Rock and Roll bed platform

Sorry it’s been ages since I updates the Mr O’Leary blog there hasn’t been a whole load of progress recently but things are slowly getting moving again now.

Thought I’d do a quick post about the making of the bed platform that is required when a Bluebird rock and roll bed is fitted in a T25. They are designed to fit a bay window which has a higher engine bay panel. So once I’d bolted the bed in the correct position (I used rivnuts to bolt the bed in place – you can use standard bolts with nut on the back but it seemed neater to me to use rivnuts) I measured what height platform was required and set to work designing and building the platform.

Bed Platform - really must get round to gluing the oak edging onto the far left corner!

I decided to build two bottomless boxes – one that runs behind the seat, the other under the window next to the engine cover. It makes building the unit easier if you brake it down into sections like this. I opted for a hinged cover over the engine bay with storage space underneath. I’m not sure if this as useful as having a drawer in that area as some people have – this would make the contents more accessible but I went for a neater piano hinged cover in the name of design!

rock and roll bed platform

The two smaller side units also have piano hinged tops – the one on the left next to the engine bay is perfect for storing tools, mine is home for a socket set, jack, screwdrivers, mole grips and the all important hammer!

The tool chest! Not sure about the spanner lid stay!

I built the main unit from oak which I planed to the same thickness as the 12mm birch ply I used for the lids, the front edge of the lids are oak to match the rest of the cupboards and all finished with a couple of coats of spay lacquer.

The individual box sections are screwed together and then fixed to the van with small L brackets and self drilling screws (love those things!)

Things were finished off on the right hand side of the unit with an oak side which supports the main lid so it doesn’t sag. The main hinged lid is very stable as the back side is glued to the top so it rests on the bulk head of the van (if you see what I mean!?).

Back storage area which houses the 12v fuses and not much more at the moment

All in all it works well, I never get round to putting much in the front box, one side of it holds fuses for all the 12v stuff so it’s protected from stuff falling on it and is easily accessible. I’m sure I’ll find something else to live in there before too long.

Access to engine bay

I don’t generally keep much under the main lid of the platform, after all these are T25s and I quite often need access to the engine to fix some issue or other so don’t want to be moving loads of stuff to get to it.

rock and roll bed platform

I might consider changing the lid to house some drawers at some point to make it more useful as a storage area but it’ll do fine for now.

Control units and mental breakdowns

It’s been a looooong time since my last blog post – I think after the stress of getting Mr O’ Leary ready for our summer holidays I’d pretty much seen enough of the crawling about trying to get screws in confined spaces (oh hang on, that sounds wrong doesn’t it?!). After weeks of snow and ice and a period when I couldn’t even open the doors due to ice, I finally got some more work done this weekend in preparation for a weekend away in the Lake District next week. This is more a matter of necessity than anything – getting the Propex heater wired in again so I don’t freeze at night – but none the less, it’s got me back in to getting on with van building.

So what else after door cards (I really must get on with making the rest of those)….

We got away for our Cornwall holiday just a day late – scuppered by a leaking water tank which needed replacing. By that point we were just about kitted out enough to spend a week in him. By the time we were ready to leave I’d worked 12 hour days for what seemed like weeks and I was in a bit of a state!

I was pushed over the edge by the (bloody) Sargent control unit, the documentation for this product was pretty much useless and full of contradictions. I had to contact the company a number of times to try and get some wiring diagrams from them. After finally figuring out what was what I was ready to wire up the connection plugs. I found it a bit strange that the wire connectors wouldn’t go in easily – I had to push them in with a screwdriver – tired, stressed, and confused I managed to make 3 decent sized holes in my fingers trying to do this – there was blood everywhere! Still, after a few hours it was done and I was ready to plug it in to the main unit – great.

Something of a low moment - 3 fingers with screwdriver sized holes in them - ouch

Not great – I couldn’t get them to go in. At that point Caryl came home from work and I asked her for her opinion on the matter. Her opinion was, I’d mixed the plugs up and put the males in the females and the females in the males. So that’s why they took some getting in! As I’d carefully soldered the wires in place I realised I was in the shit! No more spare fittings and a holiday to go in two days later. This was the point I had my (first) breakdown!

