From the very beginning when I was 17 and saw the first van I thought would make a good motorhome, buying a van and converting it into a panel van motorhome, a few notable trips in that van, the death of that van, and the new chapter starting with the purchase of an iveco daily van, to be converted into a large coachbuilt motorhome.

I first became interested in owning a camper van when I worked for a garage at the age of 17, we had a VW type 2 van in the workshop to have it's gearbox re-conditioned, these were the original campers of the 60's, I loved the idea of travelling around the country, stopping where I pleased, and going where I wanted, I like doing things on my terms like that you see, but that particular van was a dog to drive (the gear stick really did feel like it was a spoon in a bowl of porridge.. even after the new gearbox, it wandered all over the road, had no power to speak of, and was generally enough to put me off that type of van for a while.

So I didn't really give it much more thought, until a few months later we had a VW T25 in the workshop, the model that replaced the type 2, this was an altogether better vehicle, it was just a van, not a camper, but me and my work mate could easily see the potential, I think his comment of 'with that all your holidays are sorted' made my mind up, I wanted one to convert into a camper of my own, not the thing most 17 year olds dream about I guess :)

I left that place at 18, the pay was really bad, and I could only just afford to run the motorbike I had, I went and worked for a recovery firm, the pay was amazing compared to the old job, so much so that by the time I was 19, I had just over 1500 quid saved in my bank account (and I'd bought a few expensive things like a 400 quid satellite system in the past year), I was seriously considering converting a van into a camper then, and thought I wanted a VW type 25 fixed high top (can't be doing with pop tops), I even had a few plans of my layout, I'd been to a few places that fit the high tops, and got prices of the camping equipment, and began looking for a suitable van, none seemed to crop up, they had been out of production too long, and most panel vans were worn out by people who need to make them earn money for them,

I kept on looking, and went to a motor caravan show in the summer of 1996, took my mum along with me (in-case I found a van to buy :), and was looking at the type 25's for different layouts etc, when a VW LT camper drove past, (even at that early stage, I was hooked on VW's, I liked the forward control driving position, and that for the length of the van, all the interior room was used, no extra length for a bonnet etc),

Well, as soon as the LT camper drove past, I saw it's potential, it was the bigger brother of the type 25, quite a lot bigger, but it had so much potential, still the forward control layout I loved, but a high top from the factory, 18 foot long, with about 14 foot useable inside, and it was wide, and flat sided, we followed the van to where he parked up, and had a nosey, a lounge area you could sprawl out on, a kitchen area that could be used when the sofa was in the bed mode, a toilet compartment, I was hooked, mum wasn't so sure 'it's awfully big son, are you sure you could drive it?', I guess she didn't remember that I drove 7.5 ton recovery trucks all day long, usually with a van of this size on the back!

So the type 25 idea was scrapped, I looked into the LT, it had a bigger engine for a start, a 2.4 litre beast, 6 cylinders too, but oodles of room, I could sleep sideways in the van if I wanted, it was over 6 foot wide, I looked back through the records of vehicles recovered for our depot, and we had only been called out to 1 LT in the past year, and I got the call, I remember it was a petrol model with a fuel pump problem that the owner had tried to fix before, and the repair he made had failed, (compare that to transits where we'd recovered over 150 of them in the past year for various major breakdowns)  that was enough for me, I started looking in autotrader for LT's, at that time there were quite a few available, but usually at silly prices, or petrol models, diesel is all I'd ever consider for a van of this size, and people know that, hence the petrol vans were advertised week after week with the price dropping until they almost paid someone to take it away, but the diesel's hardly ever ran a second week.

