This page has a few large pictures at the bottom, they'll take a while to load on a dial up connection, best read the text while they load.

This part was written in April 2003, before I had bought the Iveco and chosen a coachbuilder.

So, you're building a coachbuilt motorhome?

Well, I was going to do another panel van conversion, but after realising that most LT panel vans of the type I want have been driven into the ground by now (they stopped making them in 1996), I mentioned that I'd rather do a coachbuilt motorhome conversion, because at least the body's cant rust out, you get a bigger living area, a lighter vehicle, and the rear part of the van is new, so I'd just need to find a van with a good cab area and driveline, I'd always loved the coachbuilt idea but never thought I could afford to do it, to my amazement my parents agreed this would be a good idea, especially after looking at ready made coachbuilts in brownhills motorhomes.

We all liked the layout of an autotrail Cherokee, it had a rear bathroom, kitchen in the middle over the wheel arches, and living area in the front part, there was bags of room, and the van was only about 21 foot long, I'd want to replicate part of that design.. mainly the rear bathroom (I really liked this, you get the shower cubicle on the right, toilet and sink on the left, wardrobe nest to the shower and a changing room in the middle, all behind a door making it a separate room), the kitchen was split between the 2 sides of the van, with the cooker counter joining onto a breakfast type bar that forms a separator between the kitchen and living room, the major difference I would make is not to have a big Luton area, I'd want a streamlined Luton as it will be storage space only (they're not really big enough to sleep in up there really, well unless your celibate :))

So it has been decided that I can have some money for the building of the coachbuilt body, if I put my dad on the insurance and let my parents borrow the van every now and again, I source the base vehicle, sort out the body builders, and then fit the resulting coachbuilt van out, they pay for the most expensive part.. the new body, I'm not gonna argue with that.

A body is easy to get hold of then?

When I was in the VW LT Motorhome club there were a few members who were looking into having a coachbuilt body put onto their current panel van conversion, of which the body was rusting away on, most people got quotes of about 4 to 5 grand for a bare body, i.e. the coachbuilt body, fully insulated, double glazed windows fitted, roof lights fitted, door fitted, lined inside, built onto the chassis (van body cut off first if a van was provided for the base vehicle), and the Luton and front of the body blended to the cab, you get a nice big coachbuilt body on the back of your existing van, to which you add the camping gear to at your leisure to, making the lay out up as you go along,

I've made a few drawings of what I want (at the bottom of the page), the cab is an iveco turbo daily, not drawn very well as I'm concentrating on the body.. the bit I have control over :), the chassis will be an extra long wheelbase, probably a van with the body removed as they don't seem to do iveco daily chassis cab's in XLWB format, the dimensions of the base vehicle are all accurate, many thanks to Darren from the SBMCC for taking the time to measure his van for me, 

At first I wanted to use another VW LT for the base vehicle, but to build I decent sized body on the back requires a wheelbase stretch, and most insurance companies have told me they won't cover a vehicle with any chassis modifications, ones that do don't seem to offer proper motorhome insurance, so I had to make a decision, I needed a van that came from the factory on a very long chassis, and it had to be readily available, i've decided on an Iveco Turbo Daily, they are available in the extra long wheelbase version, which has almost a 4 meter wheelbase to start with, and usually a good sized rear overhang built in, so the plans below are based on an XLWB iveco daily van.

Who's doing the coach building then?

I've been having problems finding a coachbuilder actually, i've e-mailed about 5, and only one got back to me, 12 grand for the body only!!!, so much for the 5 grand members of the LT club mentioned, but then I phoned Nu-Venture up, after finding out it was them who built the van that inspired me to get a coachbuilt body many years ago (cheers for reminding me Steve), they were very helpful, not internet connected, but that's a good sign, as I could hear the workers cutting things in the background, the sound of a real workshop, no flashy receptionist, you go straight through to the workshop, well they quoted me 6 grand, I almost booked in there and then until he mentioned plus vat, another £1050 of vat, yikes, i've got 8 grand available for everything, and I need a bigger fridge at a cost of  £500, want air ride suspension £250, fiamma turbo vents in the roof £100+ each, a shower £??? for the cubicle, about £50 for the taps and shower head, a different sink.. a good £50 there, and then I need wood, hinges, carpet, screws, worktop etc, it's gonna be a push, but I do know Nu-Venture make damn good motorhome bodies.

