Ford Transit high top extended conversion in Portugal

Appreciate the concern and the opinion. Its something that has been on my mind too. I was even thinking like you mention, of increasing the suspension on the rear. When I'm going over speed bumps, I hear something, but i actually don't know if its the encasing or not. I had a look under the van today and i found something loose and banging. So i think thats what was making the noise. Certainly as you mention, it may become an issue if there is a camper van build load in it! I will add it to the list of things to assure is safe and verified before adding much load to it.

On the under side, I saw absolutely nothing that indicated a problem to me. I only have average joe level of knowledge on such matters. There was no rust or scraps on the exterior/underneath of the wheel casing that indicate to me the wheel has ever bumped into them. I will keep and eye on it as i said, and ill also look into improving the suspension which seems like a good idea anyways for what im planning. Thanks!

Hey Folks,

Been working hard on the sub floor. I decided enough progress has been made that it might be time for an update. Part of the reason for choosing to work on the floor first is because I'm avoiding cutting into my van for windows and solar panels. I'm having trouble finding suitable roof racks for the panels, and the window part is just too scary for now. Its fine though, plenty of work to do. Over all I am on Day 17 of work. 10 days of that has been on the sub floor to date. A day is a full weekend day, or a full week day evening.

So the subfloor is made of 60mm * 40mm support beams with 60mm insulation XPS boards. First I made some basic horizontal cuts. Partially to get over the fear of making my first cuts :D

Next I focused on just one section of the van so i could get a learning experience of the complete process. I made many mistakes but the result turned out ok even in this first part. I must admit. It took 6 hours to get a RECTANGLE working. There were so many unknowns.

1: The van floor is not level. 2: The wood is not perfectly straight. 3: I forgot to buy wood glue. 4: My screws were too short. 5: I bought a device for making screw holes at an angle, and i had no idea how to use it.

I bought a MITRE saw which has been absolutely amazing. Allowed me to cut angles and precision straights really well. I'm far more likely to do things again when they require so little effort as this saw.

It took many many days to do the other sections. I expected the van to be a bit more symmetrically even. My cuts had errors, and screwing the beams together sometimes moved things, or twisted things, which threw off the next piece. I took the approach of just doing one single piece of wood at a time, Constantly compensating as i went along. It was long, but every piece that worked motivated me more.

I bought a hot foam board cutter for the boards. Don't bother. They are so ridiculous slow compared to a Stanley knife that its not worth it at all. It also has the limitation of only being able to cut a certain width but my knife i can cut anywhere.

When i got the wood cut, i screwed it together in a way that allowed me to remove it in 3 manageable parts. I wanted to do this because i wanted to treat the wood before fully screwing it together as one single unit. I took each of the 3 pieces out. One is shown below. I painted each section with a termite/insect repellant, a fungicide and a water repellant (all one chemical). I decided to make some insulation blocks to size while it was outside too.

I put it all back into the van, still in 3 separate sections, and filled more insulation in. Its a tedious job getting the fit just right, and you can see i made some mistakes. That hole in the insulation 2 levels from front is the biggest. Ill just push some insulation bits into it to fill it i think.

Then i got to this beautiful mile stone. All in, still in 3 sections. Just needs to be glued down to the van floor and 3 sections screwed together. It will be glued down with a MARINE adhesive which provides a lot of bonding but also flexibility. I read this is super important because hard non flexible adhesive eventually vibrates apart in a van. Marine adhesive offers enough flex to survive travelling and is moisture safe.

So at this point.. I felt pretty good. It was a long 10 days of work for me. I learned alot about wood work and how crazy precise it needs to be and never is! Then .. unfortunately.. I got a bright idea.. lol...so i took the whole lot of the work back out. My bright idea was from watching more videos from a british youtuber who seems to really know his stuff. I decided to fill the space between the van metal ribs with the underflooring that you use under laminate flooring. The reasons for this is debatable. The space between the ribs has air with moisture. On cold van days, this air makes a lot of contact with the van metal floor and will create condensation. Removing this air by filling the rib space with more insulation means less potential moist air, and also a lot less air to metal contact points. The roll of underflooring is quite cheap so other than labor, it seemed like worth a try. The alternative thinking is that have some air flow is good for drying out condensation since you cant stop all of it.

