rustysconversions-blog

[rustysconversions-blog]

Rusty’s conversions Path to motor-home making

Preface

 Tens of thousands of young people struggle to pay rent, another thousand want to travel the world but they either find it to expensive and cannot afford to buy a caravan, motor home or anything similar. Well I am here to tell you that you can afford to do it, to travel the world, to get a home without needing a mortgage, to have your dream R.V for the dream price. Whilst I was building my own vehicle I learnt that what other people have done with their own vehicle and what they have bought to build them was misleading and many a times to expensive to afford. But afterward I learnt that every self-made camper is extremely personal and built to the exact specifications of that person. That is why I started to help people build motor homes, to help them get that personalised experience without making them pay tens of thousands of euro’s just to get what they want and without forcing them to stick to one kind and size of vehicle.

  1:Choosing the Vehicle

  You can use ANY vehicle to build a motor home, from Volkswagen to Iveco trucks to busses and old pickup truck any vehicle can be converted no matter what it is. The choice of vehicle normally is judge by the terrain it’s going to be used in, the reason for the conversion e.g traveling or living, the amount of people within it, parking space, the drives experience with the size of the vehicle all these examples are a huge factor in your choice of vehicle. And compromise is the number one thing you need to think about, someone may want a large kitchen whilst their significant other would want space for their electric piano and heaps upon heaps of items. Some may have children who would need their own space to play in. So remember to make compromise.

 2:Commercial Layout’s

 In most commercial motorhome’s storage spaces is sacrificed for accommodation some built their motorhomes for longer living but the average day motorhome will always have less storage then a self-built one because most people would use a motorhome as a sort of larger car which they can sleep in.

  3:Travel lightly  

Civilization doesn’t end 1 kilometre on the highway, even on the highway there are gas stations and rest stop which have food and even in the smallest village or town there is bound to be a small supermarket nearby with reasonable prices. Do not pack yourself with ten tons of supplies for a few weeks on the coast of Spain or for moving from one town to the next. If you do plan to travel large distances and to places where the nearest supermarket is around 50 kilometres away from you simply create a list with what you require and what it will weigh on the vehicle which brings me to my next point.

  4:Weight is the enemy

 Make sure you know what kind of weight your vehicle can take. Overloading will not only mess with the vehicles fuel consumption but for when traveling isolate areas, you must make sure that fuel, water and food form most of your weight everything else must be minimised. The building of the interior itself is made so it does not weigh on the vehicle so that this problem is avoided and so the only weight that would come into play would be the items you have chosen to store.

  5:Indoor or outdoor use

 The first thing you need to choose when choosing the vehicle is whether you will be mostly living inside or outside of it. If it is for outside use a medium sized pick up or jeep will be enough to house all the camping supplies and outdoor living supplies you need however if you are traveling with more than one person that is where you must go at least a little bit larger like a van or something like a Citroen Berlingo.

   5:Mostly indoors

 The indoor use of the vehicle depends on the amount of people within it. But in most cases a simple ford transit would suffice or a Mercedes van if you cannot afford those sorts of vehicles then anything that is at least as large as those vehicles if you seek something even larger then look for Luton vans. My own personal van which is a Luton LDV convoy houses 3 people and is the size of larger caravan or truck. We chose this vehicle because we’re 3 adults living in a rather confined space so If we chose anything smaller we wouldn’t be able to breath. So, chose your size dependent on how many people will live within the van and what sort of space does everyone need for instance horse transportation vehicle offer a larger roof height and space to work within and are normally of good quality depending on the make. The best makes would be anything by ford or any other company known for building commercial transport vehicles, fords are a classic and easy purchase due to their cheap parts and service, but that doesn’t mean you have to have a ford 100%

 6:Going up in size

 Some people need space, lots of it, that is why they chose to go up in size drastically from things like double decker buses to large Iveco and Renault trucks with containers on the back of them. Now not everyone can afford these sorts of vehicle it is understandable, and they aren’t something you can park at your local Lidl or Aldi store but if you chose to buy this you will have a literal house on wheels. You will have enough space to store whatever you wish to store and not have to worry so much about the weight of the vehicle, you can even store your own car inside of it to travel into the cities.

   7:The vehicle itself

 When getting the vehicle make sure to check with the person you are buying with these details, what sort of drive it is front, back of four-wheel drive if it’s a heavier vehicle rear drive is a must because otherwise you will have difficulty handling the vehicle. What is the engine size, the millage of the vehicle, and if you buy it second hand check every inch of it for rust. When I bought my first van it was so rusted that I could see the road whilst driving, it took us a month to get rid of all of it and rust proof every inch.

     The Engine

           1:Diesel or petrol?

