And that's a wrap

Another one of my interests is the world of "every day carry". Originally borne out of survivalists and what they carry in the wild of the Rocky mountains or similar, it now encompasses urbanites and what they need through the day to "survive".

Of course a lot of this is entirely irrelevant to the UK - I don't need to carry a Ruger Super Redhawk in case I get jumped by a grizzly on my way home from Tesco's (part of me says that's good, but the gear-nut says it's a pity), but the premise is similar - if the van breaks down how do I get home?

But I digress, this post is about a part of EDC, paracord wraps.

Wrapping paracord (extremely strong nylon cord used for parachutes) is a handy way to keep a length on your person in a convenient form, be it a lanyard or a wrap around something you always carry.

A large number of knots and wraps have been devised / adapted from sailors knots and I have used a simple wrap on my vans grab handles.

This really is a simple wrap, but I have used reflective paracord to aid finding the handle in low light / under torch light. It also makes the handles a bit nicer to use, offering a more cushioned and better grip. It also keeps with the utilitarian mood of the van, and I'm looking for other areas that can get the paracord treatment...

A rather large alteration

Things have changed recently.

For the last week my left hand has been a little harder to lift.

This is due to my marriage to my ever understanding but often eye rolling fiancée Toni.

Unfortunately on the van front, spending has hit a temporary halt while we finish paying for the wedding, and also the rather large MOT bill. Yup, I got stung for some repairs that I hadn't realised needed doing. Luckily these weren't too terminal for the old girl, she is 11 years old after all and had little or no care in the years before I bought her.

But  back to the wedding, we had lei's from Flower's Up! which we hung on the back of the guests chairs.

These worked brilliantly as an alternative to the usual fabric bows, and added a little dub magic to the proceedings. And after buying so many lei's we have loads spare, so I'm going to re-string a few together to hang across our dash boards.

Load shelf redux

I've already covered my first attempt at a load shelf, and perfectly serviceable it was too. However, I knew there was a better use of the space.

After scouring the Land Rover forums and eBay I found an auction for an ex army under bed locker. These are often used by the LR boys to make an extending drawer in the back of their Defenders, so taking inspiration I paid out a massive £12 for one box!

Once it arrived I set about it with a tin of paint, I just needed to freshen up the parts that will be exposed once I have fitted and trimmed with Ally plate. I also cut a hole in the hinged lid to fit a drawer handle. I intend fitting a sheet of aluminium or stainless to the top of the lid so I will fit the handle then. I will also remove the original pulls and fit some chequers plate to the front, once the load shelf is fitted.

In preparation for installing in the van, I remade a new battery box and storage trunk which also serves as a support for one side of the drawer, the other side being supported by a MDF upright. Keeping weight down (as much as I can) I drilled both uprights with a large hole saw in a diamond pattern. This is mostly obscured by the carpet and drawer, but makes a huge difference in weight.

Once all of this was roughed out I placed an order to Megavanmats for some black carpet. I was tempted to try the mega stretch but as I don't need to cover too many awkward contours, I went for the regular stuff. This was just fine and I covered the side panels at last...

With the addition of some full extension heavy duty drawer slides the box was fitted, and it works perfectly.

Now I have storage, but also once I have covered the top with metal a cooking surface that is outside the van. This is important not only for reducing the risk of fires but keeping nasty cooking niffs at bay.

Next up for the load shelf is the actual shelf, to be placed across the boxed arches.

So if I'm cooking under the tailgate it would be nice to see what I've doing, right?

Well already in hand, I've reused the LED roof lights I had in my first headlining mod, and fitted them along with another Carling switch in a remodeled tailgate panel. This is done in the same was as the side panels were, and once covered in carpet I think it looks very cool.

The lights set off nicely against the black carpet.

And the switch looks good too, and sticks out only as much as the MDF so is fairly low profile.

Now I just need to make sense of the spaghetti mess at the rear and fit it to the van...

Switch on, switch off

Something else I found on the Mud stuff website was a nice range of Carling switches. I've been trying to find some customizable switches for the various new circuits I'm putting in the van and these fit the bill nicely.

Not only do the types of switches cover all the bases - on/off, on/on/off, mom/off/mom etc, but they take legends in the front illuminated area. All assemble they look factory, so an order was placed (of course) for 1 switch and a 6 way bezel, along with the rear terminal plug and terminals and legends. I only ordered 1 switch for now as I wanted to check fit and finish first.

In the hand these switches really are nice, solid action and well made. This goes for the bezel too.

Originally I planned to replace all of my existing switches with these Carling ones, but as the VW hazard switch and heated screen switch both house the relay too, I've had to keep them original.

