Project Fudge

[S49]

Love your attention to detail mate.

[regcheeseman]

About to trim up my A pillars - when you trimmed yours up, did you use the original fixings to fix them back up, how did you disguise the holes?

[No Sliders]

About to trim up my A pillars - when you trimmed yours up, did you use the original fixings to fix them back up, how did you disguise the holes?

Yep used the original fixings, so didn't need to disguise the holes.

[regcheeseman]

Yep used the original fixings, so didn't need to disguise the holes.

But then you have the blebby plastic circles/screw heads spoiling the atmos, did you keep granny handles as well?

[No Sliders]

But then you have the blebby plastic circles/screw heads spoiling the atmos, did you keep granny handles as well?

…page 11 for the pillar trim stage.

Yep, my sock hangers went back up. Stock with a custom twist/cool but classy is the look I'm aiming for, but subjective as always. That'll probably get thrown out the window once I get to building the interior

[regcheeseman]

What happened here?



Should that seam wander like that? I take it it wouldn't sit straight?

[No Sliders]

What happened here?



Should that seam wander like that? I take it it wouldn't sit straight?

You'll notice when you come to do it (if you haven't already), that the trim above/left of the small screw hole is concave.
I dug out another pic which I didn't bother posting up previously that shows it better…



On mine (importantly), the way the seam travels is consistent on both sides and follows it round. This will be dictated by how you decide to align the pleather on the trim. In my case, I decided (further up the trim), to align the seam to the far right of the pic you shared, just left of the very corner that sits closest to the windscreen. All alignments of the stitching in this way is obviously mirrored.

Another little tip is to make sure you decide on which way you want the excess on the back of the seam (without the red stitching either side), that runs vertically down from that same screw hole, to sit. Have a play around with it first before you apply any HTA because that will also dictate exactly how your pleather will sit on the trim. If I remember rightly, I found that that particular little seam effected placement and angle of the pleather quite a bit.

As long as your stitching placement is mirrored pretty much identical on both trims and they look like a couple of pleather clad twins when you're finished, then it'll all be peachy.
Look forward to seeing how you get on!

[arfur fox-acre]

a couple of pleather clad twins.....


be right back

[No Sliders]

Cheers fifet4 and S49.
Got my 240V consumer unit, socket and auto batt charger all fitted and wired up ready. One of the sections of extra ply was behind this particular area of the panel in preparation to take up all this gubbins…



Recently took a week off, so the first job early on the Monday was to take Fudge along to be fitted up with a shiny new stainless smoking pipe which I'd been booked in for for about a month.

Before…



And after…



Fitted from the cat back. Stock sound minus any chav rasp. Went for the twin tailpipes with a slash cut as found on many a Volkswagen (keepin' it real). Lifetime warranty/fit and forget.
The guys did a good job and made sure the pipes were just a little proud of the rear bumper so as not to soot it up too much.





On the morning of setting off for Fudge's treat, after hopping excitedly into the cab, I was greeted with the front of my headliner sagging and hanging down (small sigh).
Ok, so the first job I'd planned on my week off after getting the exhaust fitted up was now apparently to fix the headliner.

Anyone that's followed this thread will know that I'd previously tarted it up, taken it out and dyed it black to match in with the majority of the cab. My guess is that this had actually weakened the adhesion of the original glue on the liner, and then with all the desert sun and heat we've been spoilt with recently, had just encouraged it to come off.
No biggy… as it happened I wasn't 100% happy with it anyway. Over time the headliner had also developed some lighter looking spots in the middle which kinda made it look a bit grotty? Probably some kind of reaction again? So, this whole saggy saga would force me to sort it to a point where I was happier with it.
My advice at this stage would be, not to bother dying your headliner…



I was tempted just to rip the whole thing off, but I knew if I did this I'd end up having to scrape all the sponge lining off too, as there was no way this would come off cleanly or evenly.
Bit of a manufacturing flaw in the way the original headliner is fitted up imo, as it's trimmed at the very edge opposed to being folded right over and glued on the other side.

I gave both the underside of the original headlining material and the sponge liner a good coat of Trim-Fix and stuck em'.
When searching for the ideal material to cover my overhead twin speaker pod, I'd ordered up about 3 or 4 different types of cheap 1m square black fabric, so luckily I already had something to hand that would be suitable.
I chose a piece that would make me really really happy forever - sprayed it, stuck it, trimmed it, FOLDED IT OVER THE EDGES and stuck it some more ON THE OTHER SIDE…



The damp mark around where the sun visor clip goes is tar and glue remover where I'd cleaned off my moment of erratic spraying.
Much happier now, and safe in the knowledge that I won't have black cloth fly over my face like some impromptu hostage taking exercise whilst driving.

---

Wasn't any reason why I couldn't fit up my first LED in the back (in the roof). Oh, hang on… there was. The housing of these things was silver, which wasn't going to work for me.



Took all the LEDs out, rubbed down the housings, gave them a key and a coat of plastic primer…



Ordered up some red paint - not a perfect match, but a match good enough to blend the lights into the roof better and calm them down from being the glam silver little attention seeking rims they currently were…



Left them for a good few days to dry in warmth of the wooden shed and then snapped one back up ready to fit in the box section I'd made over the rear tailgate. I'd already sorted the wiring both internally and to the light, so in this particular part of the roof everything was ready to plug and play (minus the power)…



Quite pleased with how the look of the recess worked out too…

[regcheeseman]

I could see that consumer unit and domestic socket coming a mile off, but sort of hoped it wasn't.

