Hey guys, so if you have read my last Coronavirus blog or follow me on Instagram you would know that I bought a van and I’m converting it into a campervan.
There were so many options when it came to choosing a van. A lot of people have been buying Mercedes Sprinter and converting them as they have heaps of room in the back cargo and you can stand up with ease. Then there’s the Transits, Renaults and Fiats which are similar. Then you also get the Toyota Hiace which are super reliable as it is a Japan-made car but you can’t quite stand upright unless you are under 5’3, which I am not. I was set on buying a sprinter and went to look at one. My mum and a mechanic friend convinced me to stay away from European ones as parts can be hard to come by if I’m in a small town and also can be very expensive. So they convinced me to go for a Hiace Commuter, I looked at a few Commuters until I found the perfect one. I ended up buying a 2000 Toyota Hiace Commuter which had been pained black. The seats in the back had been removed, it had carpet, a sub in a wooden box screwed into the body of the van and a big black meta sheet on one side. I had a lot of work ahead of me.
Within 2 days I had managed to gut the entire back of the van all by myself. I had a massive load to take to the tip and I’m sure this won’t be the last trip. When I ripped up the original flooring that was made for the van it had left fluff stuck to the body. It took me hours to scrub the floors. My stepbrothers even helped me scrub them. After the floors were clean, I did a couple of coats of a fish oil treatment to help prevent rust. Surprisingly it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Once that had dried I sprayed a top coat to further protect from rust.
After just four days working on my van, Metropolitain Melbourne went into stage 4 lockdown. As I don’t actually live where my van is parked I can not work on it anymore. I was in such a rush that day because we had 4 hours notice till we had a curfew so I never got to take a photo of the cleaned floors. It has been 4 weeks since I stopped working on it and I’m still so sad. In the meantime, I have made my couch seats and ordered some wood to make parts of my kitchen so hopefully, that turns out well.
Sorry for such a short update, but enjoy the pictures and videos of my build so far.