So i took out all my floor and placed two layers of this stuff in each cavity. I glued it to the van floor. It took 5 hours for about 70% of the van.. then i ran out of glue again :D

It was 28C in that van during working time. A tough day, but i loved the pride i felt. While the floor was out of the van. I also read more about protecting the wood, and i found another protector that would protect the wood more from deterioration rather than fungus/bugs. I've taken the time today to paint all the sections with this second treatment.

That is where i am currently at. About 90% complete on the subfloor i think. Tomorrow ill finish the insulation in the cavities, screw it together, and glue it down i think.. i might hold off on gluing it until i complete the bathroom incase i need to more access to the van floor for plumbing reasons.

Any feedback is appreciated, criticism or agreement. Happy to learn and grateful to those who gave good feedback to me on the wheel encasings, and insulation.

Questions i have too!

1: Is the second layer of insulation a good idea or bad idea?

2: does wood really need to be treated like this? insects and then environmental?

3: Anyone know any transit L4H3 roof racks that don't cost 2k?

4: There was this cool tool that i used for making holes in the wood at an angle. I was thinking of uploading a video of using it, but i didn't know if videos were a good idea or not, as they can be quite time consuming compared to pics.

5: I have some time lapse videos too, but should i just stick to pictures on this thread?

A small update. I didn't work much on it recently because im having A LOT of trouble ordering supplies from amazon.de with my new bank account. Waiting over a week for it to be resolved.

Last week i put the floor in on top of the sub floor. It was really easy compared to the subfloor. Only took 2 days and that includes protecting all the wood with insect/wood treatments.

I made stencils out of cardboard and traced them on to 15mm plywood. The plywood is quite heavy but feels super sturdy. Im pleased with it.

I remembered so much from my wood working classes as a child that i was super proud of my teacher.

After fitting it all. It all had to come back out for treatment of the wood for insects/moisture protection etc.

Then after treating it all. I put the floor back in and spent 2 hours using duct table to map all the support beams so i know where i can screw! I've decided not to glue the floor down as i could easily see me needing to get underneath it again for some situations while building.

I then got some sound deadening material for the wheel encasings. its like really heavy sticky paper that absorbs a lot of vibration so the wheel encasings and large flat surfaces are perfect places for it. First i cut it into the right shapes and then i stuck it on. I spent about an hour rolling it on to each encasing using a special roller i bought for it. Its just a hard plastic roller. The sound difference is very noticeable.

Portugal has many regulations so very soon i need to employ an engineer to make all this super legal. Its a lengthy process with comprehensive plans etc in Portuguese. Roughly costs about 1k extra in fees but its not ok to get on the wrong side of authorities here if they are in a bad mood at English speaking van dwellers. Best to have as many boxes as possible ticked.

I bought a new camera phone this week so ill have much clearer pictures from now on. It was really difficult using my previous phone due to low disk space!

I made a big decision this week to stop using wood for many things. Its too heavy and my friend over here has had terrible problems going over the max weight limit of 3500kg. I have decided to use aluminum 3030 to build any future supports. I was a bit afraid to use it on the floor but after looking into it more, it was a really safe option all along. The connectors and accessories available for it are pretty amazing. I think ill end up with a higher quality finish that weighs less and is strong.

Here is a link to the one i like. https://www.amazon.de/-/en/gp/product/B075NB5HKQ

If anyone has any experience with it. Let me know.

Humble roads is exactly where i first came across the idea. I hesitated alot on the floor due to potential for thermal bridging. It felt odd to insulate so much but then to use a crazy great conductor.. In hindsight, i think i was overthinking it. I also think the floor is the least likely place for it to be a problem since most heat will come from the sides/top. Heat is what I'm aiming to reduce in my climate.

The 3030 is a relatively strong piece of extrusion. 2020 looked a bit too thin, and 4040 looked a bit too big. As for mixing, in theory i agree with you.. but if i use different extrusion grades, many connectors need to be purchased differently. The link i gave above has 'good' deals on extrusion in larger sizes (12 * 2 meters). Large boxes of connectors are.. affordable (though still some high expense).

