DIY Surf bus / campervan build - The Yellow Peril

[Tampon]

So after many different cars, mainly big cruisers, normally estates because of the dogs, Omegas, Vectras and currently a Subaru Legacy ( hopefully sold soon) my wife and I decided we wanted a camper van. I drove to Ghana a year ago from London in two Nissan patrols


Little video
http://vimeo.com/47162711

Took 2 weeks, a few scary bits and a bit of hiding from Al-Qaeda camps in Mauritania but over all I loved it and after breaking down in the Iron mountains and having to sleep in 50 deg heat at night I thought I would like to try visiting somewhere cold. I had a idea and rang my wife from the Sahara on a sat phone and said I want to get a camper and drive to the arctic circle (not as hard as it first sounds, just go on a highway from Norway!).

She said yes and then after a year of looking for a van, going to auctions, nearly buying a couple of post office vans we eventually came across this 43,000 mile vivaro on the south coast advertised.



Checked it out, test drive, little haggle and we bought it bargain.

First thing first check all known weak points ( ie gearbox and gear selector cables), second thing order rock and roll bed for the back and also get some windows put in her.

We rang round a few places and found a guy on eBay who did a deal for 2 side windows and two rear barn doors windows fitted for £375. I was going to do it myself but when I added the price of the glass alone it would have cost me £340 without the equipment or other materials so a no brainer really. Headed up to Derby from surrey and Alan had the windows in in 2 hrs. Left it a extra hour for the glue/sealant/mastic stuff to cure and we headed down to Warwickshire to pick up a roll and roll bed frame with a draw from these guys www.camperking.co.uk. When we got there we were very impressed with the set up and the amount of work they do, they must have had 7 newish VW in production and they let us wander round and get some ideas. Spencer gave me a hand to load my frame into the van and chatted for 20 mins about how I should go about different aspects of the build. Lovely guy.








So the glass makes a MASSIVE difference. I have driven luton vans for work before and gotten used to no rear veiw mirro and blind spots. With this glass it is just like driving a car, so much easier and makes it less intimidating for the wife as well which is a good thing.

The biggest issue was the tinted glass or clear. I wanted tinted to add privacy when parked up ( and cos it looks cooler) and my wife wanted clear as she was worried it would be too dark inside. Well I won but she is happy as well. This is what it looks like from the outside ( ie blacked out)


And this is what it is like from the inside


All in all every bodies a winner

Edited by Tampon on Thursday 17th November 22:47

[Tampon]

So on to the next stage, the actual interior.

So I bought one of these


I also purchased 11 yoga mats off ebay for the princely sum of £15. The plan is to put squares of flashband on the panel wall and then glue the mats over the flat surfaces to take the ring and booming out of the van and then to use plastic bottle insulation in the voids with foil coated bubblewrap for insulation. With the metal beams having plastic fibres stuffed down them and then carpeting the walls and ply. The floor being flashbanded wheelarches, yoga mat on the floor with foil coated bubble insulation on top then ply then vinyl.

I have started on the wall panels and am doing a section at a time. The ply has been cut to fit the spaces so I will need to buy some carpet in the near future.


Having never done any of this it does feel a bit exciting but being a upholster by trade everything is similar to the skills I have.

I will update as things are done, or if anyone wants to know anything particular in more detail let me know before and I will try and document things as I do them.

Edited by Tampon on Wednesday 2nd October 15:54

[smegmore]

Great project, good luck!

Could you give me the name of the ebay guy for the windows please?

Thanks.

[Tampon]

Guys name is Alan, number is 07711 797000.

Ebay ad

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/vauxhall-vivaro-trafic-p...

If you do go for him don't do what I did and drive to the "Glass Doktor" as they wont tell you your in the wrong place and Alan is next door, cheeky buggers

Edited by Tampon on Wednesday 2nd October 16:57

[silent k]

Will be watching in with interest, as it's something I've just started looking at doing as well. A Vivaro is currently top of my list too, so it'll be interesting to see how you get on. My main concern at the minute is how big a van we'd need with 2 adults and 2 little children, I suspect we'd need raise the roof and put beds in there.

