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.

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.