I've decided to mount the 6 way bezel above teh heater controls, it fits here perfectly and I've never used the cubby. Having it in line below the stereo helps it look factory, rather than just cobbled together.

How neat is that!

So first up is a switch to isolate the night heater, and also a switch to control the rear fan.

Ever planning for the future, I made up a loom for all 6 switch positions. With my plans for heated front seats I have 2 spares.

And here they are, looking very neat.

Here we have a shot at night, I may change the illumination colour in the future to match VW's.

Keeping the look I will be utilising these switches in other areas in the van.

Bulk-head-lining

All work and no play makes Jack...

I've been working hard lately, just not on the van. Ok, well maybe I haven't been working that hard, but I have been working as many hours as I can get.

But every now and then I get a bit of energy and I get things done. Like the headlining. When I last updated I had covered some hardboard with 6mm foam, and now it was time to recover in the final material.

I had already bought this many moons ago, so no cost was involved as I had some adhesive left over from the carpeting. The material is almost suede to the touch and lends a feel of luxury to an otherwise functional conversion. While I was at it I recovered the nasty front headlining to match.

With the sun visors sprayed satin black to match the black supports it all comes together nicely.

So that was relatively cheap, and the next job was potentially cheaper.

I've been looking out for a mesh bulkhead to fit behind my rear seats for some time. I've looked at genuine VW T4 ones, landrover ones, nearly won a Landcruiser one on eBay too. But no luck, either too expensive or too far away.

Then, as I sat surfing I had an epiphany. Mercedes Vito's are the same basic shape and size as the T4, and they don't attract the "scene tax" as VW's do. A quick search uncovered a mesh bulkhead only 50 miles away. The best bit, £0.99 starting bid with no reserve!

So a late bid was placed, and I got it for 99p!

Ok, a 100 mile round trip costs something but it's still a steal.

In the cold light of day it's about 2 inches too wide. But with swift application of the grinder (my new favourite tool) 4 inches were removed (to make fitting easier) from the middle. I was considering welding it back into 1 piece (with my 2nd favourite tool) but SWMBO made a decree that it should be in 2 halves to make removal easier. This makes sense and now I can still carry long items if I remove 1 side.

To fit the van I bonded some ply (the same used previously for the fan) to the roof in which I had already installed some "wood nuts" (http://thedogvan.blogspot.com/2011/03/boxing-clever.html). As I have laid ply to the floor more of these nuts were fitted there. Adding a small piece of angle to the bottom of each bulkhead, they are now held in play with 3 M8 bolts each.

Rock solid and easily removed, just what I wanted.

I chose a mesh bulkhead as I wanted to hang some MOLLE pouches on it, keeping everything more organised.

I have now removed the dog guard I previously fitted (http://thedogvan.blogspot.com/2011/04/carpet-bagging.html) but might need that behind the drivers seat to stop my dogs from trying to get in my lap whilst driving!

Loads on my mind

I new I would change it. My battery box was originally going to be a stand-alone item. But doing some research (pouring over Google image searches) into expedition vehicles I discovered it's de rigueur to have a load shelf,  drawers or cabinets to organise and safely store loose pieces of equipment.

That looks fun I thought, and this way I could safely carry my trolley jack, and have some tidiness in the boot section.

So off to the DIY store I went and came back with an amount of 12mm MDF and some batten.

The frame is made to fit between wheel arches, and is divided into 5 sections. The 3 rear sections are for the fuse / battery box which will is now built in, and also to house a pair of plastic crates for carrying cooking utensils or whatever. These will be accessed from the tailgate and simply slid in/out of position. I still need to come up with a way to secure them during whilst driving.

The 2 front sections are for "recovery equipment", including my 2 tonne trolley jack, wheel braces, fuel can (empty), snow socks and foldable shovel. These are accessed through 2 hinged doors in the top with lockable catches.

Originally I planned to use the same carpet tiles that I will use on the floor, but it will be easier to use hard wearing speaker box carpet.

Another use for the load shelf is as a seat when parked up. Now we can open the tailgate, climb in the back and sit in the shade / out of the rain.

Whilst the main shelf sits between the arches, the angles front and sides will actually extend over the arches. It's neater this way and also provides suitable real estate for fitting some sockets and switches in the rear next to the battery box.

The shelf edge will be protected / neatened using some aluminium treadplate corner protectors, this ties in with the rest of the van.

I'm thinking of adding a load net to the top, but for now this will do me proud.

Gone but not forgotten?

