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.

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.