Upholstery

The design of the bed frame meant that the upholstery could only be 75mm thick, which is probably fairly standard for this type of installation.
Since the bed is also used for sitting on as well as sleeping then some compromise need to be worked out.
For the seat I settled on 75mm V38 grade firm foam, and for the remaining bedding area 50mm medium firm Vita Reflex 40H with 3cm 50kg/m memory foam on top. The foam was glued with Stikatak onto a 9mm ply, and covered with 6oz Dacron. The Dacron gives a softer feel , rounded edges and will wick liquid away from surface spills.

I really did not want to use pvc leather for the seats, since we would be sleeping on it also.
I like the idea of Novsuede, which is a faux suede that is water resistant, beatable and hard wearing. The only downside is it is very expensive, maybe £50 a metre. However if you are not hung up on the exact colour you want there are plenty of people sellin remenants. I got mine from endoflinefabrics.co.uk for £15 per metre.

Upholstered seat

From the rear, showing bedding storage area

Bed folded out

To finish the bed off, we use a mattress protector and custom fitted sheet.

Bed Frame

I probably left it too long to sort out the bed. Really the bed should be the first thing to decide on, because everything else has to fit around it.
The problem I had was that the standard width for a 3/4 size rock and roll frame seems to be 120cm. For me this was too wide, if I ever wanted to fit a compressor fridge. But I eventually found a bed on eBay that was 104cm - perfect.  I chose the model, where there was some space at the back when the bed was folded, which would allow us to store the bedding.

The only problem was that I had decided that I wanted to put the kitchen and units behind the passenger seat -m which is not the norm. So this meant that the clearance over the wheelarch needed to be on the other side. A quick message to the seller at http://www.rjscampervans.com and since they would make the frame to order it was no problem to modify.
Less than a week later, for £200, I had my frame all the way from cornwall.
This is a very simple design, which needed a couple of small modifcations.
Firstly pulling the bed out and pushing it back in, was difficult - partly due to the weight, but mainly because the front runners have to slide along the floor. To ease this I fitted castor wheels to the back of the runners, so when the front it tipped up slightly the wheels hit the ground. Without this mod, the bed would be barely usable.

When closed the front of the bed is retained with some welded stops. These tended make the open/close operation more difficult, and so I removed the stops. In practice the front runners by themselves are enough to keep the bed in place when driving.

The bed was secured with 4 bolts through the floor on one side and 4 screws into the floor on the other.

Units

In the world of camper conversions, it seems that most of the innovation comes out of Germany. So the rubber trims designed by Reimo, are suitable for the 15mm laminated "lightweight" poplar plywood manufactured by Vohringer. Since mdf & chipboard are not really suitable you are pretty much stuck with using the poplar ply. There seem to be a few outfits manufacturing this material, all with one thing in common - high prices and no real retail distribution. Choices are limited to maybe 3 or 4 conversion specialists retailers (who mainly supply the professional conversion outfits). Or the professional converters, if they can be bothered selling you one or 2 sheets.  The problem is that most will not post, and if they do, it's £70 on top of the £125 for a 8ftx4ft sheet. So you have to pick up yourself, which can mean a lengthy round trip.

I picked up a router in Aldi for £25 along with some worktop bits, which did the job.
This was my first time using a router, so I spent a lot of time watching videos to get a feel for the techniques that people use. I must admit I was amazed at how complex it is to do some jobs. Sometimes I found myself in a position where I was making a jig to make a template to do the final cut, and all the time you are adding/subtracting bit widths so that the final dimensions are correct.
I bought twice as much mdf for templates and trail run, and used it all.

Once the doors are cut out the router is used to cut a 2mm slot before hammering in the plastic trim.
No matter what you do this cutter/arbor/bearing will cost £40.

The main front for the units, with cutouts for the doors, rear shelf, speaker grille and mains socket.
The rail on the front is used to support the sliding table.
 



For the kitchen area I wanted to have access to the sink and cupboards from the outside via the sliding door. Ultimately I didn't  use this feature, though it was occasionally useful to get access to the tins at the back of the cupboard. 

