A Bank Holiday of Converting :) (Day 3)

Wow.

What a weekend, the extra day made a huge difference, and I really want to carry on now I have built some momentum, but back to reality tomorrow, and doing some work.

Things are getting so close to the good stuff now, the biggest thing, and the bit I'm not really looking forward to, is the floor, I know removing the rails is going to be really time consuming, there are so many rusty bolts through the floor to take them off, that I am sure there will be some swearing involved. :S.

I really can't wait to build the kitchen because that means that the jobs aftewards will just be small ones and that Nina will finally be useable as a campervan.

So, the final of three days of converting.

Today, I wanted to re glue the bulkhead, it annoys me every time I go in there, and it hasn't been fixed on properly for a while, barely hanging on by some loose nuts at the top, while the bottom was allowed to flap back and forth.

Quickly undid the top loose nuts, and the bulkhead was off and ready to come out.

After placing it on to the tables under the car port, it was pouring down today, I pulled the carpet back from the top down, this was actually quite hard, though there were many places the glue hadn't stuck, there were definitely some where it had, meaning some force was required, quite a lot of it actually to rip it back !

I sprayed LOTS of glue on both the carpet and the bulkhead....


Then slowly worked the carpet in to the recesses as I glued and pressed all the way back up to the top again. The glue held mostly, and kept the shape of the bulkhead nicely.


I found some window trim, left over from when Nina's windows were done, sadly not enough to make it all the way around, so will have to buy some more, but it finishes the bottom half off and stops the carpet peeling away.


After realising that the carpet was quite well stuck in places, I decided against trying to rip up the bottom, and leave it, it will mostly be hidden behind the seating, and as I found out, isnt actually going to fall off.

I flipped it over and glued the excess carpet over the edge, this will stop any noise from the edges rubbing the sides of the interior or vibrating etc and make it look better finished from the back.

Before putting the bulkhead back, I thought I would quickly cover the small overhead panel that partially covers the blower section above the bulkhead, as the plan is to refurbish the overhead cupboard later which will sit in front of it.

Its already covered in dark grey carpet, so this was stripped off first, and a new piece of sand carpet cut.















A nice easy job, probably the easiest of the weekend !

Afterwards, it occurred to me that once the bulkhead is in place, there is some white metalwork showing underneath it, so got some scraps of carpet together and went in to Nina and cut and glued some in to place which looks so much better than the metal.


With that done, it was time to fit the bulkhead back on once and for all, which. I duly did, first hanging it on the top threads and loosely screwing the nuts back on.

The problem was trying to locate the bottom bolts in to their holes, through two lots of carpet, and a heavily distorted metal bulkhead. After lots of pushing, lifting, gritting of teeth, and frustration, I was no closer to getting it fixed back on.

Eventually I got a thick screwdriver, forced it through the middle hole, then on into the threaded bolt hole, pulled them straight, and thumped the bulkhead forward, to my amazement it lined up and moved in far enough to maybe get a bolt started either side. Which in itself was a task while trying to hold the screwdriver in and keep it all lined up. Finally it all went together, and after tightening the nuts at the top, it was a matter of knocking the sides out level with the wall, and standing back to admire my hours of work !






I popped back out in to the rain and picked up the small section of blower hole panel, and using a couple of small screws, fixed it in to place above the bulkhead, this also covers the top nuts up.






Time was getting on, so I quickly vacated Nina, and back under the car port, which is such a mess at the moment, its become a dumping ground for Nina's interior, pallets, concrete blocks, and lots of other bits of rubbish, so its good to be getting on with these jobs and emptying it bit by bit.

I pulled one of the overhead cupboards down, the one that came out of Emma, as its a slightly more streamlined design than Ninas own, and also not as easy to break down in to smaller cupboards, Ninas is a bit more modular.