It's been a while, and in truth not much has happened on the van front up until about a week ago when I got ants in my pants and had to crack on with tidying the rear.

I took the headlining down a while ago so that I could run extra wires, remove redundant wiring and ultimately make a new headlining to replace the naff grey corded one I had before (did I mention I hate corded carpet?).

So with the header removed I had a go at connecting the tailgate to the central locking. This garnered mixed results, as teh van's tailgate lock doesn't appear compatible with after-market central locking. So in a fit of pique I decided to remove the lock barrel from the equation, making the tailgate unlockable only my the central locking.
This has two benefits, firstly removal of the lock barrel removes a point of attack for a would be car thief, and secondly if I want to get in the boot I've already unlocked it before I get there.

So that was one little job, I've also run in wires for some maplights for the rear seat passengers and also for a 12v fan I will mount from the roof to cool the rear. The fan will be mounted to a sheet of 18mm marine ply which I have bonded to the roof with sikaflex. I've used quite a large piece so that I have the option to fit a flip down DVD player in the future. Again, thinking ahead I have routed wiring channels in the ply to make installation easier and neater.

So with this all in place it was time to make a new headlining. Using the originals as templates I made duplicates from 3mm hardboard.

This was then covered in 3mm upholstery foam to give it a luxurious feel. Holes were marked and punched for refitting to the van, but I did not cut out holes for the VW courtesy lights.

 I already had a plan for a neater rear...

I love looking at other cars, finding new ways to solve problems or just finding something cool I can make use of. In this case I found a neat courtesy / maplight that would originally be fitted to a Ford Explorer. The perfect size and a bit nicer than VW's effort, this was bought and quickly stripped so that I could flock it. At the same time I flocked the sliding door roller cover and the headlining joining strip (which I had cut down to accommodate the new light).

While the flock was setting up I fitted 6mm stainless steel rivnuts to the headlining mounting holes.

Why rivnuts?

The original VW clips are notorious for being difficult to remove, and I've also made the boards thicker so they might not hold as well. Some nice flange dome head allen bolts and I've almost made my own tuck and roll headlining... Another benefit I thought of afterwards is that I've now made the headlining securing points load bearing, and have a cunning plan to make use of that...

So here we are with the new headlining fitted, it still needs the cloth covering but it already feels much nicer in the back.

And the Explorer dome light, still needs to be connected to power but that's coming soon.

And a final addition. The Curry hook.

As my van is getting the offroad theme I've been surfing 4x4 websites looking for ideas, and came across mud-stuff.co.uk. Here they specialise in Land Rover Defender parts and have come up with a few nice touches that I can use in my van. The first to make an appearance is the curry hook. Originally designed to hold your carrier bag of vindaloo, in my van it's become a coat hook. Although I did buy two so the other may be pressed into service holding a much deserved take away in the near future...

Keep regular

What's your fibre intake?

Mine just got a little better, a forum member has started producing carbon fibre parts for the T4, amongst them some mirror covers.

My existing mirrors are showing signs of conflict, scrapes and a large missing piece on the passenger side. I was considering buying some regular replacements but when Phil began his business I watched with interest.

So here they are, they fit well, look good and cover the scratches well.

Unfortunately for me they don't cover the large gap on the passenger mirror, but no covers will do that.

And here they are on the van, apart from the side bars and A-bar the only shiny parts on it!

Easy peasy

Sometimes the smallest jobs make the biggest difference.

During the latest cold snap my sliding door became a real pain to open, grounching, bouncing and generally nasty to open. I ordered a replacement bottom roler but strangely as soon as the weather got better so did the door.

So the roller replacement was put on the back burner.

As I'm a little financially challenged right now I'm going through the small jobs I've got parts for, but never got around to doing because of something shiney (the magpie effect).

So today, ably assisted by my stunning fiancée I set about swapping the arm over. I'm glad I did, I was supporting the door as my partner undid the bolts (loosened by me of course!) and when she removed the original arm it came out in 2 bits, arm and roller.

New arm on and a clean and grease of the channel and it's like new, almost silent and glides effortlessly.

On the tiles

Once the sides were carpeted I turned my attention to the floor. Originally covered in a black "made to measure" carpet which was showing signs of everything that had happened in the van. Wood shavings, metal swarf, sand mud, grass, dog fur...

Now I was happy most of the messy side of the conversion was out of the way, I ordered some self adhesive carpet tiles from ebay.

These aren't bad, they came in beige and anthracite and are corded - I know, I ranted about this before but oh well, and seem fairly hard wearing. The benefit of using tiles is I can replace an individual one if it gets too dirty to clean.

Yes I need a new step cover...

