Let's Rock n Roll

It arrived!!!

All wrapped and bolted (very securely) onto a pallet.  It was a fairly hefty thing to have to move.  The courier arrived about 15 minutes before I needed to go out (how do they do that?) and also when the school down the road was kicking out so absolutely nowhere for him to unload it.  He could only park about 100 yards from our house and didn't want to hang around.  I didn't fancy drapping it on a pallet truck halfway down the road, so, together we hatched a scheme for me to reverse the van upto his taillift and slide it across from one van to another.  Did I mention it was heavy - sweet lord!!!

When all said and done, I didn't care, it arrived.  I had a busy weekend ahead.  Cambee had said that it should only take a couple of hours to fit but I'm guessing that estimate was based on the benefit of their experience of fitting their own beds fairly frequently and knowing exactly how their fitting kit worked.

Here's the fitting kit all laid out.  Some chunky looking bolts in there.

The general idea is that the side brace bolts into the load lashing points of the van.  The smaller brace can then be positioned and bolted to the van floor.

Oh balls!!  

Cambee have sent me one for a LHD van.  Thank you Matthew for fixing that super fast.  It had to wait until after the bank holiday weekend but the replacement part arrived pretty soon after that so not too much time lost. 

With the side brace in the correct position, you can use the bed frame to position the right hand brace.  The holes should be just forward of the little indentations in the van floor, like this.

Underneath the van, the holes comes through either side of the strengthening cross member of the van.  At this pint, the large box section piece of the fitting kit would normally go over the cross member and bolt into place.  As my van is a factory Kombi, there's already additional strengthening there so this part of the kit is not needed.

I didn't take any pictures of the floor going back in or the bed separated from the base frame.

 Once the floor braces are in, I laid the plywood floor on top and walked on it in the vague position of the raised brace pieces.  These are there to stick up through the floor to allow the bed frame to be bolted directly to the braces.  So, the floor came back out and rectangular holes cut where the indentations that  were made from me walking on it - then they should line up - see?  Clever heh!?!

Floor back in and lined up, bolted just the base on the braces, the seat/bed part lifts onto the rails and bolts into place.

Ta da!!  It's in.  

and looks pretty damned nice, even though I do say so myself.

Bed teaser photos

These are a few pics from Cambee showing the bed finished before it is packed and shipped.

Wow!! That looks amazing!!  So pleased with how that has come out.  Can't wait to get it here and get it into the van, even though I know that is going to be a difficult job.

Floored

Big massive piece of plywood ordered and delivered.

There are a few places on the web that will do a pre-cut 12mm plywood floor in a single piece - well almost - there's a little bit that fits under the jack by the wheel arch that's a separate piece.

I got mine from Vanguard in Exeter.  Excellent service.  Cut to order from a 10x5 piece with options such as curved tailgate threshold, holes for lashing points, full length or shorter for a bulkhead.  It took 4 days to arrive via Tuffnells and all for the handsome price of £125 plus a bit for the taxman.

It weighs a chuffin' tonne.  If you've got someone handy who's prepared to help then use them!!

Here's the obligatory van conversion picture of someone sweeping the back of the van.

I then laid small 9mm plywood batons in the grooves of loovered floor to stop the floor dipping in the low points.

Not sure it was entirely necessary but to safeguard against water or any other liquid getting under the altro flooring and making the plywood swell, I coated it with PVA.  I could've watered it down but it was a beautiful sunny morning and wanted to get cracking and completely forgot.  Ah well, no harm done.

Offered it up

Then had a quick gander at the Altro flooring I'd bought.  

Altro flooring is stuff you see at public swimming baths and hospitals.  Non-slip and incredibly hardwearing.  

I picked another pattern originally but at the time I was working in central London and got on the Victoria line tube one day - looked down at my feet (as you do) and there it was.  Didn't want it after that.

Anyway, fair play!  Pleased with that.

So, took the floor back out again and glued and trimmed the Altro using high temp glue

Worth mentioning here that I got the Altro flooring from a chap on the VW forum call Moonie.  He does pre-cut pieces in a myriad of patterns and colours, packed and posted.  This piece cost £65.  Bar.Gain!

There's much written online about securing the floor down.  To be honest, with it's weight and it's shape, it's not going anywhere so I didn't bother.  Personal choice but I figured I'd be bolting a bed through it very shortly and then it definitely wouldn't be shifting.

(Goddamnit - I hate that side step with the remains of sticky tape on it from the previous owner.  New step added to the list - see if I can pick one up a bit cheaper at CamperJam).

De-kombi ing

The time has come to get ready for the rock n roll bed arriving.  This means removing all the bits and pieces that make my van a kombi - seats, lashing points, rubber floor, seatbelts and seat mounting points have all gotta come out.