I started removing the cushioned panels, intending to recover them with the sand carpet, but once removed, I kind of liked the panel that was left behind, jt was smoother and lower profile, so decided to ditch the cushioned panels and carpet straight in to the wood.



After masking the metalwork on the cupboard, I sprayed the glue all over, and on the panel of carpet I had cut, and stuck it on. Looked great :). Repeated for the other end and this is how it looked.


Really like it, and so glad I ditched the cusioned panel that went over the top of this.

I cut another piece of carpet and quickly covered the right hand end panel too, I didnt bother with the left hand one as that side will be up against the blower panel in Nina. Always trying to save using carpet where possible so that I dont have to buy any more.



I think it looks brill, and couldn't wait to see it up in Nina, but it was 7.30pm, and Jen wanted to cook tea.

After a bit of pleading and puppy dog eyes, Jen agreed to hang on for an hour, so I went to work on making the holes in the right hand end for my TV unit that will be bolted underneath.



Its an AVI 10" flipdown kitchen TV, it runs from a 12v mains transformer, and actually runs straight from the 12v system fine if you remove the transformer out of the equation. Its a freeview tv, dvd player, and radio, and is absolutely perfect for a campervan. I think I got it for about £50 from ebay, there will be a post way back about getting it if you are interested in finding it to see exactly how much I paid for it.

Anyway, holes drilled, the moment had come to fit the cupboard ! :).

I put all the bits and pieces in to the back of Nina, and went to find something to prop the cupboard up in to the air while I drilled holes and fixed it in. In the shed I found a ratchet support, its like a big adjustable pole that you can ratchet up underneath stuff to hold it in place. Hoisted the cupboard up and quickly popped the support under and tightened it up.



The only thing holding that cupboard up is the pole right now, and its not light ! Its pretty heavy :).

Fixed all the brackets to the wall and the roof and removed the pole.... It stayed up there ! :)

I still had a few minutes before I had to pack up, so bolted the tv in to place to see how it looked. It looked great ! It swivels 270 degrees, plus up and down, so it can be viewed from anywhere in the back. While seated, or while cooking !


How neat does it look in there ? :).
























I didn't have time to wire it up, plus I need to buy a new power plug for it from Maplin as I lost the transformer with it on, when I say lost, it has gone in to the numerous boxes of adaptors, chargers and power supplies never to be found again, it is just easier to go buy a new plug for it :).

That's it, the Bank Holiday of Converting is over, I finally ran out of time, it's a little sad, I really wanted to carry on, didn't really want the weekend to end, but it has, and I can be happy that I got so much done :).

I think it's time for a quick then and now comparison, to see how far we've all come, lots of you reading this I know have been following from the start, so remember this ?



All those little jobs over the past three years, yes THREE years, I should have been finished at least 2 years ago, but life, and those damned leaky windows ! got in the way :P.

Anyway, all done, and if I am honest, even though it was me that planned it all and worked towards this run in, it is turning out so much better than I could have imagined, and probably like you all, I can't wait to see the final photos !

Hoping to get a bit more done on the evenings this week, though I think I am due a well earned break for a day or two, as much as I want to go on, I'm shattered lol.

See you in the next post ! ;).

Location:Gloucester

A Bank Holiday of Converting :) (Day 2)

Well, after a lovely evening out standing at the touchline cheering on the Vixens (Bristol Ladies FC), after spending the day working on Nina, I ached a little bit, in fact a lot, my legs and feet were killing me ! So today, Sunday, was a lie in day, in fact it was around 12 before I got out of bed, apart from getting up to feed the dogs, then answering the door to the Police :S.

Apparently a car had been stolen last night, and dumped near our house in the early hours of the morning. The Police noticed we had cctv up, and were enquiring whether it had been recording, sadly I had to tell them no, but from now on, it will be.

After a hearty Brunch of toast with scrambled eggs and tinned tomatoes on top, a real campers meal :P, Jen went off to walk a dog and search Aldi for their latest offerings, a Cree head torch, I have to say, when she brought it back, it seemed very good, and works from 3 AAA batteries, so easy to run. I did use it a bit later on, but will come to that in a bit.

