Van now sold

Well it’s bittersweet for us, the van sold within 20mins of listing on gumtree for the asking price.

Very sad to see it go.

For Sale £1200

More pics taken today. 

For Sale £1200

The time has come for us too part with our beloved Serena. Please see all the details below I will be totally honest as I can about the van as I don’t have time for tyre kickers due to having a 1 year old and working full time.

Van is a good runner and was my daily drive until recently. I will be very sad to see it go. Had so much fun with it over the past few years. Please note there are no seatbelts installed in the back so its essentially a 2 passenger vehicle.

Contact: Rich on x, leave a message if I don’t answer, probably busy at work. Van will be ready to view from 19/09/2015. Still taxed and insured so come and have a drive.
Location: BD17, West Yorkshire

Nissan Serena 2L Petrol 16v 124bhp Excursion
Suprisingly quick!
Registration: M133 SVS
MOT: Until June 2016 (no advisories)
Mileage: 110,000 miles (actually had  the engine replaced at 70k)

Money Spent:
Since owning the van in addition to the conversion we have had 4 corners welded professionally, new starter motor, new exhaust, had brakes all done when we bought it. EGR pipe professionally repaired. Self serviced (oil inc filter, air filter, spark plugs).

Exterior:

• 5 Door, with sliders either side, great for access.
• 15″ Alloys from Nissan Stagea (skyline estate). Original 14″ steel wheels inc tyres and trims also included.
• Underside, has been wax oiled many times over the years, so in good condition.
• Tow bar (inc electrics)
• Body work is good for its age, only suspect bit really is one of the rear arches is showing a bit of rust. a few marks on the drivers door. It is over 20 years old now so please bare this in mind.

Interior:

• Full custom camper conversion as per this blog
• Tambour door main cupboard + rear dual access unit with long worktop.
• Rock n Rolla bed with 4″ couch foam professionally upholstered sleeps 2, with matching front seats
• 110ah Leisure battery with Split charge relay system (charged by alternator)
• 500w ring automotive inverter (this was expensive!)
• Popup standard plug sockets + 2 USB sockets.
• Rear control panel, controls lighting + extra cig charger port.
• CD player with Aux in
• Rear ceiling and remote multi coloured LED lighting  (powered from leisure battery)

Bad points:

• bit of rust on one of rear arches.
• had to seal up front sunroof but it has 2 so not an issue.
• its a Cat C, previous owner said it was something to do with one of the doors and it was going to cost more then the van was worth? If I’m honest it never made sense to me but it drives fine the chassis is all ok so never been an issue for us.

Not included:
Tv, raspberry pi, coolbox.

    

Passed the MOT

Well the old bugger passed it’s MOT with no advisories! I’m delighted! I just used it for a stag do camping in Masham! Was brilliant, I think most of the lads in their leaky tesco tents were a little bit jealous. I had the best nights sleep I’ve had in a while!

She’s only done 400miles since the last MOT so I think that’s proof enough that I need to sell. Still under 110k on the clock and a great runner, I’d take £1200 for her if you promise to look after her!

Thinking of selling up..

We have a little boy now and its likely that the van isn’t going to be used much at all (theres no isofix for him). Its such a shame but we are thinking of letting it go. If you’d be interested in buying just leave a comment and I will get back to you. Price wise I’ve not got an exact figure yet so make me an offer.

It will be having its MOT this week so will come with a full 12months MOT for its new owner. We will be very sad to see it go 😦 but we can’t afford to keep running for it to just be sat on the driveway.

Here are some build pictures.. better late than never

Recently relised that I’d never really posted up all the build pictures, probably due to the last minute rush job to get the van finished before our epic trip last year :).

The pics show the tambour/sliding door build. Materials included an £8 ebay office cabinet, some £1 sheets off Ikea glossed MDF and some plastic runners from a B&Q. Saving hundreds on buying a tambour door kit from self build camper suppliers. Just shows what you can do on a budget. Its worth checking your local ikea/B&Q type place bargain sections for all wardrobe doors/ex display. We were lucky to get them for a £1 a piece. Yes its heavier than Vohringer ply. Weight isn’t a massive issue in our van as its only small and we’d reduced it by removing all the rear seats. There was no chance I was ever going to spend £100+ a sheet for something I’d probably cock up cutting. I’m a tight Yorkshire Man afterall :). Having said that I did spend £30+ on router cutters so that we could cut the grooves out for the knock on T-Trim.