I was looking for over 4 months, and found nothing, until one day reading a week old copy of autotrader I found, there was a 1989 VW LT diesel for sale, all I wanted, high top, long wheel base etc, but it was a bit much, he wanted £2300 for it, but said possible part exchange, I had a car I was trying to sell, to pay for the van and conversion costs, so I ummed and ahhh'd to whether I should see if he wanted to part exchange my car, I probably wouldn't know to this day, but Dave (one of the people who I worked with), grabbed the magazine out of my hand, and said 'is this the van you want?', I said yes, but started saying it was too much, it's probably gone etc, but he had walked out by then, he came back 5 minutes later and told me the van was mine for £1700 if I wanted it, he didn't want a car, just a smaller van,

He was about 100 miles away, and I wanted the van, 1 problem, I had £1500 in my bank account, not enough, another mate suggested I see the bank manager for an overdraft, another thing new to me, and we went to the bank and enquired, I said I wanted to get an overdraft for £300 to buy a car, 2 minutes later the bank manager came out and said it was mine, I had never been in debt in my life, and always had money in my account, I had to cash a cheque for the money, and you know when you get over exited and cant think straight, well my hand wouldn't write straight, I tried but just couldn't write 'one thousand seven hundred pounds' on the cheque!!, I had to get the casher to do it, and I signed her writing!!, 5 minutes later I had 1700 quid in my wallet.

My mate came with me to view the van, as he would drive my car back, we got there and the first thing I noticed was the wipers were sitting at an angle, 3 inches lower at the ends, I immediately thought that's the sign of a bad accident repair, but looked the van over anyway, it was just what I wanted, no rust showing, the rear doors were mangled on the insides, from being slammed against things in the van, there were a few dents pointing outside.. someone liked to drive around with tools loose in the back, but the bloke took us for a test drive, kept the radio on so that got me suspicious, what noises was he hiding I wondered, but it drove lovely, no visible smoke from the exhaust etc, and when we got back I inspected the engine, that was a first, the drivers seat had to be removed (just a big hand wheel to take off, and tip it forwards and out of the bracket), then the engine lid can be lifted up, (engines between the seats by the way)
The engine looked ok, not too clean, and not covered in oil, it didn't seem to be breathing heavily, a bad sign on these engines I had found out, and she seemed fairly quiet, I was still worried about the wipers, wondering why anyone would put them like that, the bloke got pissed off with me at that point, and told me he had just re-sprayed the van, and hadn't put them back on straight, that kinda worried me as it shows lack of care.

The respray was a quick job indeed, it was a yellow van, and he thought no one would buy a yellow van, so sprayed it white!!, what is it with these white van people?, I decided it seemed good enough for my needs, and bought it, (I tried to offer £1500, but that made the bloke really mad, I forgot Dave had knocked him down 600 quid already :), I got the cash out, and his eyes lit up, signed documents, had to almost beg for a receipt of sale, (he was a trader, but was selling the van for his next door trader, who had gone bust, and he had taken ownership of the van to save it from being taken for auction), the van had been used to collect eggs from farms, and there was definite proof of that inside the van :).

Well, I drove her home, stopped at a filling station, then realised I had no money, I took every penny out of my account to buy the van, we had a tenner between us, and empty tank and 100 miles,  I put a tenner's worth of diesel in the van, and got home with no problems, I had about 4 quid's worth left in the tank (back then diesel was about 55 p a litre, hell I remember when it was 35p a litre, and that was only 3 years before that), the van went fine, and I surprised my parents by going home in the van, they seemed impressed at what I had got for my money, I was happy, and spent the next few weeks sorting mechanical things out, the tyres were all crap, I was for ever repairing punctures, so it was decided to get a set of new tyres, kwik fit were having a sale on van tyres, so we got a set of own brand £35 each tyres for the van.

4 months later one of them blew a very large chunk of the tread out while I was in town, I just heard a bang, and looked in my mirrors about a mile later and noticed I was driving on the rim!!, we immediately got those tyres taken off the van and chucked out, I will not risk everything on a set of tyres that can't be trusted, I had been to pick up the remains of too many vehicles where tyres had blown on the A1, causing the car to spin into the barrier, taking just the car out if they were lucky, some weren't, and never get to tell the tale, so we got a set of Goodyear light truck tyres on the van, they were about £70 each, But when I took them off the van the day it went to the scrap yard.. 6 years later, they still had half the tread left, I'd done a good 30k miles on them, never had a puncture or anything.