I felt like wood was pretty pricey. Definitely cheaper than extrusion but as you said, i also love the flexibility with the extrusion in terms of lego play. I will use for shower room structure/supports for work tops/cabinets/Bed frame/storage. This should help remove alot of the wood weight, and ill use a thin plywood for backings/sides. Another thing i will use the extrusion for is the roof rack for the solar panels. The roof racks pre built are CRAZY CRAZY money. Absolutely silliness. 2-3k for something that i think i could build for 300.

Appreciate the comments/opinions. Be sure to drop me a line when you start your own build so i can follow!

Ah I realised I can put these corner brackets on the bracket to extrusion. I can easily attach 2 underneath that will keep it extra supported.

It would mean 4 different connectors would need to fail with 2 completely perpendicular load directions. Sounds very safe to me

Big update since the last one.

First, the Roof rack. After some consultation with the reddit community, My roof rack turned out to have some potential issues with lateral/side loading. If there was a very large storm, the brackets i used could potentially bend. It was a bit unlikely but better safe than sorry.

So I redesigned my roof rack to be more lateral safe. I purchased larger brackets made of thicker steel, that also came with the gusset fold you can see. I had no idea gussets were a thing, but they are designed exactly to stop this type of bending.

I then attached a secondary bracket to the back of this to support the load from the vertical plane. Each bar is now bound to bracket support through 4 different bolts through 2 planes. It might be a bit overkill but im happy for that when im on a motorway carrying a solar panel kite. I added some washers that allowed me to tilt the bracket a few degrees to compensate partially for the tilt of the roof curvature. I cant believe ford didnt just make the mountain points parallel to the ground.

I replicated this on the 8 mounting points and added in 2 horizontal bars at same level to help distribute the load across the sides. Its been 2 weeks up there and absolutely rock solid.

I still have to add locking washers and sealant to the mountain points, but I wont do that until I get the solar panels incase I need to move anything. It rains so little here i have not even had to consider it.

Overall I'm super pleased with the roof rack. I feel its as sturdy as i could ever wish for, and i'm quite pleased with the cost of it. About 250 euros worth of equipment (the 3 rebuilds of it). The store bought racks were close to 2k and offered so little customizability. Absolutely crazy money.

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Next up. The interior framing and installed a bed! :D

I played around learning how to install a Riv Nut which is absolutely the best device I've ever used in the build. It is a nut/insert that fits inside a hole and allows you to screw in a bolt. It has given me huge confidence in how securely I can bind things to the van structure. Far more holding than glue and screws, with the ability to dismantle things easily.

I began framing the bed area. Its a square metal frame sitting on those horizontal supports. I believe this is the best way to distribute any weight.. In hindsight, its overkill. Its so structurally sound that it was never going to be a problem. I'm happy for that problem!

I decided to use aluminum profile (3030) for all my framing as its proved to be very very easy to use, far faster to assemble and disassemble, extremely forgiving of mistakes and prototyping. The strength and weight of it far exceeds wood qualities. I have rebuilt nearly all my bed framing 3 times now. The bolts and connectors make that infinitely doable.

I'm very pleased with the results of this too. It took a lot of trial and error, but slowly made its way towards the quality I wanted. The best thing about the aluminum is that I can afford to make very large design mistakes and simply, undo everything and fix it. I made some bad cuts but its less waste than wood because even small parts are super strong and useful.

Next i began to build the bed bottom. My hole saw broke half way through so i need to redo that part of the wood before i can treat it for bugs/wood protection. Getting the corners correct was a huge amount of time because NOTHING in a van is straight, even the straight walls. The van is 1.5cm wider at the back than the middle on the same wall, so a straight piece of plywood needs to be cut at an angle just to press flush against the van wall 'straight line'

Then the scariest part was installing the mattress. There was 26cm of area at the rear door wasted if the mattress was not cut to fill that odd shaped area. Far too much to waste. No other idea seemed good enough. I cut the mattress. It was simple enough. Unzip it, remove the fire protection cover netting (temporarily), and then cut it using a sharp Stanley knife. I used the wooden boards as the template (AFTER I MADE A CARDBOARD CUT OUT!! lol)

It fit! :D

Now i have a bed :D

Next week I am going camping in it for the first time. I have a cooler and fan that needs power to be comfortable. It's a huge heatwave here in Portugal. I installed a battery also in a temporary solution so i could connect the ventilation and food cooler.

