Page Nine

Refit Time

OK we decided the van worked fine but using it was clunky. Nothing would flow when using it. By this i mean things like making the bed up at night. You had to move everything off the seat to pull the bed over and get the bedding out. Again in the morning. This can be a right pain with limited space and the dog in the van so having a switch around and making a different bed.

Some if the wood i will use again

Decided that floor is getting changed also. That is 18mm OSB board and on top was 5mm laminate flooring.

Strip down did not take long

Below is the mounts for the seats what were in the back when the van was a bus. Decided to cut them off as they raised the flooring by 4mm or so. I swapped my 18mm flooring for 12mm. Cut these off and going to use thinner laminate or lino. The idea is to give be a bit more headroom so here is 10-12mm extra. 

Little coat of red oxide and it will be fine

One job was to tidy up my wiring. This worked but was a right mess and potential hazzard

Bought a nice little breaker box to keep things neat.

Much neater. Eagle eyes will notice i forgot to wire the box to ground but i did go back after i seen this picture. 

So the sofa bed. As usual i measure nothing properly and cant saw straight but i like the rustic used look. This is the idea for my bed. Had all the wood apart from the slats so ordered them up and got some new brass screws also.

So i made this and was quite proud of myself.

Put the back on and called it a day as i was losing light. I was sitting in the house looking is the last two pictures thinking something is not right. Wend back down and did a few measurements. Bastard......

Above. See the front and rear spars crossing the width of the van? Between these determine how far your slide out section will travel. I was only getting 3.5 feet and you need four for a double bed. I managed to bring the front spar forward by 3" and stuck the back one to the rear doors frame. Now it has nearly 3 foot of travel so went ahead sticking the slats on and making the pull out section.

I also boded off the wheel arches. There is about six inches of wasted space over the arches so i may as well use that space for storage. Better than wasted space so i put lids on them. They also act as bed supports. 

Bed pulled out is now around 4'8" and i am putting in a back rest so i will have my full size bed. Its an inch to short for me but its not often i sleep stretched out anyway. 

This is a short video of how the bed works. It looks clunky but its new and need used a few times for the wood to loosen up

Worth pitting a strip of ply under the outer edge of the slats that dont move when you pull the bed out. This will make the pull out section almost glide as it can be a bit tight.

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