As I stood making noises with my head in my hand, Caryl assured me it’d be OK – she de-soldered all the pins, cleaned them up and then soldered them up again correctly – after she’d completed this task I came out with  ‘You are the best girlfriend ever times 7!” – She hasn’t let me forget this!

The day before we were due to go away the plugs slid into position and after connecting every thing up to the batteries it came the time to see if it all worked. For some odd reason Caryl doubted my abilities and armed herself with a fire extinguisher and (oddly) a wooden spoon. I flicked the switch – it all worked – we hugged! As the pump was now powered up, it meant we could also try out the water system – apart from a small leak at the pump, fixed by a bit tightening up, that worked too! You see – I’m not hopeless!

Turning on the electrics for the first time - Caryl seems to doubt my abilities!

The Sargent control unit - the cause of much of my pain!

So with the vitals working I could use the last few hours to tidy things up – do a bit of carpeting around the seats. Stage one was done! Still loads of stuff to do, and re-do, but we were getting to look OK.

The Cornwall holiday went fine – near on 1,000 miles with no problems – OK, there was another electrical problem on the first night when the whole leisure system stopped working when we arrived at the first campsite. This lead to my second breakdown. After completely removing the control unit – dropping one of the fuses into the sealed box which we then couldn’t get out – and not finding anything wrong I once again opted for the head in hands disaster pose. After all that and as a final idea before I took a can of petrol to the van, I tried taking the fuse out of the split charge relay and it all started working again! Relieved, we went to the pub. After a week away my fingers had almost healed!

Finally away - first night away on the way to Cornwall at Small Batch Campsite in Little Streeton

I’ll get some photos of how things are looking at the moment, including the lovely seat covers that Caryl made and the rear platform over the engine bay for the bed.

Making door cards

Apologies, it’s been a while since I last updated my blog – after a massive rush, resulting in some intense days working on the van, getting ready for our holiday in Cornwall, I’ve been having some time away from Mr O’Leary whilst I get on with house renovating.

So, a few posts to catch up with where we are starting with some details about making door cards. I’ve seen a few posts on the Club 80-90 forum with people requesting info on where to get door cards made, in this post I hope to show that it really isn’t that hard to make your own to a reasonably high standard.

More templates.

I’ve grown to love the cardboard template whilst renovating my T25 and my template making technique works great for door card making. I build the template with off cuts of cardboard, the template being built up by sticking small bits together with contact adhesive (the stuff I used to stick the lining carpet on with). This is so much easier than trying to cut a template out of a full sheet of card (or straight on to the wooden panel). By doing it this way you can build up and tweak complicated areas such as around the door handles. If you get a curve wrong all you have to do is add an extra piece of card and build the shape up until you have the correct shape.

 

Template made up from cardboard off-cuts

 

Once you’re happy with the template it’s just a case of carefully removing it from the campervan and then drawing around the template onto a piece of sheet material.

There are 3 main choices for backing board, plywood, mdf and hardboard. The door cards sold ready cut are normally mdf, as I had some hardboard I chose to use that – the material used in the original campervan conversion by Leisuredrive 24ish years ago was hardboard and they’d lasted fine, so I figured it would be fine. The only problem with my cardboard template idea is that, where there is a build up of layers it can be quite thick so care must be taken to make sure you draw up to the edge of the top profile, so slant your pencil at an angle otherwise you’d end up with a backing board that’s sightly too big.

I cut my board out using a combination of a circular saw for the straight edges and a bandsaw for the curves. I also used a fine hand saw for cut outs around the lock etc. If you haven’t got any fancy woodworking equipment you could do the cutting out perfectly well with a jigsaw and a fine blade. Once I’d done the cutting out I finished the edges by sanding them smooth.

Before moving on any further it’s worth checking the backing board fits OK in the van!

I didn’t want my panels to be flat and lifeless so my plan was to build out a little bit of relief, so the next step was to glue on some closed cell foam, I got mine from www.swanflight.com (it’s a truly appalling website!). This would allow me to cut out sections to produce the desired design.