C'mon man, you are the best installer I've seen on this forum yet, take a step back and have a word with yourself. - guess it's going to be hidden? Why is the battery charger plugged into the socket?

[No Sliders]

Time to smash the floor out.

Got all my floor battens run through the table saw - all about 11mm depth. Gave the floor itself a good clean with white spirit before measuring and marking out where I'd decided the battens would go.
All battens were cut to their appropriate length according to placement and then stuck down with Sika 221. Ended up running out just short of the tailgate, so I ended taking a trip to B&Q where I plumped for some No Nails Ultimate Super Gucci Fandango whatever? The remaining battens were stuck down and everything left to cure.
The No Nails stuff had gained my respect after the battens got a bit of a pull and a kick - it'd done a good job.

Next job was to decide on my gas locker placement and get a hole cut in the floor for the drop out vent. Thunked it out - cut the hole in the bottom of the gas locker…



and then in the van floor…



Also drilled holes for some lap belt anchor plates which would be fitted up both above and below the van body/floor. Half wondered if they'd even get used, but if they're there then they're there - now was the time to do it.
I then stuck down some extra small sections of wood as extra meat for both the corner of my gas locker nearest the vent, and the table leg floor socket. The table leg floor socket in Oscar required a hole to be cut in the floor which I didn't like, although it was quite a dated design.
The new one I'd bought for Fudge was a much better design which didn't require you to carve your van up…




Everything stuck fast in place, it was now time to sound deaden the entire floor…



Entire floor sound deadened. I also sketched out my batten skeleton, took exact measurements of where each individual batten was situated along with the cable at the tailgate end, and scribbled them all down for future reference…



On to the next layer… the thermal insulation. Love this stuff, this is what's going to make the biggest difference overall…




Thermal insulation, top half of the batten - sound deadening, bottom) ^^^

Floor fully thermally insulated…



Still had a few millimetres depth left between the battens, so I decided to go up into the loft and dig out the double foil backed bubble stuff which I'd originally bought years ago to use. As time (and Fudge's resto), wore on, the thermal foil backed foam hit the market which I'd decided to go for instead.
Either way I had the bubble stuff, so I may as well use it. Probably wouldn't make much difference on the scale of things but the room was there so it certainly wouldn't do any harm to drop it in. Sections were cut and I foil taped as I went…





The bubble foil layer brought the level up nicely ^^^

The obligatory fully taped and insulated disco floor shot…



Had a good walk around to double check for any creaks and squeaks… and found one! Thought I'd done a good job when butting up the battens to leave a slight gap of a mil or 2 to avoid any potential rubbing.
I cut open the foil tape at the offending area, sliced into the gap with a stanley knife to widen it and sprinkled in some talc…



My 80s disco floor now looked like it'd been subject to a visit from some yuppies and their mate, Charlie. The squeak was remedied and the area taped back up.

On to making a template ready to cut my floor out of 12mm ply.
There were numerous ways of going about this, but I decided I'd cover the full width of the floor and do it in 3 sections…



The sections would meet up over the battens. Each batten that the sections met at would sit would sit centrally underneath. I marked these on the template then cut down the mid section to fit…



Now I could draw around my template and cut out each section, starting with the piece nearest the cab first…



Not too disappointed with the fit of the first section. I continued until the whole floor was cut…






There was a section around the 'C' pillar which I had to address. This had my main live feed loom running around it and I'd fully expected that I'd need to accommodate it somehow when it came to laying the ply floor over it.

I'd managed to carve down carefully through 3 layers of the ply which would now allow room for the cables, and then the sheet to sit comfortably on top of the batten…



The rest of the ply sheets above this groove remained unaffected, so from the top you wouldn't know any different…



Overall, everything fitted up ok. Certain areas around the floor were a little more gappy than I'd hoped. The way the sides of the bodywork start to flare out slightly as they rise up meant the gaps were more exaggerated at the top of the 12mm ply in comparison to my otherwise flush fitting template.

The run along both wheel arches wasn't too bad, but then they rise up almost vertically straight…



These are some of the gappy areas I needed to address/close up and compensate for when it came to covering over the top of ply…

[No Sliders]

I could see that consumer unit and domestic socket coming a mile off, but sort of hoped it wasn't.

C'mon man, you are the best installer I've seen on this forum yet, take a step back and have a word with yourself. - guess it's going to be hidden? Why is the battery charger plugged into the socket?

Ha, ha! The domestic socket came as part of the kit supplied - I did sneer at it like you, which in turn means it'll undoubtedly get replaced at a later date. The charger is plugged in as per Rayne Automotive's instruction.

[arfur fox-acre]

C'mon man, you are the best installer I've seen on this forum

None taken

[No Sliders]

None taken

A clear exaggeration in his smoke blowin', although it hasn't gone unnoticed that Reg's compliments always seem to come with some sort of disclaimer, ha, ha! I much prefer and like the honesty in his constructive criticism though as it keeps me on my toes and motivates me to do a half decent job which is good.

[Activ8]

A clear exaggeration in his smoke blowin', although it hasn't gone unnoticed that.

Nope its not. That Reg 'credit' is well earned.
The results and praise are well deserved. The write-ups , the explanations with clarity of the pics contained with products and the thought processes, delivered with a touch of humour are simply great and a really enjoyable learning experience for any reader.

Love the floor install and the mental notes to squeeze out even the tiniest of cutting gaps.

The big question is when and are you going to start using it?