MY VAN CONVERSION

Sushi is the name of my van conversion. It’s a 1.9 TDI 2004 Vauxhall Vivaro cargo van and I purchased it in March, 2018 from GumTree (of all places, I know). There are so many vans out there that I could have chosen from and there are certain ones that I would’ve loved to own. For an example, the Volkswagen Transporter - the only problem with this was the fact it was simply out of my budget. So… I did my research and decided on either a Vauxhall, Renault or Nissan. Why? Well these certain vans may all have a different badge on the front, however if you take that bade off they’re all the same: in size, weight, parts, shape, you name it… everything is the same apart from the badge. So knowing that I was going to be in Europe, with 2 of them being European vehicles, I gathered that these would be the best choice just in case I ever needed spare parts whilst abroad. These vans are used across the UK, making it conveniently easy to find a second hand vehicle that suited my budget. I just happened to find myself a Vauxhall, also known as Opel.

The decision to purchase a van was a lot quicker than I would’ve liked. A few days after returning back from California in February I noticed that my neighbour was selling his trusty old Ford Transit, the only problem was it was older than me and would struggle to hit 60mph. A week later, I found myself traveling 100 miles up country to collect a van that I had found on Gumtree, this was after losing a bid on the perfect van on Ebay. You win some, you lose some. Now, prior to this I had only been a passenger in a van a handful of times. Never had I ever driven one in my life, so it’s safe to say that when I pulled away to start my 100 mile drive back home it was seriously the strangest feeling in my driving history.

For 2 weeks, the van was used to help my father de-clutter the house. During this time, I kept asking my father whether or not I had made the right choice. Questioning what I had done, but mainly questioning my sanity. Me? driving a van… This is insane. It wasn’t until April that I started work on the van, the first job was to strip it down to it’s skeleton, only to find out the previous owners “insolation” was merely foam packaging boards loosely placed behind panels on the walls and ceiling - Im afraid buddy, that isn’t doing anything. it took about a week to completely strip the van and clean the walls of adhesive spray and carpet fluff. 

Now, let me just add. I’m no tradesmen. What i’ve done to my van is purely based on what I know and if I didn’t, YouTube and Google are life savers. I would say that I was learning on the job, there are so many things I’d do differently if I were to do it again. However, I am rather happy with how it all turned out in the end.

I couldn’t stand up straight in the van anyway and living in the UK I figured it would be best to insulated the whole van: floor, walls and ceiling. 

After sanding the holes down left from previous screw holes, they were then filled in with metal filler. Adding a structure of wood battens across the floor, insulation boards was used to fill in the gaps and all was glued down with adhesive sealant. Reusing the 25mm plywood that were in the van previously was laid down on top and screwed down into the wood battens, securing everything in place.

Whilst in the process of doing the van, a decision came to give the studio a makeover which worked in my favour as the forecasted weather that week had predicted heavy rain. This meant the whole week was spent ripping up the old flooring, painting and laying new flooring throughout the studio. Figuring that the old laminate flooring would just end up down the tip, the decision to reuse it all for the van where I could was a bank saver. The money that was saved from using the laminate boards, not just as flooring but for the walls of the van. Very time consuming as everything had to be cut to size, some of you may already know that nothing in a van is straight so every panel had to measured, measured again, cut, checked and cut again, a long process but worth it in the end.

One thing that was a want in this conversion of mine was to reduce the weight, I refused to use big and heavy timbers which would result to a more structurally safe components inside. However, knowing that laminate boards would be used to wrap around the timber framing meant that it was feasible to use 25mm x 37mm timbers to construct the sofa/bed, cabinets and desk. The original designs were great on paper, but needed adjusting to work in the van. The issue I had was the left side of the cabinets were too high which would have resulted in an overlap on the drivers side window, something that I refused to do. Instead the decision was to extend the length of the side cabinet and on the left side drop it down 20cm so it could be used as a desk, looking out through the side window.

I tried to reuse as much materials as I could, bits that I found around the house from previous projects or things simply taken out that was destined for the tip. The flooring in the van is from a spare box that we had left over from years ago from when the middle room had a new flooring put in, the box had been sitting in out attic for years. The laminate flooring from the studio was used on the walls, door panels and to wrap all the cabinets. I used rope on the cabinet doors as handles, something that was just in my room for some reason and at the rear I used old chest of draw sliders to create a sliding section that made reaching into under the sofa difficult. 

