My First van conversion Part 1

Hi

I would like to share my last van conversion with you all. It was a completely new and DIY job so I made a few mistakes along the way but I was really happy with the outcome. I'm currently working on my second conversion and I'm realising how much the first one has taught me. A lot fewer fuck ups this time around.

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Anyway, here's my first van, a very tired old beast I bought from a lady down in Devon.

And here's a couple shots of the original conversion, not bad, but certainly not how I'd like it.

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Closer Investigations

My thinking for buying an already converted van was because the idea of starting from scratch was too daunting to me. When I viewed it I didn't really know what I was looking for and on the surface, the conversion seemed good.

However, after a couple of days of digging around in the back of it, I had to accept it all needed to go. A lot of the conversion had been done badly, electrics were bodged with random wire everywhere, the floor was damp in places, the final decision was made when i found the insulation used in the walls and ceiling was fibreglass. If you've ever handled fibreglass insulation with your bare hands you'll know its nasty stuff for your skin, eyes and insides.
I didn't fancy in such close proximity to the stuff so gutting the whole thing was the next stage.

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Gutting the beast

So this stage took waay longer than I expected and it was actually pretty physically hard work, a lot of the screws used to put everything together had rusted so a large hammer and crow bar were my best friends for several days.

As I dismantled things and got back to the bare metal I found a few issues. The first was this.

Under the plywood flooring was soaking wet old carpet! I'm not sure what the last person was thinking, perhaps cheaper than insualtion? In any case, it had to go, luckily I think I'd got to it before any real damage to the floor pan had been done.

Rust
Another common theme throughout this van was the rust. A big no-no with van conversions is screwing things directly to the floor of the van. The screws pierce the metal and are then exposed to all the elements on the underside.
As you can see in these photos the rusted holes probably started out as small screw holes years ago. Hidden away you'd never know what was going on.

As they were relatively minor holes and I can't weld I decided to grind back to clean metal and then fibreglass over them, it's important to then paint from the underside of the vehicle as well to stop any moisture creeping in again.

The gutting took me about 3 weeks i think, working for a few hours at least every day. I can't say it was enjoyable. A fair bit of the wood was ok to reuse which saved me some money in the long run.

Half way done

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Treating the floorpan

After weeks of grime and dismantling, I finally had a blank canvas.

The next step was to seal the floor so I won't have to worry about it rotting out in future. This process was relatively simple. I jet washed the grease and dirt off. The put down several coats of red oxide primer.

I then used a rubberised paint usually used on felt roofs. This stuff was great, cheap at £12 a tin and it left the floor with a great waterproof finish, tidy!

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That's all for now, next post I will be showing the layout plans, how I insulated it, and put flooring down.

Previous Post: https://steemit.com/campervan/@robali123/my-camper-van-introduction