When I had the van at home, I noticed the spray job the bloke had done was a really quick job, he can't have had a set of ladders handy, as the top of the roof was still yellow!!, between call outs for work, I was lining the van out, just waiting to sell my car, so I could go any buy the camper parts I wanted, sold the car for a lot less than I wanted, but I got £1600 to buy stuff with, and the weekend the cheque cashed, we went down to Enfield leisure to buy camping gear, I spent 1200 quid there!, camping stuff is expensive, the toilet was £250, water heater £250, so that's almost half the budget gone on 2 items, water tank, water pump, taps, sinks, lights ,battery, charger, mains kit etc, I had 2 trolley fulls of stuff, and could begin the conversion proper now, I'd had the van about 2 months then.

Windows were fitted by a firm in Castleford, near Pontefract, they did a good job apart from the fitting of the window in the side door, the LT door has an inner skin shaped to take 2 square windows, I wanted a single sliding window in there, and they assured me they'd do a good job of cutting the inner skin out, they just cut it out roughly, and put car boot rubber seal over the cut metal to fill the gap between the inner skin and the window, the result is the door has rattled for 7 years with every bump in the road, the next van would have single windows in the proper apertures.

Up until I got the van, working of the recovery firm was all I had really, I'd get called out all through the night, sleep during the day, and never have any time to my self, when I got the van, this became annoying, I'd just be starting on a job on my van, when the phone would go and I'd have to take a car to Scotland or something.

So I left the recovery firm in December, and worked for thorn homeserve as a TV collection man (a 9 to 5 job at last), every weekend and most nights was spent working on the van, the neighbour had been complaining to the people who built our houses about this, it was a new estate, with loads of restrictions on things you could park on your own drive!!, a few months before he'd managed to make me leave the breakdown van at the yard, and go out and get it in my own car each time I got a call out at night (so I modified the exhaust by taking the silencers out, and putting straight through cherry bombs in their place so it was the loudest I could run and just be with in the law, aren't I nice, he's known as dipstick by everyone in the street by the way, that's how much he pisses everyone off :)

After successfully getting the  breakdown truck off my own drive, he was trying to get rid of the camper van too, luckily by this time the builders of the estate didn't want to know.. he'd been complaining to them since day one about everything he could, so we got a copy of the deeds, and found out that commercial vehicles, boats, trailers or caravans weren't allowed, by that time the van had the minimum items needed to be classed as a motorhome, and had the log book amended to suit, so it was no longer a commercial vehicle, and the deeds made no mention of a motorhome, once this was pointed out, and a letter to everyone in the street telling them what we were doing, and that we wouldn't do any work after 8pm, he very reluctantly backed down, a few people in the street would ask me how it was going after that, up until then no one spoke to anyone else in our street. except this neighbour to complain about something to anyone who would listen.

In April 1997 the van was ready for it's first trip as a proper camper, the van boasted a 6 foot long sofa, pulling out to a 4 foot wide bed, 70 litre fresh water storage, 16psi 6 litres a minute diaphragm water pump, 9 litre gas fired hot water heater, 80 amp hour leisure battery, split charge relay, 12 amp mains charger, full mains installation (circuit breaker box, flush mounted inlet plug, and mains sockets), zig 12 volt distribution panel, water level gauge, 10 inch colour TV, video player, status TV aerial, 4 fluorescent lights in the living area, switched from near the entrance door, island leg table, full length wardrobe, toilet compartment with thetford swivel bowl electric flush toilet, fluorescent light switched from the wall, tip up sink, whale elegance taps, mushroom vent, slide out mirror, Fiamma motor vent roof light in the main living area, 3 burner hob and grill, hob extractor fan, electrolux 3 way 60 litre fridge, enamel sink and drainer, kitchen taps by whale, eye level storage along the whole drivers side of the van, bedding storage under the bed around the water heater for toasty bedding, blue padded velour ceiling, and top half of the van walls and cab ceiling, 2 6 kilo gas bottles in the back, accessed from the rear door, and about 20 fairy lights around the outside of the van :)

