As you know I traveled Europe in my first conversion last year and while I was away I received a call from my previous employer pretty much asking me to come back in the new and would I be interested in the role. To cut a long story short, the new role involves traveling around the UK helping managers, training new staff and help with new openings of gyms.
This gave me an idea to build a bigger, stronger van that I could live in while I travel around the UK.
I started to look at ideas and the best van I could find for size and money was some kind of Luton van. My friends Matt and Christie have converted a Mercedes Sprinter Luton and gives them loads of space for both of them. I started looking online and around for ideas and I found a few Sprinter Luton vans that have a side door. I managed to get one that was a Cat D insurance repair for just £4500 that had slight damage to the front end but was all safe and just passed MOT.
I ended up buying this and started to look at design ideas. The good thing was I could start work in the new year and travel round in my ford transit for now with work while I start building the sprinter.
I’ve decided to just bullet point the jobs/ stages I have done on the sprinter as I went into detail building Campervanbuuren last year.
One of the main reasons I choose a Luton box van was because of its straight square sides and ceiling, plus the box is made of plastic with a steel frame. This meant there was no rust to deal with first, plus the installation of things inside didn’t have to be changed to fit curved sides like the transit.
Since it was January and the weather wasn’t great I decided to work on the inside of the van first then work on the chassis and engine once the weather improves. 2018 saw the cold weather continue all the way until the end of March with the “Beast from the East” snow storms which stood England still as we don’t cope very well with snow, 1 inch and that’s it lol.
However, I did take my van to some places with work and braved some cold nights while I worked on the van around my shifts if I was working away from my hometown in Hull. All the rest of the van build was done outside my mum’s house on the main street, with a power cable from her bedroom window into my van, bless my mum…..she’s a good one.
The following blogs will be how I started to convert the van and type of things I bought for the conversion.
CampervanLife Official 
Fantastic idea. Hope to see all progress..
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Thank you Colin. If you have any questions about vanlife and I’ll get in touch ASAP
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Yeas, I already have done this few months ago. but happy to see this again because we remind old memories with new things and few memories always make you happy when you remind these and mine was little funny for me so that’s why I’m happy now…
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Hi John. Im glad I’ve refreshed a few memories from your journey and travels. I live reading back on my own and refresh the memory bank. Happy travels for the future and thanks for following.
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