Indeed it is! Well it won’t be anyway near as good as some on here – just a little wee day van!

The Skoda Yeti I have on lease ends next month, another lease was out the question as my mileage this year would be vastly more.

So I decided to enter the world of van ownership. It will be my main transport, so couldn’t go large. I was told by the missus I was not to spend much either incase it didnt work out 😆

After about a month of searching, I bought this:

Ford Transit LWB high roof 90ps, with towbar and roof bars. 98k on the clock, was due a service and cambelt change.

A week later following a stint with a mechanic, its freshly serviced, belts done and ready to go. The plan is to have the van which serves as a mtb van for me where I can sleep in it with the bike, or a camper for two without bikes inside.

Cue removing all the ply lining and prepping for insulation:

As is common with many conversions, I’ve used double foil bubble insulation on all areas, followed by filling in all the voids with plastic bottle insulation. Then another layer of foil bubble insulation to finish off. I also insulated and laid my flooring – its a hard wearing chequer plate vinyl. I seen this used in another van and I had to have it!

Keeping it cheap, I re-used the existing ply lining and carpeted over the lot. A lot of people suggested using Veltrim hoever as I was on a budget I went for a cheaper ebay option. However I’m still really pleased with it. One wall done!

And both walls done – the poles are holding wood battons on the roof whilst the sikaflex sets. The roof ply panals will screw into these and allows a void for the insulation to sit.

Obviously the van didnt come with ply panels for the roof. This was probably the most awkward bit to do. The roof curves inwards slightly on either side and I wanted to keep the holes in the sides to allow for latching points for straps etc. Anyway, managed to get them made, carpeted and attached:

This weekend I made a sliding bed! Here it is in ‘closed’ mode:

And here it is open. There’s still some bits to do to finish it, but its solid. Measures 175cm long and 100cm wide extended – its pretty much the biggest I could fit as I want a unit on the other side as well.

And thats where I am so far. I need to buy the foam for the the bed and the missus is having a go at making the covers for it. Next I need to decide wether to build a storage unit, or buy a pre made Ikea one or something and butcher it slightly to fit. I’m leaning towards the latter.

That looks pretty good so far.
It might be worth taking a look at Ikea for a matress for the bed, they’re fairly cheap and will be more comfortable than a piece of foam. They do matresses for kids beds which are surprisingly comfortable.

Did you bother with any sound deadening on the panels before you insualted them? I found that it made a huge difference to my van once it was sound deadened.

Must stop opening van conversion threads!

Looks fun though.

It might be worth taking a look at Ikea for a matress for the bed, they’re fairly cheap and will be more comfortable than a piece of foam. They do matresses for kids beds which are surprisingly comfortable.

Did you bother with any sound deadening on the panels before you insualted them? I found that it made a huge difference to my van once it was sound deadened.

I did take a look at the ikea mattresses on the website last night – The cheapest foam one comes in around £88 which I could cut to size. Which is about the same cost as two custom pieces of firm density foam. Do you think the Ikea foam would be better?

I didn’t bother with sound insulation – to be honest even with what I’ve done now is a massive improvement to what it was! I still need to do the rear doors – I don’t want to carpet them as they may get wet if the doors are open in the rain. So need to decide what material to use there.

More chequer plate vinyl on the rear doors in a contrast colour?

EDIT: Thread title is FAKE NEWS bigly so!

I found that the Ikea mattress was really comfortable but it’s hourses for courses with this. You might well hate them!
If the price works out the same as the custom foam and the foam is a better fit, it’s probably better for you to use that.

For the back doors, you can get hold of foam backed vinyl which looks ok when it’s on the ply panels and it shouldn’t be affected by getting a little wet. It might be worth treating the ply with some kind of varnish or similar first so it doesn’t swell or warp if it gets wet at all.