Is it me, or are these post titles getting increasingly less intriguing?
Anyway, it’s always a slightly hairy moment when you take a power tool to the van’s shell. Particularly when the size of hole you’re cutting could not be easily patched up with a bit of sticky-back plastic and passed off as a ‘vintage’ feature if anything went wrong. Thankfully, it didn’t! So we now have external access to the gas bottle.
The 2kg gas bottle sits in a metal box, which would provide some protection in the (hopefully unlikely) event of any gas leakage. The three-sided box sits underneath one of the seats and we’ve now fitted a vented door to the outside.
Paul made two cardboard templates to work out exactly where to cut the hole: one the size of the box and one the size of the door frame. He lined up the box template on the inside and drilled a hole through the centre. He then lined up the centre of the frame template on the outside of the van with the hole, and drew around the outline. He then cut the corners using a 50mm hole saw and cut between the holes with tin snips.
Paul sealed all the cut edges with rust primer, squeezed a layer of silicon around the door frame (to prevent water seeping through) and pushed the frame into place.
He then bolted the door frame to the van using nylon locking nuts (try saying that after a Sunday afternoon beverage – I am failing miserably), so they don’t vibrate loose once we’re on the road.
The next step is to connect up the gas and have it certified.
The cupboard doors arrived from Laminex this week and are trying desperately to blend into our carpet before being fitted. Here’s a sneaky peek:
The Campervan Converts 
Really loving following the birth of your campervan, it’s made me think about things I’d never considered before. My wife an I are emigrating to SA early next year and we’re planning to initially take six months out and tour as much of the country as we can in a camper, unfortunately no time to build our own so we’ll be picking up something suitable when we get there, but I must confess that kitting out a vehicle for the trip would have been great fun too, maybe save that one till later (if I am allowed)!
Thanks for your comment Rob! It’s a great idea to travel round before you get settled, there is so much to see. Try and get over to NZ at some point as well – that’s what got us hooked. Good luck with the move and have a great trip!
Hi Rach, thanks for posting all your building odyssey – it is great to see what other people are doing and what choices they made. We are doing something similar with a Transit and don’t live too far away from you. Who did you get to certify the gas installation? And do you remember roughly what it cost? Thanks, Paul
Hi Paul – sorry for the late response, we’ve been busy having our first baby! Yes we found it hard to find someone to certify the gas; some people just weren’t interested in such a small job. We had a family friend certify it in the end, but he’s no longer in the area unfortunately. I hope you find someone.