Camper van project.

Yep Omega, people I know who've done this have made some good savings once they have had th Dvla reclassify it. Luckily this van is only £200 a year to insure but I bet it would be even cheaper as a camper.

My sister works for a flooring company, they do huge buildings like arenas so their offcuts are huge. I got a roll of carpet from her and carpeted out the back. I experimented with using a sofa bed for our first camping trip. It worked well, it just fitted in sideways then folded out to sleep on. Also we could fit quite a lot under it when it was folded out. This isn't a long term plan as the sofa is very heavy to lift in and out and it takes up too much room. But it worked for a weekend away. Also we bought a tent end porch from a camping shop. This fits lovely over the side door. We could step in and out and cook food in there. That's something we will continue to use, although eventually I will get a proper camper side awning as this end porch isn't a perfect fit.

The first plan I'm working on is to have a very small toilet area in the corner. I'm going to work on a design that will have 2 door size bits of wood which will separate the toilet from the main area. But I want to make it work so when the toilet is removed, the 2 doors will fold back flat against the inside of the van.

If you look closely there's a few slits in the carpet. There's 6 in total, about 4x4 inch, the carpet folds back and there are looped fixing points screwed to the floor. So if I ever need to tie anything down, the points are still there ready to use.

I don't think I'll go as far as reclassifying it. With the plan I have of making everything quickly removable they would t accept it.

I like the Relay/Dispatch van.

For beds have you checked out the basic Futon/sofa bed from ikea? They do a wooden and a steel framed one which could be narrowed/widened to suit.

Also the Relays are 5x130 PCD so perfect for some Porsche wheels or some from a VW Toureg which will probably have a similar load rating and high offset.

Nice idea.

Only the heavy duty 3.5T Boxer/Relay/Ducato are 5x130 pcd the lighter duty ones are 5x118 71.1mm centre bore same as Renault traffic. So you'll have to shop for BMW or VW T5/Tourag  wheels and wobble bolts but personally i wouldn't bother.

Indeed you're right - my attempt to correct misinformation created more! Edited accordingly.

Me and mrspeanut got stuck into making a frame at the weekend. It went pretty well, and we used a lot of slats we had from an old bed that had been pulled apart years ago. My lass had decided to keep them in case they were useful, I was shaking my head at the time calling her a hoarder and telling her she was wasting space keeping them. Well I'm eating my words as they have came in useful. The 2 sections slide together nicely and open out from a chair size into a bed size frame. The sides still need finishing, we will fill them in with wood, and the fronts will have small doors so we can use the space underneath for storage.

We went to the RAD Bmx show in late summer, while fitting the side tent, heavy rain came down, we had to shove the side tent under the van until the rain passed. While doing this I knocked the sill and big chunk came out. A few weeks later when I had some spare time, I had a good look at the sills. I got a small hammer and tapped away at both sides. Both sides fell to bits badly. The red line on the picture below shows where the old sill used to be. I was devastated and came very close to scrapping the van. My lass was more positive and went on at me non stop to get it fixed. I was expecting a huge bill that would cost more than the van was worth. I know a lad who's a friend of a friend and he welds at home on a weekend. He did about a four foot repair on each side and the total was just over £200. He checked the rest out and it's all solid. Now the van is good again. There's still lots to do, just waiting on the end of my apprenticeship and my wages going up so I can get back stuck into it. But we do have a basic working camper which is all we need.