Selling the Seats

The seats have now been sold and collected. Now I can use the empty space to store tools and equipment for the conversion. I felt a slight pity letting these seats go, because they had a custom cover that fit well to the rest of the interior. But this shall not be a bus... but a "motor caravan". I kept two seat benches: on the driver side there is now the dual seat, and on the passenger side is the single seat with the tray next to it.

Here is how the seating looks now:

And here is how the back space looks:

Project Updates

The seats: sold. Last week, James from Rotherham became the highest bidder for these 8 seats which I wanted to get rid of. Today he came and picked them up.

The tax: still unresolved. I had sent everything in to the DVLA last week, but the vehicle still appears as being un-taxed. I was told that it may take 10 business days. So I will wait until mod next week then, before I can take the vehicle on the road.

The water ingress: Last week I put some duck tape on parts of the front windscreen seal where I suspected that water would come in. There was still water on the front side under that rubber mat, near the driver's seat. I put a few more patches on the seal, will have to see if the amount of water is increasing or decreasing.

The rust: I removed bits of rust along the wheel arches and at the lower edges of the side panels. Used rust desolver to convert the rust back to metal. Also put a bit of white primer on some of those rusty parts. Most is only surface rust, but on one spot the rust has eaten through the metal and has made a small hole. I probably have to fill this. The repairs are currently mostly cosmetic.

The mileage: I checked on the DVLA website: https://www.gov.uk/check-mot-history where one can just enter the registration and make and get a MOT history back to 2005. This provided more information than the vehicle history check for which I paid.... The DVLA site shows a consistent low mileage, beginning with 5867 miles back in March 2006. Annually there were not more than 3000 miles driven in average. So the low mileage appears to be correct. Except that possibly before 2006 there could have been some kind of excessively high mileage.

Further plans: Are for now put on hold. I first will use the vehicle as a transport van. Still have to find a good way of attaching the window tinting film. My previous attempt in the past two weeks were unsuccessful, as the large window area was difficult to manage. The foil crinkled and tore. I have to either find a better foil (maybe 3M ?) or have a company do that professionally.

Removing the Seats

There are six rows of seats which I wanted to remove, as I do not need them - in their place will be the installations of the motorhome, for example the bed, the hob, the shower / toilet, the sink etc. I am going to keep one row of seats, the one right behind the driver. This would be a total of three individual seats: one double seat behind the driver, and one single passenger seat on the passenger side. My plan is to replace those seats by two swivel seats, so that I can make a sitting area for dining and working right in the front of the vehicle.

The seats to be removed are: four single seats, and two double seats, giving a total of 8 seats. I did place an advert for them on eBay.

Removing the seats was not very difficult. I needed a 17mm wrench / spanner to loosen the six screws with which each of the chairs was attached to the sliding rail on the floor. Problematic were the two seats which are over the rear wheel arches: they have a specially constructed frame, which appears to be screwed into the floor and is fixed with screwing bolts from both sides. Which means, I would have to go outside under the wheel arch and unbolt this from there, as I was not able to loosen the screw head from the inside. So for now I just left these two frames there, will not sell them, unless the buyer can provide some means of loosening them.

Mounting of seat over left rear wheel arch.

Dismounted single seat.

Taxation Hell

Already last week on Friday I tried to tax the vehicle at my local post office. The woman at the window - the branch manager - tried to get me the tax quote for paying by direct debit, in monthly instalments - "computer says no". Is not possible to pay in monthly instalments. OK, so I will pay for 6 months. After a while "computer says now" - is not possible. What the heck? I have the full V5C form, and also the renewal letter with the special code to enter. But that latter one is of course only valid for the previous owner, therefore I have not tried to renew online. The woman tries again - then says "you do not need to pay anything". It comes indeed up as zero. Suddenly it dawned on me: must be because this is a disabled transport vehicle. Is therefore exempt from tax. And when looking at that tax registration letter, it indeed states zero. So the woman calls DVLA - and after 15 minutes she tells me that I need to contact DVLA directly - the post office cannot do this.

So I go home. I had a look at the DVLA website, and found there that one can change taxation class from exempt to non-exempt - and one can do that at the post office. So on Monday I went again to the Post Office, but the guy said it was not possible. I had figured out that I would need to apply for a Private Heavy Goods Vehicle (HGV), but the only options coming up on the Post Office computer were to register the vehicle as a Private Light Goods Vehicle (LGV). For whatever reason, tax for a Private HGV is lower than for a Private LGV: HGV is £165 per year, and LGV is £230 per year. Of course I wanted the lower price, especially because officially the vehicle is listed as having 3850 kg gross revenue weight. The limit for an LGV is 3500 kg. OK, the guy at the window says he cannot change the tax code, and I would need to call DVLA. There is no option on his computer screen to change the tax code - I only could tax it as an Private LGV.