 

door card with closed cell foam applied

 

Next I cut marked out where I wanted to cut out the channels and I also had to cut away the section around the handle – you might be able to see in the image above that I marked where the handle moves onto the foam itself whilst it was in position on the van – there’s an arc on the right hand side. Being dark grey it’s hard to make marks on, I used some chalk which just about worked.

 

marked out door card

 

 

Door cards constuction – popular with cats!

 

Next I cut the thin strips out that the vinyl would push into to make the pattern, I cut these with about 45º edges – I also intended adding 2 strips of oak that would echo the the design of the cupboards so these strips were cut out too. I used a razor blade and a straight edge to do the cutting.

 

All cut out, I decided to do away with the lower cut outs in the final version.

 

I had 2 types of vinyl, a very light grey for the top and a darker grey for the bottom. After a liberal coating of contact adhesive to the section that had been roughly cut out, I laid the top edge of the vinyl on the foam and started to press it down into position working downwards (or across for the middle section) allowing me to press the vinyl into the grooves I’d made in the foam as I went. I used  a suitable pointy stick to press it in firmly (not too pointy though or it will rip the vinyl). Once stuck onto the front I then turned the door card over and stretched the vinyl around to form a neat edge, the excess vinyl was then cut off and the edges glued down with more contact adhesive. It gets a bit tricky around the door lock but it’s just a matter of being careful and doing a bit at a time, if the vinyl isn’t stretching enough you could use a hairdryer to warm it up and make it more pliable.

Once the vinyl was all glued on it was just a matter of screwing on the thin oak strips that I’d cut to size, I made small pilot holes and very diddy screw to hold them in place.

 

The Competed door card

 

All in all I’m reasonably pleased with this first door card, just got 4 more to do! Be warned – I found that the extra thickness of the foam causes it to just catch on the side of the van when the door is opened, it’s not too much of a problem but if the side of the van is dirty it rubs on the top edge of the light vinyl meaning I have to keep cleaning it! I’m sure it’ll wear the vinyl out over time so there might be a version 2 coming along before too long.

So there you go – hopefully you’ve seen it’s not too hard to make decent looking door cards – it’s all about cardboard templates!

The fiddly world of camper van furniture building

Most of my time over the past few weeks has been taken up building the furniture for our T25. I’ve had the design more or less sorted out for months and the work surfaces were built over a year ago. You logically wouldn’t build the work surfaces first but I had to do it this way round as I needed to know where the hob and fridge were going when I had the LPG leisure tank fitted by Gasure.

My cupboards were built from 9mm birch ply – 12mm would have been easier to work with but I was trying to keep the weight down as much as possible to compensate for the solid oak worktops! This doesn’t compromise strength though, once screwed and glued together they are very solid.

The design features a combination of drawers and cupboards, with the fridge hidden behind a door to keep with the minimal look. The drawers were made from solid beech and dovetailed for strengh. The doors and drawer fronts were finished with Formica Colorcore.

Main cupboards fitted

Drawers made from beech with ply fronts finished with Formica colorcore

I managed to fit in a little drawer under the hob – I had to cut one side away to avoid the hob fittings

I sprayed all the cupboard sections before I put them all together with Fiddes Pre-Catalyst Cellulose Lacquer which is great stuff. The oak worktop was finished with Rustin’s Clear Plastic Coating chosen because it is very hard wearing and will resist the vigours of campervan life. I didn’t want a super glossy finish so it was wire wooled and finished with wax.

I mistakenly thought that 3m High Strength adhesive would do a good job of fixing the formica laminate having heard such great things about it. This would avoid having to clamp up or use the vacuum press. I should have known that such short cuts wouldn’t work! The edges are starting to come away so the doors and drawer fronts need to come off again to be fixed up properly with some Polymite and clamps.

I thought it would be useful to have a pull out double drawer to store cans and bottles, this was a good way to use the thin space next to the fridge.

Pull out storage unit

In the dead area which will be covered by the rock and roll bed I’ve built in an enclosure for a 10″ sub. This was built from 18mm MDF. I’m pretty pleased that now everything is bolted and screwed into place there’s no movement. I used the van this weekend and I’m please to say nothing rattles and all the doors and drawers stay closed – even on Peak District windy roads!

