Finished my T5 Camper conversion
19 May 2014, 11:25 AM
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Finished my T5 Camper conversion
So just before Christmas we purchased our first T5 with an aim to get it ready for our first trip in May, and I've just finished 6 days ahead of schedule, just waiting on the kick board for the front of the RIB and some mesh for the bumper.
As these things do we got a bit carried away and and our plans changed once we started to see what was on the market and eventually went for a RIB, lovely kitchen, lots of LED lighting and some nice mods externally. Have done most of the work myself with help from my wife who has helped me lift that RIB in and out of the van way more times than she wanted, and its dam heavy.
The conversion and the fact its a VW has had me scratching my head more than once, Canbus and every odd size socket, Torx and Star to name a few.
A few of the bits that snowballed were us covering the cab seats ourselves, fitting armrest painting the dash trim, and that's before we even start to talk about the camper bit with USB sockets, memory foam bed in the poptop, Faimma FS45, led lights everywhere, the list goes on.
I'd promised myself I'd wait for all the proper jobs to be done before I spent some time on the paintwork so as the sun was shining yesterday I gave her a good detail and got out the clay bar, polish and wax and see how it came up.
All in all its been a lot of hard work but I'm really pleased with the end result and looking forward to lots of family trips away.
I may now have an empty bank account but am really happy with what I have achieved, but am looking forward to coming home from work and sitting down in the lounge rather than throwing down some food and then heading to the garage 5 nights a week and treating myself to just 10 hours on the drive Saturday and then Sunday.
Hope you like.
Day 1
And now
As these things do we got a bit carried away and and our plans changed once we started to see what was on the market and eventually went for a RIB, lovely kitchen, lots of LED lighting and some nice mods externally. Have done most of the work myself with help from my wife who has helped me lift that RIB in and out of the van way more times than she wanted, and its dam heavy.
The conversion and the fact its a VW has had me scratching my head more than once, Canbus and every odd size socket, Torx and Star to name a few.
A few of the bits that snowballed were us covering the cab seats ourselves, fitting armrest painting the dash trim, and that's before we even start to talk about the camper bit with USB sockets, memory foam bed in the poptop, Faimma FS45, led lights everywhere, the list goes on.
I'd promised myself I'd wait for all the proper jobs to be done before I spent some time on the paintwork so as the sun was shining yesterday I gave her a good detail and got out the clay bar, polish and wax and see how it came up.
All in all its been a lot of hard work but I'm really pleased with the end result and looking forward to lots of family trips away.
I may now have an empty bank account but am really happy with what I have achieved, but am looking forward to coming home from work and sitting down in the lounge rather than throwing down some food and then heading to the garage 5 nights a week and treating myself to just 10 hours on the drive Saturday and then Sunday.
Hope you like.
Day 1
And now
Last edited by Abx; 19 May 2014 at 03:27 PM.
19 May 2014, 01:20 PM
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Stunning.
I need one of these in my life. Would love to have a go at doing one myself but I've got way too much other stuff to do at the moment as well as a demanding three year old and one year old to deal with. One day
I need one of these in my life. Would love to have a go at doing one myself but I've got way too much other stuff to do at the moment as well as a demanding three year old and one year old to deal with. One day
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19 May 2014, 07:30 PM
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That looks very smart indeed, they're a great excuse to get away...we are very rarely at home come a Friday/Sunday all year round, if you choose your sites well you can get a weekend away for the price of a Dominos pizza.
21 May 2014, 10:46 AM
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Cheers all.
Price was, as with everything you can spend what you want on top of the base van. For us the van was about 14k as we wanted low mileage, a T30 and the facelifted version, on top of that anything between 4k to 14k, our total spend around 28k but that included pretty much top end everything:
£2200 roof (crash tested)
£1800 RIB (crash tested)
£1300 set of 20's
£1500 kitchen
£600 appliances
£600 roll out awning
£500 drive away awning
You can do one a fair bit cheaper but as we'll be driving round Europe with my daughter in the back we wanted it to be as safe and comfortable as we could get it, also our spend was on a fair bit of cosmetic where you could save if you were not fussed on lowering, splitters etc, also the roof which we had to have as there is 3 of us.
Cali's are lovely but nearer 50k if you have a poptop and a decent spec, also doing it yourself lets you tailor it to 'your' needs, we have plenty of LED's, built in USB sockets for ipods etc, double seat up front, cupboards the size that work for us.
If you do one and have any questions just ask, hard work but very rewarding!
Cheers
A
Price was, as with everything you can spend what you want on top of the base van. For us the van was about 14k as we wanted low mileage, a T30 and the facelifted version, on top of that anything between 4k to 14k, our total spend around 28k but that included pretty much top end everything:
£2200 roof (crash tested)
£1800 RIB (crash tested)
£1300 set of 20's
£1500 kitchen
£600 appliances
£600 roll out awning
£500 drive away awning
You can do one a fair bit cheaper but as we'll be driving round Europe with my daughter in the back we wanted it to be as safe and comfortable as we could get it, also our spend was on a fair bit of cosmetic where you could save if you were not fussed on lowering, splitters etc, also the roof which we had to have as there is 3 of us.
Cali's are lovely but nearer 50k if you have a poptop and a decent spec, also doing it yourself lets you tailor it to 'your' needs, we have plenty of LED's, built in USB sockets for ipods etc, double seat up front, cupboards the size that work for us.
If you do one and have any questions just ask, hard work but very rewarding!
Cheers
A
22 May 2014, 12:48 AM
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Wow wow wow what a thing. I would love one just like this.
I would love to just go of for a month at a time looking for good places to fish in the UK and Europe. I had by brothers for a week a few years back when my car was in the garage (not as good as this one though) and was impressed how good it was as a daily driver and had no problem when it came to parking at tesco.
I would love to just go of for a month at a time looking for good places to fish in the UK and Europe. I had by brothers for a week a few years back when my car was in the garage (not as good as this one though) and was impressed how good it was as a daily driver and had no problem when it came to parking at tesco.
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