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Hi all I thought it was about time I shared my van conversion with you all. The base vehical for my project is a 55 plate short wheel base transit with a medium height roof. The van started life with a building company and originaly had extra seats fitted in the back with a small storage area at the rear. My dad bought the van a couple of years ago and we made a start on converting her into a day van/camper. Since then she was rebuilt a couple of times by my dad untill he eventualy moved up the ladder by aquiring a VW motorhome. As a result of the ‘trade up’ I inherited babs and made a start on version 4.1 ! When we originaly converted babs we blocked up the rear access by building a wall. We found that this gave us the best interior layout and helped to make the inside warmer. This was retained in the recent rebuild although it has been modified as the toilet and services have all been relocated. I also managed to gain an extra 6″ of space by building recessed ‘pods’ that fit inside the rear doors. The biggest improvment I have made was building the upper storage lockers. The underside of these feature led downlighters. As I only had a short wheel base to work with the kitchen had to be as compact as possiable. This ment the fitting of a small sink/hob unit. Opposite the kitchen area a cassette toilet is fitted. Under the van is fitted a 30L water tank located in the space once occupied by the spare wheel. The wheel now lives in a more convenient place behind the rear doors! For the interior we decided to break from the norm and use purple carpet on the walls. This was after my wife commented on the interior of a new baily caravan that she liked. Another big job I did was redo all the electrics. I started by fitting the fuse box from my wifes old volvo and then ran all the new cables through the framework whilst the cupboards were being built. A 12v leisure battery fitted under the passenger seat supplys all the power including the sound system and is charged by the engine or a zig unit mounted on the rear wall. A voltmeter has been fitted into the dash that monitors the battries voltage. A small 12v relay has been wired to the alternator light and energises when the engine is running. This relay switches the charge relay that connects the leisure battery to the main battery. One of the things I didn’t like about the transit was the front seats so these have been replaced with some nice heated ones again from my wifes old volvo 850. I still have a few things to finish off but im now in the process of changing the docs over with the DVLA so fingers crossed everything goes ok with them. So far we have camped out on the driveway a couple of nights but we have a road trip planned to Scotland at the end of the month.
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