On the first trip out in the van, I'd just bought the van's fridge I originally had a small 2 way fridge I got off a mate who's old caravan I towed to be scrapped for him, and found a caravan repair man who had a larger 3 way fridge for sale, he even part exchanged my little fridge, but the larger fridge wouldn't cool down :( I fitted it the night before I was going on the first trip, to the Peterborough motorhome show, and ran it on mains all night, it was still warm in the morning, I hoped a drive would shake any air locks out of the system, but it didn't, I ran it on gas while at the show, and it still didn't want to cool down, I got a few things I wanted at the show, and spent the first ever night in the van, it was brilliant,

It rained during the night, but I didn't care, I was nice and dry, and fairly warm (no heater fitted by then) I'd Cooked a meal for the first time in my own motorhome,  watched a video and the TV until gone midnight, and then drifted off to sleep in the bed I'd made my self, I was 19 years old, and I had a camper van, and best of all, it was exactly to my specifications, and I could tell everyone that I built it my self! I guess unless you want to travel a lot your self, that sounded strange, some peoples life is to get drunk at every opportunity, mine is to see the world.

After the show, (only stayed one night, and when I got back I wondered why I hadn't taken Dino, my dog with me.. every trip from then on he came with me), the fridge still wasn't working, I tired the leaving it upside down over night trick, and it didn't help, is sounded like it was low on its cooling solution, but no one could re-fill it, as it doesn't use the same refrigerant that a domestic fridge uses, it uses an ammonia and water mix, the bloke I bought it off of took it back to fix, and I got it back a few days later with a different cooling unit on the back, it's worked fine ever since.

Over the years i've added loads of extra things to the van, like a mini hifi system (mains one converted to 12 volts), firstly an eberspacher heater, then a propex heater in it's place, a 3.5 meter wind out awning, pull out step, bigger leisure battery, intelligent split charger system, 300 watt inverter, a DVD player, storage for a laptop, a fixed gas tank replacing the gas bottles, reversing radar amongst other things, replaced the carpet on the floor once, (never use foam backed carpet in a van, it's crap, the slightest catch from the bed sliding over it, and the whole thread unravels) and re-built the bed incorporating sliders off a filing cabinet to make it pull out easier.

I had a good 6 years of fun in her, when I was on my own, I'd stay out for upto a month at a time if I could, I got a beach buggy, and towed it on an A-frame where ever I went, dino came with me everywhere, then a few years ago I met Vicky, and we went round Europe in the van, did 1400 miles the first time and did Belgium, France, Holland and Germany, then in 2002 we did over 3000 miles, Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Germany (staying in the black forest), Switzerland, (staying the night at 8200 feet on the top of nuffenen mountain) Italy and Lichtenstein, dino didn't come with us round Europe because he had no pet passport, and at 16 when we went round Europe he was a bit old to get a passport.

Unfortunately I had a few problems with the engine over the years, the original engine was worn out, the engine was older than the van, and in winter it wouldn't start easily, I'm a perfectionist when it comes to engines, I like to know I can depend on them, and will do almost anything to make sure I can depend on them, I got a compression test done, and it was very low, so we decided to get the engine re-built, asked around for places to trust, and went with a local person, almost the biggest mistake of my life, he was useless, he charged us double than what he quoted for the work (£3000!!!), and the engine was in a worse state than when I took it in, I put up with it for 2 months, and it was decided that as he wouldn't put it right, and court action would be a big hassle, we'd just write it off, and start again with another unit, (luckily dad has a very well paid job, as he paid for it), I bought a turbo diesel engine from an LT off a friend, and had that re-built at a so called reputable firm, they were not, that cost £1100, including a new head that cost's £850 alone), so not much was left for the actual machining work, the turbo was re-conditioned at a cost of £250, as was the injector pump,  I also needed a whole new exhaust system, and a different engine mount to fit the engine, apart from that it went in a breeze.