SMEV sink with built in two burner hob

Oak worktops

I now have to add the strip under the worktop that finishes things off and screw the handles on – I tried gluing them on but that was never going to work! Then I’ll be on to building the oak door that covers the Sergent control unit and joins on to the top cupboard. And I need to build the kick panel which needs to have a built in vent for the fridge.

The ugly fridge is covered by a door!

Getting high in the hi-top!

How time flies! It’s been about 6 weeks since the last entry and there’s been a lot of work on Mr O Leary. There’s been a lot of planning at this stage to make sure things go in in the right order – it’s a right pain when you realise you’ve got to take your cupboards out again because you forgot to hook the water pipe up!

So, three things have been going on really – routing the electrics for the leisure batteries, lighting, sockets and laying the cabling for the in car entertainment. Insulating and carpeting the hi-top. Building the cupboards and other wood trim bits.

I finally managed to pries some X-trem insulation out of Torbay Conversions, after 10 weeks of waiting, constant phone calls from me, excuses from them and generally the worst service ever, they sent me 4 meters of the 8 meters I ordered. Not the actually stuff I ordered – that’s be too much to ask for – 4 meters of 15mm (instead of 20mm) X-trem equivalent. I’ve now given up with the rest of the order and I’m currently trying to get a refund out of them.

The 4 meters of X-trem(ish) I received was used to insulate the floor and the hi-top – there was just enough to do these although it did mean using every little scrap of it. This meant that finally get the floor down – yay! After double checking all the cabling was tucked away and I hadn’t missed any I screwed the 12mm ply floor down. I ran the cabling through trunking so I would be able to add any more later if required, the idea being it would route through the trunking without too much trouble. I also tried my best not to put any screws through the water pipe that runs from the water storage tank under the van to the pump under the rock and roll bed. I think I succeeded!

The X-Trem was then glued to the hi-top, I used the contact adhesive from Mega Van Mats to stick this to the fiberglass hi-top. It didn’t stick perfectly so I used plenty and hope it’ll stay there – a few hot weeks on and it’s still fine so hopefully…

My roof section carpet is split in two, I’m going to build a new surround for the roof window which incorporates two down lights which reachers across the whole floor section, this has the added benefit of splitting the carpeting up. I decided to spray the carpet a section at a time, starting in the middle  and moving towards the back, I ignored the fact it was about the hottest day of the year. I’d inadvertently created a glue sniffing tent in the h-itop! I was lying on my belly in the roof area trying to spray into the corners of the roof with the remaining carpet draped over me. If you’re going to carpet your camper roof – try and find another way of doing this!! Although I was taking breaks I was feeling decidedly iffy, giggling but a bit sick – I can’t for the life of me think why anyone would want to glue-sniff, OK, the giggling was fun but I could probably have induced that by looking on the internet at kittens falling over without the sickness and headache!

Anyway, I survived, I’m not addicted, and the carpet went on fine.

Lining the T25 with carpet

The job I’ve been dreading is taking the windows out and fitting the lining carpet (hopefully) neatly around the opening. I’d heard that refitting window rubbers is a mare of a job and I can confirm – it is. I had new window rubbers fitted last year when the side window panel was repaired. I noticed that the window fitter had put the window rubbers in so the security strip was facing outwards – is this normal? Surely not, it means that anyone can get the windows out in seconds, I certainly could and I’ve never wore Burberry and a baseball cap!