[B17NNS]

Looking forward to this

[Tampon]

silent k said:

Will be watching in with interest, as it's something I've just started looking at doing as well. A Vivaro is currently top of my list too, so it'll be interesting to see how you get on. My main concern at the minute is how big a van we'd need with 2 adults and 2 little children, I suspect we'd need raise the roof and put beds in there.

Depends on the size of the kids really. You can easily fit a 12 year old across the front seats, there are foam mats made especially for the job of covering that space, or there are hammocks like this.

You can also get hammocks like in the old VW's. A high roof line lwb vivaro should be big enough. If not look at high roof transits or vw crafters.

Costs a packet to modify the roof of a standard van with a poptop. All depends if you need a low height van, we do.

[silent k]

Tampon said:

Depends on the size of the kids really. You can easily fit a 12 year old across the front seats, there are foam mats made especially for the job of covering that space, or there are hammocks like this.

You can also get hammocks like in the old VW's. A high roof line lwb vivaro should be big enough. If not look at high roof transits or vw crafters.

Costs a packet to modify the roof of a standard van with a poptop. All depends if you need a low height van, we do.

I'd not seen the front seat beds, interesting! Kids are 4 & 2 so pretty little really. I think we need decide whether it's just going to be a camper van or used as a car as well. That'll decide what size van we get.

[robpearson]

It's worth working out where your power cables and speakers etc are going before you get much further - far easier to get that sort of guff in now than try and hide it later. I've got 3 solar panels on the roof of my renault master ambulance, and had to make a right mess of the insulation and plastic lining to get the cabling through to them.

[Tampon]

Already sorted, the leisure battery (truck battery) will go behind the middle front seat under a small bench. The main battery is under the floor in the cab so this leaves only short runs of wire from 1 to the other, Then the wiring to the plugs ( only 12v) will run under the Ikea Faktum cabinets at the side that are lifted a touch off the floor on batterns to hide the wires and allow for under cabinet lighting. The roof lighting will run up the door pillar on the drivers side and have switches on the side of the cabinets at the back.

Idea is to make it as simple as possible. 240 hookup will come in the form of a standard camping hook up lead with circuit breakers with a double socket that can be plugged in and trailed through a window with wind deflector on. We will be wild camping mainly, not really campsite types.

Also there is a plastic trunking that runs along the nearside panel at the wall/roof line which will be removed and carpeted underneath and refitted on display (pretty smart) to allow for any future wiring needed.

[Garlick]

Is that single gazing Tampon, as in normal van glass? Heading to the Arctic did you not consider some double glazing?

[Tampon]

Garlick said:

Is that single gazing Tampon, as in normal van glass? Heading to the Arctic did you not consider some double glazing?

It is single glazing. The idea of a trip to the Arctic was what set this all off, but is isn't the sole purpose of the bus, it will be one of many trips that we do round the UK, Europe and north Africa over the next few years. The van is my main car as well and will be used for trips to the shops and ferrying crap to the dump.

I wanted the van to look as cool as possible so we decided not to design it round a single trip. We will get internal thermal blackout blinds for the windows for general use around Europe but for the arctic trip I think we will also get a external wrap around for the windscreen. The double glazing looks a bit pants and is alot more expensive which is something we couldn't afford even if we wanted to.

That, decent sleeping bags and hot water bottle should do us for the trip. I would imagine we would be a bit cool but that is kind of the point! We have camped out in minus 3 deg before as a silly Valentines day night on the beach in Studland once without no heating just lots of clothes. Nooky was funny that night with only what needed exposing being exposed!

[Garlick]

I'd want triple-lagged water tanks, heated toilet seat, wet heating...

Yes, I am soft

[smegmore]

Tampon said:

Guys name is Alan, number is 07711 797000.

Ebay ad

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/vauxhall-vivaro-trafic-p...

If you do go for him don't do what I did and drive to the "Glass Doktor" as they wont tell you your in the wrong place and Alan is next door, cheeky buggers

Edited by Tampon on Wednesday 2nd October 16:57

Thanks very much for the info, Tampon.

