Wow what a day ! :)

What a lovely day, it was so hot, maybe a little too hot at times, but the weather allowed me to get on with things.

First job of the day was to fit the awning rail to the van, it was the first job because where the camper is parked, the sun was beating down and I needed some shade.

I didnt have the correct size drill for the screws I had to use, so ended up using a slightly bigger one, drilling in so far, then using a big long screw and hammer to pierce a hole big enough for the small screws I was using to start screwing into. Because of this it took a while longer, but saved me a few pounds buying a new drill bit. I fitted the rail so that the opening was almost facing skyward, after placing the awning in its bag on the side of the van, i moved it round toward the top of the roof until it cleared the sliding door, then moved it on another inch or so to be safe, marked it then taped the rail using some cellotape onto the van, then fixed it down. Slid the awning bag in and unrolled it, it worked a treat, although because the plastic lugs in the bag that hold the tension bars were almost facing the sky too, I ended up resting the bars on the side of the awning rail, which seemed to work ok, once upit was solid.

Second job of the day was to finally get the insulating done, thanks to Martin's guide, I went and bought a sheet of 50mm Kingspan and a sheet of 25mm Kingspan, both were 8ftx4ft, the 50mm was to go in the lower half of the van walls where the cavity is wider, and the 25mm was for the top half. Its very easy to cut with a hand saw, and the following pictures speak for themselves. I used Hard As Nails glue to stick them to the walls, in Martin's guide he taped up all the gaps that were left, but on doing it, I decided this wasn't nescessary in my case, so left it as you see in the pics.

I did do the back door too, bit forgot to take photos, and Im not getting all those clips out again ! :P The side loading door is to be done too, but as I still have to line the wooden panel, decided to do it all at the same time when the carpet arrives. It was good to get this out of the way, I was tempted to shortcut for now and do it another time as time is short and so is money, but my conscience wouldnt let me and if we are going to be using it in a couple weeks overnight, then anything that reduces the condensation needs to be done.

Third job was to figure out what Im doing with the TV bracket, the idea is to fix the bracket I bought with 4 bolts to the rear roof brace, with the bracket length going from the back of the van to to the front, so quickly fixed some bolts in place and put the bracket up, then fixed the tv to it, it was fine, it worked, but as the 4 bolts form a square across the brace, the bracket has a tendency to bounce, so am now thinking I am going to put the length of the bracket along the brace, drill a few more holes so it fixes front and back which should stop the bouncing. Only thing is when the tv is in its up position, it has to be turned to the side of the van then flipped up, Im not sure I will have enough room if I fit a tall cupboard, so will have to do some measurements.

This pic is where the bolts are at the back of the van. I will use them again in the new configuration so for now they are still there.

As you can see, the roof still hasnt been lined, which brings me to my next job of the now evening.

I had to take the roof lining down, and remove the LED light that I had fitted over where the "kitchen" is going to be, and move it to the front roof panel to form a square of lights, the reason I changed my mind about that light is that it was very close to the tv, so all the lights are in the front roof panel for the time being, and I will look out for a strip LED light to go above the kitchen part.

Once the hole for the 4th light was cut out from the front panel, I covered it in the yellow carpet, and unfortunately realised I didnt have enough yellow left to cover the rear roof panel in one piece, I could cover in it a couple pieces, but it would look rubbish, so am going to have to order another meter or so as I did with the blue, lesson learned this time and will order from the same seller I bought my other yellow from. So the rear panel is yet to be covered, the front one is now covered, but another lesson learned, when you are covering panels, dont do it then turn it over onto a dirty table top fold it round the back of the panel, I now have dirty drag marks across it which I am hoping will come off with some electro foam. Once covered I cut all the holes out in the material for the lights and plastic clips that fix the panel to the roof.

Once the material was fixed and almost dried, I started fixing the lights in, and running the cables, just used a bit of gaffer tape to fix the wires to the back of the panel to keep them tidy.

This was the final pic of the night, it was dark, and I had just put the roof panel in place, not an easy job for one person as im sure all you other T4 owners out there know ! Its very awkward. Anyway, connected up the LED lights, and you cant really tell from the pic, sorry about the quality, all these pics from today were taken with my phone, but with the roof yellow too, the effect is very good, will take a better quality one tomorrow when its daylight.

So thats it for tonight, the rear roof panel will have to wait now, so tomorrow will be about repostioning the TV bracket, doing the flooring, and hopefully making the seat boxes, I think tomorrow it could start looking a bit different :) Alot of todays work is hidden stuff so there werent any drastic changes to see apart from the awning and the roof panel. The flooring, I have chosen a maple laminate, is quite light so will really brighten up the inside and give it a more finished look.

Tuesday the engine replacement is starting, so hopefully by the end of the week it should be running again if everything goes to plan ! Oh yeah that reminds me, I charged the battery that had completely flattened, put it in the van to power up the lights and it was pretty much dead, I ended up powering it with my booster power pack, so need to buy a battery for it too now. Hoping the flow of money out starts to tail off soon, when I think about what I have spent already it isnt pretty reading ! I think I said at the beginning of this blog that I needed to do this for a hobby and to use, as if you did it to make money on, it wasnt worth doing !