The Uber spacker

We have a friend to thank for that. Actually spelt Eberspacher, this is an independent diesel powered night heater for keeping the van warm without running the engine. The Eber draws in cold air from the cabin, sends it through a heat exchanger which is heated by burning diesel and blows it back into the cabin. My particular one was originally fitted to a BT Ford Transit, but don't let that bother you, it didn't know any better.

The biggest question when fitting these is where. The combustion gases must be expelled clear of the vehicle, but heated air must be fed to the cabin. I thought long and hard and in the end found another T4 owner who copied what VW had done when they fitted Eber's - under the floor with ducting bringing the warm air into the cabin (and taking the cold air feed from there too).

I in turn copied him, and had a bracket made up to fit between the chassis rails. there is plenty of room under the floor - the Eber still sits above the sill line - and the underside is surprisingly clean. Not only that but fitting the combustion intake, exhaust and fuel lines is a lot easier than cutting them into the body.

Speaking of fuel lines, mine was taken from it's own stand pipe in the fuel tank, mounted in the same place as the engines fuel pipe. I cut mine about 1" shorter than the vehicle stand pipe, this was the Eber may run out of fuel but I'll still have some to drive to a petrol station. Having said that Eberspachers are reputed to be frugal with diesel.

The digital 7 day timer was fitted to the ply panel behind the opening window.

Taken internally

Now it was time to focus on what's inside.

Another ordering session left me with a split charge system, a rally spec battery tray and a boxful of electrical parts. Time to sort out power.

The split charge system is simple but quite smart. A relay monitors the voltage of the vehicle battery (the one that starts the engine), if this exceeds a threshold the relay changes over and the alternator now charges the leisure battery in the rear of the van. This means that anything plugged into the leisure battery system will not drain the vehicle battery, so the van will always have enough charge to start.

I've tested this quite often during the 2010 winter and it works perfectly.

There may be trouble ahead

Oh, it's here already...

Early in 2010 I was made redundant. This was quite a shock as we thought it was a job for life. But luckily I pulled in some favours and my brother got me a job with the company he worked for. This in place I could plan for my redundancy payment.

Obviously I wasn't going to spend it all on the van, if I was I'd be buying a T5 (actually I could have gotten the dream Splitty), but I was being responsible for once.

So having paid off most of my debts I took what was left and went to a local garage for a quote to fix the dents and bring the paint back to a nice shiney finish.

I don't know if they forgot about me or didn't take me seriously but I never got the quote. Thinking things through I decided not to have an expensive respray, I could use the money to buy some more parts for the van instead. So an order (or several orders) was placed for stainless sidebars, a fridge, an awning rail, an awning and some paint.

Yes some paint.

I had been reading about DIY paint jobs on the T4 forum, and I quite liked the idea of having a NATO green van. So an order of satin finish Olive Drab paint was made to "Fascinating Finishes", along with a trip to my local DIY store for some 4" gloss rollers and roller arms.

Yes, gloss rollers.

I didn't believe it either, but I keyed up the whole van ready for paint and filled the dents and one morning, in the road outside my house I started to roller the bonnet. I figured I'd do the bonnet first, if it didn't look good I'd paint it black and think of something else.

But it did work, by the time I'd finished the bonnet I was grilling like a Cheshire cat and moved on to paint the rest of the van. I am very pleased with the result, and although it's not going to win a show and shine competition, it is neater than the scratched and dented blue it started life as.

I don't class it as a rat van, although I can see why some others might. Sidebars and rear spoiler fitted too.

I also took the van back to Vansport to have an opening window fitted behind the drivers seat. Again they did the business, and also replaced the chipped windscreen for a reasonable price too.

What the flock?

It's my new toy and I'll use it anywhere I please!

See these boring door cards?

Not any more. A bit of flock, a bit of carpet and a piece of sticky chrome trim and they look a million times better.

Are we sitting comfortably?

This post is slightly out of the true timeline, I bought some replacement seats in November but it took me till June to actually fit them.

these seats once again came from an Audi, an A4 cabriolet this time and I picked them up quite reasonably on a well known auction site. Only trouble is when I got my hands on them I found the bases were completely wrong for my needs. These were early seats and the bases were tubular with a central adjuster, but I needed late model seats where the bases were flat. After a bit of though and a fit of pique, out came the reciprocating saw and much of the original base was gone. This was replaced with some box tubing and flat bar to give them a flat base. Now my T4 runners could bolt to the seats and after making a modified platform to go on the van, they were in.

Very comfortable, they hugged my sides beautifully.

Over the winter I'd bought a new toy - a flocking gun. This shoots tiny pieces of nylon "flock" electro-statically  from it's positive charged hopper to a negatively charged target. the target being a glue covered piece of trim. The result is a slightly "furry" piece of trim with (hopefully) even coverage. I had a go on the seat plastics and they can just be seen here.

Drinky drinky

Small post this, the van was missing it's ashtray when I got it so as I don't smoke but I do love my coffee, I decided a cupholder was much more useful.

This one came from an Audi A4, and as it's still VAG it even illuminates red to match the rest of the dash .

