1st time transit owner - mk5 conversion

[rizzla]

looking good keep it up p.s joining the race next week

[noah]

coming on well

[rossy]

Hey Goodomen,you should take a pop into the wee caravan shop on great western road and have a look,lots of handy goodies in there.vans lookin great.

[Goodomens]

thanks for all your positive comments. Appreciated. Practically best friends with the Caravan shop on GW road now . Van conversion now on hold. Front suspension mounting coming appart at the moment and needs repaired. Is there a welder in the west end of glasgow that is willing to have a look and give me a price on a possible repair? You can call me on 07791252569

Cheers,

Marc.

[Goodomens]

hello again transit forum. Its been a while for me anyhow. Since I last posted, I have managed to deal with the problems that I have had with my baby. Last time I posted, I had found a wee problem with the shock absorber mounting on the driver's side. This is what I found when I stopped to check.



After posting some pics here and asking around, I thought I may have to abandon the old girl for good. But, once again, my mechanic/welder friend came through. This is what he managed to do for me.

A bit of rust proofing and off we go!


So, with the relief and the knowledge that the van was back on track, I was on with the conversion.

Realised that I had also jumped a wee bit in my progress. Back to the floor.

Started with the beams and then the insulation. Incidentally, found some recycled plastic bottle insulation in B & Q for very little and it has done the job for the whole van. Glued the beams down with silka and then stuck the insulation down.

For the actual floor, I had a sheet and a half of 9mm ply left, which was enough to cover the whole floor. So opted for another sheet of 6mm on top to make the floor thick enough. Once the wood was cut, I was happy to leave it there till I sorted out the carpets on the wall. Was good surface to work on in the wet.


Eventually, I screwed down the floor onto the beams and set about laying down the carpet tiles that I acquired, shall we say, for free. And very good quality they are too!


And the finished version looked like this.

Excuse the purple light, something to do with the cheap camera that I have. Anyhow, more later.

[AndyJ2506]

looking fella. Very nice work

[jolly olly]

Is the passenger seat lose or you managed to sort out a swivel set up?

[transitandy]

very nice work m8y

[TIMO]

Keep the good work up mate ,,good job

[Goodomens]

Is the passenger seat lose or you managed to sort out a swivel set up?

Hey, the seat was just lose for the pictures. Have another captain's seat to put in. May consider a swivel but they are pretty pricey from what I remember. For the moment, it will be enough to be able to get to the back from the front without leaving the van.

And thanks for the comments and encouragement. I will post some more of the van - now almost completed - as soon as I get some more time. Only thing that I want to learn now is how to weld. Anyone know a good school for this in Glasgow? Have a feeling I will need to with this van.

[TIMO]

Just buy a cheap mig and practice on some scrap matey,,

[Goodomens]

Back again with some more progress pictures. Firstly, can I just say thanks to all of you who take the time to post - especially the pictures - on the site of what they have done to their vans. I has helped me no end on figuring out some of the more difficult parts of the conversion.

So, over the new year, with a real bad case of the flu, I couldn't deal with working on the van outside in the cold. Being almost bed ridden for a few days and then having 2 weeks off with nothing to amuse myself, I thought about building a seat that would convert to a bed out of wood as I had no money at the time to buy a metal version with seat-belts. Being one for recycling - and wanting to spending as little as I had to - I had a look around my area and and found an abandoned double bed frame with the slats still attached, and the support ends of a bunk bed. Marvellous! I now had the materials for the base and the pull down part. Couple of days of coughing and sawing/drilling and i had build this.

A couple more days and I had managed to complete the basic bed.

Complete in all its glory seen here with my usual model.


After this, I gave up on the work for a few weeks, as it was too cold to be outside and still use my fingers.

Around the end of Jan, I started again and began building the frame for the cabinets. Opted for a frame and screwing the panels on as this seemed easier to me.




and after I cut the ply, this is what it looked like.

Had to go with the ordinary ply as the laminate was out of budget too. Should learn to plan this better for sure

Anyway, thats it for now. And thanks for reading this far - if you have.

[frank308d]

Is that lining carpet you've used round the arches? How was it to use?
Well done with the conversion by the way
Frank

[Goodomens]

Is that lining carpet you've used round the arches? How was it to use?
Well done with the conversion by the way
Frank

Hi Frank. Yeah it was the same carpet that I used for the walls. Its ok as it stretches a fair bit. But given that the bed covers one wheel arch and the cabinets cover the other,I wasn't as fussed with the finish. If you are more careful than I was when cutting the material then I will definately look good.

Ps. I also covered the wheel arches in flashing for some noise insulation. Works ok and flattened the arches some more as a bonus for when sticking the carpet down too.

Thanks for the comments also.

[Goodomens]

right. More free time for some posting.

Left this off when I had cut the cabinet panels and placed them in shape.

Was going to make doors, but decided to cut them out of the panels and reuse the wood. So, this


became this...

and from another angle

This really took a lot of thinking and testing as I went. Wanted to use a router to cut the doors out, but had a small cheap one and the bit repeatedly broke. In the end, I gave up and used a jigsaw to cut out the door and then trim 5mm off it for the rubber edging.

For the edging, I hat to use the router. That is definitely something that I can't do well. Thankfully it is quite forgiving - you can't really tell where I was not straight with the router. But they all got done and stuck on with silkaflex.

Once it was done, I cut a hole for the cooker. In the end, I opted for the 2 ring burner with the glass lid.

It definitely looks better for it.

This finished and screwed down meant I could look at some of the finishing touches like the switch panel:

and the wee fire extinguisher that I got from work.

managed to find an old analogue voltmeter on e-bay quite cheap.

and used some old style toggle switches for the lights and the power sockets (eventually).



For the cupboard handles I opted for the space saving idea of round holes that you can pop a finger into so nothing sticks out and gets in the way. The doors are held in place with roller catches.

And finally got to putr the bed in after all the work on it.

And this is what me camper van looks like with the bed down in it...

Well there may be some more pics later as I am now working on the cab and the outside. My god do these vans know how to rust!