Hi there,
Woodbloke,
Yes I think marine ply would be a good choice, but how do I know that I am getting proper marine ply though and not being fobbed off with standard stuff?
Paul,
thanks for your comments, you have made some good points although we had already though about most of them.
1) Yes I am going to clean up the chassis and paint it, I did take it for steam cleaning but was quite disappointed with the result. There were lots of parts that were simply missed, and that was after I complained and gave them a second chance at it. The boss of the firm later admitted that their steam machine had a tool that was too long to reach everywhere properly. I told him he shouldn't have taken on the job if he didn't have the tools to do it properly, or at least be honest with me and tell me what he was and wasn't able to do.
Looks like I'll have to do the rest of the clean up manually now, still it was always meant to be a labour of love
2) There are steel members sitting on top of the chassis and the floor will fit on top of these. See photo below. This will give us lots of storage space under the floor for water and waste tanks etc.
3) Oh yes - we have thought about layout, in fact SWMBO thinks about nothing else these days.
4) You're right of course, if the ply is too tight it will present all sorts of problems. The old floor was slightly smaller than the space available and this was filled with a mastic both at the edges and underneath where it sat on the steel members (you can see some of it is still visible on the pics). These mastics are available from specialists suppliers and I plan to use something along these lines. This should stop any movement because this stuff never dries.
5) Access shouldn't be a problem, all the running gear will be just as accessible as on any normal van. As for access to the tanks, I will need to put some kind of trap doors in the floor to cater for this.
6) Fuel economy and performance are actually secondary the the legal requirements for these vehicles. I need to make sure that the final weight of the van is within the permitted maximum and the lighter I can make all the fittings the more leeway for packing personal belongings when we go away.
7) Fridge, cooker, toilet, sink units all have to be fitted and these all have an impact on weight of course.
cambournepete,
Yes I might have a word with a trailer manufacturer - a good idea
I really must sort out a web page with more pics on so people can get a better idea of what we are doing. I'll try to do that soon and post the address on here for anyone interested
This is certainly an interesting project and the more I think about it the more keen I am to get on with it - in fact I've booked a week's holiday from work next week just to work on the van.
regards
Brian