 - Seats - easy - they are quick release for crying out loud.  Although, the double seat has some weight to it.
 - Lashing points - easy - M10 12 point spline key.
 - Rubber floor - easy - gave it a good scrub and rolled it up.

 - Seatbelts - easy - M10 12 point spline key and bit of 15mm spannering

 - Seating mounting points - completely different story.  Not easy! *coughs* Not. Easy. At. All!

This involves lots of crawling under the van.
1.  Take the spare wheel out from under the van.
2.  Remove the majority of the plastic moulding underneath the van using a combination of T20 torx screws and little fiddly push on flimsy metal disc things (that sometimes break).
3.  Lower the fuel tank.  Let the fuel run down if you're thinking of doing this so that the tank is as light as possible.  Undo the bolts on the retaining straps on one side of the tank. As you can see from the picture, I used my trolley jack to lower it down and lift it back into place.  I've since learned of a far better way of doing this - replace the bolts with lon pieces of M8 thread with a nut on the end that act as a stop and a way of slowly hoisting back into position.  Next time...
4.  Reach under the van and undo the 17mm locking nuts underneath each mounting point (obviously 2 per mount).  They are quite easy to see as they are either side of the subframe running across the van.  That's a lot easier to type than it is to do!  You will need the hands of a 2 year old (again), the dexterity of a micro surgeon, the arms of Mr Tickle and either a large helping of patience or a large vocabulary of swear words.
The ones on the drivers side of the van are the easiest as it doesn't involve the fuel tank.  Unfortunately the majority of the nuts are located on the passenger side.
5.  Climb inside the van and pull hard on the bracket.  They are stuck to the van floor with something and I remember it being harder than I expected.
6.  Finally fill the holes with some nuts and bolts

Sorry, I don't have pictures of the underside of the van showing where the nuts are located.

Moving

We got married and then a couple of days later, I started a new job then  - bish, bash, bosh then we moved house!!  (The honeymoon is having to wait for another time)

We used the van for most of the move and in order to do that, the bed and the seats had to come out....    ... and they're not going back in ;)

You forget how much space there is back there.

back there.



back there.

(sure does need a clean).

That's The Way I Want To Rock n Roll

Right then!!  This is where the conversion of the van takes a massive leap forward - the rock n roll bed.

I've done lots of research. 

I've done lots of pricing comparisons in spreadsheets - followed by more research. 

I've read a significant amount of forum posts about beds, belts, headrests and seat position/height. 

One thing was an absolute nailed on requirement - the bed absolutely had to be M1 safety tested!!  This is the safety testing and certification of the seat sometimes referred to as pull testing.  That's because the test consists of a very hard pull on the seat belts using a massive machine to simulate a crash at 30mph into a concrete wall - whilst measuring the level of distortion in the frame. 

A few other things on my requirements list - 

1.  3/4 width bed

2.  Keep some storage area behind the seat. 

3.  Leather as an option.

4.  Custom pattern stitching (yes, it's gonna be orange - of course).

The shortlist was Titan beds, Smartbed Evolution and the Cambee bed. 

The winner is...   ... Cambee!  Really like their stuff. Good price. Good design for how I want it to work and an occasional lap belt to seat 3. This means if I went for a pair of captains seats up front, I could still seat 5 in the van if I really needed to.

Not being one to shy away from a bit of graft (hopefully you're getting that from this blog), I also liked that Cambee can supply a subframe option to allow self install. This particularly appealed to the DIY seeking sense of achievement, trying to do as much as possible myself side of things. 

So, a couple of chats with Matthew at Cambee and a fair few emails too and the bed was ordered. Now, just sit and wait 6 weeks.            Here's a sneaky peak of a very rough drawing of what I wanted that I sent to Matthew. 

Oh and while you're waiting, LOTS to do!!!  (Apart from anything else, Nicole and I are getting married in 2 weeks!!).

Adding some trimmings

Leather gear lever gaitor (with orange stitching of course).

Cheap mod but something which I think adds a nice touch to the cab area - not the easiest thing in the world to fit though. There were a few brief moments when having a third hand would have been very handy. It reminded me of the angst of trying to adjust the brakes on my old BMX.

Next up -
No, it's not a Punch and Judy show, just some curtains to make things a little more convenient when wanting some privacy in the back. These are a lot easier and quicker to draw than putting the thermal blinds up. 

There are many types of curtains on the market and after a little bit of reading I saw no reason to look any further than the ones made by Kiravans

If you're going to fit these, a couple of things to keep in mind...

1.  The curtains themselves come fitted with press-studs that are designed to clip onto studs that you screw on on the sides of the window frames.  On the sliding door, one of these won't have anywhere to go as it positions right where the plastic housing for the sliding door handle is.

2.  When you're driving around, keep the press studs done up or the little rattle from the press studs will drive you crazy. 

Doesn't stop these being a really great mod that's really easy to fit.