How to build a camper from a panel van

Here is a blog about building yourself a camper van on the cheap. Plenty of photos, tips and a record of what mistakes I have made and pitfalls to avoid. Hopefully this will help any prospective camper/motorhome builders with their own projects.

The whole idea of building your own camper is the fact that you can tailor it to your requirements and save a shed load of money doing it. We also had the added benefit that my wife and I had a project we could work on together and give us something to do to relieve the boredom that often sets in on a Sunday afternoon.

Camper vans and motorhomes are incredibly expensive to buy. If you spend less than £5000 you are getting something pretty old and well used, not to mention probably not suitable or not exactly what you were looking for. Why compromise. For a fraction of that you can get something reliable, comfortable and exactly how you want it to be. Alternatively contact me and I will build one for you!

With the current economic climate making us all watch our pennies, holidays seem to be one of the areas we cut back on. Slightly the opposite for us as we have rarely taken a holiday where we have actually stayed away from home even for one night. Building a camper opened up a whole new set of possibilities where we could go places for long weekends, odd day trips without worrying whether we could get back in time or even extending trips for a week or so.

The plan formulated over year ago when we had one of those chats over a few glasses of wine and thought it would be a good idea. We both fancied having a go and researched a lot of web sites to get some ideas. It wasn't until this year that when my bonus came through we decided, and could afford to, buy a donor vehicle and make a start.

When it comes to donor vehicles, the best advice I can give is buy the biggest one for your needs. Buy the newest one you can afford and if you are not a competant DIY mechanic, get someone who is to give it a once over before parting with your cash.

We were on a pretty tight budget. I had around £1500 I could spend and that included the conversion. After scouring the internet for a few weeks prior to having the money, I had my eye on a couple of Ford Transits. I was originally thinking about buying a high roof long wheelbase so that I could go to town but many of these were out of my price range. My wife had some considerations too. She wanted something easy to drive and not too big. I relented to this school of thought and so was looking at a couple of Ford Tourneo's as they had metalic paintwork and velour seating. I could also sell on the additional seating to fund the project.

Unfortunately, the two tourneos I was watching were both sold before my funds came through. However, a third van, a long wheelbase semi high roof was still available. This van had the added benefit of having additional side windows fitted. This would save some considerable expense as fitting windows can be very expensive and somewhat of a specialist job.

On the day of the cleared funds I drew some money and got my future son-in-law to give me a lift to a very local motor trader that was advertising the van for £895. As luck would have it, it was a friend of my son-in-law and before any other words were said a bottom dollar price of £600 was offered by the trader. I had a good look round the van, being vaguely competant in the area of mechanics and noticed a few points that may cause issues but nothing major. So £600 was handed over and a very scruffy dirty van found a new home.

The initial drive home was uneventful, no smoke, drove nicely no rattles to speak of that shouldn't be there or couldn't be explained and I was quite happy with the purchase......the same cannot be said of the wife...

Next....uncovering the truth...

Well here she is the day I bought her, parked down my drive. "What on earth is that" exclaimed the wife when she first saw it...."sounds like a tank".

Yes it was a bit noisey, yes it was matt khaki, yes the wheels were very rusty, yes there was some surface rust on the wheel arches, yes the interior was absolutely filthy but I could see the potential.

The Mrs wasn't impressed at all. Unfortunately the previous owner had used it as a motocross van, taking his bikes to events with a bit of bed system behind the cab and bike storage in the rear. This was covered in oil and mud and I'm afraid she couldn't really see past the dirt. She couldn't visualise the size of the van either with the bed system in and the rather dark and dingy rear load bay.

Ok first jobs are to fix all the rusty spots. Replacing rusty panels is the only way to ensure the rust worm doesn't visit your van but that can be expensive and sometimes specialised. An easier way that will buy you some time is to remove as much of the rust as you can and then use filler to reshape and make good the body work.

Use a good quality filler and a couple of grades of sandpaper to blend in to the surrounding paintwork. Time spent here will pay dividends in the finished product.

If you need help with Ford Transits and want to view a few other vans etc the Ford Transit Forum is an excellent place with lots of friendly helpful people. The URL is http://fordtransit.org/forum/

 Once we repaired the rust spots we went for a nice repaint.  Being a cheap old van I couldn't warrant spending £300-£500 on a respray so we decided to roller paint with a great product called Rustoleum.  This paint is around £25 for 5 litres but is thinned down with white spirits.  It goes for miles and we managed to do the whole van in three coats out of the one tin.

The paint has some self leveling properties and does take a couple of days to dry but it gives a really good finish if done carefully with the little gloss sponge roller pads.

 I'm afraid we got a bit carried away but seeing as the cab area was so dirty and needed some major cleaning we decided to completely revamp the entire cab area.  I bought some faux leather from ebay 10 metres for £50 and a couple of tins of spray glue.  The plan was to have a leather dash and seats to match.  I think pictures explain things better but suffice to say, if you are going to attempt this, take your time and plan what you are going to do.  It's probably easier to take the dash out but I did mine with the dash in place.

 we unpicked the original seat upholstery and used them as patterns for the new material.  Sewed them all up and used the original fitting to pull the shape in.  Quite easy once you see how they are constructed.

 When you compare what it was before with what we have now I'm very pleased with the results

 Work could now start on the living part of the van and we took some measurements and scoured the web for some layout ideas.  We took a bit from a few different vans and decided what we wanted in.  I used Google sketchup ( a free program) to design the interior and use it as a guide through the build.

