Drive Away Awning

Isn’t it funny how you have a certain list of essentials for going away with that you absolutely cannot do without. But each time you go away that list seems to be ever expanding!

Rosie and I have been away a fair bit in the van and have got the technique down of traveling light, last year we spent 2 weeks traveling from Southampton across the channel and then along the northern and western coast of France and then to the Pyrenees. This year we have not been away internationally but have been on various trips to Cornwall, Devon and a few festivals near to our house. 

The one thing that you struggle with going away in a van is space and where to put things so we decided to put some time into researching drive away awnings, there are plenty out there to suit the T5 but we went for the Campershop Outlaw you can see it here. Its fairly big inside and comes with a groundsheet and an inner tent that can sleep 2 people, you could purchase another one to go on the opposite side but we are not fussed with that and prefer the space!

So around came my 25th birthday and my folks asked my what I wanted and the inevitable happened......I got my awning!!

This is a picture of when my dad and i set it up for the first time, (as you can see pictured my steels are back on as at the time my alloys were being sprayed!!) 

I must say since having the awning, we enjoy camping so much more as it is very easy to just put everything in the awning like the chairs table and cooking stuff etc and then you have the van free to use, also when you want to nip out for the day your pitch is saved and you dont have to worry about someone nipping in there when you are out.

I looked at a few ways of fixing the awning to the van; The reimo rail I don like because it sticks out from the side of the van and you either have to glue it or drill holes in your van. The VW one is good and fits in the channel on the roof but this seemed to be very expensive and hard to get hold of.  I used the funky leisure awning rail it is made of stainless steel and again fits in the channel on top of your roof and uses the roof rack bolts to fix down. See it Here.  I also bought from then the figure of 8 channeling to fix the awning on to the van.

Cheers 

Tom

A side note- Off Road Driving

My partner Rosie bought me an Off Road Driving Experience for my birthday back in June and I wanted to wait until the wet weather came so that it would be more fun!!

Rosie was able to come along for the (very bumpy) ride and she filmed most of my drive from the back seat. So without further ado here is the short film I made of the best bits!!

Cheers

Tom 

A change of colour

It had been a while since I had done anything to the van what with Rosie and I moving into our first home together. Where I live on the coast and spend most of my time in search of wind or swell and this takes it toll on polished alloys - they had just started to bubble and pit, so what I did was to put the steels back on for a while whilst I sprayed my alloys black. I know some people really don’t like black alloys, especially my mate Andy who seems to think they look like steels until closer inspection! But I really like them and the way they look on a red van.

The first thing I did was to clean them, then sand them first with 240 grit and then 400 grit to make sure all the laquer came off. Next I deflated the tyres as much as possible and then pushed back the sidewall of the tyre and then masked the wheel up. The next step was the primer, I used plastic kote grey super primer from B&Q, I sprayed 3 full coats on each wheel, making sure there were no runs, leaving 30 mins between each coat and then left for 24hrs to dry before flatting off with 400 grit very lightly.

After that it was time for colour, again I used plastic kote black super satin from B&Q, this time I applied 5 full coats to each wheel and again made sure I had no runs in the paint leaving 30 mins between each coat and then left again for 24hrs to go off. There was no need to flat the paint off but I did key the surface very slightly to allow the laquer something to adhere to. 

Here they are all finished and looking nice in 

my shed!! Now to put them back on!!

Alloys and Snow!

So after a really long search, I finally found some alloys that I liked, were the right size, load rated and not too pricey.  I went for old BMW M5 wheels, they are close to the weight limit but enough to say the least.

The first pic was taken on my mum and dads drive. 

The second pic was taken in front on my girlfriends flat in Southampton when we had all the snow last year!

Cheers

Tom

Naughty number plates, vans and fines!

Trawling through some pictures of Scarlet to document her conversion I found a couple that show the van off really well before all the work started.

The first two pictures were taken for my friend's uni project. The first is literally outside the window of my work and the other around the corner near the Swannery Lake. In Weymouth, on the big spring tides the harbour floods the storm drains which overflow onto the harbourside road causing a fair bit of surface water which is bad for your car! Not sure if you can see but at that time I was still naive enough to be driving around with German pressed plates on my van (yes stupid I know!). I got caught speeding in July 2010 (a couple of months after) and subsequently got done for my plates as well, lesson learned!! Just incase you don't know, I got a hefty amount of point and fine because I was not aware that you could only 60mph on a dual carriageway in a van!!

This final picture is of my work's car park. My boss (and mate's) van is the white one with the range rover alloys (maybe this pic will inspire him to get some new tyres, eh Andy!!), The blue California  is my friend Matt's and you can see Scarlet tucked away at the end. You can tell what most of the conversations at work are about!!

Cheers

Tom

Lights and Headlining

So I guess the next thing I did with Scarlet was to shed some light (literally!) in the rear of my van, first I purchased some of these from B&Q.

