On the 6th April I bought a 55 plate white Transit van for £2300. It came with a years MOT and many years worth of dirt and grime. Plan is for Mr TW and I to convert it to a bike carrying campervan.

Everyone likes a good project 🙂

First job was to remove the bulkhead, aluminium floor and give everything a good clean and a Kurust (that’s the green stuff in the bottom photo).

It took days to do this. We ended up with pots of loose screws and nails. We tried hard to keep control of all of them but one ended up in a tyre and cost me £65 for a replacement tyre 👿

Crack on…. need more pics. 😀

Hm…I’ve got a van a bit like that but am planning to upgrade it soon. I took the view that it’s better to start with a slightly newer vehicle before ploughing too much time and money into it.

Captain, we had the same thought process but decided that as we didn’t know what we were doing, we would go cheap. Having already made a few mistakes I don’t regret this.

Anyway.
Had a window fitted.

Wasn’t confident doing it myself so paid £216 for window and fitting. I could have got it a bit cheaper but the place I used was convenient. They did however break the sliding door handle. I managed to fix it but I can see it being a problem spot.

I joined the self-build motorcaravan club to get access to their extensive forum.

And we stuck our floor battons down with Stixall and some weights.

I do like to see these van conversion threads, but they do bring back memories of just how much time and money my conversion swallowed up.

*like*!

but they do bring back memories of just how much time and money my conversion swallowed up.

I hear you. Reading the above it sounds like we spent a couple of hours cleaning out the van. In reality it took four full days with two people. Our van seems to have previously been an EDF crew van, a builder’s van, a plasterer’s van and a garage van. Every flavour of grime was present. We aren’t DIY types so even basic jobs take forever. Also every step seems to involve multiple trips to DIY shops.

Anyway. Battons stuck and Celexex floor down. We are going with 25mm on the floor and 50mm everywhere else. We bought our Celetex from the local builder’s merchant. Plan is to wrap the lot in Sonic gold as a vapour barrier. I decided to get the floor done before starting on the walls so we had a solid base to stand on.

Floor down started insulating the walls.

Keep it coming, love these threads

What was the reason for putting thicker insulation on the walls and ceiling than the floor?

…….it sounds like we spent a couple of hours cleaning out the van. In reality it took four full days with two people. ………even basic jobs take forever. Also every step seems to involve multiple trips to DIY shops.

Having been there I can see the work going into this. The the plus side is it’s very satisfying when you have a van that you know you built yourself and it takes you on lots of great adventures. I loved the times we had in our camper van and only sold it due to changing circumstances.

Oh, I thought the pics were being posted in real time!

😉

*like*

Love these threads. I’ve been massively obsessing over doing this recently. Hope I can actually manage to do it. I’m planning on trying to get a L3H2 Ducato/Relay/Boxer which are wide enough to sleep sideways in comfortably apparently.

Tempted to keep the bulkhead though (or make a new one with a door in it).

self-build motorcaravan club

Or Singletrackworld as it’s also known!

Keep it coming. I love these threads, having no time, money or practical ability, I have to do it vicariously.

“this is not a step”

is that an ironic sticker ?

lookfoward to seeing this progress.

I get home next week and have a 4m fiamma awning to collect (i bought it used in the end ) and a second seitz window for my drivers side wall + solar panels to mount on the roof. Busy time to get it ready for october holidays (but that said there will be many weekends away before then )

I converted a Nissan Vannette into a small camper with bed, cooker, sink and fridge a few years ago, primarily for surfing trips (It was custom so that I could put surfboards under the double-bed/sofa). The one thing I didn’t do and should have done was to change the rear leaf springs. Being a van it was designed to carry heavy weights in the back, so when fitted with lightweight camper bits the rear suspension effectively did nothing and the van banged and crashed through pot holed roads. Kept meaning to do it, but the arrival of children 2 and 3 at the same time meant selling on.
You may want to consider putting softer springs on in your budget..

Whilst I did all the work, Mr TW worked out how to do the electrics. Being a girl I have no understanding of electricity and was surprised to find there are different types of electricity. Also, apparently even if I put a really big solar panel on the roof, I still can’t run a microwave and tumbledrier 😥

Despite this I took responsibility for cutting a hole for the hook up. Mr TW stood by ready to criticise, but it all went well.

I then decided to carpet the shelf over the cab. This was a silly thing to do at this point and it is now covered in glue and other stains but I wanted to see how it looked.