[indigorallye]

I've also got a Vivaro. It looks very much like any other white van though!
Hoping to get on with the 'build' this winter.



Polar thermal screens fitted:


Swivel front seats:


I've just bought this race awning too:

[Tampon]

So a bit more work this weekend. The back of the bus is a mess die to it being the storage space for the rock and roll bed and all the insulation and tools whilst I am doing it. That and I am a messy bugger.

So I have added flashbanding to the ceiling and wheelarches and also started glue recycled bottle insulation to the yoga mats and then seal that in with foil sided bubble thermal wrap. All the hollows in the beal has got the insulation ripped up and pushed into it to fill those voids. I used gaffer tape to attach the bubble wrp to the beams and seal the small holes to try and prevent as much condensation from us sleeping in there to move around behind the walls.




Flashbanding


|http://thumbsnap.com/WfruBoci[/url]



Then the plastic insulation covered with the therma wrap



Sorry about the sideways pics, the quick upload function here doesn't recognise portrait photos

Also I wanted to get alloys for the van next year, but the look of it with though slightly pitted steels looks a touch "traveler". So I had a hunt around and found that vauxhall did a alloy like hibcap but these were £150 a set new.

I eventually found a proper vivaro set for sale second hand on ebay that finished at 2 in the morning on a thursday, which I won for £40.

So today I spent a while sanding, cleaning and priming the steels, then used a whole 500ml can of matt black to spray them to hide the steel part behind the wheel trims.

I think they have turned out pretty well for a £40 stop gap

Before




After

Edited by Tampon on Sunday 6th October 18:27

[Tampon]

The flooring has been ordered so I think the next stage is to get the ply floor up ( not as easy as it sounds as alot of the screws are made of toffee and rounded out). Clean and then mark out and drill 9 bolt holes through the floor for the rock and roll bed, Bolt it in via 5mm steel bars underneath that runs side to side for the bolts to go through to prevent the bed bolts pulling through the floor in a accident.

Then glue yoga mats and maybe a layer of thermal wrap then relay the ply and cut out and attach the vinyl flooring, then bolt the rock and rock bed upwards so the nuts are in the van rather than underneath to make removing the bed for moving motorbike and large things a touch easier.

[Lynch91]

Interesting read, are you gonna fit a van heater? We insulated a sprinter van for karting weekends away using loft insulation and then that foil bubble wrap stuff and it still got rather cold when it was around freezing or colder outside.

[Tampon]

Lynch91 said:

Interesting read, are you gonna fit a van heater? We insulated a sprinter van for karting weekends away using loft insulation and then that foil bubble wrap stuff and it still got rather cold when it was around freezing or colder outside.

No bud, I am trying to keep it as simple and cheap as possible with a decent finish. Also thinking about get a small 12v car heater and running that from the leisure battery to take the chill out o the air as and when it is needed ( thinking stripping it down and wiring it in with a timer relay from a extractor fan so we don;t leave it on and drain the battery). Something like this looks good, can charge it up whilst driving and use the internal battery then use the leisure batteyr if needed. It isn't going to make it toasty warm but should take the chill off a touch.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/12v-4-in-1-rechargeable-ca...

I can build that into the bottom of one of the cuboards with vents to draw air so it looks a bit less heath robinson.

I guess we will run the engine for a bit to get some heat in the van if it is seriously cold (thinking arctic), and use hot water bottle to warm the bed before we get in.

Do you use any thermal window covers to help? if so which ones.

We have managed a good few nights freezing at festivals and sorted that with taking proper feather duvets and decent PJ's, you look a bit of a numpty walking around with proper blow up queen sized beds and wheel barrows full of proper bedding and pillows but it makes it proper comfy and warm.

[Lynch91]

Tampon said:

Do you use any thermal window covers to help? if so which ones.

We had insulated the bulk head so didn't use any so can't help with that.

Idk if it would be possible for you to wire it so that it comes on at a certain temperature? As we found that it got really cold around 4am?