They are 12v LEDs which I wired into this. The LEDs came with their own junction box so they were really easy to wire in.  I decided that I wanted 5 in the front section and the same in the rear. So once I had spent some time drawing the plan out on a piece of paper it was time to drill the holes!!

Above is the rear section.

I had to drill 27mm holes so out came the spade bit, which i have to say was a bit brutal, so I put a piece of batten the other side to drill into and give some support.

Above is the front section.

As can be seen above this is the headlining in situ with its shiny new lighting. BUT I was not happy with it because I did not like the colour of the original headlining against the carpeted walls. Also because Scarlet had a factory fitted bulkhead, there was a gap between the cab headlining and rear headlining.

So to combat this, I got hold of some hardboard and made a piece to fill the gap which tucked neatly underneath the brace between the cab and the rear of the van. I then got hold of some more carpet from Mega Van Mats and covered the whole of the rear headlining to match the sides.

So here it is, the headlining is now complete! Apologies for the picture, not the best!!!

Cheers

Tom

Install Number One

This was my first idea for an install in my van, I basically wanted to be able to carry surfboards kites and kite boards around yet sleep in the van comfortably. I was not sure how often I would be going away camping, I thought I would be more likely to be going away on surf trips and roughing it for a bit, but as we all know, when you go away, you think....I could do with somewhere to put this.....Or I need one of these...etc.

So I came up with the idea of boxing off one section of the van, after installing the rock n roll bed, this is what Christian (my furniture making friend) and I came up with, this initially filled the brief for me. As you can see from the pictures, the install is plain marine ply, but to add to this I bought some formica (which is basically a colored veneer). I had a layer of white on the inside and black on the outside. its a shame that i dont have any pictures of what the formica looked like, but I can tell you it looked smart and had some nice lines to it.

I am talking about all this in a past tense because since designing this and making this install I met my awesome girlfriend, and she loves the van and camping, after our two week trip around France from Calais down the West coast and to the Pyrenees. I decided to change the storage layout, for the better!! but that is for a later date, all will be revealed!!

Battery Cover

A very quick post here! I hated getting in my van and seeing the leisure battery underneath my seat, so i used some left over carpet I had lying around and a piece of hardboard to make a quick fix cover.

I then slotted this in between the battery and the seat base so it looks like this.

When I get round to it i would like to make a top cover like Richard from http://stone174.blogspot.com/

as can be seen Here.

In other news my partner and I now have a new addition to our family; His name is Bodhi (yes after the character from the awesome film Point Break!!), he is a Schnoodle ( a cross between a Poodle and a Schnauzer)

Rest assured there will be lots of pictures of him out and about in the van!!

Cheers

Tom

Leisure Battery

A quick post again! I have to confess the pics here (apart from one!) are from my mates van, I didn't take pictures when I installed my leisure battery but I did it the same way.

I bought a 110 amp/hr leisure battery off a friend who imported batteries to the U.K, sadly he has now left the country and lives in Oz otherwise I would have passed his details! I also purchased a "70-100 Amp Intelligent Split Charge System" from here.

Now, on to the wiring! The first thing I did was find a grommet from the engine bay through to the cab, I decided to use this one as pictured, this comes out in the cab in the passenger foot well and then the positive wire can then be traced to the battery wherever you have decided to put it.

The next thing I did was to remove the main crank battery and fix the Volt Sensing Relay (VSR) to the side of the battery bay. Raw Components give you a full wiring diagram when you purchase the split charge kit which is really easy to follow, so I wont bore you with a step by step! 

Here is the crank battery now back in place!

The next thing I did was to remove the drivers seat, a warning here though, put the van in gear and chock your tyres so the van doesn't roll away down the road!!!!

Some minor adjustments need to be done so that a 110 amp battery can fit underneath the seat, the metal base needed to be cut and a small section of the rubber flooring needed to be cut as can be seen (by the only picture of my van!!)

Finally I bought a section of threaded steel rod from B&Q and used some of the existing holes in the seat base to house the rod. As can be seen in the picture my mate used a metal strap to hold the battery down, I used the same system but I used a roof rack strap instead of a piece of metal.

Hope you have found this interesting/useful. Give me a shout if you have any questions.

Cheers

Tom

Upholstery!

Just a quick one here! So I had cut my Rock n Roll bed boards and thought the next thing to spend my hard earned cash on was some upholstery for the bed so I could start using it!

Luckily for me a good friend on mine who I used to work with had started up his own sail making and repair business, to which he also makes boat covers and upholstery for boats. I gave him a call, went for a visit to pick out the fabrics and left my bed boards with him for a week. 

I chose a 3 inch marine grade fire retardant foam, Charcoal grey marine fabric (its water repellent) with piping around the edge, a black hard wearing underside and zips for ease of washing if needed . All of this cost me £300. When picking them up I was really chuffed, he had done such a good job and had a quick turn around. You should check him out here: http://www.photographers-in-dorset.co.uk/moattsails/

Rock N Roll Bed

I couldn't believe the difference that carpet made to my van, after driving around for ages with just ply lining in the back, it was so nice to look behind and see nice plush carpet. Anyway, back on subject, the Rock N Roll bed!

