Surfwagon with potential to become a camper

promethius

Hey Guys

Trying to figure out a plan and could do with some help.
Would like to have a surf wagon for the cold winters surfing and all that.

Wanted to get something that is tall enough to stand up in for ease of getting changed into and out of a wetsuit.

I'd put in some improvements including insulation, lining it, some carpet for the walls, storage space and a stove.

A lot of the high roof vans seem to be over 3.5 tonnes meaning i'd need that category c licence which i don't have and don't want to have to get.

I want to get something with an internal height of 1.8m so that if i decide to convert it fully to a camper that i can.

So can anyone recommend any good vans driveable on a normal licence that meet the height requirement. I'm trying not to go over eu2500 on the budget. Want to get something with a DOE (reasonable month) on it.
Fiat and Renault cars are a touch ropey but how about the vans?

Thanks!

paddyb

i have an iveco daily as my surf wagon. Its seems to be a polular choice as its a scaled down truck as opposed to say a transit which is more like a car.
i have it a few years so im not sure what prices are like for one

promethius

Good man Paddy, i've seen a few at a few surf spots alright.
They look to have plenty of height, does it need a special driving licence though?

hynesie

I have a medium wheel base Mercedes Sprinter which we converted last year. We use it for surfing quite a bit and also mountain biking. I guess the Sprinter is more on the enlarged car side of things, but its still makes a decent surfwagon.
Some photos here: http://picasaweb.google.com/gearoidhynes/CamperVanConversion#

peasant

paddyb wrote: »

i have an iveco daily as my surf wagon. Its seems to be a polular choice as its a scaled down truck as opposed to say a transit which is more like a car.
i have it a few years so im not sure what prices are like for one

Depends on the rated tonnage.
The clue is in the name. There are 35/10, 35/12 or 35/8 which would all be 3.5 tons and driveable with a car licence.

42/12, 50/17, 42/13 etc are bigger.

The first figure relates to tonnage, the second one (roughly) to the horsepower

paddyb

yes mine is one of the 35/?

Also before you do any work, look at as many peoples campers as possible for ideas. it easier to do it at the start. the daily is fairly long but it means that i dont have to fold up the bed to sit down at the table.
I also have the boards stored in a rack under the bed so you cant see them. I got the idea from looking at somneone else's camper http://www.flickr.com/photos/lotteokelly/2230371393/in/set-72157603824001675/

promethius

Hey guys thanks for sharing those photos your campers look amazing, great work. Plenty of ideas there too. I especially like the boards stored over head that's something i'd like to do. How many hours (very roughly) do you need to put in for a result like that?

Depends on the rated tonnage.
The clue is in the name. There are 35/10, 35/12 or 35/8 which would all be 3.5 tons and driveable with a car licence.

Thanks for that, I'd checked it on the we but didn't notice it went up to 3.5 tonne for the normal licence.

What kind of stuff should one look out for when buying a van as opposed to a car? Did you guys get yours with a DOE? That's a yearly thing isn't it?

paddyb

the only thing i have ever needed was an engineers report for the insurance company when i first bought it

hynesie

promethius wrote: »

How many hours (very roughly) do you need to put in for a result like that?

I took us about 2 months working evenings and some weekends to do it, but if we had been more organised we'd have it done in about half that time. We didn't plan the conversion as well as we might have and as a result it took longer.
We wanted to be capable of legally carrying 4 people, have a passage way between the passenger and driver seat (you need this for camper insurance for some reason), have a decent sized bed, and having temporary internal storage for the surfboards (we use the van for mountain-biking, and cycling holidays too so didn't want a lot of space wasted when surfboards weren't in the van).
Fitting all of these requirements in was awkward but I'm very happy with the result. If we had the LWB Sprinter it would have been a bit easier, but on the other hand I wouldn't want a van that long. The main drawback with our layout is, as paddyb mentioned, we have to put away the bed stuff every day in order to have the table.
We keep all of our boards in socks or board-bags when they're inside so as not to make a mess of the place, but that's not such an issue with a design like paddyb's.
So I guess if you can figure out what you want from the van, plan it properly and source the appropriate parts before starting it shouldn't be too bad (provided you don't want anything too complicated).
I'd also recommend getting it registered as a camper van if possible, while its a bit of a headache at the time of conversion its def worth it in the long-run in terms of tax and insurance costs and it'd make it easier to sell on.