Cooker Unit

From the beginning, the plan for the camper has been that I should be able to use it as my daily driver, with room for 4/5 people, and to act as a "van" to cart things around, but to easily convert to "camper mode" if I was going away. 

The bed part of that is working well, just using the offside folding rear seats, packing boxes to fill in a small gap at the foot end, and an Ikea roll up mattress.

I just need a small unit to store cooking things and food in and to use as a counter-top for a small gas stove and water carrier etc. I thought about making a detachable unit that I could easily move in and out of the van, but have very limited storage space at home, so I came upon the idea of replacing the redundant folding rearmost seat with a folding storage unit.

The space looked like this after the seat was removed.

I added 2 plywood bearers to the top of the wheel arch and to the flattest part of the side panel. Fixings into the wheel arch area were easy - self tappers into metal strengthening panels - but the side panel was more difficult and I ended up using 8 hollow wall plugs, which seem to be doing a good job so far. If they loosen, I may have to take the panel off and fix a backing plate behind it to screw into. Note the location of the storage compartment for the jack, behind the wheel arch - I needed to still have access to that without emptying and dismantling the unit.

Then I used some lighter 12mm ply to make a top and front, with piano hinges at the junctions. The feet had to be relieved slightly to account for the uneven floor in this area. The unit is approximately 300mm deep x 600mm wide and 600mm high.

Then I trial fitted a shelf, which will provide storage space above the arch, but also make the structure rigid. I marked where it would land on the front panel and attached a 25mm x 25mm batten to support it, then used another piano hinge to attach it to the bearer on the wheel arch. I split the shelf into approx 1/3 - 2/3 and hinged it again, so that the end can lift up with the unit deployed to give me access to the wheel jack compartment.

Then I cut access holes in the front to get to the storage area. This photo shows the whole unit with the shelf hinged up and then the unit folded up to hold it in place. I used the same method as the original seat to hold it in the stowed position, by simply using a bungee cord hooked over the grab handle above.

Folded down, the single ring stove sits neatly below for travelling and then can easily be moved to the top to use.  The water carrier fits on the floor next to the wheel arch as if it was made to go there! I added 2 swan-necked barrel bolts that locate into the shelf and hold it firm against the support batten, so it can't move once deployed. It takes about 10 seconds to move between stored and in-use mode! I still need to finish it with some varnish and I'm going to make some small nets that can attach to each end and over each access hole on the front to keep things in place while I'm travelling, but I've already used it like this for a couple of nights away and it works just perfectly 😃 I've also been pleasantly surprised to find that it doesn't rattle around at all.

Window covers and next sleepover

I've looked at quite a few YouTube tutorials about making insulated window covers to keep heat in/out and black out the windows at night. I had an imminent sleepover coming up, so quickly made some that do the insulating bit but haven't yet covered the backs with anything to make things a bit more "stealthy". Ultimately, I'll glue some nylon backed black material on to the backs.

I got a roll of lining wallpaper to make some stencils - that was all fairly straight forward - then traced the shapes onto a roll of "Reflectix" type material that I got from B&Q. I bought a pack of 15 suckers off Amazon and added 2 per cover, with an extra one on the bigger rear window. 

This all worked really well. Easy to put on and take off. It's difficult to say how much difference it made to the heat retention, because it was probably 6 deg warmer than my first overnight, but there was no condensation on the windows, whereas last time they were running. They also blocked the light really well.

I also got a fold up windscreen cover from Halfords, which works pretty well. I may trim it down to fit better some time but it's good enough for now.

On this sleepover, I spun the passenger seat around, which gave loads more room but. importantly, also made the space feel a lot bigger. I had a really comfy night, camping out at friend's after a music evening.

On the way back, I crammed all of my music and camping gear into the front passenger side and dismantled / collected a shed I'd bought off Marketplace for the garden. Such a versatile vehicle this - she swallowed it up with ease!

