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.

Mascots

Everyone loves a mascot, so here we have mine.

The duck is Walter Duckit from the online comic strip What the Duck.

Lei is because, well because...

Let us be seated, and chill

Once the floor was fitted, I proceeded to fit the seats properly.

Quite an easy job again, having to drill holes in the van and bolt the plates down (with suitable stress plates of course). I must thank my other half for helping me with this, she stayed in the van ratchetting the bolts while I was underneath holding the spanner.

Once the plates were secured I had to rebate the floor a little to allow the seats to engage and lock.

A nice quick job (taking stops for bad weather and waiting on deliveries into account) and I am very impressed with the seats. Very comfortable and very versatile.

They work as seats (of course), have their own sliding mechanism and recline and the backs also fold over to form a small tray.

Also to remove them all that is needed is a pull of a strap and lift the seat off the mounts.

Refitting is slightly harder due to the vans floor being different to a Sedona's, but it is still easy enough. And with the mounts recessed, once fitted there is minimal space between seat and floor, which looks very neat.

Seat belts came as part of the deal, and these were fitted to the vans C-pillar, again with stress plates.

Once the seats were in I started to refit the fridge. This is a Waeco Coolfreeze CF-40, which is a comressor type fridge running off 12V (or mains). I am again, very impressed with this piece of kit. Don't let the fact it looks like a coolbox fool you, it's very powerful - I'm sure I could make ice cubes in it.

Unfortunately this didn't go quite as planned. As the fridge is quite tall, it fouled on the seats inner arm rests. So after a bit of thought, and this being the only problem I chose to remove the inner armrests, and fit the fridge between the seats as planned. This works well, and as the fridge is so tall it acts as an armrest anyway. In the future I hope to recover the seats, so the armrest mounts will be covered up then.

With everything fitted I treated myself to a test-sit. The plan works, very comfortable seats and the fridge will be perfect for chilling drinks (and ice-creams) in the summer. And if I ever need to carry a load, I can remove it all and have an empty van.

Right now I can't wait to recarpet the walls and floor, but it's going to be a while before I can do that. This time I'm laying the foundations properly first...

More seating changes

Due to personal reasons, we decided to change the Audi sport seats for some standard T4 seats. Luckily I still had one of the singles from when I bought it, so bought a double front bench to match it.

Green wheels

As well as the Rockton, I am taking some inspiration from the Danish army.

Kinda.

When I was researching how to paint my van, I discovered the Danish army used T4's and they were painted green. But they also had green wheels.

Although I love the RS6 alloys, the tyres wear so quickly I decided I was going to go back to my original steel wheels. The only trouble is these were a right mess, the van came with these and wheel covers, which I'm sure haven't been off for years. The result was rusty,brake dust ravaged wheels that just looked nasty.

The solution was powder coating!

I had the tyres removed and took the wheels to a local outfit "GT Finishers". They weren't the cheapest but I believe you get what you pay for and the results speak for themselves. These wheels will last forever. The paint is really thick and the painter put more in where the centre of the wheel is welded to the rim, filling the gap and making it look like a 1 piece wheel. They also applied paint to the inside and rear of the wheel.

When I got them back I was a little taken aback by how bright they were, but the colour was what I'd chosen and once the tyre and centre cap was fitted they look just right. Not too bright but not dull.

Totally floored

As part of a deal with selling my bed, I received a pair or captains seats from a Kia Sedona to fit in the rear.

But before fitting them I needed to address the floor.

The seats came with quick release bases that attach to mounting plates on the floor. These plates stand proud by roughly 40mm, so I wanted to recess them a little.

Killing 2 birds with one stone, I decided to raise the ply floor on battens, which would also allow me to insulate the floor better than before.

Quite an easy job, just cut the battens to length, apply gripfill and press down. Then cut some Kingspan (or similar) to size and fit in between the panels. Lastly relay the ply floor and screw down.

In the pic we can also see the trial fit of the floor plates.

Panelling a panel van

After making the decision to emulate the Rockton, I promptly put my camper layout up for sale on the T4 forums. As always, my motto is "Buy high, sell low" so my bargain priced items were snaffled very quickly.

Once everything was stripped out I had a good look at what was left in the van. Flat ply panels weren't doing it for me anymore, especially as the sides will be more exposed without cabinets or a bed in the way.