I will do temporary wiring to allow me to use it. The correct cables and Victron Orion 48V to 12V DC/DC convertor will arrive early this week. I THINK its a matter of just running wiring from Orion converter to both 12v fan & cooler. The battery should have enough factory charge to last me a weekend easily. I can't charge it until my solar panels arrive :D It took 6 months to get one of these batteries. There seems to be a massive delay.

Anyways. That's all my progress so far. Its been really tough working in 35C heat. Just constantly using sunscreen and soaking my t-shirts/head wraps in cold water. I'm very proud of the work so far.

Any suggestions or feedback welcome!

Hey Hey! Long time no update. I took a huge break from the van for many personal reasons.

Sickness, relationship stuff, travel, mood, weather. I've been back working on it and have some progress worth showing.

Solar power install:

I installed 4 solar panels on top of the van. 175W panels at 48v each. I have the wired in parallel. Open circuit voltage is about 55-61V on each panel so it meets my requirements. I first attached them each to two aluminum bars. This was pretty easy. I simply drilled holes in the side frames of each panel. Put some connectors on to my aluminum protrusion, and just screwed in from the back.

As you can see, it means two bars double up beside each other between panels. For the 2nd last, and last panel, i placed the two panels sharing the same middle bar. This is purely to save 2cm. Its important to me to save room on the roof so that i may add a 5th panel. 6 cm is a useful amount of room to me. It gives me enough to add a 5th panel should i need to.

Solar panel hell

Now.. all of this took a couple of weeks..but there was HUGE problems awaiting.

I got VERY little output into my battery. It took many many weeks of debugging before i came to the conclusion that my installation was correct. The only logical theory was that 3 out of 4 panels were broken. It seemed insane. Of course i had to have made a mistake. Its my first panel install. After many weeks of debugging. I was certain i made no mistakes. Panel 1 worked perfectly. Panels 2, 3, 4 were about 10% of the output.

After working with the sales rep, we shipped the panels back to Ireland with the agreement of no charge. It helped i had weeks of debugging data and various experiments with pictures. Couple weeks later, the manufactuer confirmed panels 2,3,4 were indeed malfunctioning. It took 15 more weeks to get replacement panels delivered because the next batch of these panels was not in stock. They are not super common. Most people get 12v and put them in series, I wanted 48V panels so i could put them in parallel to allow me to use my 100v MPPT controller from victron.

Only the other day did the new panels arrive. I tested them and they seem perfect but i have to do all my work again to put them on the roof. I am not in a rush for that. There was lots of heavy rain so it wasnt possible anyways.

Interestingly the broken panels outputted the correct voltage, but no amps.

My one working panel has been able to slowly charge my 3.5Kwh battery from pylontech (3000c). It takes a VERY long time, and i think it only brings it to about 90%. I think this has to do with the fact that the controller is 'dumb' without the devices that make it smart. It has a 48V profile setting but it has no temperature sensor or battery management system cable connected. This will allow the battery to inform the charge controller more accurately. Its not a priority for me at all at the moment. I'm not working on the electrics yet.

First proper trip

Myself and a friend went to El Choro in Spain for some Climbing. We spent a week camping in the van on a camp site (showers + kitchen). It went great. The ventilation, and bed worked perfectly. The solar panel ALMOST kept the battery with enough power for our fridge for 7 days. It only ran out on the last day. It meant we had cold drinks, milk and meat fresh. I have an eating disorder which requires me to have lots of milk so I felt super liberated by this. Ive never been able to camp like this before partly due to the eating difficulty. I felt super motivated and its really put the step back in the van progress.

Its worth mentioning that the roof rack got stuck in a tree at one point, and i pulled a large branch off the tree accidently before i noticed. The roof rack didnt budge at all. Super solid, so im very pleased with that :D

I have completely quite a bit more work and i will post very soon about. Sometimes jobs just take LOTS of time, and pictures from during it just dont provide much value i think. Currently working on the shower room, the scariest part of the whole build for me!

Any questions or feedback, please feel free!