I am lucky enough to work with my boss who is also really into VW T5's too, we both were searching for ages before actually buying them and then we both got our vans within a day of each other. Over the past couple of years we have been bouncing around ideas off each other and helping each other on techniques for our builds. I was looking on day on E-bay and found a couple of rock n roll beds that weren't amazingly overpriced! They were from a chap in Scotland, I am not one to name and shame but to say it was an absolute palaver would be a massive understatement we were getting excuses like "Oh Tom I am sorry I have had pneumonia and we have been snowed in because our workshop is on top of a mountain" but my mate/boss got the best excuse in the book: "Oh I am sorry, my welders has only got one arm and I've only one leg!!!" So after that it was safe to say that we would not be buying from him again!

So after it had arrived I went round to my mates workshop and we fitted the bed and cut the boards for it. Above pictured is the view from the sliding door with my mate enjoying a well earned sit down.

Here is the view from the rear doors towards the front of the van.

Here is the carpenter/designer himself hard at work! The ply wood that is on the right of the picture is to make the surfboard storage but I will leave that for a later post.

Cheers

Tom

Carpet Ahoy!!

After insulating and cleaning the inside of my van, the next job was to carpet the inside panels and as much of the metalwork that I could. I bought dark grey acoustic cloth from Mega Van Mats. The guy who owns this is really helpful with info on how to carpet the interior of your van, and also offers a lining service if you don't have the confidence to do yourself.

So here is my work, the first panel I attempted was the largest one, as I mentioned I bought the acoustic cloth, the reason I did is because it is a 4 way stretch material and therefore easy to stretch around all of the nooks and crannies of a van. Pictured below, you can see that I have attached the carpet to the panel, I did this using spray glue purchased from a local carpet shop. I laid the panel on the floor and rolled the carpet out over the top and then cut roughly to size. Next I rolled up the piece I had cut to size and then sprayed a section of wood and then a section of carpet and then rolled the carpet onto the already glued wood and then repeated the process until I had got to the end of the panel.

The next thing to do was to tidy the panel up, I roughly cut around the edge of the panel and then folded the edges over and glued them on to the back of the panel. As I have mentioned I used the acoustic cloth because of its ease of use and this is really apparent below as this was the first time I have ever carpeted anything and the result was pretty good (if I do say so myself)

I used the same method on all of my panels including the ones in the rear doors and side doors.

The last picture is inside my van looking at the sliding door panels although I'm not sure it will show up as I took it with my phone and the light was bad!

Tom

Wish List!

So what did I want to get out of my van?

I had to think long and hard about this, the van had to be used as a daily driver as I cannot afford to run another vehicle. I basically wanted a base to get changed in and out of my wetsuit, I Surf and Kitesurf at least twice a week if not more in the winter. I also wanted to camp in her a few times a year. So after much time and thought I came up with this "Wish List"

• Get rid of factory bulkhead
• Insulation
• Interior carpet
• Vinyl floor (waterproof)
• Surfboard and Kite storage
• Rock and Roll bed
• Cupboard for camping equipment
• 18" Alloys 
• Lower the van

So now with this in mind I was ready to crack on and start with Scarlet's conversion! 

The first job was to get rid of the factory fitted bulkhead, this was a really easy and straight forward job. Next I removed all the ply lining on the walls and the floor, gave the floor a quick sweep and then started with the insultion.

My friend had some loft insulation lying about and kindly gave it to me. Once all the ply lining was out I also took out the hardboard side panels and these were easy to shove loads of insulation behind. I also added it to the above panels and ceiling by using double sided tape. I did not bother with insulating underneath the plywood floor as I dont think it would make much difference as there is not a big enough gap to trap air to make it retain heat.

Hope you like the blog so far and I will keep you updated with the next stages of my build soon.

Cheers

Tom

A New Van!!

So here she is, Scarlet The Enforcer!! These are the photos that the VW garage I bought her from sent me. I purchased her through the VW assured used scheme, I did pay a lot for her but she came with a years warranty and roadside assistance, so was a safe purchase. I didn't even view her before going to buy her! It took a long time to find the van I wanted, mainly because I wanted the 2.5 ltr engine, the main specs I wanted were:

• 2.5 ltr diesel engine in the 130 bhp version (better engine in my opinion, as they are chain driven, so no cam belt, they have 5 cylinders so there is less stress on the engine and more economical)
• Air Con
• Electric Windows
• Barn Doors
• No older than 3 years
• Any colour but white!

I phoned so many garages, and checked the VW website daily. One day I made a call to a VW centre in Newark and they mentioned that they had a mint condition Tornado Red T30 174bhp! Naturally I snapped at the chance of this van and put a deposit down straight away.

So to cut a long story short I travelled up on the train to pick up Scarlet and drive back home, the feeling of getting in her and then driving away with my dream vehicle was amazing!