This section is pre assembled and rests in the sliding door well. Two small screws secure the unit to the floor

The side of the unit is slotted into the floor KD blocks, and the shelves are added, which provide the main strength of the unit.

Next the divider for the wardrobe and rear storage area is put in place. To block out the side window I cut out some 6mm ply, covered with thermawrap & polythene on the window side and stretchy carpet on the inside.

The rear partition is secured to the van body

Front fitted, with the locker doors.

For the top of the units I wanted to have a small storage area for quick access. I spent a lot of time looking at "fiddle rails" - used in bars and boats. Unfortunately all I found was really expensive and hard to get. For example I got a quote from A & H  Brass for 2.5m rail with 10 supports,  a mere £246. Finally I bought 5 kitchen t-bar handles off eBay

The threaded supports have a small allen screw to hold the bar, so it can be removed. It then took a little trial and error at B&Q to find some 8mm brushed aluminum bars that would fit. The end result looks really good only cost about £20.

Finally the rear shelf was fitted.

   

The plywood base slots into unit front face

Support on the other side with a plywood strip that have been attached to the body.
This allows for a little bit of "give", rather than a rigid fixing point.

Floor

The 12mm WBP plywood floor is screwed directly into the floorpan using self tappers.
Again the underside is covered with Thermawrap to provide a little insulation.

At the front a hatch is left for stowing the detachable table.

Finished floor with access to the storage underneath. It's a bit springy at  this end but once the bed is bolted in this with add some strength. The lever at the right is for releasing the tailgate.

Insulation and sound proofing

Lots of stuff written about this on the web. Personally I'm not convinced, but decided to do it anyway!
The back of the van was completely stripped out. The exposed panels were covered with strips of flashband,

 then with theramawrap

 any gaps, pillars & door panels were filled with recycled plastic bottle insulation

 and finally stretchy carpet.

The idea is that the flashband deadens the tendency for the sheet metal panels to resonate. The original hardboard door panels were covered in the stretchy carpet. The rear windows were tinted using Suntek film. Not the easiest job in the world - but it does give privacy and will help to keep the van cooler on sunny days.
The plywood on the lowered floor was rotten so has be removed and a little filler/rust proofing/paint added to the rear tailgate. The lowered floor was then covered with rubber matting.

Bikerack and reversing aids

Unfortunately the tailgate means that I can't add a towbar , which is my preferred bike rack solution.
So I had a look around for something that would fit onto one barn door, so that we could still get access to the rear without removing the bikes.
Fiamma seem to have cornered the market, which means expensive. My main problem however was getting something to fit. Most racks are deigned for motorhomes or larger VW transporters, however I did find one picture on the net where a carrybike CB200D had been fitted to an Expert van, so snapped one up on eBay for £50.
As usual its not quite fitted as intended, but it does go on with a little modding.
My main worry is that the the brackets are bolted to the door skin which can flex - and maybe pop the window. So I used long bolts and filled the internal cavity with expanding foam. Its rock solid, but it remains to be seen if its up to the job.
A lighting board is an absolute necessity - especially in France, where it can be a bit of money earner for the local gendarmes. So there is a 7 way socket mounted underneath the rear.

Since I wasn't sure of the final design, I was concerned that visibilty out the back would be restricted.
So the rear bumper has 4 reversing sensors, and a camera mounted in the centre.
Internally there is a small LCD screen mounted next to the mirror, which comes on when the van is reversing. Unfortunately the bike rack interferes with some of the sensors, so I may have to disconnect one or more - or maybe mount some on the rack.

Seats.

I really liked the idea of swivel seats in the front. The van interior is small so anything that frees up a little space is worthwhile. I had originally wanted to make the front seats part of the bed area, so that I could put the litchen across the back of van - but any designs I came up with just seemed too complex.
The seats were picked up on eBay for £70 from a guy that was breaking his 806 - the important thing to note here is that you must have the base bracket that bolts to the floor, since they are specific for each seat type.
The old seats were sold on ebay for £50.