Still aching, and a little bit in my comfort zone, -


I surveyed the work that needed to be done today. I remember thinking to myself, right quickly finish the roof panel off, put it back up, then start overhauling the overhead cupboards.

Hmmm.

I started with setting the tables back up, and getting the roof panel back out of Nina. First job was to cut out the holes that needed doing, ready for the skylight and the roof fan. This was a fairly straight forward job using a utility knife, making nice neat holes.

The next job was to utilise all those pieces of electrical tape I had stuck on, and find all the holes through the carpet, and screw some screws in ready, so that when we were struggling, holding the roof panel back up, all. I had to do was line up the screws with the holes and zap the up.









This went fairly well, though it was time consuming, but once I got in the rhythm, the screws were eventually in place, and then it was time to fit the Maplin LED down lights.






Using a piece of plastic packaging, I marked it, and then marked the points on the roof panel where the lights were going to be fixed.

Using my stepper drill bit (amazing piece of kit), I drilled holes at the appropriate points, big enough to allow the connectors on the lights to pass through. Once that was done, I then went about fixing each downlight to its spot in turn, then finished them off by popping on there brushed steel metal rings, making them look like they are just stuck on with no wiring.









I had actually lost the small bag of tiny screws that came with the lights, so had to find something in the shed, which turned out to be a touch too big, resulting in me using a pair of pliers to gently encourage the metal trim rings to widen enough to fit over the overlarge screw heads. Not perfect, but nobody is going to notice, especially when they are on, they are very bright and you aren't going to be worrying about slight gaps in the trim when being blinded ;).

This, was the end of the roof panel preparation, the next job was to remove the lower part of the skylight, including the blind assembly, mark out where the holes were in the overlapping wall to enable me to line the roof panel screws up with, then drag the roof panel back in. When I say drag, obviously I mean gingerly carry the 3 meter long piece of wobbly fibreglass without letting it bend to much, resulting in it cracking and breaking, while also avoiding all the new sharp screws that were sticking out all down each side, whilst bunching up the cables for each of the four lights so I didnt trip over them. Went without a hitch :).

With the roof panel back in, I connected up the lights to the junction box, that comes with them, and shouted for Jen to come and help support the panel as we lifted it back up to the roof.



With Jens help, we got the roof panel up in place, and I quickly drove a few screws in to hold it there.



It was at this point we realised that although the panel was screwed in either side at the front of the van, nothing was really lining up at the back of the van, which was odd. It didn't seem possible, unless the roof panel had somehow gone out of shape or warped.

After putting a couple more screws in towards the back, Jen went back to her Dallas Omnibus and I tried to get the roof panel back fitting properly.

After a bit of pushing and pulling, I has most of the screws in, except for the drivers side where a row of 6 or so screws just didnt seem to want to go back in to place.

While they were still loose, I realised I needed to quickly wire in and fit the 12v socket next to the skylight, this would supply power to a Fiamma Turbo Vent fan when fitted in the aperature over the kitchen.



With this done, I have no more wiring to do in the roof :) Back to the wonky screws and trying to get them back in to place.



The yellow handle / bar you can see to the left, isnt fixed in, so I used it to push the roof right up whilst I located the remaining screws in to their homes. Finally it was all back up, and not coming back down ! My seam either side looks very neat, and I am very pleased with the result.

While Jen was walking around in the back of Nina earlier, she noticed the roof seemed lower, she was quite right, where I have removed the original ceiling lights, which were big units, part of their job was to hold the centre of the roof up via their fixings, obviously not being there anymore, the panel was sagging slightly. A few screws down the centre of the roof later, and the 'sagging' was no more.