When it was time to put the rubbers back in I would fit the rubbers so the security strip was on the inside. I laughed in the face of advice to start with a simple panel to learn the art of carpet lining fitting and opted for the side panel by the sliding window – probably the most difficult section! I started by securing a section a bit bigger than required at the top with 3M High Strength Adhesive and then continued to fix the carpet in small sections around the window opening leaving the area over the window as slack as possible. I then cut out the window opening leaving enough overlap to allow for stretching into the window surround. Thankfully the process of stretching and securing the carpet around the opening was reasonably painless. Caryl heated the carpet up with a hairdryer and I pulled the carpet into place and pressed in onto the window surround. The carpet actually stretches quite well and no cutting was required to get it into the deepest window surround in the van. Result! Putting the window back in involved a fair amount of swearing and car shampoo – the swearing is probably less useful than the shampoo which helps to make the rubbers more pliable. I had a diamond lacing tool which I purchased from Just Kampers and if you’re about to enjoy window fitting I’d suggest you get one too – I wouldn’t like do it without as it makes the process slightly less miserable. One window fitted it was time for a long De-stressing Radox bath, tomorrow I would have to take on the other side window alone – time to stock up the swear box. I decided with the lining carpet (Silver purchased from Megavan mats) that I wanted to have some definition in the panels rather than having flat areas of carpet, I therefore shaped the carpet into some of the recessors in the van, I made these as sharpe as possible my pushing the carpet in with scissor handles. The second side window actually went in OK, the biggest pain was getting the carpet to push neatly under the window rubber, I found the best way was to ignore it at first and just get the rubber on and then poke the carpet under with the window rubber tool. Three more windows to go – two in the roof and one in the sliding door, oh joy.

T25 lining carpet

Lining carpet around T25 sliding window

Trying the control unit cupboard for size. This will be covered with an oak panel with a door that will allow access to the control unit

T25 interior cupboards

I’m now well under way with cupboard building. The first part I decided to make was the panel that houses the Sargent EC155 control unit. This will fit in its own cupboard build into the panel. This seemed like a fair place to start as the other cupboards link to it and its position is critical. I decided to site the new 110ah leisure battery just behind this unit and the LPG tank as you can see in the picture. I need to make an mdf box for the battery to fit in. This will be linked in parallel to a second leisure battery behind the passenger seat which will power the music amps.

The cupboards are made from 9mm birch ply, the inside of the control unit cupboard and the unit door will be laminated with white Formica Colorcore.

I started by making a template so I could scribe the unit into the shape of the van side. I did this by cutting a piece of cardboard out roughly at first and then adding to it with smaller pieces of card that were stuck on with contact adhesive to get the shape right with no gaps. This was then transfered to a piece of ply and cut out on the bandsaw. The cupboard shape was then cut out on the table saw and the cupboard built with laminated ply and Formica Colorcore.

making a template for unit that will house the EC155 power control unit

I’m now on with making the cupboard units, once cut out and the rebates joints cut, the inside was sprayed with 4 coats of  Ruskins matt varnish before gluing together – it’s easier to finish the insides of cupboards before assembly particularly when they’re small camper van ones!

The delivery man cometh

There’s been a lot of activity over the past few weeks and things are coming along nicely. It’s great to be putting things in rather than cutting out rust!

With so many new additions – there’s none of the original interior, wiring or plumbing remaining – I’ve been spending my evenings sourcing new items, from cable to water heaters. All of this means that I have had delivery drivers arriving most days with exciting boxes of goodies (OK, admittedly some of them aren’t so exciting).

The delivery man's been busy!

I’ll start to add some of the suppliers I’ve used in the links section when I get a moment to dig them all out.

A lot of the information I’ve gleaned concerning the refit of my T25 has come from forums, the main one being club 80-90, a great set of people and a huge knowledge base for T25 owners. The other T25 forum – The Brick Yard is also a great source of knowledge. Also very useful is the Self Build Motor Caravan Club or SBMCC for short. I’ve even dabbled with the Talk Audio forum for ICE advice.

Some more posts coming up soon – I’ve started fitting the lining carpets and I’m now well under way with the cupboard building. Electrics are also going in.

Sound Deadening and Insulation

I’m please to say the time has come to start putting stuff back into Mr O Leary! I’ve spent a fair amount of time planning the order of things and with a wonderful weekend of weather ahead of us, it was time to get busy.

First off I decided it was time to get the engine started after 8 months sitting idle. Eight months had pretty much killed the battery, after a full charge it barely turned over the engine, so it was out with the booster pack. After a few attempts the engine started up fine, the problem was, the brakes had completely seized on (I remember now not to leave the handbrake on for months!). This called for some hammering on the drums, being dragged up the drive by the next door neighbours Subaru – still no joy – and finally jacking the van up and taking the wheels off one by one for some more hammering. Finally, after pumping the brake peddle, we were moving again.

The floor repair was wiped down with Antisil 770 Degreaser Panel Wipe, primed and painted along with some other areas where the Vactan had done its thing.

