Minirolls Musings

I’m as far as I can go with the bed cabinets so now it’s time to build the sink side of the van. This is one long run of cabinets from front to back but here is a strange metal wobbly bit in the middle of the van. This means I’m going to make it in two sections, starting with the bed end, so at least we have that operational.

Diary Of A Camper Conversion

Parts all prepared, today should just be putting them all together, right?

Diary of a Camper Conversion

When I collected the plywood yesterday, I left the timber merchant a cutting list for some parts I needed for the cabinets. This morning I got a call saying they were ready and so went to pick them up.

Diary Of A Camper Conversion

So today I picked up some plywood and cracked on with the rear door cards.

Diary of a camper conversion

Ive been putting off working out the design of the cabinets for a while and so I still haven’t ordered the faced ply I need yet. But what has turned up is the roof rack components.

The ceiling has had to stop until the roof rack is done. Why? Because until the roof rack is on, I dont know exactly where my electrical pass through box will be located. And until I know that, I cant finish the ceiling. Funny how so many things are inter-related and prevent others from progressing.

Anyway, the roof rack was pretty straight forward. Lengths of 40×40 aluminium extrusion were cut to length and then bolted to the roof using stainless clamps. These clamps came with U shape brackets that would have positioned the 40×40 directly over the clamping points. This is probably important for heavy loads, but since I’m just going to have a solar panel and some cameras up here I prefer the roof rack to hang over the edge of the van a bit.

To do this, I got some custom made stainless brackets cut and bent to my design. They came out really nice and once I took a rotary wire brush to them, they look identical to the clamps. Very happy with the finish.

These brackets mean the rail sits slightly outboard of the roof. This should give the cameras a better view down the side, to help me negotiate close fence posts etc in this huge van.

Once the rack was on, I now knew where the electrical box could go. I followed Mispronounced Adventures method for a roof electrical box so its easily accessible in the future. This did mean another hole in my roof, which was scary, but once sealed up with sikaflex, it was fine.

That is, until I noticed that I didn’t have any way to close the glands till I actually wanted to install cables. In the end I chopped some old cable, poked them thru and tightened the glands. This should stop water getting in for now.

Diary Of A Camper Conversion

Glue now dried, I’m very impressed with just how securly these bits of wood are stuck on! I’m confident they will stay in place forever!

Diary Of A Camper Conversion

Well I would have taken it all out again, had it not been teeming it down with rain all day. So its all piled at the back and I’m working up front, in about 2 sqm, tackling the over-cab locker.

It was looking a bit grey and drizzly today so this was going to have to be quick. I had collected the insulation and batons yesterday evening so I just had to stick them in.

Except I didn’t have enough glue…

Diary Of A Camper Conversion

Left is done and now it’s time to do the same on the right.