So were getting somewhere?

Well as with any good firm they are booked solid, originally it would be at least august until any work would start on the body, when I wrote this originally that ment I had until then to find a decent base van and sort it out, so it looks like this year's holidays are buggered up, we'll have to go on a package holiday.. yuck, but I'll see what the people from Nu-Venture say when I take these plans down to them at the show, I'll see what else will add to the price, or if it's possible to make it any cheaper, my dad won't register it as a hospitality vehicle for his company to claim vat back for some reason :)

What's this dream van look like than?

Still working on the exact layout, but below are some drawings i've done to show people what I want the body to look like, as I find coachbuilders who will actually reply to my e-mails, I'll send them to this page so they can see what I'm after, and let me know what it will cost, the dimensions are based on what will fit directly on a XLWB iveco's chassis, without any rear extensions/body supports, I want to stay at about 6.5 meters total length, as I'm already in the more expensive price range for ferry's, going over 7 meters makes the prices jump even more, I also want room to possibly add a motorbike rack on the rear, so will need the tow bar mounting points to be strong, can't get stronger then the rear of the chassis rails. The shape of the body is approximate, I definitely want the low profile Luton, but may want something to break up the expanse of straight lines especially on the back panel.

I'm looking to have the body made in aluminium, but GRP would be lovely, all depends on price, sandwich type insulation all over, between the cab and body will be a bulkhead, the centre part will be removed, and a sliding door put in so I can separate the cab from the living area on a night, there's a lot of glass in the cab so you lose most of the heat through there, so an insulated door will help a great deal and also I will like the extra security that offers, the cab doors will have deadlocks operated from the inside only and the door between the cab and body will be lockable from the inside only, the windows are double glazed units, the front ones are to be sliders, the rear ones on the sides I want fixed, but may have to have top hinged ones, as I want Seitz windows, with integral blinds and fly screens, the rear window is to be a top opener, and preferably opaque as it's the bathroom window, a caravan type door but preferably not a split door, I like the door either open or closed, and don't want the weakness brought about with the split able door half's.

I have an LPG tank, and will want to house the leisure batteries under the floor too, so will need access locker doors there, plus a couple more lockers for general crap, I will build the pull out tray to house the batteries my self, and I have the mounting frame for the LPG tank (I'll need to adjust the mounting points to suite the iveco's outriggers, a few minutes with the angle grinder and welder will sort that out :), I just need access doors in the correct places in the side skirts under the floor level of the van, but I can add them later if it will keep costs down, there are 2 roof vents, one over the shower, other in the kitchen area, again I can add them later if it will keep cost down, but depends on what the builder can offer them for, I want thermostatically controlled Fiamma turbo vents, or fantastic fan vents, and ideally one of them the automatic opening and closing one (with the rain sensor).

That's about it for the basic body, just need the coachbuilders to tell me what can and can't be done, and then I need to work out the layout for the wiring that's put in during the build. I'll add some drawings of the interior layout as I make them, so check back soon to see if the van's interior is planned out.

These are the first plans I made, April 2003

And here's a plan of the interior I want, going on a 4 meter wheelbase iveco, the door position allows me to have a 5'5" wide by 6'6" bed!!, and it's not in the Luton, this is just roughly where I want things, I like to make layouts up as I go along, the rear bathroom is a definite feature, and I guess really the rest of the layout will look like this, there will be eye level cupboards all round the van, the L shaped part of the cooker worktop will have a cupboard above it too, I plan to put the electrics controls in the end of that one, and of course the Luton will be a massive cupboard, then there's the under floor lockers as well, I certainly won't short on storage space in this van.