However all was not well, the engine had terrible fuel consumption, sometimes struggling to get 12 MPG.. should do about 25!, and it used oil like no tomorrow, it was taken back to the firm 3 times during the years warranty, (120 miles each way, involving a train journey home and back each time)  first time they said nothing was wrong, second time they said I had 9 bent valves.. and was expected to pay for them.. until I reminded them that the engine was supposedly fine last time they had a look at it, and the last time they plumbed the fuel filter in wrong, and damaged all 4 corners of the van, and the engine still used oil,

I traced that to excessive blow by and I kinda sorted that by re-routing the breather pipes from the air intake, to a catch tank, and plumbed in an electric oil pump to put the oil collected back into the engine as we drove along, it wasn't a fix of the problem, but it worked for me, the engine has always been very strong, boy can it pull, it towed the buggy like it wasn't there, it always started first time, even in the middle of winter, it was quiet, and smooth, if it wasn't for the oil being chucked into the catch tank, no one would believe there was anything wrong with the engine, at last it was getting about 22 to 24 to the gallon (doing a constant 70 mph on all major roads), I'd replaced practically the whole fuelling system, injector pump was re-calibrated every year, injectors were new, and when they got a little bit worn, I had new nozzles put in them, all in all we spent another 3 grand on this engine install, the engine mount I had to move necessitated the purchase of a mig welder (well, I'd always wanted one, but didn't have a good enough excuse until then :), and the actual mounting leg was £120 from VW!!!,

When I met Vicky, we went round Europe a few times in the camper, click here to see a few photo's of the 2002 trip round Europe I did in the VW camper.

And now the reason the van was being scrapped, the dreaded tin worm had taken hold, the windscreen surround was very very bad (3 panels meet at the bottom, and they were all rusted badly) if I had ever need a replacement screen, the van would have had it there and then, as one would not go back in with out some major welding, the bottom panels of the van were rusting away, and all the seams had rust in them, this van didn't have power steering, and I really needed it as I have arthritis, and it'd been decided for 3 years to get another LT, a newer one, and transfer the camping gear over.

Well in November 2002 I decided that I could not afford to buy another van alone, and decided to sell the buggy to raise the funds, the buggy was sold on the 29th of march 2003, I got £2500 for it, the first person to look at it bought it, there and then, and on the 31st of march I started taking the interior out of the van, the space in the garage where the buggy used to live was home to the contents of the camper van, it was sad sight, 6 months to build, and it took me 6 hours to take the interior out :(

I then took all the parts off her that I could, rear axle, all of the engine except the block, windows, doors, wheels and so on, and then on the 8th of may she was loaded onto a low loader..... well, dragged on unceremoniously, and taken to be crushed, the camper van days are firmly over for me... it's now time to build a new van, with a brand new coachbuilt body.

Well, that's the end of the VW LT camper story, click here for a few pics of the last days of that van.

And now a new chapter begins........

In April 2003 I sold the beach buggy I'd had for about 5 years, I really liked the buggy, it was my ideal car.. something different, looked good, went well, nice and loud, I'd spent thousands on it.. new engine, full body off restoration of the chassis, off road tyres that cost £120 each, engine upgrades like Webber carbs, the steering wheel was a one off blue and black leather item costing over £150, the hood cost me almost 500 quid because I wanted one to last rather than the usual cheap ones that rip after a year or so of use.

But after the 2002 Europe trip in the van, it was decided to sell the buggy to finance another van, I'd realised that was probably the last trip abroad in the van, it was getting worn out, I had to change a wheel bearing at the side of the road in Germany.. luckily being a Volkswagen I just found the nearest VW dealer, and bought the parts over the counter, then found a nice lay-by, and changed the bearing out.. I got some strange looks from passers by, but at least I didn't need to call the recovery services out like most would have done.

I decided I'd rather do more touring of Europe, and for that the buggy was useless.. because I towed it on an A-frame, this was only just allowed in England, it's totally legal to tow on an A-frame in Holland, but illegal almost everywhere else abroad, so the buggy could never come with me abroad, and I needed a newer van to carry on touring abroad.. the buggy had to go.

