Camper build thread
Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 9:48 pm
Dans first camper blog
In this blog I'm going to put down my progress (or lack of it), on my maestro campervan.
A brief bit of history:
I bought an old campervan several years ago. It wasn't in wonderful condition but I welded it up and got it an MOT etc and fitted a turbo diesel engine to it to replace the rather old (nearly 200k mile) normally aspirated diesel.
The new engine had a few tribulations, as it went through 2 headgasket changes, but it went well and I tuned it for a LOT more power than it originally came with, ~110bhp by my guestimates.
Anyhow a few MOT's later the wheelarches were looking scabby and one of the rear sill sections needed replacing (not suprising since they were originals at 230k miles!). I put on the new sill and one of the arches and then had a poke around underneath and found a couple of tiny holes. These were going to be easier to fix from above so I took the carpet out and had a poke around. To my horror the top of prettymuch every box section was rotten. This was going to be a very difficult repair and would take a long time. It wasn't spotted from underneath so the MOT man wouldn't care, but I wasn't happy with such a structural part being defective and so it was left on the drive whilst I wondered what to do.
One day whilst browsing e-bay she spotted a ledbury van at a reasonable price on e-bay. It looked ok, but was a petrol engine. However as I've done the diesel conversion already I wasn't too worried. Without even looking at it I clicked the buy-it-now button and arranged to collect it.
The "new" campervan in the making
I stripped all the camper specific bits and anything useful out of my campervan and scrapped the shell. I collected the new van and now my mission is to turn my new van into a campervan!
There wasn't a lot left of my van I didn't save!
As usually I don't make things easy for myself and it is hopefully going to undergo a colour change and an engine swap too. I'm going to go for diesel again but I'm going for a more modern engine, the rover L series engine (which is the next evolution of the Perkins prima in my old van). I'm making things even more complicated for myself by also wanting to upgrade a few things along the way such as the suspension, the brakes, the wheels, the interior and last but not least the engine!
I'll detail these in future blogs when I get a moment. Hopefully I won't bore you all to tears!
Right thats it from me for now. TTFN.
In this blog I'm going to put down my progress (or lack of it), on my maestro campervan.
A brief bit of history:
I bought an old campervan several years ago. It wasn't in wonderful condition but I welded it up and got it an MOT etc and fitted a turbo diesel engine to it to replace the rather old (nearly 200k mile) normally aspirated diesel.
The new engine had a few tribulations, as it went through 2 headgasket changes, but it went well and I tuned it for a LOT more power than it originally came with, ~110bhp by my guestimates.
Anyhow a few MOT's later the wheelarches were looking scabby and one of the rear sill sections needed replacing (not suprising since they were originals at 230k miles!). I put on the new sill and one of the arches and then had a poke around underneath and found a couple of tiny holes. These were going to be easier to fix from above so I took the carpet out and had a poke around. To my horror the top of prettymuch every box section was rotten. This was going to be a very difficult repair and would take a long time. It wasn't spotted from underneath so the MOT man wouldn't care, but I wasn't happy with such a structural part being defective and so it was left on the drive whilst I wondered what to do.
One day whilst browsing e-bay she spotted a ledbury van at a reasonable price on e-bay. It looked ok, but was a petrol engine. However as I've done the diesel conversion already I wasn't too worried. Without even looking at it I clicked the buy-it-now button and arranged to collect it.
The "new" campervan in the making
I stripped all the camper specific bits and anything useful out of my campervan and scrapped the shell. I collected the new van and now my mission is to turn my new van into a campervan!
There wasn't a lot left of my van I didn't save!
As usually I don't make things easy for myself and it is hopefully going to undergo a colour change and an engine swap too. I'm going to go for diesel again but I'm going for a more modern engine, the rover L series engine (which is the next evolution of the Perkins prima in my old van). I'm making things even more complicated for myself by also wanting to upgrade a few things along the way such as the suspension, the brakes, the wheels, the interior and last but not least the engine!
I'll detail these in future blogs when I get a moment. Hopefully I won't bore you all to tears!
Right thats it from me for now. TTFN.