Another year of use

Well fir all those who thought the blog had finished, I do have a couple of more entries to make before I would say it is complete

The most important and scary day came last week when the van went for it's MOT, aaarrgggghhhh

I booked it into Glasgow Commercials ( in Paisley ) with fingers, toes, everything crossed to see how good or bad it would do. I knew it would fail as my horn was not working.

After spending the day playing on buses with Nathan , thanks greenerjourneys.com for the free bus journey tickets, we went back to the garage to find out the result.

The list was surprising, A new horn, a new tyre, and 2 track rod ends, that's it, yup that was all that was needed

YIIIPPPPEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!

So it was booked back in the following week for the repairs and i now have a brand new MOT keeping me on the road and camping for another year.....





Next time hopefully i will have managed to change the van from a Commercial vehicle to a Motorhome officially with the DVLA

Jealousy !!!

Well on Sunday we decided to get the vans out again, possibly for their last outing, and went back to Pollok Park, scene of the first outing what seems to be so long ago yet it was only this spring.

We recreated the picture, almost and set about making lunch.



After lunch we got kitted up with walking boots and waterproofs, and went on our merry way and spent 2 - 3 hrs walking around, letting the kids play in the woods, collecting conkers, then on to the play park. All in all a great relaxing afternoon.

We decided to go back to the vans to then head home.

As we walked towards the van my heart sank! I thought my eyes were deceiving me and that there was rain on the van.


NO !!!


As I got nearer the van it hit home that all was not well.





Some little cretin (excuse the spelling if not right) had decided that their parents had been bad to them and had not given them a white board for their bedroom, and decided that my van bonnet would be a worthy replacement to fill that childhood hole!!

So " DIV " whoever you are, i hope that replaces any therapy that you missed as a child !


Deep down I was gutted, after all the hours working on her and getting her to this stage, for someone to do this was heart renching, and yes I know it is just a van, but you ask any camper owner, It aint just a van!!

Now that you are hopefully as gutted as I was, I bring you good news.

" DIV " obviously didnt realise that spray paint usually needs a bit of wet n dry and some primer to stick to metal, so after getting home, Tranny Annie was treated to a white spirit nose bath and I am pleased to say that she is looking almost her good old self with a white nose, sorry DIV !

A bit of T cut and she should hopefully look as if it had never happened.

Untill the T cut is finished, adios for now

just a quickie

Just noticed on ebay that if you are looking for something to convert, Fastline ltd have gone into receivership and the market has now been flooded with their vans.

Why does this matter?

It matters because these are usually full service history, well maintained and also there are now loads of vans for sale with the same trendy stand out yellow strips on the side !!!!!

Till next time.....

Holiday!!!

Well the grand day came and we got all packed up and hit the road for our summer break away in the van. Yes break, not 1 day, 2 days, a whole 5 nights on the road in the van.



Our first stop was to the campsite @ Ravenglass in Cumbria (left hand side of the map) and after we found it, we were very impressed with the site.



From an ex works van to mobile home for a family of 4!!

Even space at the back for dinner.

A view from the awning into the van.



Now when away camping with children, they tend to get dirty, now with modern campsites they have laundry facilities to wash them and dry them, but what do you do when the washing is not quite dried properly

4 drying lines inside the van!!!

Now occasionally it rains when camping so what do you do? (keep it clean please!!)

Thats right, watch tv! (in the van)

We later moved onto Haltwhistle and unfortunately the heavens opened for two days ! not no matter what modifications i have made to the van, it doesn't stop the ground getting wet. As we packed up to leave, the tarpauline we were using got put in the bin as under it was this



Which does have a 4" hole in the middle of the puddle of mud.

I have kept this mainly picture based and short as it is a blog about a van conversion and not my holiday snaps, until next time........

Today i started doing fiddly bits to the van to start finishing it off.

Firstly i decided the grey wood on the inside of the back doors had to go.

nice and white!


I have finally got some flooring down on the floor and if you remember in the last blog I said about grass in the van, well here it is





I could not make up my mind if i wanted carpet, )too easy to get dirty), laminate flooring,( i did not fancy trying to lay it under the seats) so i went for, yes you guessed it, astro-turf or artificial grass. Easy to brush out and it feels like bringing the outside in doors.


Remember this ?



after a few changes it know looks like this



This is the same unit although I have changed the sink and added a tap, I got the cooker from Go Outdoors at the ridiculous price of only £24.99, double hob and grill underneath and it fit the gap perfectly. I also shortened the doors on the unit as after putting the flooring down I realised that I could not open the cupboard doors !


Under the cooker is a campingaz 907 canister that is piped up into the back of the cooking unit, calor gas bottle was too big .

