Renault Trafic Van Camper Conversion

Because we bought our Trafic in Jan this year, everything is up for renewal now...which sucks along with christmas. I've had the renewals for a little while now, and to be honest have probably been procrastinating from dealing with them as I hate dealing with these things. Feels like I'm throwing my money away. For the price of insurance and breakdown cover, I could have bought the awning and side window I have wanted for ages. Anyways, I managed to get my insurance down to cheaper than my cheapest new quote, so have renewed with the insurer I've been with for the last year. Funny thing though, I had my old man on a a named driver, last year he took the insurance right down because he was born in 1882 and been driving longer than I've been alive! This year, I changed his profession and it doubled the insurance!!!!! So removing him has made mine cheaper, along with the reduction in mileage, 6000 was a bit keen this last year. AND then, I called the AA. They sent

In one of my previous posts I alluded to a curtain being made to replace the poor attempt at blocking sunlight from the cab, i.e. the towel thats been hanging on a bungee for ages. Well the curtain still hangs on a bungee, but its an actual curtain now. Well more of a blind as its not in two halves, but its got foil insulation inside it to try and retain some heat. That is much better! Its made out of an old duvet cover, I thought it would look nicer as a funky curtain. Until next time!

I decided to split parts I bought for the van to keep it running apart from all the bits I purchased for the conversion, so here they are, the list is fairly extensive!! BRAKE CALLIPERS  - I suffered from a jammed calliper at one point so had to replace the entire unit, I still have the other side to fit at some point! The link is for one, but at only £50, not bad. EGR BLANKING PLATE  - So I bought this after my van broke down on me in a mcdonald's drive thru. Turns out my EGR was sticking open, which meant it lost its vacuum and died. Had I known at the time I would have gotten out and smacked it with a hammer to get it going again. Alas I did not know this. Anyway after the AA sorted me out, my engineer friend at work explained to me that no-one replaces EGR valves (not at £90 for a Trafic) and that I should blank it off. After removing the EGR and cleaning it after discovering it did in fact still work, it still kept failing, so I removed and blanked it off. It keeps your

This is the third and final list of stuff purchased for the van. I felt it didn't really fit into the other categories as these weren't necessary, but made my life both in and when driving the van much easier and nicer. REVERSING CAMERA - I got to drive a friends van when I moved flats once and he had installed one of these, made life much easier. Especially when you have never driven a van before and it feels like you're driving a tank. Odd really as I drive 42 tonne marine forklifts for a living, and this van felt massive on a road! An extremely cheap and worthwhile upgrade, which is the reason it was one of the first upgrades made before I started anything. WIND DEFLECTORS - These were bought for three reasons. 1) they look cool. 2) the allow me ventilation when camping so I didn't need to cut a vent hole, and allow for my power cable to run through as I decided early on not to bother installing 240v electrics, and 3) because the van has no A/C, and they stop th

Bear with me, this is going to be a long winded post, full of descriptions and links. If you like anything you have seen in any of my pictures or videos, hopefully I won't miss any, but I will pop all Ebay and Amazon links on this post so you guys can find it easily. HAYNES MANUAL - So I started off the year with the purchase of the van, and consequently the Haynes Manual , almost immediately - CABLE - electrical cable to wire the van up, this included extending my reversing camera cables, wiring led's, etc, you name it. I ordered multiple times from this seller! Always buy more than you think otherwise you'll spend your life waiting for more or buying more expensive stuff closer to home. CARPET LINING - This was one of the first things needed, as removing the ply lining to insulate behind means you might as well carpet it whilst its all out. This was extremely good value, and I managed to carpet everything I needed, including my mini bulkhead, 3 door trims, both s

Some stuff I missed from the last post will be in this post! I also videos a lot of what I did so the video is posted below. Along with everything else that I did in November, I also stole some ideas from other people and pinterest. Namely in the screwing mason jar lids to the underneath of a shelf and then using the corresponding mason jar to store little bits of crap that you don't need lying about in your house let alone lying about the space in your van, and then screwing the jar back onto its a lid, hence creating creative storage solutions. That was a mouthful. I don't even have a photo for you, so you'll have to watch the video to see. Going with the cheap and cheerful (functional), I decided a while back not to install 240v electrics as I couldn't be arsed, and it was quite expensive. I work with boats, so I knew of cheap installations for 240v electrics as they are the same. I found a power cable for boats that came with 3 standard uk plugs on the end

Sooo despite the quiet, I have in fact been doing things. I seem to have an obscene addiction to buying things for my van.... the latest purchase being a set of front mats, in a lovely grey with red edges. These are thanks to Marks Mats, a guy I heard about on one of the TVP (Trafic, Vivaro and Primastar) groups on Facebook. He doesn't seem to have a dedicated Facebook page, so just search for Marks Mats and the guy will come up. Absolutely great value, he sent these to me for £20 inc delivery, and there are a range of colours available, and you can choose from all the colours for mat colour and then again for the edging. I ordered on the wednesday, and they were in my van by Friday night! For a slightly more luxurious carpet, you'll have to bang out another £10, but I'd say it was worth it for sure. While I'm on the subject of Facebook groups, there are a load of guys like Mark from Marks Mats that advertise stuff at discounted rates on the groups. Ive also o

Improvements continue.... Had a few more nights in the van recently, and decided that some more additions needed to be made. Firstly, the new usb charger I installed at the back of the van has a MASSIVE, brighter than the sun blue LED on it, that keeps me awake when I'm trying to sleep. In the dark it is quite bright. This isn't really a modification, more of something a piece of masking tape will solve!! I then decided I hate the look of the rear door cards, so I asked a reputable company for a quote to carpet them and the side door card. £300!!! That was obviously a no go, but I was also told that the cards would need replacing with ply etc etc etc. Nahhh, I decided to see if I had any carpet left, and I did, so a quick trip to Screwfix for some more spray adhesive, and I was away. The first one was a bit rough, I was fecking about in the dark doing it at home, and missed some creases, and I was confident that they would fit back on the van even with carpet stretched