They fitted well, but the adhesive was applied in a wavy pattern and doesn't always go to the corners, resulting in them lifting slightly. This was solved using some of the remaining carpet glue from doing the side panels.

The edges at the side door and tailgate were tidied by using some Aluminium treadplate corner protectors, cut and profiled to suit each opening.

Bling bling

It's a fine line.

Since buying the van I've wanted to make it look less like a builders hack and more personal. But the line is where it gets gaudy.

The paint is quite subtle, and the VW sticker on the bonnet is not as large as some I've seen so I think I've balanced it fairly well so far.

But  always want more.

I've already fitted some stainless side bars and after a good spell selling on ebay I got the green light to buy an A-bar.
Originally I wanted the old school type, all aggression and angular steel but since they are rare second hand, I settled on a stainless "Style bar" instead. This was on offer at the time and to be fair it does match the sidebars better than the older one would.

At the same time I got some new pressed licence plates made. These are sold as UK legal so should be no problem come MOT time - my rear plate had started to de-laminate which made new plates a necessity.

To go with them some plate holders were also bought, this way I don't need to drill my shiny plates.

I also sprayed the bumpers in my favourite black Krylon, and yes I have some overspray on the tailgate to clean up...

Carpet bagging

This has been an eternity in the making. I've waited for some decent time off and decent weather so that I can finally recover the inside of my van.

When I did the original conversion I went for some grey corded carpet that was ok, but soon looked so bland and dull. This time I wanted something a bit brighter, still neutral but something that suits the van better. And I didn't want horrible corded carpet, this is not the seventies!

I ordered sand coloured carpet some from Mega van Mats, an offer which included 5 cans of high temperature adhesive. This was delivered very quickly.

I had already stripped the van, and just had some small bits of surface prep to finish. I have a few plans for organising the interior so where I needed fixings I drilled and installed rivnuts wherever possible. This includes some for MOLLE panels on the rear sides and a work light in the rear boot area.

With some help from my glamorous assistant (my girlfriend) we set about glueing the new carpet in place in 1 piece (per side). Ultimately this is more effort, but definitely worth it as the whole interior is now seamless.

A notoriously difficult area is the tail light "swell", but the carpet is so flexible these complex curves could be tackled with only a little swearing.

The MOLLE panel is actually part of a dog guard, with some MOLLE pouches looped through it, but it works well and keeps necessities handy (like poo bags, wet wipes and the dogs muzzle as seen here...).
As many different MOLLE pouches are available I plan to get a medics pouch for my first aid kit - essential this is easily accessible.

While I was tidying the van I got my torch out of the glove box and fitted some "quick fists" (unfortunate name) to the lower dash panel, sandwiching an aluminium treadplate trim panel in place. Not only is the maglite nice and bright but it's fitted with a glass breaker tailcap in case of emergencies.

For other emergencies, a small fire extinguisher was fitted to the rear D pillar, the plan is to cook at the rear of the van, so this is the best place for it. I will get another for the front soon.

I still need to cover the lower panels, but this will be in a different colour and after I have finished wiring in things like lights, sockets, flux capacitor, etc.

Now it's recovered the van feels so much more comfortable.

It's all so quiet

Yup, not been up to much lately.

getting a few things in line before a massive work-splurge. But I've treated the van to a mini service. Ironically in the week before I changed the oil I developed a small leak from the oil cooler.

Once the filter was off for the change I found a nut had worked it's way loose and was no longer sealing the cooler to the block. A quick turn of a spanner and all is well again.

Mostly.

I've fitted an oil pressure gauge as I'm a bit concerned about my oil light which started to flash when I slow down after a run. Looking at it now I seem to have decent pressure when the oil is cold but it drops off dramatically when hot.

The van has done a lot of miles (215,000 of them) and reading up on high mileage motors it used to be common practice to use "High mileage oil", basically an oil that is thicker at operating temperature so it maintains pressure through worn oilways. I still have decent pressure when the engine revs so I may look at a quick change to a thicker oil and see how that works. At worse case I imagine it could be a new oil pump, and with that being a garage job it's something I don't really want to do first.

Boxing clever

As I have removed the kitchen unit from my van, I needed somewhere to store the leisure battery. I had originally thought of having it in the same place in the van - behind the drivers seat - but as our greyhound Ally is a bit of a fidget and a mountaineer when in the van I decided against it. She would only use it to climb on to see out of the windscreen!

So it was to be moved to the back. I still needed to box it up though so into the shed and many pieces of offcut MDF were found. Luckily most are the same thickness and size.