I'd had it advertised on my old web site since November 2002, and got a few jokers asking to buy it for silly money.. one even asked if I'd take all the fancy bits off it to make it cheaper for him to buy!!
In April I'd been in the buggy at a lake in Nottingham, taking my dog for a walk, when I got home someone had e-mailed me saying they'd seen the buggy, and it's for sale notice at the lake, and contacted me via the e-mail address I had on the board on the buggy, they wanted to see it straight away, and came down a few days later.

He'd brought his father in law with him, and he was looking for faults, (I'd listed them all on the web site, no point lying about the condition of such a specialist car) the bloke who was after it was more interested in how good he'd look cruising about in it in the summer, we went for a test drive, and as soon as I fired the engine up, the pound signs flashed in his eyes.

I'd just got out of the end of my road, into 2nd gear and he was talking money!! I settled on £2500, (I'd bought it for £1200 years ago as a shed, prolly spent 3 grand on it over the years, and wanted £2750 for it.. even the best buggies don't fetch more than 3 grand) we sorted out payment when I got back, and I set about telling him all about the buggy.. he wasn't really interested, he wanted to get out and drive it, but I'd re-built this car, wired it up my self, added lots of trick features, so if anything went wrong, I felt he should know where things were.. you can't go down to the shops and buy a manual for that type of car after all.

We'll, I almost cried when he drove the buggy away, the first time in my life I saw the buggy drive away from me, and it was never coming back, but on the other hand, I had £2500 in my pocket, enough to buy another VW LT and put my camping gear in it, nice and simple... or so I thought,

Back to looking in autotrader every week, this time there were hardly any LT's in it, they'd stopped making the type I wanted in 1996, I wanted a 1996 model, as that has the best engine, power steering as standard, and would be as new as I could get, but unfortunately most people had wrecked their LT's by the year 2002.

I went to see a couple of vans that sounded suitable, one notable one was the one described in the ad as 'perfect, the first to see will buy' I now know the phrase 'first to see will buy' doesn't mean what it seems, it really means it's a shed.
The van was far from perfect, it'd been used to carry sand about.. by the looks of it by shovelling the sand into the back of the van, it was everywhere, the dashboard had 1/2 an inch of dust on it, strange for a van that had supposedly been in use until a week ago, something struck me as odd.. the passengers seat was in the raised position, the battery lives behind that, and the normal large van battery was replaced by a massive truck battery, this was just resting on the floor as it was far too big to fit in the battery holder, the battery leads were butchered to make them fit.

I soon found out why that big battery was there, the owner tried to start the engine, it would over and over, he kept on pulling the cold start know out and in.. weird I though, it's on or off, not like a choke on a car, he was pumping the accelerator pedal like mad, after 1 minute of cranking there hadn't been a puff of smoke from the exhaust, he then decided to cycle the glow plugs about 10 times and try again, still no luck, he then said he'd get the battery booster as the battery must be flat... weird as it was turning the engine over fast enough.. too fast it seemed, prolly no compression of a few cylinders I thought.
I told him not to bother with the booster, it's not a good idea to have a van that takes 10 minutes and a 500 amp jump start to get going when you parked at the top of a Swiss mountain over night.. and in the morning the temperature is minus 12!!.

I'd also noticed the back corners of the high top had been hit a few times, resulting in bad cracks, this van defiantly would not be converted into a motorhome by me, that van really put me off, it just seemed the panel van's were really badly looked after, in autotrader there were plenty of LT chassis cabs or tippers, but not many panel vans.

I mentioned to my parents that I wish I had the money to do a coachbuilt motorhome, a few members of the VE LT Motorhome club had done that to their LT's when the body's got too rusty, if they had good engines they paid about 4 grand to have the old body cut off, and a new coachbuilt motorhome body built on the chassis, they then fitted their camping gear into the new body and had a van that'd never rust out again.

