Started the day mucking out the garage.
Then onto the bit I’d been looking forward to. Building the cabinets.
I’ve not used any screws or nails. Just biscuits and glue. Nice and easy to use and makes strong joints.
First the plan. I’m not a real draftsman by the way.
The chosen tool of the day
The progress made today……
Had a good weekend working on the van.
Saturday: Got the last of the wiring installed and then fitted the lined ply sheets to the walls.
Then made a start on the floor.
Sunday: Spent all day getting the Nora floor tiles laid. Next job will be giving them a coat of wax then bolting the Rock & Roll bed down.
And a gratuitous arty farty shot
I’ve spent a while deciding on how I want the electrical install to work in the van. I’ll plan the layout of the lights, sockets and pump later.
This is the preliminary plan. The intelligent split charge relay will be mounted next to the starter battery in the engine compartment. The leisure battery will fit under the drivers seat. The 12v fuse panel, 240v MCB/RCD board, 12v/240v lighting transformer and spot light relay will be mounted in the rear cupboard by the back door.
It will enable me to have the following:
Additions at a later date:
I was going to carpet all of the back of the van, covering up all the the blue. Tried a test piece and it was a nightmare to do and would have looked like a bodge.
So spent the weekend covering all the ply panels with carpet. The remaining blue paintwork around the windows and doors is going to be rubbed down and sprayed silk black.
Far easier and will look a lot better than the effect my crap carpeting skills would have produced.
So next job, rubbing down and painting, then rubber floor tiles, then re-fit the carpet covered ply panels.
Fitted a swivel for the front seat today. Easy ten minute job, and the thing does what it’s supposed to do, it swivels the seat to face backwards.
To fit it, the seat was removed from the base by undoing the four Allen bolts that hold the seat rails to the base.
The swivel plate then bolts to the base using the four countersunk bolts supplied with the seat, leave them all loose until you’ve got them started into the threaded holes in the base. Then tighten them up.
The orange handle on the swivel needs to be facing the handbrake, pointing upwards.
Then drop the seat onto the swivel plate and use the Allen bolts you removed previously and four 13mm nuts to bolt the rails to the swivel, again fit loosely until all are located.
When fitted the seat can be swiveled 180 degrees to face into the back of the van.
I like it when things do what they’re supposed to do without any fecking about.
Who’d have thought it would be so hard to choose a leisure battery?
After a lot of trawling around I’ve gone for an Elecsol 110-12V 110Ah Carbon Fibre Deep Cycle Battery. It gets endorsements from The Caravan Club, Auto Trail mobile homes and Caravan Life.
Three reasons copied from their website why I chose this one:
More Power – Less Weight.
These batteries offer higher power and performance through the use of unique patented carbon
Fibre technology. Independent tests prove they give 20% more power output for no increase in the overall weight of the battery
5 Year Guarantee.
A full 5 year guarantee is offered world-wide for all our products for Deep Cycling Application and Engine Start.
3 x the Cycling Life.
The carbon fibre technology employed in the whole battery range significantly increases the cycling performance and life of the battery when compared to equivalent semi traction batteries. These batteries will complete over 1000 deep discharge cycles -3 times as many cycles as the nearest equivalent.
Found a cooker and sink combination that will fit in the narrow worktop and has two separate glass lids. It’s a Smev MO922L.
It came with all the pipe and conections required, even the gas bottle regulator. Bought from here for £290.
On Sunday I had a go at re-covering the side panels. The old grey carpet was a pain to get off but the new carpet went on easily.
The Kingspan insulation got fitted and gaps filled with expanding foam. Then we ripped the old floor out.
Under the floor the van fllor was in good shape but full of sand and sawdust which Liz dealt with.
I used the old fllor as a template and cut new floor sheetas out of exterior ply. The old floor sheets were put back in and then the old carpet then the new sheets placed on top and screwed down. The idea of sandwiching the carpet was to give some extra insulation.
The new floor in……
Early Saturday start on stripping it out. The grey carpeting was good quality but not the colour I wanted so it needed ripping out. The ply panels came off easily.
Dumped in the garage for re-covering.
Theres no insulation behind the plywood panels. The first layer of insulation was glued on using high temperature spray on vehicle finishing glue. It’s a foil backed rubber thats usually used underneath wooden floors in houses. It will insulate and give some sound proofing.
The next layer will be Kingspan sheets. All the blue metalwork needs covering in black lining carpet before the plywood panels are refitted with the same black carpet covering.
The first job was to take the second row of seats out as these weren’t needed for the conversion. I stuck them on ebay for £100 and they sold within a day which was unexpected.
With the seats out I dropped the Rock & Roll bed frame in to see how much room I’d have left for cabinets along the right hand side. The frame was £315 and came with two seat belts. Well made and a slightly different style to the normal ones leaving more room at the back of the van. It was bought from JDS Metaltech in Sheffield