Easy enough job, simple box with a second skin at one end to fit the fuse box. All edges rounded over with my new favourite tool, the router.

I found some interesting fixings while I was figuring out how to make it nice though. Like these captive threaded inserts. Simply drill a suitable pilot hole and screw the insert into the wood.

The centre of the insert is threaded (M6 in this case) which means I can use my nice M6 countersunk allen bolts that I have used elsewhere on the van - cohesion of thought I believe it's called!

Next up was an access hole for the fuse box. Not enough for installation work but enough to remove the box lid if a fuse pops.

And finally a nice lid for the battery compartment. This was fitted using stay put hinges and a nice flush mounted lock / handle.

To be honest, with the sprung hinges keeping the lid either open or shut the lock isn't really needed, but I bought a load when I was doing the kitchen unit but never got around to using them.

And now I wanted to...

Next job is to fill the screw heads with car body filler for a smooth finish, then carpet to hide my wavy jigsaw work. Once that's done I can think about exactly where it's going, which will no doubt impact on many other ideas I have rattling around in my head.

Flock me baby one more time!

It's a glorious spring day so what else to do than play with my van.

I am a bit scatty when it comes to jobs on the van. If it's a big or important job I'll see it through till the end, but if it's made up of smaller jobs I tend to start something and get distracted by some other shiney thing to fit. This was the case with my dashboard.

Being a former builders hack, it was in a bit of a state. Not too bad, at least it wasn't covered in Dulux's finest, but it had dings and scrapes and was a bit dirty.

I had previously removed and flocked a few of the smaller dash parts, but I still had a load of parts on the passenger side to do - the glovebox, support and also the lower centre heater vent / console.

So off they came. I've learnt a lot about flocking since my first attempts, and where they are showing signs of wear I think I have cracked it with the technique required.

Firstly, give the parts a good cleaning, if it's good enough for Granny's rosting tins then persil is the huckleberry for this.

Once dried key the plastic and apply a coat of plastic primer. This is something I didn't do originally, so hopefully the bond between paint and plastic will improve wear resistance.

Next up, goo. I mean glue. This is impregnated with black dye, and will act as a coloured substrate to the flock. I found the best way to apply this was to brush on liberally, then stipple the glue with the tip of the brush.

A good coat and we are ready to transform the parts!

The applicator works similarly to an electro-plating sprayer. A 9V battery in the "gun" charges the nylon flock fibres so that they are attracted to the negative electrode crocodile clip which is attached to the wet glue on the part being flocked. A gentle shake and the fibres literally shoot out of the end and stick to the glue, in such quantities they leave a nice fluffy velour like finish.

This is the quickest part of the process by a long shot, an hour on prep and just 2 minutes with the sprayer. A word of warning though, wear eye protection and a mask when using it (and gloves), these fibres are extremely fine and unless you plan on not breathing when spraying (or not breathing much after) you will inhale / ingest a fair amount of flock. It's not nice.

This also generates a lot of mess. Do this somewhere you can clean easily - something I did not do, but it's my shed, my mess.

And here we have the finished glovebox support. Looks a lot nicer than it did before.

The inside of the glovebox was treated to a coat of Krylon ultra flat black. This paint is wicked, great coverage and pretty hard wearing - it's used for painting military vehicles and weapons so it should be ok for the odd's and sod's I have in my glovebox.

The flocking machine was bought from eBay for around £70 and the flock and glue was bought from Frost Auto Restoration. To be honest, I spent a few months umming and ahhing over whether to buy the set up. It's not professional but the price point to me is more than acceptable. The finish is perfectly fine for my needs and if it wears significantly I can always go over it again. Sadly it seems the seller has ceased trading amidst a flurry of negative feedbacks. Looks like I was a lucky one here.

The next job I need to do which has been hanging around is to flock a spare dashboard, but only after I fit another cupholder / aux socket to it. This is a big job so I think it'll be ok to do it later...

Booking

I wasn't always in security. In a previous employment I was a designer for a switchgear company. Not glitzy or exciting, but good experience.

One thing I brought away from it was to take notes. Always have something to write on nearby, be it a book, PDA or the back of a till receipt. You never know when you get an idea.

For the van I've been keeping a book, and making quick sketch ideas, noting part numbers and making to-do lists up. This is invaluable as so often I'm sat watching CCTV monitors and I start thinking "fake leopard skin scatter cushions - yes!". Maybe not but every idea goes down. Some good, some bad but they are all ideas, and what you may discard because it sounds daft might work if you think about it another day.

Lately I've been thinking about a table top and my battery storage. They may be hieroglyphs but a picture is worth a thousand words.