What did you do to your van today?

Vanterrier said:
I have been putting it off since I bought the van in November but today decided that the towbar just HAD to come off. I will never tow with the van and have no intention of adding a bike rack, so... Off it came!
Was not a bad job and the bolts and nuts all unscrewed easily. I have left the 7 pin connector still wired up and tucked away behind the bumper for now. I might keep the towbar as it might be of interest to a prospective buyer at some point in the future? But I might offer it for sale on the bay...
The whole lot came to around 32kg which is a useful addition to my available payload.

So, what did YOU do to your van today?

K ;)
Click to expand...
Well not today but over the past few weeks, the bracket [1 of 2 ] holding the lift up bed over the storage hold in the van came adrift, oh oh I thought needs looking at, well when I got down to it I found that the ply wood bearer for the bracket had disintegrated due to damp ARGHHH I thought, bigger job than expected, the rear interior panel in my van has a covering of what looked like white vynall wallpaper but thicker, I started to peel this away to expose the ply covering beneath and discovered this too was damp and rotted , it is only about 2 mm thick so I started to peel this away too. I had to remove the Bike rack brackets [ 4 ] to get to everything, I discovered that water had got in through these brackets, due I believe to chugging round Portugal carrying 2 Electric bikes which I always thought too heavy for the back panel of the van ?
So now I am committed to a bigger job than expected.
My vans construction [ 17 years old ] consists of an outer skin of fiber Glass ? plastic ?? then a sandwich of Polystyrene bonded to this, then a ply 2 mm thick covering [ bonded ]to this and that is it ? set into the Polystyrene is battens of Ply to strengthen it all, ,and through which pass the sleeved bolts holding the bike brackets in place, these battens were wet and rotted in places so all was removed to a height of 3 foot apprx, from the floor of the storage area and full width of the Storage area, looked awful, at this stage.
I left it for a few days to allow all to dry out properly and then started reconstruction, I replaced all the battens with new wood Battens which I made in treated pine half an inch thick secured with a silicon glue type stuff called the dogs B@@@@@cks , sticks like S@@t which I bought on line, great stuff , it really does stick, I bought it in brown colour as that was all I could find at the time. all slotted into the original channels cut into the Polystyrene of the rear panel, I also replaced the bed base bracket with treated timber fixing this with the magic glue , I re drilled the holes for the bike rack 8 in total through from outside the van and filling all with a liberal dose of the magic glue stuff, I refitted the bed bracket securely and was happy with that.
So what to do about the missing ply and the white Vynall lining, I did think about another sheet of ply cut to fit but thought that my chippy skills were lacking there and imagined a dogs dinner there, So settled on laminate flooring boards which I found at Wicks and matched the furniture colour perfectly , and as all is hidden in the garage storage area I thought this will be good,
So each board was fitted using liberal doses of the magic glue all over and screwed into the battens I had fitted earlier, and as the boards are tongue and groove click and fit they were easy to fit , I had to re drill the bike rack holes through these now fitted boards and fit New brackets for the bike rack with new seals and slightly longer stainless bolts, it all looks very good now and appears as if it is as it always did or so my wife says, if one can get Female approval for a job done one has won the day I think hee hee, I checked for damp elsewhere and found none so am happy with my efforts, I do intend to sell the van at a later date as we want to move home , downsizing van and home but that is deferred for now, I took pictures as the work progressed so any future buyer can see what has been done and make their decision whether to buy the van or not ??? The pictures show the finished job, the long shelf thing is where we place our camping chairs when travelling the shelf is high enough to put boxes underneath for storage and the chairs when in situe clear the drop down bed so it works well , the shelf is free standing and easily lifted out if we want to do that, it has yet to be stained and finished .

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Shut down until Feb.
Dehumidifier installed and switched on.
Mrs A removed the curtains for washing. Then she added decorations to the cab area. I'm told it is in keeping with the season!
 
Sean said:
Shut down until Feb.
Dehumidifier installed and switched on.
Mrs A removed the curtains for washing. Then she added decorations to the cab area. I'm told it is in keeping with the season!
Click to expand...
I never understand why people put dehumidifiers in vans over winter .
There are ventilation holes gas drop holes in floor to allow air flow your just suking in all that moisture from out side.
All of them vans on forecourt none have dehumidifiers.
 
Mr and Mrs Tupcox said:
I never understand why people put dehumidifiers in vans over winter .
There are ventilation holes gas drop holes in floor to allow air flow your just suking in all that moisture from out side.
All of them vans on forecourt none have dehumidifiers.
Click to expand...
I never understand why people don't use their vans in winter. There's far too much of our money invested in ours to have it parked up for months!
 
bartman said:
I never understand why people don't use their vans in winter. There's far too much of our money invested in ours to have it parked up for months!
Click to expand...
I agree totally.
But there again having recently had a stroke I'm not intending getting behind the wheel for 6 weeks. Hopefully some of you will forgive ne for that.
 
Mr and Mrs Tupcox said:
I never understand why people put dehumidifiers in vans over winter .
There are ventilation holes gas drop holes in floor to allow air flow your just suking in all that moisture from out side.
All of them vans on forecourt none have dehumidifiers.
Click to expand...
A dehumidifier does not suck air in it only recirculates air in the room or van extracting any excess moisture. I am lucky as my van is parked in a workshop so run a dehumidifier for a day to remove the excess from the interior then rely on the natural ventilation from the vents etc. This year it will be off the road for two months then head out again in March. Once the daffodils pop out it’s time to crank her up again.
 
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