well thats nearly that

[Winterhawk]

Happy to say that the Humgrummit Mk V is nearly complete. I have uploaded some more images and they can be found in the photo section. Your opinions/observations would be most welcome.
Cost wise I guess the old girl has cost me about £1300 in cold currency, £500 for the van £300 for a donor caravan and another £500 in bits.
I begged, borrowed, scavenged, purloned, requisitioned,procured and appropriated everything i needed from where ever I could find it. Wood came from fenceposts, scrap piles, skips and a lot of old floor boards i had lying around.. I also had a good table saw that turned rough wood into something I could use.

When I bought the van it was a rust bucket, but the engine and box were sweet so game on.
I found out how bad it really was in a heavy rainstorm.. my long suffering wife got soaked sitting in the pasenger seat. If you pushed the windscreen gently you could see it move. i cut out the screen and started cutting back to bare metal.. in the end a scrapyard provided a complete screen surround £15… Two days welding later and a lot of lead loading as I dont like filler and the windscreen went back in.. same with the doors, cut back to bare metal, weld steel in ,lead load..
4 litres of 2 pack primer and 4 litres of 2 pack white later and she looked tidy enough. be careful if you use 2 pack..its cyanide based and highly toxic..

The brakes were non existant.. front calipers seized, discs and drums scored..
a sunday afternoon at the lather sorted the discs and drums. YOu cant buy caliper rebuild kits..only reconditioned units…If anyone tells you that dont you believe it.. you can get single seals from a decent seal supplier…if you know the size..I rebuilt the calipers myself and sorted the brakes. Then off to mot and a clean bill of health.

I built this on the cheap..but I had several advantages, a lathe, a milling machine and the abilities to use them let me do things that normally arnt done. Likewise the welder and compressor and air tools. the other advantage is having the facilities to do it..I could not have done this on my driveway

The result is a camper that is specific to our requirements and has a lot of compromises.
Its a mediem wheelbase so the front seats had to swivel to become part of the living space. The shower toilet is out of proportion to the rest of the van BUT its a good hot shower with plenty of pressure and there is room to shower properly.

The bed may seem small but its the right size for the wife and me..we dont take up much room and we dont move around a lot…but it probably would not suit others.

Would I repeat this journey.. probably not the same way..the van didnt cost a lot of money but if I had not been able to do the work myself the van would not have been economically repairable or a viable proposition
£1300 is not a vast sum of money in the great scheme of things..but its a fortune if you havnt got it spare.. and my time on a project like this is free…It will never be worth anything like what its cost in time to build but its mine, and its unique to me, designed to fulfill a specific purpose..and that makes it priceless.

I wish you all the best in your builds and if my skills can be of any use to you then please ask..if I can help I will

[Darren]

Well done. That really is a
Well done. That really is a good value for money conversion. You have obviously put in a lot of work.

[Darren]

Well done. That really is a
Well done. That really is a good value for money conversion. You have obviously put in a lot of work.

[Darren]

Well done. That really is a
Well done. That really is a good value for money conversion. You have obviously put in a lot of work.

[Author]

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