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Luton camper coffin


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Posted

Abroad height limits in car parks are 2m, the bog standard T4 just about squeaks under.

Posted

Took the back frame parts to a local place for welding, expecting them to suck their teeth and make me wait 9 weeks.

"Are you waiting around while we do it?"

Hell yes!

£50 cash. Thankyou please!

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I got the bed sides off now which was a bit of a mare, actually. The first seized fasteners I've had on this van!! the hinge pins have a circlip on one end and should just push out, but I had to heat 4 of them up and air hammer them out!

The door turned up from China, It's pretty good! better than I expected. During shipping it copped for some damage on a corner - I could straighten it out but I asked the seller if they could just send me another outer frame bit. I got no response, and if they don't respond in another 90 minutes I get my money back for the whole thing. I feel bad, really.

 

Posted
  On 04/01/2025 at 20:45, cobblers said:

Took the back frame parts to a local place for welding, expecting them to suck their teeth and make me wait 9 weeks.

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This is not their first rodeo...nicely done!

  • Agree 2
Posted
  On 04/01/2025 at 22:58, mat_the_cat said:

This is not their first rodeo...nicely done!

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I'd love to be able to weld ally. I've tried in the past but never achieved anything like that.

Posted

Good job there, local welders seem like good folk to know. 

  • 1 month later...
Posted

Been a while since an update.

The fancy welding? Well - I fucked up. My mitre saw cut all the 45 angles very very slightly off. But since I cut all the mitres in the saw the same way round (because the extrusion was so deep it fouled the saw motor, all the 0.5-1 degree inaccuracies stacked up, and they stacked up opposite, leaveing one side of the back end 15mm high, and the other 15mm low.

You can just make out the issue here, but it was way worse in person - the upper rear panel would need to be 30mm taller on the right hand side!!

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I was a bit gutted really. I procrastinated for a while, then bit the bullet and cut through all the welds and properly clamped all the frame together on pieces of OSB and took them back to get re-welded (with my tail between my legs!!)

Again, they did it while I waited and didn't even give me that much grief about it. Frame is now 100% cock on, perfect to within a couple of millimeters, so I could finally make a start panelling it up.

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And finally, a proper productive day! Got all the panels dry fitted, windows and door dry fitted too. Very pleased. Just need to sort out the floor, then it's all coming apart again to paint the frame and panels - They're a 26mm XPS foam core between 1.3mm aluminium sheets. Very well insulated and quite strong too. The sides and roof are matt grey, and the roof and rear are gloss white. They're offcuts from another job.
Part of me wants to paint them all VW Medium blue to match the van (best t25 colour by far) but I might just paint the back grey to match the sides. The frame will be black in any case.

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Still undecided on what I'll do with the interior walls - I was going to cover them in a thin, light coloured plywood/veneer, but I'm considering just painting them or even a good quality vinyl wrap. I want to keep it light and avoid the feeling that I'm stuck in a freezer van!

Unsure on the exact weight, I calculated it to be about 150kg in what you see here, I'd probably believe that - I'm able to stand it up on end and turn it over unaided, and (sans floor!) I can crouch inside and move the thing about pretty easily. Planned floor (18mm water resistant OSB) is 25kg, plus trimmings / wiring/ solar panel. It'll be double the roof tent, but not suspended 10" above my head.
 

Posted

This is all kinds of awesome, inspiring work as ever. 

Posted

This is awesome, I love the idea. I also love the fact that you have the skills just to knock it up and it look like something you’d buy off a top end converter rather than a wild lash up. 

Posted
  On 24/02/2025 at 07:30, rusty_vw_man said:

This is awesome, I love the idea. I also love the fact that you have the skills just to knock it up and it look like something you’d buy off a top end converter rather than a wild lash up. 

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Agreed - can't believe how slick that looks to my hillbilly eyes

Posted

Thanks for the positive comments! to be honest, I don't think the real skill is in the fabrication - I've just cut some extrusions and panels out, it's quite forgiving  but I did spend a hell of a long time researching the type of construction that would most flatter my abilities  😅

I've seen people make similar things with just plain 90degree aly angles for the corners, or even a timber frame underneath - It would have been a lot quicker, easier (and cheaper!) to do it that way, but in my eyes it would always have looked a bit home made, I'm glad I stuck to my guns and sourced the hex shaped extrusion to get it to look like I wanted - I think the "design language" will match the van itself pretty well.

