Continuing the theme of my ’All Torque’ post, another display of self-motivation? Not quite. Over Christmas I got rid of the small Citroen in favour of a van so will literally be bringing bigger things to races in 2012. The poor C3 had always complained that muddy bikes strewn across the bike seats wasn’t in its job description and after my failed attempt to woo Mercedes into giving me a Vito, I started researching other means. 

We ended up trying to beat the wheeler dealers at their own game and getting a Renault Trafic at the auctions. She seems to be a ‘good runner’ and other than having to coping with a builder’s abuse on the interoir, in good nick. For what I had planned it wasn’t a problem and like with a run down house, a bit of inspiration and visionary elbow grease can grab a bargain. This blog post follows the work I did on the van to make it into somewhere I can sleep, whilst still keep lots of racing kit; a sort of semi-camper conversion. I thought it would be good to document after using many other peoples blog conversions for inspiration during my research.

The van was a builders van and to start I had to take a big black tool chest and tray rack out, plus clean out the copious number of rusty screws, rivets and plaster. I didn’t get a photo of the van in its initial state but bellow shows it striped down to the ply panels. The exterior was fine, other than replacing the side trim and a patch of rust on the side step which I opted to treat. 

Following from here, I removed the ply lining as I wanted to insulate the cavities in order to have any sort of comfort sleeping in it. This was a fairly easy job.

The roof wasn’t lined and with heat rising it had to be insulated too. I cut two panels to fit the roof, with enough space to put polystyrene between the batons. Notice the circles - these are for an old surround sound pc speaker set I was going to install.

Attempting to complete the bulk of the conversion work during my ‘inter-semester break’ (half-term for Bath students) along with a heavy week training on the bike, I had initially planned to do the minimum work. With the panels off though, now was the stage to get anything I wanted to do, done. Carpeting was something I had planned for the future but realised it would save a lot of work to do it now. I’m pleased with the finish and it was a really quite simple and un-stressful task.

Next came the insulation and reinstalling the panels. My body being the temple that it is, I couldn’t be dealing with glass fibre so went with sheep’s wool. It was incredibly easy to work with and I haven’t smelt a hint to sheep yet. Fitting it as snow was coming down, it instantly provided warmth to the back of the van. Thankfully, all the panels went back on (I was worried about the extra dimensions the carpet would add) and the van was starting to look less builder. 

I needed a bed. For this I re-kindled my GSCE level carpentry and hacked together my old bunk bed into the size I wanted. The idea is to used a folding bed-sofa matress, pinned against the side to make a single/sofa and a fold out piece of ply to increase the bed width for a double (the folding ply isn’t installed yet - I’m a loner for now). The empty space under the bad can be used for storage.

There had to be an element of ‘Pimp my Ride’ in this and the electrics are where that comes in. Taking inspiration from the new Boeing Dreamliner, I wanted concealed led strip lighting which would diffuse off the sides. For this I incorporated a carpeted plinth to the ceiling, onto which the led strip would stick. The included controller has various colour, cycle options, I intend on creating an Arduino based controller to react to the beat of the music input.

Hard to get a photo of the finished product so I made one of my embarrassing videos:

I also wanted a panel for the aux-in to the speaker system, switches, fuse box, cigarette sockets and usb inputs. Using my SketchUp and my Dremel, I came up with a panel for this. It isn’t perfect but does the job. The fuse box sits behind the black acrylic above. Two other acrylic panels act as covers for the other side (got to have symmetry!).

Finally, all this requires a power supply - one which isn’t going to jepodise my chances of getting home. For this I bought a leisure battery and incorporated a self-switching split charge relay. The battery sits under the passenger sit and I built an isolater switch into an equipment box which also houses the relay. All fused: the starter - relay, the relay-leisure battery, the relay-back electrics and finally at a breakout box.

Heres the van so far - with its first race memorabilia! I added some nautical style hatches for the bed with some grippy matting underneath to stash stuff and also a cargo net on the ceiling.

I’ve a few ideas left for the van but these will have to wait ‘till I’ve not got a final year project to do.