Rust cured, repaired floor panel given a lick of paint

I now started with sorting the floor out with sound deadening and insulation. I’m waiting for Reimo X-Trem to arrive (I’ll blog later about the problems of getting stuff supplied for camper van conversions – I’m not finding the best of customer service). Before that arrives I decided to put some Celotex down under the area where the cupboards will go. The floor was first covered with eDead sound deadening material – this serves to give the panels bulk, cutting down on standing resonance, and hopefully cutting out some road noise. Whilst the main floor area isn’t the main area of concern when it comes to road noise – that’s caused by noise from the wheels through the wheel arches, these will get some better quality deadening material.

The wooden cross members which will provide a gap for the insulation to fit in were glued to the floor with Sikaflex 221.

eDead sound deadening addeded between battens

Celotex insulation added

In and attempt to cut down road and engine noise the bulk head was covered in Second Skin Damplifier (available from www.caraudiodirect.co.uk). This stuff is seriously sticky! It’s quite hard to get to stick to the ridges in the bulk head. I was trying to get it as well stuck as possible – the better it’s in contact with the metal the better it’s work.

Second Skin Damplifier added to bulkhead

Finally for this weekend the rest the floor was covered with eDead between the battens and then the Damplifer on the bulkhead was covered with Second Skin Heat Wave Pro which acts as further sound insulation as well as thermal insulation.

Second Skin Heat Wave pro added to the bulkhead

All in all it feels like things are finally moving on well. Lots of things arriving soon (hopefully!), electrical items, plywood and Formica Colorcore for the cupboards and lining carpet from www.megavanmats.com, cupboard fittings, water pump… the list goes on!

Activity at last – welcome back to rust!

After a long break due to photography exhibitions, work and a very cold snowy winter I’m finally back on with getting Mr O Leary back on the road!

Last weekend really did feel like the first proper days of spring, an ideal time to get things moving and I actually have some free weekends (and a few weekdays) coming up  to get on with things.

I’ve been doing a fair amount of ready up about insulation and sound deadening with most of the interior stripped out it is now the time to think about how to make things quieter and warmer in T25 land! I’ve also been listing what I need to buy for the refitting and having a think about the order bits need to go back in.

Firstly though I needed to clear out all the bits that had accumulated – it’s all too easy to treat a laid up camper van on your drive as a storage space for things you haven’t got room for in the house! I then needed to get the old plywood flooring up to see if there was any rust hiding underneath….

There was rust hiding underneath….

Where once there was floor, now there is dust!

I stupidly thought all the rust had need removed and replaced with fresh metal when we had the repairs done last summer, somehow the rotten floor pan had been missed. This is a common problem with T25′s – years of constantly leaking side windows cause water to well up in the corner of the van rotting away the floor. This area is normally hidden by a plywood floor and cupboards so unless you remove the interior you’re not going to spot it unless it rots through resulting in holes visible from the underside, by that point it’s likely your chassis members will be rotten – not good.

Although I had a small pond in the chassis member (no wildlife), they were still solid, I drilled a small hole through to act as a drainage point, cleaned them up inside and coated with Vactan rust converter.

It's OK, we removed him before the welding began!

Next step was to cut out the damaged floor section back to decent metal and make a patch plate out of some sheet steel I had lying ar0und. Sunday would be welding day after digging the mig welder out of the corner of the workshop.

Now, as you can see from the picture, I’m not going to be giving up my day job(s) to become a welder in a hurry! Not the neatest bit of welding you’re likely to see but that’s the point – it’s not going to be seen so as long as it’s strong and I can give it a good coating so no water can get into it I’m not too bothered.

New section welded in place

The next job was to remove any other surface rust on the floor section and treat with more Vactan. I also cleaned out the two battery compartments which were pretty rusty and also treated them with Vactan.

Hopefully now that’s all the rust sorted out that was hidden by the interior and I can start putting things back – hooray!

I’ve also charged the battery up as well as the two booster starter pack things I have. Mr O hasn’t been started since last July so I’m a bit apprehensive about trying to get him started. I guess I can’t put it off much longer – I’m going to have to give it a go this week, hope I can get him to fire up…