Started the wall ply and put a working socket in. We are not very good at cutting ply to fit so this took ages. Also we wanted to go away over the bank holiday weekend so as soon as we set a deadline we hit problem after problem.

Sorry to hear you’ve been having problems – any more progress?

The large ply panels can be a nightmare, especially when trying to scribe cabinet walls etc to the sloping wall and curved ceiling.

Try and get some large bits of cardboard to use as templates. I can get 1.2×6.0m ish bits that are designed to form a box on a pallet and they are a life saver. I think they are called tri-packs.

Try and get some large bits of cardboard to use as templates. I can get 1.2×6.0m ish bits that are designed to form a box on a pallet and they are a life saver. I think they are called tri-packs.

If you are near Exeter I have a Garage full of Bike Boxes you can have, just sat there accumulating dust and spiders.

Commercial vehicle fitters have templates for ply lining anything – when I converted my van I just went, told them the model, and they cut floor and wall panels to size there and then – and they were dirt cheap. They fitted great, even when carpeted.

I’ve got plenty of time for another van thread. That side window looks great, good price.

They won’t have templates for a wall panel that is going 90 degrees to the wall, such as when you want to create a room or bulkhead.

You’ll also want to ply the van differently to ‘standard’ sometimes, in mine I used an 8×4 sheet sideways so I had no visible joins above the units.

Thanks all and thank you for the offer of cardboard but we have got all the wall panels in. We also managed a working socket so just threw the gear in the back with an airbed and had a few days away at FOD.

We didn’t manage to get the roof done but the van held heat well enough. Shame we forgot a heater but it was still warmer and more comfortable than a tent.

One learning point. If you Kurust everything and it runs. It stains the paintwork. Going to need to respray his forehead.

Carpet on the sliding door. I will probably do the whole door but I need to be able to easily remove the panel to get at the problem door handle.

Looks good to me

One unanticipated issue we had was Mr TW’s new bike. It has a boost fork so wouldn’t fit the Seasucker mount. We ended up with a bungy cobweb to hold it in place.

I’ve looked online and it’s £18 for an adapter so I’ve fabricated my own for 89p for 12 and 2 mins each to cut to size.

The TW Adaptertron™

Works perfectly, just put the maxle through, clip the TW adaptertron™ on and tighten.

Benp1, sorry just noticed your question. Mr TW is very tall so I was keen to save every inch of height. As heat rises and the van floor is some distance from the cold ground I’m hoping 25mm of Celotex, a layer of Sonic Gold underlay and 12mm of ply will be enough. That said we are intending to use the van all year round so it is a bit of a balancing act.

Good thinking, I’m tall too – little things like that make a difference

Good thread. Looking forward to mor pictures soon.
I like the idea with the pipe clips but whats the black piece of metal in front?

Question. Once you’ve installed all the insulation and vapour barrier, how do you then fix things like beds/cupboards back to the body of the van without creating a cold bridge through the vapour barrier?

Edit – or indeed how do you fix the ply through the vapour barrier?

whats the black piece of metal in front.

Do you mean the Seasucker mount?

I’m just going to screw into the van. Then countersink the screws into the ply and cap with silicone sealant. I’m hoping that the cold bridging effect will be negligible. If it isn’t then it’s tough really. I don’t think it’s realistic to do everything with glue. So far things are ok but obviously it’s not that cold outside.

Hi TW..that’s what I meant. I need to do similar in my van. I wouldn’t worry about the screws causing cold-bridge issues unless you’ve gone all the way through the floor.
Grand job so far keep it up.

Plus the sealant would stop any moisture getting through anyway, I guess – excellent!

It’s my hope. To be honest having seen the state of it when I first got it, I may be being over-precious. It already has hundreds of holes drilled in it. It two 4 inch diameter in the floor and two in the roof (presumably for orange flashing lights). It still has two small holes in the roof that are just covered with vapour tape. When we got the van the big holes just had duct tape on them. Doesn’t appear to have been a problem.

If the screw does get colder than the the inside of the van you might get a little condensation on the screw head but that would be all. I very much doubt that would happen though.

After our weekend away, we took the ply down and went to screwfix for some more sonic gold as we had only golded the floor and roof. Screwfix had run out so we bought with some blue stuff instead. It was half the price of the gold and much easier to work with. As we had loads spare I decided to go over the roof gold as well.