The picture above is what's going under the worktops and seats, the plan is to have 2 x 70 litre inboard tanks (I already have one), they will be linked with a hose that also has to be inboard, i've never had a frozen tank yet, and I don't intend to start by running the link hose under the van, so it will probably run across the van where the cab to body bulkhead is, and be boxed in, depends if there's a ledge there or not I guess, the rest of the under bed area is for bedding, and again in this van, the sleeping bags will go in the water heater locker, so they are nice and toasty every night :),

If I'm lucky the fridge will miss the wheel arches, I still want a new one, as I want a bigger model, just got to sell the old van to buy it :), the gas tank will be under the floor about where the water heater is, I'll have to move the exhaust pipe to do this, and the diesel tank is under where the right hand water tank is, so I'll have to see what space is under there when I get the van, the leisure batteries were going under the floor where the left hand water tank is, but that may change, I like them near the main control panel, and that's going to be in the upper L part of the cooker work surface, ideally I want them on the opposite side of the van to the gas tank, they'll probably go next to the entry door I guess,

The waste water tanks are undecided yet, they will go under the rear of the van, hopefully directly under the shower, and across the width, I'll want 140 litres of waste water capacity, and will use a few tanks linked together, need to do this to get them round the chassis rails, I couldn't do that on the LT, as the fuel tank was at the back,
The bathroom washbasin will be a tip up sink that goes over the toilet, and I'll run the water pipes inside the van all the time, so will need to box them in along the floor line, this will be handy as I can use the boxed in sections to run cables too.

When the body is built, electrical cables are run in between the insulation and inner skin, so I'll need to know where I want everything, not an easy task, and I'll definitely need to be able to run new cables in at later dates, I was adding extra electrical items to the old van 1 week before I decided to take it apart :), so some form of conduit will be needed up the walls at strategic intervals, once I'm into the cupboard area I can hide the wires easier, I'll have to talk to the builders about this.

The next bit was added around June 2003

And time for a change again, went round brownhills again today, and had a good look around the van the above design is from, and a few things started standing out as not right for me, Vicky found a compass motorhome with a very similar layout, same L shaped kitchen area, this one had a bigger rear bathroom tho, the wardrobe was moved into the bathroom, the space left behind in the kitchen allowed the sink and cooker to be on the same worktop, a big fridge freezer was on the other side (I'm not doing that, can't justify the grand for the fridge freezer for a start :), so i've modified the floor plan again, taking bits from both motorhomes now, decided on a 5 foot wide bed now, that's still bigger than most motorhomes have, but the bigger bathroom allows for a fixed sink in the corner, and it can be made real classy with fake marble counter tops, gold taps etc, don't think I'll do the gold taps, waaay too tacky, especially on a plastic sink :),
But the revised layout is below, i've left the first one above so you can compare them, no doubt it'll change again, I want to stick to a 6.6 meter long van, so will arrange the interior to fit that (the compass was 7.06 meters long.. you pay an extra 40 quid on a ferry for that 6mm!!

I've not done things like show where the hot air pipes go from the propex in this drawing, they will go on the left hand side of the van, one pointing into the living room, one into the kitchen prolly under the fridge, and the other in the bathroom near the bog, makes for a nice short run now, and in this one the heater will prolly be inside the van, in an unused area of the under counter space, just depends if the fridge can live on top of the wheel arch, and give me a decent work top height, the water heater can go in the back of the L part of the cooker counter, in an area hard to get at, so it will be unused, the water pump and pressure accumulator go over the heater, those blue blobs on top of the heater :),

Again the 12 volt electric controls go in the eye level cupboard end at the L part, the mains breaker panel will prolly go somewhere else, maybe under the seat, as the batteries are probably going under the water heater area, so the inverter and charger locker can be an outside accessed one, I may want to add a small generator too, and that can go in another locker between the fuel tank and batteries locker, the lpg tank will be round the other side for sure.