 Now in this part I will not be speaking about the prices of diesel or petrol I will be speaking about how good the engines of said fuel is. Now without a doubt in my mind I would say get a Diesel, Diesel engines wear less over time and last longer, they are also more powerful being able to give high rates of torque (power) to the drive at low gears, they (unlike petrol engines) used a compression system to ignite the fuel making it less wearable and very slightly more water resistant, but only from the outside, if water gets in the engines air cylinder it will break instantly. But of course, sometimes you cannot be picky with what engine you want so you must buy a petrol. If you are looking to buy a petrol engine, make sure of this that it doesn’t have a mechanically timed ignition system. These systems have a little bit inside the engine that generates small sparks of electricity overtime whilst you are driving the problem is because of all the sparking this bit starts to oxidize. That is why normally diesel engines have a 5 year guarantee whilst petrol only have 3 years.

  2:LPG

 Now my knowledge of LPG gas is mostly from word of mouth but what I do know that LPG is the cheapest fuel available in some countries. My advice is that if you plan to make your vehicle LPG make sure you first check the prices for converting it to LPG and how much does LPG gas cost.

   3:Emissions

 Normally emissions test at your local mechanics tell you the exact amount of emissions your vehicle lets out the most environmental cars are diesel ones do to their ability to be converted to run on bio fuel such as cocking oil. And they are easiest to turn into hybrid electric engines which are more fuel efficient and better for the eco system.

  The Interior

 As we spoke about before commercial Motorhomes are mostly set as a large version of a car with a bed with minimal storage opportunities, we spoke about the choice of vehicle before how the vehicle should be influenced by whether it is for outdoor or indoor living same is said of course for the interior.

 1:Mainly Outdoor

 The interior for outdoor living should be mainly focused on two things storage and beds. You need to make as much storage as possible for your portable tables, cooker, and gazebo possibly. The beds are the thing that will take most of the space and if of course you would like to there is the possibility of building a pop top to accommodate two people in a smaller vehicle.

  2:Mainly Indoor

 For those not so enthusiastic about the outdoors a small camper or vehicle is extremely claustrophobic even for one person. So my advice is to simply get a motorhome it’s more comfortable and requires less movement. The storage in a motorhome is as equally important as an outdoor camper, even more so, you need room for all sorts of things clothes, food, water storage, shower. All of these come into play with the interior for instance in the motorhome I live in the layout of the storage is similar to that of airplanes where there are two upper shelfs close to the roof for storage that and the cupboards, closest and pantries. From personal experience I know 3 people or more could live comfortably within this size of camper and a single person it’s like a self-made luxury palace

 3:Structured storage is a must

 In either situation whether it is indoor or outdoor camping your storage needs to be structured and laid out in such a way that you’re not just throwing things around randomly then rummaging through tons of stuff to get something like an iPhone charging cable. Living in a caravan everything you take must be put back in its specific place otherwise you won’t have enough room to walk around the place let alone live in it. So make sure once the storage space is built to set up a system for how you will use it and label everything.

  4:Ease of storage

 Now most people would just jump straight into using cupboards, shelfs and pantries but those are never enough if your planning to live in it for longer. The best and easiest way to create storage is to make your bed/couch into a storage pit where you can put anything and then just lift the top of the couch and take it out. But of course, calculate what to place where so is not to disbalance the vehicle. Another easy way to get extra storage for the smaller things that just don’t fit is simple. Shoe pockets. Just buy a row of shoe pockets and cut them into induvial pockets then stable them to the wall using a industrial staple gun.

   5:Beds

 Simply out to make it easier on yourself get/build a foldable bed which turns into a couch. It is the easiest and simplest way to get a bed because A even if you’re alone it’s good to have a foldable bed because it will be considerably larger then a smaller one. B the bed can be modified into a storage compartment and even made into a completely custom thing like a bed/couch with speakers under it. If you just want a simple bed without the extras then simply get a spring or wooden bed, I prefer wooden because it’s easier to repair if it breaks.

 6:Kitchens

 For the kitchen I advise keep it simple. You don’t need a 5 star restaurant’s kitchen you need a simple stove for cooking, an oven if you want for baking, a sink to wash fruits, vegetables, used cooking items and some form of ventilation a small window or air vent for the smoke and heat. The stove and oven can be bought from any store from your country for instance IKEA.

  7:Floor Coverings

 The floor needs to have regular tile flooring to make it easy to clean but as well as that it needs a carpet. Because when winter comes 😉 your feet will freeze, now of course if you’re in a southern more warm country simply keep one stored away somewhere so you can easily just pull it out and roll it onto the floor if it gets cold. But if your up north in the middle of November a carpet is a must so is and interior heating which brings me onto my next point.

 8:Heating

 Interior heating can either be made simple by putting in an old wood stove burner or getting a blow heater. To building an entire gas heating system inside. Now although it sounds tempting this system is rather redundant in my mind because if something breaks you can’t use it. The number one rule I keep in the making of my vans is make sure everything is portable and separate because this way if anything on the inside breaks, or simply stops working, you don’t have to take apart the entire van to fix or replace it. You can choose from a wide variety of things to heat your vans interior from gas heaters, to wood burners, to low level voltage and amperage radiators and blow heaters.  