I’m not an electrician, but I do have friends that are so getting them to double check my work and how I was going to wire things were crucial to me. Ensuring that I wasn’t going to blow myself up, but I was surprised at how easy it all was. There was nothing more satisfying than seeing your leisure battery charging through a solar panel on the roof and the lights being turned on for the first time in the dark. Now, my solar panel is a Giosolar 100w flexi panel and is currently duct taped down, the reason is because I’m still currently in the process of designing a timber, low profile roof rack which the solar panel will then be attached onto. The cable for the solar panel runs through a hole in the roof, not wanting to drill a hole I took off the arial and used the hole that was already there and used sealant to cover the rest fo the gap to prevent water penetrating through. 

Although I can’t stand up in the van and it would of been better to just have a fixed full size bed as it would of meant I had more storage, I felt like if I had more storage i would just fill it up with crap. Plus although, I can’t stand up I can sit up on the sofa. Having that extra bit of floor space meant that I could walk… hmmm more of a crouched shuffle through the van and get out the back if I wanted too, whilst having the social aspect of having multiple seating in the back, which extends out into a full double bed. At first I was skeptical of a 15cm foam mattress, not thinking it would be thick enough but it’s so comfy I can’t complain. This was cut into the sizing that I needed using cutting edge technology that is…. A bread knife. 

The curtains were all hand made, so they were a cotton/silk blend thermo blackout fabric, that was cut to size, doubled and sewn by me to fit the windows for privacy. Not only for privacy, but also to help reduce the amount of heat was entering the van through the open areas but also to reduce it escaping. 

There are a number of vans, especially newer ones that have a much more appealing dashboard. Unfortunately, I didn't get this when I purchased mine and it was soul destroying seeing the grey fill the front cabin, seeing as this was the area I would be spending the most time and I didn't have a lot of budget to making this section look pretty, I came up with a quick, easy and cheap solution. SPRAY IT ALL BLACK. Rattle can black matt spray paint quickly transformed the dashboard into something a little more pleasing to the eyes and it made a huge difference. Although it's not perfect, with an odd paint run here and there it was never suppose to be perfect. At the end of the day, if I can do it... Anyone can and I'm happy with the results, so that's all that matters really, isn't it?

Overall, it took 8 weeks from start to finish to complete the main sector of the van. Completing it right at the beginning of June, 2018. Right before I made the spontaneous decision to leave for Europe 4 weeks before my set date, I mustered up some money and got in the few remaining bits that I wanted to make this journey a little less stressful: like a cooler, a new tablet with data - enabling me to hotspot all my other electronics when needing to post and it's great as a sat nav, a kettle. All the little things you don't really need, but they just make your life easier. Now, I'm happy with how it turned out, considering I was learning how to do it all whilst doing it, but looking back there are a lot of things I'd do differently. However, these aren't essential things and I'll know overtime whilst being in the van what I do and don't need and I can consider these in the future if I decide to rebuild my van or when I get a new one. But for now? I want to enjoy what I have accomplished and see how it functions in the real world, with everyday use.

A few questions I've been asked:

 “Where is your kitchen?” / “Where are you going to cook?” 

Well, because I can’t stand up in the van I didn’t want a fixed kitchen area. I have the sliding section at the back which extends out of the van and I have a butane camping stove. This means I can cook outside most days, depending on weather obviously but it also gives me the option to cook inside if weather is that bad. Sink? it’s something that I’m thinking about installing in the future, but for now I don’t think I need one. I wanted to see how the rest of it all works before installing a sink as I may decided to change certain aspects to it so it functions a little more smoothly, or something like that. 

“What’s that speaker doing there?”

Well, the previous owner had updated the stereo and installed a after market Pioneer single din stereo. My first thought was to replace this with a double din stereo unit, with navigation but I figured that’s something I can decided in the future. For now, it’s working and I always have my iPad or iPhone for navigation. Now, the speaker in the back and under the passenger seat? I realised that the previous owner hadn’t wired the stereo correctly meaning that 2 of the factory speakers weren’t working creating a horrid sound when using the stereo. So I decided to wire in some speakers that I’ve had for years and has never let me down. One speaker I cut down and resized it to fit under the passenger seat and the wrapped it in the white carpet I had spare and the other one in the back is something I’m still working on where it can go and fit. 

"How much storage have you got?"

When designing this I obviously wanted to optimise the storage space, I thought I had made quite a bit and yes, there is a lot of storage space but I could have done more. I don't think I designed it good enough because I'm struggling to find a home for everything. I think over time I will move stuff around, but I do think the whole electronics area needs to be re-looked at and moved about because right now it takes up too much space.