So the van is just about ready for holiday time and after a couple of overnights it is time for a week long holiday, so I will let you know when it happens.

Now hands up who thought that i had given up on the blog and had finished the van?....................well no I haven't, just a slight lack of funds to get on with it.

The past couple of days has seen the van hopefully become a bit more camperlike.

After some internet searching I have managed to get the missus a bike, and a bike seat for Nathan we are already for cycling on holiday, just need to find space in the van for storage, or not




The bike rack is fitted on at the towbar ( A huge thanks has to go to Collins Tyre Services in Johnstone, after asking them to unbolt the towball they actually fitted it for me, so if you need puntures, tyres, exhausts etc, give them a look as the do offer a great service, no I am not on commission this time, just very very appreciative to them. ) and can take 3- 4 bikes on it.

I have since got a number plate made up and a lighting bar for the rear of the bikes.

Next time gas and cooker changes and i actually have grass, yes... GRASS inside the van (not the illegal type you smoke)

Getting ready to go!

After getting the foam I got the number of an upholsterer in Yoker who had done some work on a friend's van and went to see him to get the foam covered and here it is..




Done to match in with the seats in the back of the van.

Now as you may have noticed the above picture, there are things hanging from the windows.

There are curtains on both side windows



We also have curtains at the doorway to the bedroom



There is also a dividing curtain closing off the cab..



And finally to keep the heat in at the back...

A full length curtain to keep my little babies warm in the back

Now a major thank you has to go to my mother in law, yes i did say mother in law and there will definetly be no jokes here just thank you, thank you, thank you, Margaret for all your work in making all the curtains from scratch.

Once I collected the van from getting curtains, and scrubbed from top to bottom by Mairi, Ella, Nathan (apparently), and Margaret, I got it home and started to load up for an overnight trip and then, DISASTER!!!! when i put the water bottle back in i managed to pull the power connection out of the water pump. Not a major problem you think, but remember i connected this before the kitchen was fitted to the van.

After a tight squeeze, yes no a small person, and having to remove the water bottle holder from the floor and it was reconnected and working again, thank goodness.

Van packed and ready to go yipee!!!!

I am still alive

I am posting this, not because there are any major changes to the van but to prove that i do other things to keep the peace in the house.

Remember the bombsite of a garden i had left with the parts from the inside of the van ?



Yes rather untidy... well in good old conversion style it now looks like this..



Not bad for an afternoon, anyway no more non conversion blog, back to business as usual next time.

Somewhere to sleep!

After the adjustments to the table in the previous blog, I needed to get a cushion for the box to level things out and to stop getting skelfs in my rear end, (no not a pretty thought). I didn't realise there are shops in the high street, well Jamaica Street in Glasgow, that sell foam for cushions in any sizes. So armed with measurements i went and got my foam, and it is now in pride of place on the box.



I am going to let the pictures do most of the talking on this blog as they are showing what the van looks like before and after the bed is put in place.



Another step closer to going away overnight, just need to get the gas connected to the cooker and the curtains put up.

Roll on next pay day!

No I haven't given up

Just incase you thought that i had given up on the conversion as i had not updated the blog recently, then sorry but sanity has not returned and yes I am still going.

I have been putting off doing the bed but it has come to the point where it had to get done. I had decided that using the box that was added on the last blog, the chairs that are still in, and convert the table to drop down to be the middle of the bed.

To do this i had to change the table leg to two adjustable legs, just like so




Bed almost done just need to sort out the cushion for the box.


The other things that have been happening are lots of small jobs but necessarry ones.

I have put up curtain rails on the windows and the dividing doorway,

My curtains will arrive once measured and made


Remember this, My £5 special

Now looks like... And from the rear.....


The Last thing i did to the van was to finally give it a wash and white spirit shower, the rear doors were covered in tar spots and unfortunately once you start taking them off you find yourself in some sort of obssessive compulsive disorder when you start trying to clean off every black spot until you realise that that last one you rub is actually a stone chip that no matter how much you try is not going to come off.

During my time sorting out the small jobs, i did recieve an emergency call from Mairi to say that her and Ella had cycled from Johnstone to Lochwinnoch, major achievement for Mairi, saying that they could not make it back, so I ended up collecting them and bikes.





Due to 2 certain individuals not seeing the value of sleep,(Ella & Nathan) we decided to take them for a drive and all piled into the van, poor baby has not been out the driveway in three days, and went out.

Unknown to me there seemed to be monkeys swinging about the hills and one got in the van and started swinging around..





Finally, yes I am sad, but I thought i would ad another photo of the van as i thought it was looking quite good after its bath.


Until next time..........