  9:A-WINGS

 A-wings is all-but essential apart from providing shelter from sun, rain and snow it’s much warmer in an awing on a cold night even without the side curtains. mosquito curtains are a very good thing to consider for the awing. Most awing sellers rate the A-wings aesthetics and ease of use rather then it’s practicality. As a rule the more stylish the awing is the more it won’t be able to withstand strong winds. So make sure you look into the awing your buying before you put it on there, look at reviews and what conditions people have used them in.

    10:Materials

 Any self-build traveller would tell you the same. Plywood is the best material for building indoor interior, it’s light, strong able to take on huge amounts of weight, durable and long lasting. It comes in many size and thicknesses. The best plywood marine quality plywood but unfortunately, it’s pricy, even then regular plywood would suffice and is still a very good building material. Sheet aluminium can be used as well as a light material to be fitted and it is cut easily with a grinder without making any sparks. Now to calculate how much you need just draw a layout of your vehicle and measure it accurately then draw out how many square meters you will need for interior walls and things like cupboards, chairs, shelfs and so on.

   11:Distributing weight

 Now comes the important bit, weight distribution, we talked about this in previous parts but here I am going to go into detailed where to put what to make sure it doesn’t get off balanced or worse off the road and on the ground. The first bit is that any heavy tools, leisure batteries, water tanks, gas tanks and any other heavy items are stored at the bottom around the wheel base because no matter the height of the vehicle if you over way the top it’s bound to tip on a turn and fall. So make it a rule to keep extremely heavy objects down to the ground. Now up high you can store things like clothes and light objects clothes and any other lightweight materials. Make sure you measure the distance and elevation of each item from the axles centre and calculate how much will the items weigh in on each axle so is not to disbalance the vehicle.

  12:Piping and Wiring

 Draw out a chart for the wiring and piping within the van and set it up before the cladding, whilst doing so do not use rubber tubing to cover up the wires because it makes it hard to do repairs afterwards instead use spiral plastic binding available from caravan and boat equipment suppliers.

   13:Insulation

 Now when insulating the walls you have again a variety of options from glass wol to expanding industrial foam. The most important detail to remember is ventilation if you are in a bus or van with only it’s original windows make sure to build in some ventilation hatches, because the wool keeps the cold air out in and the warm air in at night, but in day time it does the same so you need to let out some of the warm air somehow.

  14:Air conditioning

 An air conditioner cannot run just on solar power it needs mains power or a large motor generator because a regular air conditioning system takes around 1000 to 1500 watts of energy to work properly.

 15:Non-Restrained items

 Make sure you restrain every single item in your motorhome, it could be the smallest of things like a bottle of ketchup it will inevitably fall to the ground and make a mess, so make sure you make Velcro straps for everything so that it doesn’t fall why you are driving away from a camper site.

  16:Obtaining Registration

 Now this is different for every country. For instance, in the UK you can send the photos of your converted motorhome along with you V5 registration document to the DVLA (Drivers Vehicle Licence Agency) via email and get your new registration in the post.

   Electricity

   1:Solar Panels

 On a clear summer’s day around noon the solar energy around an area is 1000 watts per square meter, this amount is just a bit short of that needed for an electric kettle. Commercial solar panels are not so efficient, 80 to 90 percent of the energy is lost from the conversion of the solar rays into electricity. Now I know this sound like too little, but it is enough to keep you going, whether for a conventional home or a motorhome solar power is silent, clean and once installed it’s a free electricity for years on. A solar energy electric system also enables the batteries to keep close to fully charge and extends their life.

 2:Estimating what’s required

 Estimating how many solar panels you need seems simple just look at how much electricity you need and buy the solar panels accordingly but it’s not quite that simple, one widely sold ’84 watt’ solar panel has a technical information plate its underside advice about the output in more truly typical conditions is around 59 watts, And that is an ambient 20 degrees Celsius. The loss at 40 is a further 8% to 10%. The truth about solar panels is that a regular 12 or 24 volt system the output of mono and polycrystalline solar panels is unlikely to be more then 70%. It mostly depends on the country you are in and the season. To estimate what is probable take the 70% multiply it by sun/hour in your location. For instance, an 80 watt panel will produce 336 watts per hour in a warm place like Australia.

   3:Mounting

 Solar panels may be mounted permanently onto the roof of your motor-home, but this means the vehicle must be in the sun all day long. Now I am no fan of the sun myself so it’s always a good idea to keep one loose, so you can put out into the sun but of course you then run the risk of it being stolen. So my advice is mount 2 onto your vehicle and then keep another 1 loose just in case.

  4:Solar Regulators

 Some solar panels are “self-regulating” but that is only because they can’t produce as much energy as regular ones so those are to be avoided. The most common type of panel produces around 18-21 volts off-load. These panels must be teamed with a solar regulator to control the charging voltage.

       Continuation

 Now I know this sounds like a lot but trust me were only getting started, this is the first of many blog posts about building your own caravan. And if your head is already booming from all the information I have just written out this is where my job comes in I can do all this and more so that you don’t have to, simply contact me with the details of your vehicle and what you need done inside and I will do it for you.