ceiling. he roof was then cleaned and primed ready for the sikaflex, which was used to seal all around it,

roof

the roof has now been insulated though not boarded as we are putting a roof vent into one end, we used the celotex insulation boards again, 25mm thick, because of their light weight.

also the seat frame has been built, which is giving us a good idea of space, the van battery is under the drivers seat so the leisure batterys have been placed under the seat frame because of its close proximity to the van battery. we will also be putting the water heater and some of the electrics under there.

awning brackets

didnt get chance to get photos of the progress today, when i got home it was dark and dad had finished for the day, but i forgot we put the awning brackets on the van, i bought a 2 metre omnistor awning from ebay for a bargain price, so after picking it up we placed it on the van and screwed the brackets on.

the brackets are custom built for your van so they sit on a nice angle, they were put in place then the holes were drilled through the metal, we then cut two pieces od wooden board the same size as the brackets to put behind the van roof metal and give some extra support to hold the awning in place.

heres inside and outside pictures.

waiting for sikaflex!!!

its slightly annoying waiting for stuff you order to arrive, and i have been waiting a week and a half for some sikaflex 512 caravan sealant to arrive, so i called the company to be told its out of stock and they weren't sure when it was coming in, could they put that on their website?? instead of taking the payment and not telling me? it really does surprise me some businesses actually last.

without it we cannot cut any holes for vents, windows or anything like that so it is rather annoying, i have ordered some from another online company and the whole order was actually £10 less then the other company who failed to deliver, they also emailed me to say they had dispatched the order already so thankyou to outdoorleisureshop.co.uk

Anyway dad cracked on with building a box to house the leisure batteries, we will need to run a small vent from the box to the outside of the van, the batteries are held in place with some metal strips that were on the steps of the van. i bought two leisure batterys which are 115ah from the battery megastore on ebay.
A divider between the cab and rear was also cut to fit and the layout of the seats was marked out and planned, i then worked out the sizes and dimensions of the seat cushions and went to a foam and upholstery shop to get some quotes. i need to get some more from online sources as i reckon they will be cheaper.

we have marked out the layout on the floor with tape and the next job will be building the frame and worktop for the seats and cooker/sink which i won from ebay, i also have a 12v fridge from my old chevy day van which we are going to fit in underneath the sink.

A hole lotta problems!

progress feels slow when you can't see it! but things have been happening everyday, first problem we hit was when we removed the flashing light on the top of the van to discover a dirty rust spot underneath!! we plugged the hole and will have to treat the rust at a later date!

insulating the walls was also started, the beams and all the small nooks and crannys were filled with insulation, we also went to buy some celotex insulation boards which are polyisocyanurate with a foil layer on the front and back this will hopefully keep the van warm in the winter and cool in the summer. we are going to use this on the ceiling and possibly on the walls aswell, it is extremely light, we also bought some foil bubble wrap type insulation which is a bit thinner for areas where we cannot put thick insulation.

Floored!

I am now back at work but as my dad works for himself he has just been working the odd day recentley, so fortunately for me he has been able to work on the van project in the week.

so after we took the flooring up and cleaned it guess what happened? it was put it back in, we used the original flooring as after a clean it wasn't to bad and was already cut to shape, we are putting insulation on top of it so its not the top layer anyway.
Before we did this the holes in the floor from the passenger seat bolts were filled and the origonal flooring was put back down.

once the ply flooring was put back down the insulation was put on top of it, for this polestyrene panels were used bought from b&q 25mm thick, we placed some batten down to stop them moving and hold them place, a chanel was left for pipes and cables, then we put down a top layer of ply which was 9mm thick, which we will eventually lino or carpet.

Stripping

The first job was to completely strip the van so we could insulate it, this involved removing the bulk head, the passenger seats and table then remove all the ply lining from the ceiling and walls.

After we removed all the ply we decided to remove the flooring to clean underneath and fill any holes that were drilled for bolts through the floor which had secured seats. The van had been used as a work van so it had a serious amount of dirt and mud inside it and it had even got underneath the flooring. we stripped back the floor then brushed the muck out and washed it all down with soap and water.

base vehicle beginnings!

IN THE BEGINNING.......

welcome to my blog! The main aim is to document the conversion of a panel van to a campervan.

I spent the end of 2010 and all of 2011 traveling Australia in a ford courier pickup truck, such a climate is ideal for throwing some sleeping bags in the back and sleeping out, a portable gas cooker and a tent that clipped on the back was all we needed.

we then spent two months in a hired campervan from escape rentals in New Zealand, it was a small nissan van and the seats folded out into the bed and it had a small kitchen unit in the back, again perfect for outdoor climates. However in the uk and europe the weather is not so favourable!

I wanted to travel Europe in 2012 and doing it by road is certainly the way to see and experience a hell of a lot, so a camper van is exactly what i needed, but they seemed so expensive to buy, so with the help of google and some evenings doing some research i discovered it would be a viable option to built one. 

upon my return to the UK i began to discuss the project with my Dad who works for himself installing kitchens and bathrooms for a living, he is a genius with electrics and woodwork so i knew i would have a professional looking finish in the van and thankfully he was up for doing it!

THE BASE VEHICLE!

we looked at many vans mainly ford transits and vauxhall movanos, after two months in a small campervan in new zealand we worked out what we really did and didn't need, i wanted something big enough to stand up in, a good comfortable bed and with lots of room for a shower cooker etc.

I decided on a transit because parts are cheap and easy to find if things needed doing to the engine and there seemed to be a lot of old network rail vans around which as one dealer told us "have flooded the market at the moment" which brought the price of them all down due to the vast number for sale.

having something with a good engine that would be reliable was top priority as having broken down in the middle of nowhere in Australia i didn't fancy the same adventure in europe where i don't speak the language

We finally bought a 2007 ford transit van, high top, long wheel base it's a crew cab so had side windows already installed and was pretty clean compared to a lot of the vans we looked at, also it wasn't network rail but some other lease company this is how it looked the day i picked her up!