The first few pics are the templates we made using some kitchen doors (veneered chipboard) I’d got off ebay, they were £20 for 20 (obviously didn’t need 20 but they came in handy for various bits and bobs, some ended up on the bonfire later that year)

 

The van is pretty much finished!

Well the bed and one of the front seats have been re-upholstered and after many late nights we finished the cupboards.. We have just spent a week touring Scotland including the Isle of Skye and had an amazing time 😀

the van now features:

• 3/4 rock and roll bed with 4″ thick foam comfy cushions
• 15″ Philips LCD TV
• Raspberry Pi complete with USB hub and 1TB USB drive
• 12V 110ah Leisure battery
• Tambour door with shelving
• hinged worktop
• rear door access with pushlock catches
• 12v fused control panel : light switches cig socket etc
• 500w 230v inverter
• Popup mains plug socket with 2 USB ports
• Table rail for removable sliding table

plus other cool stuff I’ve probably forgotten.

Anyway here are some pics 🙂

First camping trip in the van!

We used the van as a camper for the first time last weekend in the Lake District 🙂 The whole trip was a great success the van didn’t break down, leak and handled the load of 3 people, a dog, 2 bikes and all the camping gear 🙂 The bike rack was solid as a rock, really glad we invested in a tow mount one, they are so much easier to load and a damn site stronger than the hang on type.

The night before the trip was a bit of a rush job! The lights had to be fit (ikea dioder) and the carpet laid. The carpet was a bit of a pain and took hours to lay and still isn’t stuck down yet we were out until midnight finishing it off.. It was great on the trip though and I’m really glad we opted for carpet instead of vinyl. We picked it up as a roll end from a local carpet place for about £15. I finished the step off with some angle aluminium checkered step stuff.. that was only about £8 for 1m from wickes which was just enough. It looks great and finishes the step off nicely.

We are still waiting on my uncle to reupholster all the seats and bed so we made do with a mattress topper and a duvet cover for the weekend. I’ve got to admit the bed was hard! as the foam was only about 1″ thick… but we survived. Dog is a bit of a bed hogger tbh though so may have to get him a dogbed for the front seats!

The temperature in the van remained stable all weekend which I believe had a lot to do with all the time invested in proper insulation and the home made silver window screens. It was nice to wake up on a morning without it being freezing or too hot like the tent days!

Another recent purchase was the awning! an ex-display gooutdoors special, its the Zenobia 6 Porch that we picked up for £60. It fit over the van nicely but we never did attempt to drive away as it requires some customisation yet.

What else is new? well we had some more welding done on one of the inner door sills, we were tempted to bodge it initially with some fibreglass but I knew it would just annoy/worry us if we didn’t get it sorted properly.

cupboards will be the next big challenge….

anyway enough rambling here are some pics of the first trip.

🙂

brill bike rack, £80 ebay.

packed up and ready to go

EGR pipe fun, window blinds, TV installation & the new wheels..

Whats new? well the EGR Pipe running from the EGR valve to the inlet manifold decided to go the other day… the van sounded like a motorbike..

After much searching I’ve struggled to find a replacement pipe, the local Nissan dealer has to get it from Japan with a 3-6weeks minimum delivery time! we are off camping soon so thats no good. I got a pipe from a 1.6 but it wasn’t the right fitting at all so that got sent back. I’m waiting to hear back from scrapyards but in the meantime it was time to get my bodging skills out :). Decided to repair it using some exhaust putty, 2 hose clips and a bit of pepsi can :). its suprisingly solid at the moment. Lets hope it survives the 90 mile journey to the camp site!

Oh dear..

winner 🙂

Window Blinds
With the impending camping trip we need to get some blackout blinds sorted for the many windows! We were going to make some out of the expensive thermo material but as we are on a budget and had loads of spare bubble foil and some sticky backed velcro about we thought we might aswell trial the cheap option first! So far so good!

