Renovating a Campervan: The Good, The Bad and The VW

What have we let ourselves in for.

We had done it. Our dream for our first year of backpacking around Australia was to not backpack at all and instead, get a campervan to see all of the delights of the Land Down Under. Weeks of trawling the internet, visiting non-existent Autobarn centres and moaning about people ignoring us had come to fruition. A beautiful VW T4 2003 was delivered to us and it was glorious. We parked him (cautiously as he was an automatic and we'd only driven manual up until then) and beamed at our new home on wheels. And thought "Sh*t, what do we do now?"

We'd never really agreed to doing a complete renovation, it just sort of happened. The van's interior was actually in pretty good nick but once we started taking out this and unscrewing that, he was a shell of a van in about a day- oops. But it was definitely the right choice. 

He came with a foam mattress, an Eski drawer, a small unit and a handmade frame. His ceiling was already covered (and we liked that) and so were his walls (although they were grubby). He was pretty basic but he was tidy. A carpet was also fitted but as it was glued down, it wasn't going anywhere. We emptied him out to have a better look at what the previous owner had installed before immediately taking it apart. Things quickly escalated from there. The van must have felt 3 stone lighter once we had taken out the reinforced, earthquake-proof eski tunnel. The bed frame was quite low and the mattress sat at the back of the van, which we didn't like much. We packed up for the evening and my ever impressive drawing talents came into play to produce sketches of what our princely new home could look like. It was going to be a challenge to say the least but we wanted to make the most of the space we had so we ran with it anyway. 

Just to make things clear, neither Kjel or I have any previous experience in carpentry, or any trade for that matter. We learned to cut wood at secondary school and at best have basic knowledge of DIY but we knew it wasn't going to be one of those "ultra-fancy" campers with a shower that turns into a table that is next to the fully plumbed kitchen. It was going to be mostly guess work to turn our plans into reality.

As we couldn't register the van until it had passed its Roadworthy Certificate (RWC, like an MOT for our UK friends), we couldn't drive. So we found our way to Kmart by foot. I'd like to personally thank Kmart for its wonderful supply of useful everyday items at actually reasonable prices. What a bloody godsend. We bought a load of stuff to give the van (still nameless) a good wash and purchased a tool kit to get us on our way. Obviously, we chose a lovely, sunny day to wash him so it made it twice as hard. But we got there and he was gleaming. 

We knew we wanted to increase the bed frame height to give us more room underneath for storage of our back-packs and other living equipment. We decided that rather than build a new frame by scratch, we would use the existing frame where possible but replace some of the wood to make it taller and increase the length of the frame towards the cabin to move the bed back. This meant we could have some kitchen space at the front. It seemed like the perfect solution. We used our sparkly new drill from our 'Performer' tool box. Well it may have been a quality that the company aspired it to be but the outcome was very different. After removing the screws that kept the plywood in place, the drill head that came with it had already become blunt and pretty much useless. Fortunately, the previous owners had donated a bag of random odds and sods that happened to include a box of much stronger screw heads that did the job. We divided the van in half and got dismantling! It took some brain power and man power but we eventually stood before an empty van. We gave him a good vacuum and the feeling of "Oh b*ll*cks!" swept over us as the realisation of what we had started to undertake became a reality. 

When we bought the van, we knew he needed a little mechanical work. To pass his RWC he needed new tyres and in general, we were advised to have the glow plugs changed to make ignition easier on chillier mornings and as it didn't work, we needed to have the A/C serviced. So we booked in to have the tyres changed and for a Roadworthy test four days after. We needed to pay for an 'Unregistered vehicle permit' to enable us to drive him to the auto centre but failed to check what we'd need to do to get the permit online until Sunday evening. We then realised that we'd need to have a QLD customer reference number to buy the permit; something you could only do by visiting one of their official transport centres. We'd booked him in for 9am, the office (fortunately 5 mins up the road) opened at 8:30am. So come the morning, we raced to get the CRN so we could drive. By the skin of our teeth, we sorted it and made it to the garage. We handed over the keys and waved him goodbye, safe in the knowledge that we'd have a shiny new set of wheels on him and hopefully a RWC on our return.

We were pretty naive about the whole thing. The van had only passed its last RWC 4 months prior so we thought it would be a pretty safe bet of passing this time. It will be fine, we said. Nothing too major should come up, we said. And then the phone call. "It's not great news...". I must admit, I was hoping it would be some Australian bants and actually it was fine. But no, and then came the almighty list of defects and the damage it would have to our wallets. It started off pretty softly.

1. Parking light failure $

And quickly escalated...

2. Major issue with steering $$$

3. Torn turbo pipe $$$

4. Issue with gearbox $$

5. Some hose leaking that affects the power steering $$$

6. Something else to do with the engine that I didn't catch fully $$$

7. Wheel alignment $$

8. Payment of new RWC $

Well sh*t me. I suppose it was bound to happen: 6 years of perfect MOTs with my lovely little Aygo and I was due a failure. All in all, it was about $2k worth of issues. Delightful. Our saving grace was that we bought the van for a steal, having negotiated a much lower price on a van we knew had already been reduced once from a couple needing it gone A.S.A.P. 

We decided to suck it up, get the parts ordered and went to collect our poorly VW. The mechanics seemed pretty sympathetic and, like us, were somewhat baffled as to how it could have possibly passed its last, fairly recent, RWC with such huge issues. As we'd bought European in a country full of Asian vehicles, our parts were difficult to locate and needed some time to get shipped in. We didn't have time- we had 14 days to get him registered else we incurred QLD's hefty fine and their due date was cutting things fine. But our mechanic was kind and with some smooth negotiation, sourced the parts to enable us to register in time.

We drove back and made our way to Bunnings (Australia's version of BnQ). We sized up some wood to extend our frame and bought some drawer rails and paint for decorating. I have and will continue to apologise to Kjel for my expensive ideas. I don't intend it to be that way but I can't help that my ideas are great but sometimes mean spending some dollar. It was going to be an indulgent day. 

We decided to end the day at IKEA, a delightful half hour drive on Australia's motorways. With tight left hand turns on main roads and plentiful left hand merges, it was an experience. And so was IKEA. Thank me for spending time on their online pages because once we barged our way in through the cashier area 'illegally', we found the two units that would become our slide out kitchen drawers. 

Next was the mattress. The one I'd found for a reasonable price had to be collected from their nearby warehouse- effort, but there were other ones in store all neatly rolled and compressed ready to take home. Not knowing what they felt like, we were advised that the mattresses could be tested upstairs. Let me make this clear. This was a TRAP. The escalators up lead to a maze of corridors and pathways that forced one to look at every single item of homeware offered by IKEA. Eventually we found the mattresses. The one I thought we would get was sh*t. So we found another that was comfortable and went to get it. Well I take my hat off to IKEA. I thought that Theseus had a hard time in his labyrinth but I was wrong. He had not encountered the lower region of this IKEA store; what we had discovered was the true entrance and not the cheats way in that we used. Miles and miles of well-priced and quite nice kitchen utensils and rugs and chairs, everything you could think of. There were doors in the walls by but seemingly no way out. We returned to the lift that brought us down to this madness in a hope of finding an easier escape to no avail. We had to follow the arrowed path to freedom. After much turmoil and fear that we'd never get out, we made it back to the flat pack zone, a much more tranquil area. I went to fetch our parked trolley to find it had gone! It was being whisked away for the end of night customer announcement had been made. With Kjel laden with mattress, I rushed to stop our disappearing furniture. Finally, we had everything we came for. Once again, said goodbye to our money and headed home.