Camper Van Conversion

Well things when a little wrong with build day 25, on the way to my parents leaving the M62 an elderly gent pulled across in-front of me and slammed his breaks on.  Sadly the breaking distance of my van and his hatch back are not the same.  So the van took a bit of damage largely the radiator was the problem, so it had to be towed to my parents, while I waited for the insurance company to get back. 

The van has spent the last 3 weeks with the insurance company, finally I got the call from the engineer and the van is heading off to be repaired.  So day 25 was some what unproductive, but it will all be ok in the end.

I been planing to add a solar panel of some description to the van to charge the batteries since I first started planning to do the van. Today after much reading planing etc, I finally selected and bought a panel and charger. I ended up going for a 130w panel, as that would provide the kind of power I need without costing to much. I also got a MPPT solar regulator to charge the batteries from the panel. The regulator basically stops the panel from over charging the batteries, and acts a dc-dc transformer to take the voltage from the solar panel and adjusted it to be most efficacy voltage for charging the batteries. Now all I need to do it fit it, and get it working, I will let you all know how well that all works out.

At last I've found someone who has agreed to do the gas fitting Bessacar Services, after trying to find some one to do the work for about 3 months.  So on Tuesday next week I will finally have the gas appliances connected up so I can cook, and not freeze during the night because the heater will work, and hot water will be nice.

I've been trying to find a gas fitter to connected up all the gas appliances in the van.  Only corgi registered fitters are allowed to carry out such work (and I'm certainly not mad enough to try), but not all corgi gas fitters have done the training to allow them to do LPG work, and of the few of them I've found, non of them do work on mobile installations.  Corgi are of very little help when it comes to finding such people, and so far Google has not turned up much of use.  Finally I thought I had found some one who could do the work, but if turns out they can not, but they did know a place that does.  This is not the first time I've followed such a chain but hopefully it will turn out to be the last.

Due to having to fit building this camper van around my job rather than the other way round, I have to split the work into blocks.  I normally book a few days off work, before or after the weekend, travel to my parents and spend those days and the weekend working solidly on the Van.  In the next month or two I plan to book of another few days to work on the van again.  So I have to plan what I'm going to do in these few days so as to get the most out of the time spent working on the van.  I'm hoping to take a trip in the van in the none to distant future (get some return of the effort so far), so my next block of time is going to prioritise that.  So my plan is to finish of the water system, and cupboards, fix all the wall plywood in place, and fit properly all the switches and sockets.  If any time is leftover I'll fit the bathroom walls in place, and carpet the floor.  I know the carpet does not seam that important but it will make the van warmer, and keep the noise down while I'm driving.

 On the subject of noise while driving, one of the first things you notice about a panel van compared to a car while driving is the noise.  It's really noisy, basically your driving a large steal drum, with no acoustic damping what so ever.  Then when to take out the bulkhead between the cab and the back it gets even worse.  When I added insulation to the walls for the first time that made quite a difference, and extra insulation I've added over time has also made a small difference.   However its still quite loud.  This is hopefully where carpeting the back will help, most the noise is now road noise, rather than air hitting the walls of the van, and at the moment the only thing between the inside of my van and the road is some thin sheet metal and some thickish ply wood that makes up the floor.  None of these materials in known for their sound insulation properties, fortunately carpet is rather good as acoustic insulation.  So I'm quite looking forward to the day I fit the carpet and my van get quieter, and I can turn my radio down and still hear it while driving.

Off to Cambridge today to pick up most the bits I need form Rainbow conversions.  Rainbow are a company that convert vans them selves but they also sell all the parts them selves.

I've been on e-bay again looking for more bits for the van, and I managed to get a few bits mostly a fridge and a gas bottle. I suspect I may be running out of bits I can buy on E-Bay.

My parents seem to have been busy lately finding things for the van. My Dad managed to find me some commercial grade hard waring carpet, he got hold of the end of a role (twice a much as we need) for £15. Its even water proof, it's ideally suited for what we want. My Mun has also been busy and found all the blackout material we need, for £20. So far most things have cost less than I had planned, I will be amazed if this remains the case all the way though the project.

One of the bit of planning that was taking the most time was the seating. I want to be able to carry a large number of passengers (a whole band) as well as have a good sized bed, and living area. Searching a number of website for ideas and products (the seats need to be road legal) I had come up empty. I then spotted on E-Bay, a seating system that had been removed from a Toyota camper van. It consists of two rows of seating (four seats in total), with the front row being able to rotate to face forward or backward, the second row can only face forward but can fold up very small to take up little space. The front row can also be folded down flat to form a table, or all four can be setup to form a rather large bed. So I decided to go to crewe to see them for my self. Well they did every thing they needed two can where quite conformable. So I now have my seats.

After spending a very damp week camping at sidmouth, I decided I had just about had it with camping in tents. I had also decided to get rid of my car because I had more or less stopped using it, as I've started using the tram to get to work. It was at this point the idea of a camper van came to mind. Now I did not want a purpose built camper van, as for gigs I would still occasionally need transport, so I figured I could convert a regular van to do both jobs. This way it would also not cost me the earth, and things could be done in stages.

I first decided to do a bit of reading to find out more, several nights of solid reading and much googling later I still thought it was a good idea. I also worked this was not a job I could do by my self, as there are lots of bits that need a least two people, and plenty of jobs that are easier with two. I would probably need a garage which I did not have. Luckily my dad had recently retired and did not mind giving me a hand, so with some help secured and a place to work all I needed was a van.

First I need to select a van. To select a van I needed to work out what I needed in a van. My main priorities where a double bed, a cooker and sink, a toilet and shower. So a big van was required, I am also quite tall so it would need a high roof. There are quite a few Long wheel base van out there however the Merc Sprinter seemed to be rather well regraded so I started looking for a long wheel base sprinter.

I eventually found one at about the right price, age, and importantly not a rust bucket. As old vans tend to be a bit rusty. This one was a 2003 model, and only had a few rust spots that would need sorting out.

The next step was to take measurements and start planning the layout. The back was 420cm long and 175 cm wide (maximum width), now time to plan the layout.