July | 2013 | Yellow Van Mountaineering

So we’ve finished one colour of carpet. It’s amazing stuff, moulding and stretching over everything, making life very easy when carpeting some very awkward shapes.

I’ve also tested that the electrics work. I’ve only tested the lights individually during daylight, so still not exactly sure if we’ve under or over catered in that department. The fan works well (I’m still pleased for installing that ourselves).

Silver carpet on upper walls and roof, then it will be ready to be given a seat and some more windows. It has to pass an MOT in the next week too.

Fighting with 2×4 m of carpet

How do we fit round here?

Give up – trying the other side first.

Admiring the neat edge

Long side finally done

Spraying the back door with plenty of ventilation

Triming and tidying the back door

Back door trim

Wheel arches done

Side door done

Just the silver lining on top to go.

So, we’ve been so busy that every spare minute has been spent working on the van rather than blogging about it – hence some catch up blogs.

I laid the floor with 3 layers of Tesco’s campermat, alongside 2mm ply batons in a suitable pattern for bolting the seat down, topped with 8 mm ply for the floor. We aim to put some lino down once the seats are in.

Some electrical faults were also found around this time – so I invited some friends around to fix them. Phil turned up to fix the rear fog light – we took apart the fuse box and played around, changed absolutely nothing and suddenly it worked again. All the playing around had drained the battery. After wondering about how to push start the van down a hill in Cambridge, I was about to call a friendly car owner to help me out when I realised I had bought a battery charger (for the secondary battery, which is why it took me a while to remember). I hooked up some temporary ‘shore power’ and left it overnight – all looks good now. Constantly being in the van and moving around the driveway without driving anywhere must have taken it’s toll on the battery.

We also filled some gaps in the walls so the carpet fits nicely. After stressing about how to cover these for a day, ice cream tubs worked really well!