TV InstallHad an hour to kill so thought I’d have a gander at getting the LCD mounted on the headrest. After some playing about with some spare bits of wood and butchering the existing stand I came up with the simple mount below. As its using some of the existing stand mounts its actually easy to detach the screen to stop the local yobs nicking it. I still need to make some kind of cover though for when we wan’t to leave it in. Eventually I will install a nice swing arm mount so we can watch it when we are sat outside. I also had a play with the raspberry pi at the weekend but still need to get the wifi dongle working… more to come.

not pretty but works

TVCatchup using the iPad.

Alloys!
After much searching on ebay for the correct fitment I took a punt on some alloys I saw for sale for a Nissan Stagea (skyline estate!). A bad listing on ebay lacking many details and pictures also being collection only from Nottingham I bagged them from an absolute bargain of £40 with the tyres! it was a 170mile round trip but boy was it worth it. Really pleased with them after a clean up. All I need to do now is spray the centre caps as they have faded a bit. Went round a mates with a flat driveway to put them on and got caught by the rain a few times but they look really good on the van. Very happy 🙂

yoooo

Bits and bobs

Well its been a busy month and good progress made.

I’ll let the pics do most of the talking but a quick summary:

Ply lined the floor
Finished putting the batons down and cut a large sheet of ply for the flooring base. This is actually harder it to do than it looks and is a bit of a crappy job really. I wouldn’t say I’m 100% happy with it but we are going to lay some carpet over the top so its not really that big a deal as it will not be seen. We managed to pickup some hard wearing camper van carpet from the local carpet place for £15 so can’t complain.

used a bit of the old interior matting as template to cut the ply.

squeezed in nicely 🙂

got some angle alu to stop the edges getting damaged, wasn’t enough length to mitre the corners still need to do the bottom step..

bed back in for a test fit.

turned around to find this pest in the van!

battons… I’m not sure if this was the best approach after all..

some ugly cut outs for the bed mount points. It had to come out again to cut again to access the seat belt mount points..

does it fit? notice the gap at the near side, due to ply board size, this will be covered by units so not an issue.

Spark plugs changed
As the van is mid engined this is a bit of a pain because although the front seats fold back there still remains the handbreak and a bit cross beam blocking access so all that had to come out before you could even get near the plugs. We are in the middle of a heatwave too so it was red hot in the van. Looking at the plugs there weren’t even that bad but seeing as I had already bought a spare set I put them in anyway for piece of mind.

Seat belts fitted
This is a bit of a grey area for me as from what I’ve read if you have installed a bed seat in the rear of your conversion legally you don’t actually need to have a seatbelt. Anyway I decided to use something called D Shackles which enabled me to connect the seatbelts to the strong floor mounting points. Making them pretty much factory safe. I’m going to get it all checked by an MOT centre though to ensure its safe.

Leisure battery & split charge relay system installed
This is pretty cool, basically you wire up a relay so that when the ignition is on (engine running) a secondary battery in the rear of the van is charged up. Meaning you drive to your chosen camping location and when you park up you essentially have a massive car battery to run your electrics without fear of your car not starting.
I built a shelf out of MDF with some ridged edges to stop the battery bouncing around.
I’ve got a 500W 240 inverter too so we can run 3pin mains devices off the leisure battery, think TV, hair straighteners etc. It will also be used for some lighting and phone chargers oh and I’ve got a raspberry Pi to go in there so we can watch some media on a night when its too cold for a camp fire. Its a 110ah battery (the biggest I could find) so it will be great for us.

piggyback fuse tap, easy way to have a plug and play install.

all feeds use inline fuses for safety.

this will be hidden in a cupboard eventually.

Whats next?
In the following order we found a bit more rust so that needs welding ASAP before I can build the cupboards.. we decided we need to get the windows tinted so the cupboard backs don’t look ugly from the outside. We also went to visit my uncle recently whos an uplholsterer so hes going to make the sofa bed cushions and reupholster the front seats too. After all that I’ll make the cupboards.. lightweight veneered ply is very expensive though… so either need to save up or see if we can use contiboard.. (mpg affect scares me). Just remembered that the tyre that the garage puncture is completely shafted now and goes flat within 3 hours so that needs sorting out…again… so watch this space.