Last plans before the body is built, posted 15th of November 2003

Well, quite a lot's happened since I last modified the plans, biggest thing was Vicky walking out on me, for a while I wondered if I should carry on with the conversion, as the whole idea of doing another van was to go travelling round Europe more, and that's something I won't do alone, I guess luckily something inside me clicked back on, and I found the best way to get over her was to concentrate on the van, starting with revising the plans to incorporate a few things I had thought about in the time since they were last done, these plans will be the final ones, the ones the coachbuilders are building the body to.

I went to brownhills again, and luckily they had a van in on which I am basing my design on, so I measured everything I could before the salesman saw what I was doing, and kicked me out, I got window sizes, door sizes, and so on, when I got home and started to put them into smart draw (the program I used for these plans) I realised I had measured the van up in inches, and I'm working in millimetres on the plans, Doh! I then spent a few hours converting all the measurements using a tape measure.. pulling it out to the required size in inches, and reading off the millimetre reading, I could have used a calculator for this job, but one miss entered number, and it's cock everything up, and the way my luck has been going so far, I wasn't going to chance that :)

I drew up another set of plans with the new window sizes on it and sent them off to the coachbuilders I expected a call back to query them, in the end I had to phone them just to check they were acceptable, Good job I did as there were a few things they didn't want to do, the main things were the window sizes, seems they only get certain sizes of windows, I know full well that Seitz windows are available in almost any size, going up in about 50mm increments.

In the end I had to accept their sizes for all but one of the windows, as it turns out if you look at the original plans, the sizes I have to stick to are pretty much what I had guessed, the only one I'm not accepting is a 600mm high window at the kitchen, I am over 6 foot tall, have back problems, and don't want to be crouched down to use the cooker, so the window needs to be 500mm high so the work surfaces can be at a height I want.. hell, that's the whole idea of this project, so I get a van how I want, if I had to stick to rules I may as well have bought the van from brownhills and saved me all the trouble (ok, so I didn't have the 35 grand on me, but I'm sure I could have got finance.. say 5 quid a week for the next 250 years)

They also weren't happy about the skirt height, I wanted 400mm from the bottom of the floor line, they say this will be too low, I want it 400mm for a reason, I'm having 2 fuel tanks on the van, they hang down.. can you guess.. 400mm below the floor line, I also have a gas tank, 2 batteries, an electrics locker, and at least one storage locker, as the lowest point will be the tanks (well, the diff is the lowest point) if I ground the body on a speed bump, the bottom of the fuel tanks will be ripped off at the same time, as it is, I'm fitting air suspension later on, so can adjust the ride height if needed, but I'll still have at least 300mm of ground clearance, i've not seen a 1 foot high speed bump yet, have you :)

They also weren't happy about me wanting the pull out step recessed below the door, the reason for this was the internal step is a fibreglass moulding, and cant take the weight of someone standing on a step attached to the bottom of that, i've got a welder, so will make up 2 L brackets to mount the step off the chassis then, sorted, so I want the recess putting there no matter what.

Fuel tank fillers was another problem, the last iveco they converted, they put a large access door so you could reach in and use the tank's normal filler (it's a truck type fuel tank, with the filler spout mounted directly to the top of the tank) I was not having that, especially for 2 tank fillers, so I bought 2 flush mount diesel fillers from C.A.K tanks, then got some 3inch bore oil resistant hose from a hydraulics company to link the flush fillers to the tank's fillers, so that's sorted, I just hope they will connect them up for me, if not I'll have to fill the tank before I arrive at the coachbuilders, and fit the fillers when I get it home, hoping I don't use more fuel than usual cos I wont be able to refuel.

Anyway, the final body plans are below, i've shown things like the lpg filler door, where the diesel tanks go etc just for clarity, if your wondering, the diesel tanks will be separate, when in England I'll run on the front one, when I go abroad and can get 35p a litre diesel, I'll fill them both up, and have a change over valve to switch over to the second tank when the first runs out, it'll never get used in England, as to fill them both up would cost £112!