So taking a ply panel and a sheet of MDF, I set about making something a little more special. Cutting fill panels and routing the edges before attaching them to the ply originals, these will eventually be covered in material before being refitted to the van.

The panel opposite the sliding door has been designed to provide space for some net map pockets and may also hold the table bracket, but I'm undecided on that one.

The rear most panels were made to provide mounting areas for my 6x9 speakers, and have been relieved to allow fitting of tail light hole covers and a grill over the slam vents.

I'm quite pleased with them, covering will wait until I am sure I wont modify them further, but for now they add a little something to the back of the van. I have different plans for the upper rear panels, and may try to shape the headlining in a similar way.

New directions

Ok, so there we have the story so far.

I'm sure I've forgotten a lot of work I've done in this retrospective, but these were the major events in the conversion.

Next up, phase 2!

After a few months of not being able to get on and work or even use the van for what I'd bought it for, I started to consider my options. We have an awning and knew Benny would end up sleeping in the van as he gets freaked if he walks on canvas.

So if the dog had the comfy bed in the van and we were on an inflatable in a tent, why did I convert the van in the first place? I guess I got caught up in the scene, seeing other peoples vans and thinking it was what I needed.

It was not.

But then I saw something beautiful.

The T5 Rockton.

At this point I'd love to write about a visit to a dealer and an order being placed, but alas that didn't happen.

What did happen is my realisation that I only need space for the dog and 2 seats in the back.

I have no intention of lowering my van as I really like having the ride height to ignore most speed humps and being able to see over hedges, so a 4x4 theme was just up my street.

So this is my new plan. All I needed was 2 individual seats for the rear and a load guard. I already have a similar fridge so if that fits in between 2 seats I will be very happy.

Nice and simple, the new direction also gives me the chance to redo a few things I'd have done differently if I'd known. Like having smooth lining carpet instead of corded, and hopefully a raised and properly insulated floor. I also want to reroute my Eberspacher ducting. I don't want it quite as ruggedised as the Rockton, a little comfort is fine by me!

And if 1 dog wasn't enough, in the new year we decided we'd like a friend for Benny. A call to RGT Hillview had us making an appointment to view another greyhound called Trudy. In the end though she was more of a handful than Benny, and we ended up adopting a lovely brindle girl called Alice (now called Ally due to my niece being called Alice...).

So now we needed space for 2 needlenoses in the back.

Sticky stickers

Just about this time in the build I decided I wanted a bit more "something" on the outside, so I ordered up a small amount of vinyl stickers...

First on were the chequer graphics along the bottom of the doors, closely followed by the "racing" stripe on the tailgate. I still need to complete the stripe over the roof but may fit a sunroof, so am holding off on that just now.

And of course, a load of funny stickers on the rear glass. It'd be rude not to...

Where's Nigella?

Yup well after getting bed and heat sorted, it was time to make up a kitchen pod.

Part of my redundancy also funded buying a stainless steel sink. This was a corner fitting unit with a glass top, the only issue was the dimensions called for a wider unit than is usually used in a T4. The solution? Out came the jigsaw and router and I made up a little extension for the unit.

A little unusual in design but in practice it worked really well. It was nice having a decent sink to use and the corner seemed to make the rear a little more cosy than before.

For the front of the unit I managed to buy an Ikea roller door from fleabay. Again a little different but having it roll up out of the way meant it was always accessible, even with a dog in the way. Inside the door was enough room for my waste water container and our picnic hamper which holds our plates and mugs with room to spare. It also covered up the fusebox (although I still needed to tidy up the wiring).

The worktop was bought locally from someone who had it as an offcut from their home kitchen. One drawback was worktops are heavy. Too heavy to lug around all day long in the van so after cutting out the hole for the sink I rebated much of the remaining material to lighten it. The same went for the cooker cover / splash guard. The resultant bare wood was covered with an aluminium splash guard, which complimented the beech veneer perfectly.

The cooker itself was a 2 burner camping cooker that runs off little butane cartridges that are widely available. I figured this was better for my light use than having a full gas install just for a cooker.

So there we had a means to cook, and it came in very handy when I was doing security work watching an access road. I had heat, a nice place to sit and hot coffee every night. It almost made the thankless task enjoyable.

I think someone else was pleased to have some water too...