It took me a lot longer to refit the roof panel than I had anticipated, and time was cracking on, that late start was showing itself to be a less than wise decision, and it was becoming increasingly obvious that there would be no overhauling of overhead cupboards today. So I busied myself with redressing the roof with the lower half of the skylight and the fan cover.

Even this took longer as the screws that clamp the roof in between the two halves of the skylight weren't easy to locate in to the upper holes, amd as light was fading, I actually got to use my Aldi head torch sooner than I thought I would. It worked great and finally I had the lower half and the roller blind section back up and making sure that the seal on top of the roof under the skylight stayed just that, sealed.






As I had made the decision to tackle the overhead cupboards tomorrow, I couldnt resist wiring the new overhead lights in to the battery to see what they looked like.

Awesome is the word, along with my window lights, its really starting to look cosy in here :).
I will leave you with the pretty light pictures, and will probably be back again tomorrow with another installment :).

Location:Gloucester

A Bank Holiday of Converting :) (Day 1)

So, with a bank holiday three day weekend here, I had the rare chance to spend most of it working on Nina, and work I have, so far, still Bank Holiday Monday to go :).

Saturday, yesterday, was preparation to start with, I had to double check all my roof wiring, mentally go through where each wire was going to end up, what it was going to power, and make sure it was all in the right place.

So that is where I started. I ran a new wire from front to back, especially for the Earth on the leisure battery, making all my switches easier to wire in. Tidied all the cabling runs and fixed them to the ceiling via the metal strengthening bars. The wiring for the side lights, tv, and coax, I fed down the sides, drilled holes in the wall roughly where the cupboards will be either side, and fed the wires through so they will essentially drop in to the cupboards when they are there.

I realised I wanted another 12v socket up by the roof light to power a Fiamma Turbo Vent when needed over the kitchen area. So fed a new wire that finished by that, it will be a permanently on socket, so no need to run to the front switches.

I then fed all the front to back wires out the side of the roof at the front and down into the front blower area rather than draped across the front.













As you can see, much neater and much more ordered, and very 'prepared' :).

With that done, I had a quick tidy up, took all the stuff out except essentials, swept up, and basically readied everything for the roof panel to go back in.






With all that done, the next job was the roof panel itself. Since I took it down, its been sat under our car port getting dirtier and dirtier, so the first job was to get it laid out on a couple of camping tables, and wash it off.



Whilst still finding time for a cheesy selfie ......



Once cleaned, I sprayed the area around the roof fan hole with contact adhesive, and also sprayed the two plastic sections that filled in the old light hole and made it round.









Using a decent adhesive the plastic stuck together perfectly. There was nothing else to do now, except go for it, and cut some carpet to size ready to roll on and glue.



Clipping it to one side so the carpet didnt move, I sprayed, and sprayed, and sprayed ! After the fiasco of the first carpeting, I was taking no chances that this carpet was going to start fallimg down !



It stuck much better than that time, and molded perfectly to everything underneath. I was working to the clock now, I wanted to get the second piece done before our trip to Bristol to watch the Bristol Ladies take on the Everton Ladies in football. (I am happy to say Bristol won a very fast paced game 5-2 !).

So that is what I did...









Spraying extra glue near the seam with the first piece.

Once that piece was good and stuck, I flipped the panel over, then using electrical tape, stuck a piece adjacent to each screw fixing hole on either side.



Then, again, spraying copious amounts of adehesive, worked on folding the excess carpet over and sticking it to the underside, leaving a nice neat finish to fix back up to the inside.






I actually used the contact adhesive from B&M for this bit, after the sticks like nails foam tape, I was curious as to whether this was just as bad. I am happy to say it was not, and did a good job of sticking it down, while the natural tendency of the carpet was to bounce back straight ! No trickery in the above two photos, it definitely stuck :).

With all this done, it was time to go wash, and get ready for our match, so very carefully, I picked up the panel and put it in the back of Nina, away from the dirt and pet hair of the car port.

Location:Gloucester