To my amazement my parents liked that idea, I told them I'd get a VW LT chassis cab, and have the body built on that.. easier than messing about with a panel van, we went to brownhills motorhomes to have a good look at the coachbuilt vans to get an idea of what we could build, obviously if we're paying for a new body, it'd make sense to get a larger body built, I decided I'd want about a 6.5 meter long van in the end, this would mean a chassis stretch for any LT I bought, not a problem I thought.... well we all know what thought did.. more on that later.

At Brownhills 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 next 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, I never liked the idea of a bed up there, I like to be able to sit up in bed and read on a night.. not that easy when you only have a foot or 2 of headroom over the bed,

So it had 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.

Before I bought a van, I decided to find an insurance company to insure the van with before, and after the build, these vehicles need specialist insurance, cover for all sorts of risks you just don't get with a normal car type vehicle.. like you don't cook 3 meals a day in a car, carry gas in bottles, carry water about in it, occupy it 24 hours a day for months on end, connect it upto mains and so on, all these things carry their risks, and you need to be sure if the worst happens, the insurance company will cover you, and not just use one of the many excused to avoid payment.. of which on a motorhome insured on a car policy there are hundreds.

Anyway, it soon became apparent that no insurance company liked the idea of me having the chassis stretched, even if I had it done professionally and got it certified and all that.

This threw a big spanner in the works, the other one was that as I'm on disability due to having back, gut and blood problems, I'm classed as unemployed, and there are very few insurers who will tough unemployed people nowadays it seems, especially for motorhomes, Luckily I found someone nice at Shield Direct insurance, they only do Motorhome insurance, and were a leading player in insuring people who built their vans them selves, (yet another hurdle to over come, getting insurance on self built motorhomes)

We went through the quote, and all was fine until the employer bit came up, I explained my situation, and instead of the usual 'sorry sir, we can't help.. <click>' response, the lady on the phone said she'd have a look for a way round this, the came up with another word that described my situation.. Medically Retired, This was allowed on their list of people to offer insurance to, so I was getting somewhere, unfortunately their terms and conditions forbid modifications to the engine or chassis, so the LT with a stretched chassis was still out.

So I had 2 choices really, stick with the LT base vehicle and make do with a smaller van than I wanted.. bit silly paying out for a new body to be the same size as the original I thought, or find another base vehicle that comes as standard in the length I wanted, I chose the latter.

There were certain van's I would never even consider owning, almost any front wheel drive van was not on my list, my experience with recovering them when I worked for the recovery firm made this decision, This didn't actually give me that much choice for large vans, but one van was staring me in the face.. one I'd driven for 6 months as a recovery vehicle.. the Iveco TurboDaily.

They are rear wheel drive, come in loads of different lengths, one of them being an extra long wheel base.. this makes the van 6.7 meters long, the length I wanted to make an LT, they had pretty strong engines, didn't look that ugly, and from what I remembered they drove nice, I'd been a member of the Self Build Motor Caravanners Club for a year or 2, and quite a few people on there used iveco's for their conversions, so they were popular, I asked if anyone knew the dimensions of the standard XLWB iveco daily of about 1998 vintage on the SBMCC's forums, and one of the members went out with a tape measure and measured his van up for me, this gave me the information I needed to make some plans up of what the van would look like with the new body built on it, and it all seemed to be working out.

Back to the insurance company for a new quote, the Iveco would actually be cheaper to insure than the LT.. strange as the iveco would be 2 years newer, had a 2.8 litre engine as opposed to a 2.4 litre engine, and parts are more expensive for it with it being a scaled down truck, rather than a scaled up car.
So that was one decision made for me.. the new van would be an Iveco TurboDaily, now all I had to do was find one for the money I had.

Well, the story now continues in other parts of the site, no point making this page even longer by putting all the info from the conversion diaries on here, so if you want to continue reading about how I found a suitable Iveco, then all the things that happened to it after I bought it.. like the engine blowing 2 weeks after buying it, go back to the home page, and select the 'conversion diary' link.