It’s been a quiet few months on the blog, but quite a bit has been happening in life! The van conversion unfortunately took a bit of a back seat, but finally we can write about some of the progress made! The first step for us was stripping the van back to its bare bones so that we could instal the insulation. Believe me, getting everything out was a bit of a nightmare, especially in the heat of summer. Let’s hope the rest of the project doesn’t take this long…
Out with the Old…
When sourcing the van, we saw the existing crew cab layout as a bonus. It was in pretty good condition, and the seats/bulkhead in the back could be sold on to put a bit of money in the project pot. With hindsight being a beautiful thing, we would AVOID A CREW CAB at all costs in future builds! Scratch that. Now we know what we’re doing, maybe it won’t be as bad next time…
First was stripping out the flooring in the back and the bulkhead. The van is pretty much a decade old, which has given the gluey-play-dough used to stick the floor down plenty of time to firm up. Add to that ten years’ worth of trade tools and equipment in the back – it wasn’t coming off easily! We used the art of brute force to rip the floor up as we weren’t going to be using it again. The bulkhead was pretty easy to get off as it was just a case of unscrewing bolts. At this time we also took the boarding off the side walls using the same rudimentary technique. There was a lot of sweat (thank you British summer) and frustration, but we got there in the end with it all!
Satan’s Seats
This isn’t an exaggeration. In order to remove the rear seats from the van, we needed to get a ratchet to be able to apply some torque. Again, a decade has given it all time to stiffen up, but the actual seats themselves were relatively straight forward to remove. The bolts were in parts awkward to reach, but many, many quarter turns of the ratchet were enough to get them off. Then we were left with the rails attached to the van floor.
These rails had bolts running into the floor and out the bottom of the van, exposed to the elements. Due to this, they had rusted underneath and were not turning. Not even marginally. It was quite difficult to find any guidance online, but fortunately I stumbled across a YouTube video which confirmed my suspicions. We needed something a little more heavy duty that the little ratchet. The worst part for us was that we couldn’t continue stripping the van without getting these rails off. Nothing could be done really other than a bit of wall insulation. This became our number one priority now – getting the rails off!
Running on rails. Or not…
Several weeks passed and multiple attempts of brute force weren’t working. They actually ended up stripping the top of the bolts making it even harder to get any grip on them. Our first solution was to increase the lever arm, so went to Halfords and picked up a ratchet and extension pole. Skeptical we got to work and this actually worked for 5 of the 12 bolts we needed to get out. Small win! Unfortunately these bolts were across each rail, so none of them were able to be removed completely.
We then got in touch with a local garage for an even bigger extension/ratchet. They were very accommodating; we drove the van over and they let us borrow the tool to try to get the bolts out. Success! Ish. We removed another 5 bolts and were able to fully remove a couple of the rails. It took us a good hour of blood (literally) and sweat to get them off, but we did it and there was a solid sense of achievement. Then we were left with the matter of the final 2 bolts, which by this stage were so rounded, no heads were able to get any purchase on them.
The final step was a last resort. We got in touch with someone on our estate who has a heavy duty angle grinder. He came around one evening after work and cut the bolt heads off and we were able to slide the rails out. We sold on the seats and rails (making the buyer aware they were 2 bolts down) and then it was just a case of using my small angle grinder to cut the protruding bolts flush with the van floor.
Stripped van – success!
And that was it. Finally we had a fully stripped van down the back ready to insulate. Now we’ve taken this step there won’t be any more conversion-less camper trips, but we’re motivated to get it done! We’ll keep updating on here with our progress along the way periodically. Hopefully our mistakes can help others have an easier ride.