Bling Bling

It isn't all about the necessities, I wanted the van to look less like a builders hack and more a surf van. I also wanted more light. headlights on T4's are renowned to be poor. Something to do with VW using the smallest gauge wire they could get away with which in turn limits current flow which in turn limits the brightness of teh headlight. In any case, I wanted more! Remembering an ex Police T4 that a friend used to have, I searched for one of their old grilles that were precut to house the blue lights. I planned to fit some spots in their place but couldn't find any grilles so went about modifying the grille I had.

I also fitted a bonnet bra made by CMC. This was a pretty snug fit, but certainly looked the part. I was now confident no-one would flag me down to get a quote to repave their driveway...

Wanting the option to carry more load if I had to, I sourced some roof bars from a Jeep Wrangler and fitted them. To be honest, despite having large load spreaders I'm in 2 minds about putting anything on them. the roof is quite thin and I don't want a convertible van just yet. For now the bars are all show and no go.

Shortly after I found some Audi RS6 replica allloys for sale on the T4 forum. I like the look of a T4 on RS6's, it's a classic look like a Beetle on Empi's. After they turned out to be 17" rims rather than 18"'s that everyone else wanted, I nabbed them. Having run a car with 18" wheels and knowing how much tyres were for them I wanted something a bit cheaper to run, 17" was perfect in my book.

I also took the van to Vansport in Penzance to have a privacy window fitted in the sliding door. they did a fantastic job.

Rock and roll man

As well as our dog transport, we had plans to use the van for camping. So that we had something comfortable to sleep on I ordered a Cannons Forge Rock and Roll bed. 3/4 width so that I could have the traditional units down one side. At the time these were made to order so facing a few weeks wait I had time to crack on with some other jobs.

Like carpeting the sides.

This was one of the fiddliest but most satisfying jobs so far. going from painted metal to comfy carpet made the back of the van instantly welcoming. Some difficult curves at the tail light swells but it went on fairly well. You can see the Kingspan here too.

And the bed! When TNT delivered this I was home waiting so got the driver to help me put it straight in the back of the van... After inwardly digesting the fitting instructions holes were drilled (not the last time the drill meets my van...) and bolts were tightened. At last we had a place to sleep (well after my mum covered the cushion bases).

Foundations

So where to begin? I was lucky when I bought the van it was already ply-lined with a thick ply floor, but I needed to get behind all that so that I could insulated and sound proof it too.

Taking the ply side panels off was easy, just self tapped into the vans body, but taking up the floor... The preson who fitted the floor sikaflexed it down, and used loads of it too. I was in 2 minds about taking it up when I discovered this. It was a nice floor but if I left it I would have no soundproofing of insulation on one of the larget panels in the van.

After much deliberation I set to it with pry and crow bars and eventually got it all up. In about a dozen pieces unfortunately so I couldn't reuse it.

On the plus side the floor was spotless when I finally got the sikaflex off and vacuumed all of the saw dust from it. reassuring to know.

But onward with the conversion and down went some flashband on the floor and side panels. This helps deaden panel vibration making the rear of the van a bit nicer to be in. And it really works! I tried a basic thump test on a panel I'd deadened and a panel I hadn't. the deadened panel had a dull thud whereas the untreated panel was tinny. Result.

Next up some insulation. The sides got a mixture of Kingspan panels (50mm on the bottom, 25mm on the top) and the floor got something less hi-tech - camping mats. Apparently these do the trick and being thin they don't encroach into the living area too much. They were much vaunted online so I gave them a go.

With this done I refitted the original side ply and ordered some 9mm ply to re-do the floor.

The why's and the where's?

Hi, this is the first post charting the conversion of my Volkswagen T4 into my own little home from home. I have started this blog at the time when I have begun a rebuild, so the first incarnation of my van is a retrospective and much of my new work is from the ground up anyway.

So why a t4 and why "Dogvan"? Well back in 2009 my partner and I decided we'd like to adopt a retired racing greyhound.

They are fantastic pets and really deserve a comfortable life after they finish racing. So off we went to the local adoption centre and met Benny, a black tuxedo boy who duped us completely with his "I'm so quiet, I'm so sweet" act. Don't get me wrong, he can be quiet and he is sweet but the transformation once he was out of the kennels was remarkable.

So full of energy!

Anyway, once we were approved and Benny was with us we tried to take him out in our car. This was not what a Benny-dog liked. Despite having a Vauxhall Vectra he was not happy with being in the back, even with the seats down.

So we thought of changing cars, and amongst the ones I liked was a VW Transporter. Of course a Split Screen was high on the want list, but prohibitively expensive. So looking at what I could get we settled on a T4.

What we got was a 1999 T4 India blue panel van, 1.9TD 800 Special with 196000 miles on the clock. The trouble with "fashionable" motors is the scene tax, but the miles didn't seem too much of a worry as it is 11 years old after all. It had some dents and a little rust but I saw potential. It had previously been used by a company of industrial saw repairers, and yes, it had the scars to prove it.

So on to the transformation...