 I ripped out all the existing woodwork as it was covered in oil and grease from the previous owners motocross bikes.  This revealed a few holes in the floor under the plywood that needed welding.  I'm afraid I dragged my heels a bit with this as the weather turned a bit wet and I didn't fancy using an electric welder in the rain.

Once I did get started though they were soon welded up and a new plywood floor was laid.  I could sketch out the design on the wood floor with a marker pen and follow the plans.

 I wasn't sure what size to build all of the cupboard units so the next thing was to buy a cooker and sink unit from good old ebay.  I managed to find one out of an old T4 camper that I won for £10.50 that was perfect.

Measuring this gave me the sizes for all of the units in terms of width and the height was just determined by what we felt would be a comfortable working height.  I built a simple 2" x 1" timber frame to hang everything from.  Once again pictures explain better.  All this was screwed to the plywood floor to make it solid and permenant.

 Next up using the same principle of what suits me, I set about building the seating area that would convert into a bed.  This was simply 6ft long by 4ft 6 wide in an L shape, again out of 2 x 1 timber frame construction.  Over the top I covered again with plywood.  The van was now looking a bit like a workshop and storage shed

 With the basic framework in place for the units I started to flesh them out.  A cheap but professional looking solution was to use laminate flooring.  A trip to my local Wickes DIY store had some flooring packs for just £9.95 and one pack was enough to do the whole vans units.

I would glue a couple of panels together then cut them to size.  These were then backed with athing ply surround on the reversed side to give them some depth on the doors only.  The units sides were simply pinned and glued straight to the carcass.  This means the units are not only light but thin giving a bit more internal space.

 We needed some cushions for both sleeping and seating and after having a heart attack at the prices for foam I decided to scour the internet for some second hand cushions.  Caravan cushions are usually designed for both seating and sleeping and after a good rumage I managed to find someone clearing out a couple of caravans and a deal was struck.  I got loads of cushions plus a caravan toilet door for £10.  OK it cost me £20 in diesel to pick them up but they were well worth it.

Obviously the cushions were tailor made for the caravan and wouldn't fit in our design but some simple cutting and sewing made a perfect job for our camper.  As luck would have it the colour scheme was to our liking and this would save us having to recover them.

 We were now starting to look like a camper.  The next stage was a bit of a mistake.  I should have done the roof first but I cracked on and built the bathroom and added a back wall to the units.

We also decided to make some small amendments to our original design as we felt having a full length wardrobe might make it feel a bit claustrophobic in the back.  So we decided that a blanket box affair would be better and it could double up as a table.

 So getting back on track I addressed the roof situation.  Back to the trusty laminate flooring.  A quick calculation determined that for the sake of about a foot I needed two packs but at £20 for 2 it wasn't a huge expense.  These were partly assemebled then screwed to the crossmembers in the roof.  I trapped polystyrene foam between the roof and the laminate to insulate the van somewhat and try and avoid condensation from hot days and cool nights.

 how to cover the walls was a big decision.  I was going to use carpet but the Mrs really didn't want to and as we found out later it could have been very expensive.  We decided on wallpaper.  A lesson learnt here was, paste the wood thoroughly and leave to dry.  Then paste the paper and hang it as normal.  If you don't do it this way the paper simply falls off the walls as we found out to our cost.

I managed to get a couple of bargain rolls from Homebase for £2 each. obviously you don't need that much.

 I had a couple of 12v strip lights that came with the van and part of my cushion consignment included a third 12v strip light.  I set about wiring these up to the battery directly.  One for the main room, one under the cupboard unit at the end on the wall and one in the bathroom. 

In the mean time the Mrs started running up some curtains for a more homely feel.

with the main build complete we now concentrated on added those finishing touches that start to make things a bit more homely. With the carpets in it really began to feel finished and everything after that was a pleasure to do and no longer hardwork.

Power was wired through to some standard household sockets and a 500w inverter changes the 12v secondary battery into 240v so you can use all your standard appliances. I also doubled this up with a plug in electric hook up cable so if you use a camp site you can use their 240v supply and save your battery.

Cupboard handles were added and a TV ariel bolted to the roof rack were a couple of extras.

I was lucky enough to have a vanity sink unit donated to me so this was fitted to the bathroom. The only thing left to buy was a cassette toilet and the various water tanks both fresh and waste. The cooker was plumbed up to a 4Kg camping Gaz bottle under the sink unit which also houses the water containers.

 well we are nearly done now and I need to have it finished for the big Tranistmania show on August bank holiday weekend.  We bought the van in April and with having a month messing around with the welding I don't think that has been a bad build time for just a few weekends work.

I'll post the updates as and when from now on and then we will start some hubs on using the van and where we get to on our travels but here is a breakdown of the costs so far.

Van  £600

Tax £100

Paint £25

Wood £75

Cooker £10

Carpets £40

Cushions £10

Leather £50

Curtains £30

Finishing items £25

over all cost £965, lets round it up to £1000 as I had a lot of screws, hinges etc in stock but by using Google's services and searching ebay you can really keep the costs down.  To buy a similar van would realistically cost £3000 to £4000 easily.  The best thing is that when you have done with it you can sell it on.  We plan on using it for a year or so and then selling at a profit so that we can build a bigger and better one. 

Having just attended the TransitMania show we achieved 2nd place in the best camper category. Read my Hub on "Using the camper"  http://hubpages.com/hub/Using-the-camper-van for details and pictures