Well, she’s arrived! Initial thoughts were excitement, swiftly followed by that “what have I done” moment! I could have spent more time trawling the various sources for a van with shall we say ‘a little less work to do’ before I could get started into the conversion proper.
Where to start?
Well the first thing I needed to do was to make sure the van was sound as I bought it online and had it delivered without seeing it in person let alone a test drive. I took it for a spin and all seemed good until… Yes the first problem raised its head.
A particle filter light came on the dash. Needless to say my heart sank and immediately I Googled (other search engines are available (I think)) the issue and found an option to drive at a consistent speed for 15-30 minutes and that could unblock or regenerate the filter. Surely I wouldn’t be that lucky would I? I would have bet my dangly bits to a barn dance that wouldn’t work but low and behold it did and seems to be ok to this point.
Apart from the afore mentioned snag all seemed pretty solid and she drove very well. After a few days of driving I decided that I had the green light to start spending money and get the conversion underway. Between the time of writing my last intro post and now I had formed a clearer vision for what was needed for Big Bean! Yes that’s what she’s called, a discussion for another day.
Step 1 – the rip out
It was time to rip out all the RAC racking from the back. Should only take an hour or so I thought. Wow! How wrong was I. I have never seen so many interlinked ways of fixing something in my life. Can’t take this out without removing that, can’t take that out without removing this. It was a minefield and a phenomenal amount of torx screws, nuts and bolts. I was undoing fastening for hours and still the racks were rock solid in place. Eventually though the back was free from racks, supports, drawers and flooring.
He slimed me
The cleanup operation was equally as epic and took three sessions do degrease the floor and remove the wall panels back to a very very bright rear shell. The only thing left to tackle was (and still is) the electrics. I really didn’t think all this through and was starting to mildy regret my decision. My original thought process was that it was one owner, relatively low milage at 100k and well serviced being an RAC van all its life. My new negative though process was, it’s had someone using it all day every day, chucking tools around thrashing it around (because its not their own vehicle) and so on.
It’s electrifying
So, onto the electrics, which I know close to nothing about. After chatting to the vast communities on Facebook it seemed like removing the RAC electrics from the van would be a doddle and something I should tackle myself. Armed with the knowledge that any cables loose or in split plastic flexible trunking was RAC stuff and could be safely removed. Well I straight away hit a stumbling block removing the rear emergency roof light, which seemed to piggy back into the rear light cluster (I assume for the hazard lights). After some head scratching I managed to free the beacon from the setup, tested the van lights and to my amazement everything still worked.
My confidence is still low with this side of the conversion so I will be taking the van to my new friend Robert from Velspar in Poole to remove all traces of RAC wiring, move the leisure battery to a more convenient location (so I can eventually have a swivel seat for the passenger side) and run the necessary wiring to cater for my needs ongoing before the full interior fit out starts.
I’d love to hear your experienced and mixed emotions when receiving your van for the first time, ex RAC or not. Leave a comment below and keep your eyes peeled for Van wars in the next article.