Choosing a Van
The first (and arguably most difficult) step to converting a van is to find a base vehicle to work on. I wanted to buy a van which had not been altered at all (you can get some vans which are “part converted”) as I wanted to have the freedom to do everything in the build, and I wanted to strip it back to the bare bones anyway to be able to spot any potential issues with the bodywork - rust etc - before starting the conversion.
It took me about a year of inconsistent searching (busy summers of work and some travel plans in the winter slowed things down a lot) before I found the van I now own. During this time I researched different van types and tried to whittle down the myriad of makes and models to what would suit me best.
This was a minefield and is the reason I think that actually buying a van is the hardest part of the entire conversion process. There are a huge variety of makes, models, wheelbases, engine types etc to choose from and, as someone who doesn’t particularly care for cars as anything more than a medium of transport from A to B, this was not a fun process. I’d like to say that I bought a Citroen Relay because of my meticulous research and greatly improved mechanical knowledge, but the truth is that it just ticked a few of my boxes for reliability, size, price, fuel economy etc and most importantly, I know people who own them who speak highly of them.
After deciding that every van type has its pros and cons and that a Citroen Relay, Peugot Boxer, or Fiat Ducato would be the best option for me (they’re all more or less the exact same vehicle) I began my search.
I specifically wanted an L2H2 vehicle. This means a Length 2 (medium wheel base – MWB) and Hight 2 (high roof). There are a variety of body types consisting of L1-4 with 4 being the longest, and H1-3 with 3 being the highest. For me L2H2 would be the best; just about high enough for me to stand up in without stooping (accounting for the insulation I’d be adding) and long enough for a bed and living area with kitchen, without being so long as to make parking overly stressful. In fact the L2 vans can pretty much fit into a regular parking space.
The final hurdle then was to actually find one of these mythical L2H2 vans! From what I can gather there are many more L3H2 vans manufactured due to it being the preferred size for a trade/work van that will carry lengths of timber, building materials etc. But these are slightly longer and, having owned a long wheelbase van for a few years, I was keen to avoid the stress of driving and parking such a vehicle in a town/city environment.
I had also set myself the constraints of not buying a vehicle more than 10 years old, or one that had more than 100k miles on the clock, so I was very pleased to pick up a 2014 Relay with only 50,000 miles within my budget.
The Initial Clean
More or less immediately after getting the van home I started working on stripping out everything from the inside, right back to the bare metal of the van itself. This meant unscrewing plywood from the walls, plastic panelling, which was also removed. The plywood floor was lifted and taken out, again saved to be put back later after a good clean, extensive sanding and a coat of varnish, and all of the metalwork of the van was given a good scrub down with soapy water.
Rust proofing
With the metal of the van exposed the task of rust proofing could begin. There was no actual rust visible, with the exception of some of the holes left by the screws which had secured plywood floor. This was a massive relief as rust had played a large part of the issues I’d had with my previous van, an LDV Convoy. To prevent any future rust issues any areas of bare metal where the paint was missing, and around every screw hole, was scrubbed with wire wool to ensure there was no rust underneath surrounding paint. When the surrounding paint was stripped back it could be painted with Hammerite and then, after the paint had dried, the screw holes were filled with sealant. Hopefully this attention to detail will mean that rusty bodywork will not be something I need to worry about anytime soon.
Reversing camera
The one change that I felt needed to be made to the actual “driving” side of the van was the addition of a reversing camera. For this I went on amazon and spent about £30. A lesson from the last van was to not buy a wireless camera as the signal often cut out, typically at crucial moments, and
it actually required more work to install in terms of tapping into wires in the van electric system, something which I wasn’t really keen to do. The only slight issue that I had with this one was the length of the wire running from the camera in the back door, to the screen in the cab. It did reach in the end, but I had to run the wire across the centre of the floor, rather than around the edges where it could have been easily accessed in the future, so not ideal.
To install was very straight forward. I used a current tester which, when attached to an earth (in this case just a screw drilled into the metal of the van), and a live wire which is turned on, will light up. I used this to find the lights in the rear of the van by simply turning on the lights and then attaching to various wires until the bulb in my tester illuminated. The instructions of the camera suggest that you use the reversing light rather than just the standard rear lights as then the camera only turns
on when you put the vehicle into reverse, but I think it is more advantageous to attach it to the normal lights as it means the camera is on whenever the lights are, so can be used as a rear-view mirror when driving normally. Once the correct live wire was located I attached the camera to the rear registration plate where there was already a hole in the rear door to pass the wires through. From here the wire connecting the camera to the screen could be run along the floor and then through the bulkhead into the cab, under the floor and up into the dash to pop out by the windscreen where I mounted the screen. It is removable so can be hidden from view when leaving the van unattended.
With all of this preparation done I was ready to move onto the next part of the build and enter the absolutely overwhelming maze of information that is insulation!
