Campervan Conversion - Part 1 - The Original Vehicle

We've decided to build ourselves a camper van, or rather to buy a van we could then fit-out as a camper.   

The initial idea is to retain much of the very useful functionality of a large van and so any major camper items in the load space (e.g. the bed) can be removed if required.

A couple of weeks ago, I looked at a few vans to get an idea of what we wanted for a base vehicle - one of our neighbours has a relatively new Transit but it's of standard height so immediately we climbed in the back we knew we needed a high-roof version.

In the end we bought a 2007 Ford Transit Mk 7 350 medium wheelbase (MWB) high-roof model, or the L3H3 version (length code = 3 and height code = 3) - many van configurations from other manufacturers are also described in this same way. 

That's what we think is our van specification - there are many references online for transit van layouts, but having measured ours we still can't quite reconcile the actual dimensions with the information we found.  In particular, the length of the load floor is around 3,200 mm but in the references this should be matched to a shorter wheelbase than the 3,750 mm we also measured.   

Anyway, we've now just about surveyed the vehicle to find out exactly what we have to work with ...

So this is 'definitely' the medium wheelbase version, although at just under 6.0 m only the jumbo vans are longer.  It's rear wheel drive and fitted with a 2.4 litre turbo diesel engine.

With the high roof, I can just about stand fully upright in the load space, and headroom is no problem at all for my wife.

We considered variants from a few other manufacturers, but this van was quite local to us and there've been millions of Transits produced so both new and used spares are plentiful and reasonably-priced.

There are a few minor issues with the van itself which we'll repair concurrently with the 'conversion' works.  These include fixing the sliding door handle, an intermittent fault with the instrument cluster (dashboard), the accelerator pedal potentiometer and some bodywork repairs required including replacing a missing corner piece of the rear bumper.

And of course, it needs a really good clean inside and out ...

one of the reasons the van was cheap ...

Luckily, we've plans to replace the seats anyway, with at least the passenger side rotatable towards the future living area.

The seller had also bought the van 18 months ago with a view to converting it to a camper, and so we copped for a few very useful extras such as a couple of sheets of plywood, some framing timbers, and a 240 VAC / 12 VDC fridge.

However, Covid-19 had given him different ideas - he was stuck out in the Far-East for nine months and so he's decided to sell up and move there permanently.  Whereas Covid-19 is actually the driver for our own project - we expect that taking our own accommodation via continental ferries in the summer will be far less hassle than trying to fly anywhere and stay in hotels, what with the likely pre-flight testing regimes and social distancing etc.

And of course we'll enjoy the process of creating the van and dreaming of future travels at a time when we can't actually go anywhere ...

Our Transit van had initially been bought new by Network Rail, a company that repairs the railway infrastructure here in the UK, as a crew / workshop van and so had already been fitted out with some useful gear.   In addition to extra windows at either side, one in the fixed RH panel and another in the LH sliding door, there's a diesel space heater in the back connected directly to the fuel tank, a dual-charging system for use with separate 'leisure' batteries and a 1,000W pure sine-wave inverter.  However, we haven't yet checked if any of this stuff still works ...

The rear of the van has already been panelled using 8 mm thick black formica sheets.  It's also clear that the section of the van immediately behind the driver's cab had previously been fitted with additional seating (hence the heater & extra windows) and with a full height bulkhead behind, but a previous owner to our seller had removed these seats and hacked away the bulkhead (badly !) to fully open up the load space.

So this is the canvas we have to work with.  Timescale is for the van to be functional by the summer, with hopefully a long weekend or two in the UK under our belts before we venture further afield later.

Time to start designing ...