Project with No Name

[Woof]

I have been meaning to start a project thread about my camper for a while, and now that shes just about finished it seems I finally have time. So whilst almost everything you read in these first few posts happened long ago, I will present it as things actually progressed in bitesized chunks.

So first let me introduce, 'The Kidney Bean' as she was when I bought her in October 2010:


She is a 1983 1.9 (DF) powered camper, which was in a previous life a Pastelweiss panel van.
At some point in her 14 owner history and (#?)90,000+ miles, she had been painted a purple/red/brown and recieved a professional looking homebrew, or homebrew looking professional conversion which inclueded a 3/4 rock and roll bed, sink, twin hob and grill and RM122 fridge, all finised in varsnished pyl and beige carpet.

Subsequently, again I have no idea when, the interior had been painted cream, an orange carped overlayed on top of the beige then wood effect laminate on top of that! Plus she had some brown, non standard seats bolted in, rotted out and then repaired with pylwood and sofa cushions!

She was called the 'Kidney Bean' by the previous owener due to the red exterior and brown/white/beige interior, but I had other plans.

And so the project began....

[Woof]

Aside from a dodgy realy which casued the teperature gauge to swing off the top of the scale, the van ran pretty smoothly so we moved onto the important bits- seat covers obviously!

So at the beginning of November when the weather was a bit crappy, me and my girlfriend stayed spent a few nights behind the sewing machine. 3 nights, £15 and 6 movies later we had replaced all the old and smelly brown cushion/mattress covers with these:


As you may have guessed, given the time of year, the fabric was indeed part of the seasonal range at our local fabricland. We thought it was pretty cool though, and cheap too!

[Woof]

Next I set about removing the fridge. Being of unknown age and gas powered I wasn't particularly keen to use it and was going to have it service. However, since I wasn't planning any long expeditions away from civilization at this point I decided my peace of mind was more important than cold milk/beer and when required I could get a modern cool box which could keep beer/milk colder for longer than it would take me to drink it!



As I had pretty much convinced myself that a fridge was no longer a requirement, I set about thinking what to do with the remaining space, and thats when things got a bit out of hand.

[Woof]

First I measured up the currently fitted units:



Then I figured out how much space I could get by removing the portion of the side units previously occupied by the fridge and realised by cutting back the side an additional 10cm I would have space for an extra seat.
So I sketeched out how I wanted the interior to end up. Noet: I also decided to chop out the rear 'wardrobe' to give a better field of view.

[Woof]

All of this interior design was rudely interupted by the fact it was now winter and I could not get the heating to work at all. A bit of a poke behind the heater/blower controls revealved the simple reason for this: A previous owner had, either due to a leaky heater matrix, or due to the fact the heater valve control cable was bent and so the valve was constantly open, rather than fixing either problem, had diconnected the hoses from the heater matrix and bodged in a copper u-bend. So out came the dash:

You can see the pipe hiding behind the master cylinder and also the state of the driver's seat quite well in this photo.
Getting the dash out took about 2 hours, and I had to use a stud extractor to get the steering column bolts out. In doing so I broke 2 carbon steel drill bits then decided it was probably more cost effective to just buy HSS bits rather than keep replacing the carbon ones.

The heater box then turned out to be glued shut, in addition to the metal srping clips and so another 2 hours were spent swearing and prising it open carefully with a knife and a screwdriver.
After leak testing the heater matrix with boiling water from the kettle I could see no issues, so it went back in full of fresh coolant and a dose of K-seal just in case.
The control cable was easily fixed by trimming off the bent end and re-securing the guide sleve at a more appropriate distance and angle to prevent excessive bending.

[Woof]

Setting about my interior re-deign plans, I removed the rear 'wardrobe'


As you can see it wasnt really much of a 'wardrobe' being spilt at the height of the rest of the units, and with a small box in one corner that could only be accessed with the boot open. the interior walls/shelf were made of chipboard which had soaked up a lot of water from gradual drips from a small leak in the boot seal and so were heavy, smelly and a little rotten. This stage also meant the roof locker had to come out as most of it's support was provided by the 'wardrobe'



The field of view was much improved, and I was happy with my design choice this far. At this stage I also removed all the bass knobs from the cupboard doors ad they were tarnished and paint flecked and I kept snagging things on them.

