1998 VW T4 Restoration & camper conversion

This thread proved to be so much better than I expected!

Cheers, the build is still happening. Our internet at home is a night mare and i just haven´t found the time to upload the pics and update my thread.





Thanks for that mate,



Cheers mate, much appreciated. Spacewise the conversion will help a bit but it´s still going to be a bit cramped up in there.


Time for a litte update.

I have been putting in the hours but i don´t have that many photos to show for it.

As the last update was in summer i´ll show you what i got up to last autumn.

With the days become shorter and the temperatures starting to drop i thought i´d try to get some paint on the van before it got too cold. Now there was no way i was going to get all the bodywork ready for paint so i thought i´d try to respay a bit at a time. It´ll mean a lot more masking than normal and to be honest although i´ve done one or two resprays in my time i´ve never done one an bit at a time.

As all the welding on the right hand side was finished it seemed like a good place to start so after weeks of sanding and filling (i´ll spare you the details) i cleaned up the garage, gave the floor a once over with the garden hose and gave it a couple of coats of filler primer..





After another couple of weeks of sanding (god these long and high T4´s are no comparision to sanding down Merc 123´s or Capris)

I knocked up a provisional spraying booth, got the gas heater going full blast, took a deep breath and gave the side a few coats of Tornado red




Hope you like it, i´m chuffed with the result.

As i mentioned earlier there was no way i was going to get the other side done before it got too cold and to be honest i needed a break from sanding anyway so i thought i´d get some work done on the interior.

I´d done most of the hard work but i managed to get hold of a load of aluminium profile.l..


so i´ve ripped out the rear slide out as it was way too heavy and have come with a better way of extending the bed out of the rear, but more of those antics in the next update. I can say i´ve been at it all winter and i´m still not finished.

Cheers,
Dave

With a little forward planning & preparation it is amazing what results with paintwork you can achieve in a small restrictive area with the minimum of equipment - just sheeting off the van like you have done in the pics saves overspray landing everywhere and dust migrating from elsewhere and embedding itself in the wet paint - Visitors to my own small workshop are always impressed that I produce high quality professional paint finishes without the requirement for a large heated spray booth & lots of very expensive equipment - it takes me longer but the with right mindset and some diligence expended at the preparation stage tends to produce good results - Oldbus - credit to you - it looks great

PS - You are on the right track with the masking but have you come across 'Polymask' - available in 4m / 5m / 6m wide rolls readily via e bay or your local automotive paint factors - will save you a lot of effort with masking / protecting freshly painted panels etc - especially on a van of that size - example below

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Masking-Film-Roll-Static-Polymask-Over-Spray-Protection-4M-5M-or-6M-/202355387002

Good look with the rest of the work - Chris

Great result!. Glad that you are continuing with this build... Thoroughly enjoyed the inventiveness and thought processes for the slideouts.

Cheers,

half spray booth It took me longer to clean up the garage than it did to make up the "spray booth" but it made a hell of a difference keeping the dust at bay and as Mr Grumpynorthener says i don´t like overspray either.



Thanks for that Chris, i´ll bear that in mind when i get round to painting the rest in summer.

On the subject of minimum equipment and lots of elbow grease. I definately agree with you there mate, although to be honest the quality you knock out is amazing, i´m nowhere near your level of skills when it gets down to spraying but over the years with trial and error or should i say more error than trial, the results do get better. Just don´t tell anyone how long it takes to get a decent finish and always buy decent paint.



Tornado red was my third choice, if i´d have had free choice i´d have gone for Atlantis blue or a dark silver but as thy´re both metallic there´s no way i´d be able to get a decent finish with a garage DIY spray job...so Tornado red it is.


You´ll enjoy the new rear slide out then Dave, hundreds of anglegrinder discs and loads of trial and error




You´re right mate, it´s not exactly a rare colour but it´ll do me!

I think it looks great and such an amazing transformation and is one of my favourite builds on here 😎 is it too early to be discussing wheels?

I like the pinstripe detail. Looks good!
It looks like you haven't greyed out behind the panel gaps, yet? At least on the rear of the door.
Which I guess is because you haven't unmasked the van to open the door!

Ive been thinking about this project on and off for a while now and am very glad we are hearing from you again...the van looks great. I really like the two tone detail...glad you took the extra time to make it happen.

looking forward to more updates.

JP

Cheers mate and it´s never too early to discuss wheels


I bought these ages ago and for the first time in my life had them professionally refurbished.
Not cheap but well worth it, they´re Projekt Zwo 8,5x17-s for the front and 10x17´s for the rear. Defintely one of my favourites for the T4.




You´re right Chris, i was just being polite


Well actually i did make the effort and masked off part of the sill and B Post when i sprayed the door. I didn´t want too much grey on the inside but underestimated how much grey i needed so that you coan´t see any more red with the door closed. Next time i´ve got grey in the spraygun i´ll have to widen it a bit methinks.




Cheers George, i really was surprised how good it turned out as i had to take a guess on the right colour, and you´re right mate it was too much red especially as i haven´t painted the roof yet.



Thanks JP, hope everything is ok the other side of the pond.



Thanks, lots of error and a bit of trial (in that order)

Updatewise i´m still cathcing up....

With a very cheap supply of aluminium profile available i took a deep breath, had a couple of beers and decided to bin the rear slide out.
I know it was a lot of work but the main reason i wasn´t happy with it was that you could hardly put anything in the boot and i´d have ended up with fairly large van and having to throw everything on the bed when we went anywhwere, so i got the anglegrinder warmed out and chopped it all out.

I then insulated the now empty floor, cut some of the ally profile to length amd filled it with construction foam. Horrible stuff but it should help keep the warmth in a bit.



The sides and floor have been double insulated with a bit of this stuff...
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and some of this...




and when i get round to finishing the roof i´ll try to get that stuff in there too.

My son Christian sold his Sierra the other month and bought himself a 92 Multivan (guessed who influenced his decision a bit )
i had to tidy up the garage to get it in but it did make agreat pic.


Cheers,
Dave