So I ring DVLA. I explain everything and provide the data / registration etc. He says that I should go to the Post Office and tell them that they should ring the DVLA help line. Then they would get clear instructions on how to change the tax code.

With that information I am heading again to the Post Office, for the third time now. This time I am going to another one, because maybe these guys where I went the first two times have no clue. But that other post office does not deal with car registrations. I go to another one, a bit further away. Also here no avail - they do not deal with vehicle registration and taxation. So back to the one where I had been before - for the third time. The guy already recognises me. I try to convince him that the DVLA has told me that this tax code change can be done at the Post Office. But he insists that it cannot be done. On Friday his manager had rung DVLA, that special help line, and they had told them that this can only be done directly by me interacting with the DVLA.

So back to the phone, I ring again DVLA. This time I insist that the Post Office is not able to do this, and that I need to tax the vehicle now over the phone. Finally the person on the other end of the line acknowledges that the Post Office cannot do it. I have to file a form V85, add the original MOT, fill in section 7 of the V5C form, and add a check / postal order. Fortunately they did not ask me to provide a form 27 B/6...

Checks - how quaint. I think I still have some in some drawer... have not used checks in 10 years. Is not possible to pay by credit card or any other online means... so I go again to the Post Office, for the fourth time. The guy there is laughing. A Postal Order costs £12.50. Must hand over cash, get the cash from withdrawing it from the bank account right there with the cash machine. Weird system... But at least my vehicle will now be taxed properly as a Private Heavy Goods Vehicle, for £165 tax per year. I also changed the body style, from Panel Van (which was incorrect) to Minibus. Added the number of seats (four) which was missing from the form.

I have to leave the vehicle off public roads for up to 10 working days. Then I can check online if the vehicle has been taxed properly, and then I will be able to use it.

First Modifications

As a first step I decided to move the passenger seat further to the front. So I removed the railing that was mounted near the entrance, inside near the steps. This is how it looked before:

I was able to remove the screws. Can use those screwing points for some additional mounting in the future. Now the single passenger seat is at least further to the front. With lots of legroom - I may place there some kind of foldable extendable foot rest. And this is how this space looks now:

Moving the seat forward was no problem. I took the largest spanner I had - it fit perfectly, and I was able to loosen all the 6 screws. Then I could move the mounting points forward within those rails at the bottom. Very useful.

Here are pictures of other seats in the bus:

 

 

Motor Temperature OK?

After 1/2 hour of driving the temperature indicator shows this:

Is this OK? The temperature seems barely to be above the minimum - I think it should be in the center, and the indicator should be horizontal. The van got warm inside, but not overly warm. There is an additional heater under the seats: this makes a lot of noise when switched on, because this is basically a loudly blowing fan. Warm air comes out, but not really hot. Is this the heat from the coolant? I could not see id this has a local heat exchanger... I may have to install my own heating system, based on the diesel water heater which I bought in 2014 for my microcamper, but never got around to install there.

First Problem: Water Ingress

Yesterday evening I did a closer inspection of the van. Should have done it before I bought it, but I was not thinking very thoroughly then. At my first inspection on Saturday morning it looked OK, and the price was reasonable. But now I did look closer, and I noticed that the front windscreen moulding is very brittle and is broken in some sections. This means it will let the water through.

Today was a quite rainy day. The LDV stood there in the rain, and I wanted to check if some moisture got into the inside. Upon a first glance - nothing. The whole floor dry. No wet spots, while it was pouring down outside. The side windows appear to be tight. Nothing on the dashboard. So I wanted to leave the vehicle happy, but then I stepped onto the rubber floor in the driver area - and as I stepped on it, a bit of water seeped out at the opening of that rubber floor, where the driver seat is mounted. Now I saw the reason for those rusty bolts: water must have come in from underneath that rubber floor. The only reason for this I could see in the defective windscreen seal. The water probably ran down inside the seal, then dropped into the floor. I tried to identify, but in order to really find it, I would have to remove the rubber floor and check where the water was coming from.

So the next most urgent thing is to get the window seal repaired. I called AUTOGLASS - they do not do these kind of jobs. Strange, why not - but they only put new glass in. I would have thought it would be the same: to take the old glass out, put a new rubber seal around, then put it back in. But for some reason they so not put in back the old glass, but they want so sell a new glass. That is not what I need.

On some blogs I read that people tried to repair these leaks, and changing the window glass themselves is a real pain (see the comments to this blog post : Fixing water leak in LDV van). So this I will not be able to do myself - instead I am trying to find a garage. Have contacted two in Leeds, am waiting for their response.

In the meantime I started to put "stuff" into the LDV van. Some of my car repair things, some stuff from my previous conversion. Those roof shelves are great! Very sturdy, and provide lots of storage space. These roof shelfs (left and right side above the seats) will change the design I had originally for this... I will have to rethink where I put the bed and the shower. I thought I would place a bed on top, as a kind of bunk bed, but I will probably not do this, and instead keep those robust shelve in place.