 

 

 

Posted

I think when you're out and about in this you're going to have to get leaflets or business cards printed out with an FAQ for all the people that ask you about it:

  • Yes, I made it myself
  • Aluminium struts and ally/insulation sandwich panels
  • No, I will not make one for you, your friend or your dog

etc, etc

Posted

I'm quietly glad that even a chap of your abilities still measures once and cuts twice now and again.

Reminds me of when I was fitting overdrive into my Amazon, I got the propshaft shortened and balanced. Then got it shortened and balanced again when I realised it was still 20mm too long.

Inspired stuff!

Out of interest, what size is the flatbed on that?

  • Like 2
Posted
  On 26/02/2025 at 20:36, warninglight said:

Out of interest, what size is the flatbed on that?

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It's 1680mm wide, 1850mm long, a lot bigger than the bed on any modern double cab!

  • 1 month later...
Posted

Right, so I'd got the majority of the "big" work done, but all the detail stuff still needed to be done -  it was all held together with temporary m5 fixings so they all needed to come out and the holes drilled "in place" for M8 etc, then properly decide how to mount it on the truck and how to make it not leak, then paint the frame blah blah blah.

Got a mate with a press brake to bend me two bits of aly to cover the bottom back corners:

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Even with it all built up like this I can still quite easily tip it onto it's side and move it about on my own.

Once awkward thing to deal with was the corner castings I used were designed to expect a thin translucent fibreglass roof to be bonded on the top of them rather than to sit over an insulated panel like I have, and also I don't think that they really were designed to be entirely sealed.

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I sanded the platform thing off to make them "smooth"
 

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then knocked up some aly covers to bond on that will finish it all off neatly:

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I've got to say working with soft 2mm aly is very forgiving - these started off as some scrap offcuts of plate from the lower corner bits and within 20 minutes I was mostly there on the first corner.

Blast, etch prime and paint (the same as I've got to do to the whole frame) they look spot on:

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A couple more brackets made up for the back end - These are overkill really.  Slightly aware that there's 9 million bolts holding this lot together, but I think once the frame is painted black and I use the final hardware they won't stand out at all.

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It stood like this for a week or so, then I took the top half of the frame off and painted it, then built it back up

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Red fibre washers are just temporary, the paint was still a bit soft.

Flipped it upside down and took the bottom half off to fit the mounting/lifting bars:

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then back apart again to paint:

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You can see the mounting system here:

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The bars sit above the dropside hinges and I'll make up some brackets to hold it down to the hinge points, ideally with a little bit of compliance somewhere. I'm gonna get some stiff rubber/ polyurethane buffers to under the frame for it to sit on.

Back on it's feet with the plastic peeled off:

 

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Ran out of time this weekend, Next step is final fitting of the floor (it slots in from underneath) and then all the panels need a bead of PU sealant and all the windows and doors can go back in and I can make a start on the interior, which will be pretty basic - just small bed that lifts up to get at some storage underneath and a little unit along the back end with a basin in. 

 

Posted

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I really like the finish of the black paint you've used on the aluminium extrusion.  Is it Raptor or something like that?

Posted
  On 22/04/2025 at 08:55, Erebus said:

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I really like the finish of the black paint you've used on the aluminium extrusion.  Is it Raptor or something like that?

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Correct! it's black Raptor, two coats sprayed at ~60cm distance from a Shultz gun set at 55psi. Thinned 3%. The texture can be made more coarse by spraying it at lower pressure from closer, this is about as fine as you can get it from a Shultz gun which sucks straight from the bottle. You can spray it from a normal gun, thinned down a bit more and get a finish like a car bumper. It also comes in aerosols but I've never used one - With it being 2K you have to use the whole can in one go, so we just buy bottles of it.

We use it on all the test jigs and stuff at work, it's really hard wearing and resistant to solvents/oils and it's very forgiving, you can blow a few bits in to make a repair and it'll be invisible.

 

Posted
  On 22/04/2025 at 08:08, cobblers said:

 Slightly aware that there's 9 million bolts holding this lot together

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Just like a traditional Dormobile roof

Posted

I think it looks fantastic, no-one is going to know that's not a factory-built camping pod.

Posted

Brilliant looking work.

If you do end up painting the whole thing I'd probably go for white/a similarly light colour just to reflect the heat from sunlight. Last thing you want is it to turn into an oven on a sunny day.  Also conversely it would help reduce the rate at which it radiates heat too in the evenings.

I was staggered how much difference colour made in the summer the first time I owned a black car.

Posted

tis noice that !!

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