[Woof]

Then it all started coming out- first the laminate floor which revealed some hideous orange carpet, which then revealed some hideous brown carpet compete with chewing gum and assorted stains.


Followed by a dismantling of all the units until only this was left:

The sticky out bit on the left is the edge of the worktop, this was glued along the side of the van and then semi-supported by the units underneath. Again it was nasty chipboard and had to go- some gentle persuasion with a hammer was required!

[Woof]

At this point I'd also managed to find a set of replacement front seats in the form of a pair of grey ex-caravelle seats. They were listed in the swaps and givaways here, by some chap with a white syncro (sorry I forget your name!). Getting the old seats out proved to be a challenge- the replacement seat rails had been bolted throughthe original vw ones and it was seeingly impossible to move the seats enough to get at them due to some crazy captive ball-bearing design. So I took the hacksaw to either end of the rails and bent the flanges holding the bearings such that I could just roll the seats off.

While the seats were out I used a wire brush and drill to scrub off some surface rust in the battery box and gave it a few coats of paint:

You may also spot the old seat at the top of this photo, the old rails on the floor to the right, and various tools all over the place!

[Woof]

Whilst the seat boxes were drying, I got a bit carried away with some spare parts and plywood and knocked up a new battery cover for the passenger side.
Using the old one (yellow in the pic due to the rubber backing of the carpet that was stuck to it) as a rough template I created one that would stand a little higher allowing me to add a switchable voltmeter and 12v socket.

Cut to size and drilled:


Assembled and painted:


And finally- installed along tiwth the new seat:

The split charge relay and leisure fuse box are all mounted to the inside of the cover so its all easily accessible for maintenance/upgrades.

[Woof]

The useable bit of the units I then began to reassembe to my own design, starting with the rear cupboard. I replaced the chipboard shelf (now the top) with 12mm ply and increased the height of the step over the engine cover to allow easier access. I also painted everything up in a grey/red scheme prior to assembly to ensure the wood was sealed against damp.

Afte test fitting I added an Internal shelf at the height of the engine step over and a rear wall to stop things falling out with the tailgate open. Finally I added a vertical wall underneath the unit that would run along the edge of the engine cover to provide more support and a nice cubby slot in which to store the jack and a few other tools.

[Woof]

Now at the other end of my camping units, I cut the panel wher the fridge previously sat giving me two seperate units. The front one was easy to re-build, being pretty much a self contained unit, here it is masked for painting:

The upper section was then lined with aluminium sheeting to provide a degree of heat resistance and easy cleaning as the grill and hobs were to sit above this area. The unit joingin this to the rear cupboard was painted up in parts but had to wait until installation in the van for a proper assembly as it relied on the structure of these two units and the van to keep it together.

[Woof]

Before I got round to fitting anything back to the van, I had some more pressing issues to sort out:

The other side was almost as bad, and I had a couple of holes in the cab floor. So she went to MAD workshop in Bristol for 2 weeks whilst I was off in the States. She also needed new seatbelt mounts welding in, which to prove it wasn't nugatory work, they Guys at mad kept the ones they cut out to show me, lets just say I was pretty relieved as in a crash they would have given way like paper. With the steps sorted my girlfriend (5' 4") can now get in the van without taking a running jump too!

[Woof]

Unfortunately, things got put on hold for a good while due to work commitments. I had originally planned to tackle some general seam rust around the rear arches myself, but with the summer approaching and time against me I booked her in to a local welder. Just in time for the beginning of my summer leave, she came back with two new arches, tidy seams, and a techinicolour paint job:

I still havent decided what colour she will eventually be.

[yorkierob]

coming on nicely Its going to look awesome

[Woof]

Ok, Its been a while, was too busy tarting up and using the van during my summer leave, then too busy in third term to get any updates up.

So summer leave arrived and I set to work on the interior:

Quite a lot going on in this pic. Back left you can see the rubble sacks stuffed with rockwool insulation I crammed into every air gap in the bodywork as well as various colours of spraypaint where I tided up some surface rust. The hookup cable on the right replaced that previously installed as it was a bit damaged, I used beefy garden mains flex, identical to the stuff my external hook up cable is made of. And finally up front you can see a replacement tailgate, which I decided to fit as my old one was rusty and wouldn't lock.