This evening it continued to pour down. I decided to take the van for a random drive around Leeds, through the night and the rain. It drives really well. OK, is a bit loud, and feels like driving a truck (sorry, a lorry, for UK readers). But this is OK. It goes reasonably fast, with a slow acceleration, but is sufficient. At least I may have a better chance now driving at the speed limit and not get another speeding offence...

First Pictures

Here are the first pictures - I took them when the car was still at the dealer in Bradford.

This is the 2002 LDV 400 Convoy which I purchased yesterday.

Here are more views:

It has a bit of rust around the edges, so I will need to work on it and remove that, scrape it off, convert it, paint over it. Possibly the whole vehicle may need to get a paint job...
But first need to ensure that e everything is working OK.

Here is a picture of the interior:

Quite nice and undamaged seat covers. And the rooflight in the middle is great! This would have cost a lot to install myself - the rooflight alone could be several 100 pounds.

Getting an LDV 400 Convoy

Already quite a while ago I had decided that I would need a larger campervan. My Fiat Doblo conversion is just too small for any serious travelling - may be fine for one single person, but for two it is just suitable for a weekend.

And so I had decided I would get something bigger. And I settled for an LDV 400 Convoy, despite the somewhat "mixed" reputation that this vehicle has. I read many reviews in which people (owners) complained about things breaking down with this van, but I also read others which praised it for its simplicity and robustness.

The deciding factor for me was the price - the LDV 400 Convoy is usually the lowest-price vehicle that one can get in this size. And I decided on a minibus. There are arguments against having all windows around in a camper van: one cannot do "stealth" camping, there is somewhat less security (glass can be broken into), also of course less privacy, and finally the heat insulation would be more difficult to achieve. But I do like to imagine that I park somewhere in a nice scenic spot and then have the full surround view of this spot from inside the car - which is helpful when it rains outside.

So last Friday I saw the ad for an LDV 400 Convoy minibus, just in the vicinity of 10 miles from home. I had a look at the vehicle on Saturday, and then later that afternoon decided that I would buy it. It claimed to have very few miles: 22,500 miles, for a vehicle from 2002, 14 years old. The seller insisted that this is the true mileage, as indicated by MOT receipts. There is some rust at the edges of the body panels, but overall the van looks good. Engine is a 2.4l Transit Duratorq, about which I also found mixed opinions. But I decided to go for it, because this van had a few interesting things going for it:

• there was a heater installed under one of the seat. The seller did not know how to work it, but I would figure this out later. 
• The windows were not the usual 3-windows on each side, as most LDV 400 minibuses have, but each side only had one long window, which make the vehicle look a bit more modern. 
• And finally the van has no sliding door - entrance is only through the front - or the back. This preserves some space for potential additional furniture or equipment inside. Disadvantage is that the front passenger seat is quite recessed, because that is where the entrance space is.

The van is also nicely lined inside - it seems there had been a conversion been done, with proper insulation of the roof. There is also a rooflight inside, which would cost a lot to buy and install myself.

And the price was reasonable, I felt: £1495.

Now here are the problems I encountered:

The first problem was to get insurance. Since this is no yet a converted motorhome, I could not get motorhome insurance. One would need to have a conversion done within 120 days, but DIY conversion is often not accepted by insurers. It seemed then to be very expensive to get standard van insurance: sites like confused.com and others gave me quotes from £1200 to £7000 - ridiculous annual insurance prices. I finally settled for Aviva. When looking for quote, I noticed that the registration information did show conflicting vehicles: the vehicle came up as a Convoy, but as a smaller one. Since I did not yet have the V5 form, I settled in for whatever the vehicle registration check provided. I will have to clarify this later.

Then this morning I went on the journey, with taxi, short train ride, then again taxi, and picked up the van. The following comments:
- ride is OK, but quite loud. There is a strong resonance at low rpm in the vehicle.
- the ventilation does not have a full-close switch, as is usually a standard feature. This means when there is bad air outside, I will not be able to shut it off.
- the engine temperature seemed to remain quite cold. The temperature indicator was only slightly above the minimum, and was not in the centre of the dial as it should be.
- as a consequence of the cool engine the heating seemed to work only very faintly. The blower fan only seems to blow air at level 3 - level 2 and 1 are silent, without any air movement. The central vents only blow out cold air, unheated - heated air comes through the side vents and the vehicle vents below in the foot area.
- there is a heater / blower in the centre of the vehicle, underneath a seat. It can be turned on when the ignition is on, but it only seems to make a lot of noise and blow the air around. I did not feel any warm air coming out from it, which is disappointing. Means I will have to install an auxiliary heater.
- the rubber seals around the front window appear to be not tight anymore, appear brittle in places, so I may need to change this.

So much for the first impression. I will need to give the car a good wash, inside and outside, then will begin selling most of the seats. And I will soon sell my 1999 Peugeot Expert camper.