 

Alloy Wheels

A set of alloys was not top of the list of priorities. After all, I'd spent time refurbishing the wheel covers. I'd been looking on Marketplace and EBay just to see how much they went for and most were about £150 - £200 for a set of 4.

This set popped up not a million miles away from my regular drive across to Whitchurch for £110. I made a silly offer of £75 and got them for £78 :-) Although they are quite dirty and stained from brake dust, three of the tyres are reasonable as well. 

I figured I could put a budget tyre on and use them for a while until I have a bit more spare cash, at which point I'll get them refurbished and a new set of tyres.

Following some YouTube "wisdom", I gave them a clean using spray on oven cleaner (i.e. caustic soda) and they have come up surprisingly well. I didn't really have much of a go at the backs. 

I just need to get a new tyre now and I'll swap them over. Looking forward to seeing how she looks with a smarter set of shoes.

And the answer is that she looks mighty fine. Completely transformed in fact, I would say. I’m starting to feel pretty proud of the old girl 🙂.

 

Spark Plugs

As the engine was running so nicely, I had originally been intending to leave the spark plugs, but after finding that the air filter apparently hadn't been replaced for a long time, I thought I should do the plugs. It's not exactly like they are expensive.

True to form, it all took a bit of getting apart, but not as bad as the air filter. Why are modern engines so difficult to get into?

So, the good news was that the plugs were a fairly nice colour. The bad news (or good, depending on your viewpoint) was that the gaps were enormous! Definitely glad I'm changing them. And I gave the threads a good coating of anti-seize :-)

On my first tankful of fuel after replacing the air filter and spark plugs, I was pleased to see that the MPG had gone from 30 to 32. I'm pretty happy with that, considering I'm essentially pushing a big square box, with the aerodynamics of a brick, along!

Door panel repainted

I left the door trim panel and interior trims off, after I had fixed the sliding door, as I wanted to respray the damaged trim and could do that in my temporary spray booth (back bedroom!)

I'd already ordered a batch of paint and was surprised that it came as a base and top coat plus lacquer. It is a pearl paint finish, and apparently body shops hate trying to match it, so I wasn't holding out high hopes for how it will look, although it will definitely be better than the scratched affair shown below. Basically, because the rollers were missing off the slider, it was folding in on itself and scraping on the paint (for a long time by the look of it.)

I rubbed all of the scratched area down and feathered it in then applied grey primer, base coat, top coat and lacquer. It looked good - nice and smooth.

Refitting the panel the following day showed that it's not really a great match to the 23 year old faded paint, but it's actually not as bad in real life as it looks here. I may put a "van life" type grapic on it at some point to disguise it a bit. Or I might not be arsed!!

 

Foggy headlights have seen the light

The last "cat-sitting" job I tackled was to refurbish the headlights, which were very cloudy and yellowed from UV. This was clearly visible on the photo from the For Sale advert. 

I had most of the bits necessary to sort this out from doing a previous car and just needed to order more abrasive discs. This isn't a difficult job to do - it's just tedious working through progressively finer grades of wet and dry using a drill mounted disc pad.

But the results were great! She looks so much happier now :-)

 

Sliding Door doin’ what it oughter!

Next up was to get the sliding door sorted. 

I had to take off the interior panelling so that I could remove the body panel covering the sliding mechanism. I was fairly sure that the rollers on the centre hinge had collapsed and, indeed, what I found when I removed the hinge was actually no rollers! 

What I didn't foresee was that someone has cut and removed the operating cables, which explains why the electric control isn't working! I have looked into replacing them but they aren't available as a separate part. I could probably make something up but to be honest it's no big deal to not have electric operation - one less thing to go wrong.

I'd ordered new rollers, whic were only £10. The posts they fitted to were quite corroded and I had to file one back into shape before it would slide on. Slightly worringly, the slot for the retaining circlip was too damaged to retain the circlip, so I had to peen it over with a hammer. It should hold it in place but means I'll need to source a second hand hinge plate if I ever have to do them again.

And so the door is back to doing what it should!