And below are the interior plans, loads of changes here again, the sofa layout is almost final, you can see I'm having arm rests on both sofas ends, there's a reason for this, as will be seen in the next picture of the bed made up, I bought a combined cooker and sink unit from magnum motorhomes the other week, this replaces the separate cooker and sink I had before, this was uses a little less room up, and makes it all look much neater, the shower is now going to have a 45 degree corner on it to mount the taps and riser rail etc on, I wanted an all in one shower enclosure that's fitted to the van I'm basing the design on, as it has mouldings for soap, shampoo etc, but I can't get one in time, as it's wider than the caravan door I wouldn't be able to get it in the van unless it's put in while the roof is off, I'll have to make the enclosure my self out of waterproof wall board instead.

Gone is the propex heater too, I'm having a Truma convection heater instead, that way I can run it all night long, and only use gas, no power from the battery is needed (well, a few milliamps for the igniter and safety cut out on the heater I want) the exact heater I want is the Truma S3002K, this one is certified for use when the van is in motion (not allowed in England, but in Germany and France it is) I want it as it's auto ignition, auto re-light and has more safety features than the other heaters, the bare heater is £270, then you need a front case.. sold separately!! that's another 50 quid, a flue kit is needed to install it.. another 50 quid, and then to be allowed to use this heater you need a trumavent fan, another 120 quid, total price is a few pence short of £500!!!

As the cooker and sink are on the one side now, the fridge is going to be mounted about 3 foot off the floor, hence there's no window behind the entry door anymore, I'll have to get some big graphics for the sides instead, i've got the new fridge now tho, got an 80 litre thetford fridge, apparently they piss all over electrolux fridges, and it was cheaper than the equivalent electrolux by a good £150!!  it is the mutts nuts compared to the last electrolux I had, interior light as standard, electronic gas ignition as standard, a flame meter to show how well the burner is doing.. better than opening the door to look through the sight glass on the electrolux, things like a salad bin at the bottom, bottle retainer in the door, full width freezer that's guaranteed to reach -12 degrees when it's +25 outside, I'll cover it's installation and operation when I get to that stage.

And below is the same pic as above, but the sofa's are made into the bed, looks like a jigsaw puzzle, but I had a similar arrangement in the last van, and it took about 30 seconds to make the bed, you should be able to work out which cushions went where from the sofa's. and also the reason for having arm rests on both ends of both sofa's, by the door, there'll be a panel that lifts upwards then folds flat to provide the support for that cushion, ok, so the right hand ends is not totally straight, I use 2 superkingsize sleeping bag's zipped together for bedding, so that's not a problem at all, if your wondering, the bed will be 7 foot long, and 6 foot 3 wide, that's not a typo, most motorhomes are lucky to get a 4 foot bed, and they call it a double, what am I having then, a quadruple size bed :)

You may have noticed these drawings don't show the cab of the van like the others did, while there is a Luton area over the cab like most coachbuilt motorhomes have, I'm not having a sleeper cab up there, they are usually quite claustrophobic, and whilst I'm not claustrophobic, I like to be able to sit up in bed and read for a while before going to sleep, so I didn't want to even put an extra berth up there, that means I don't need to have the large over cab bump, so the roofline will be flat from the back of the van to just over the cab roof, where it'll gently curve downwards to meet with the cab at the windscreen, this will give me a sleeker looking van, as well as reducing the wind drag caused by having a Luton sticking over the cab line, (I drove a Luton hire van a year ago, and it used 2 tanks of diesel to do a 300 mile round trip, it held the same amount of fuel as my van does, yet used double the fuel.. you could feel the wind pushing against the van's Luton area, my van at the moment gets 24 miles per gallon, it should do a bit more than that, but the engine only has about 1500 miles on it, diesels don't make their best fuel consumption until the engine is fully run in, about 20 thousand miles or there abouts for a diesel, but even so, I couldn't afford to do 12 mpg in my van, so an over cab sleeper Luton was never an option for me to begin with.

The above plans were the ones the coachbuilders used to build the van with, when this entry was written the van was with them having the body built,