Ford Transit Mk7 Crew Cab Conversion

Hello All,

I'm in a band called "Clutching At Straws" and we recently bought a van to convert to a crew cab.

I stumbled across this forum when looking for a radio code but I read that you need 25 meaningful posts. So I figure, the conversion is quite a cool and interesting procedure. So why not document it so others can benefit. I'll update this post as we go.

--- Vehicle Insurance ---
So let's start at the beginning of the story. So we got the van in February. It's reasonable nick, but incredibly dirty. We have had horrendous trouble with insurance. Namingly because we are musicians, which apparently means that we are higher risk. But considering we rarely drink... I don't know... ah well. Anyway we only found one actual insurer who would allow musicians on their policies, and they had two underwriters for it. The trouble we had was that one underwriter wouldn't accept the driver's 8 years no claims bonus (non-commercial) and the other wouldn't allow modifications. During the process of discussion & further prying, it came out that the one that wouldn't allow modification would convert the 8 years non commercial no claims in to 8 years commercial no claims if we used them for a month haha. So here we are, two months down the line with a bit of time on our hands. The insurance is being swapped over the course of the next week. The vehicle will be off the road during the conversion .

--- Parts ---
So about a week ago we got on order some side windows & a triple seat. Which arrived by the end of last week. The seats needed a good clean & we will probably use a water vacuum to clean it. Not only that but it it has a fair bit of surface rust. So we plan to use a wire brush to get a lot of it off, finish it normal sandpaper, and then respray it with black paint. The windows, however, are new. I will probably fit those tomorrow.

--- 6-7th April - Weekend ---
This weekend we removed all the ply-lining & ply-shelving from the van. This was an arduous task to say the least... The original fitter didn't drill the ply to the thickness of the screw. Anyway about a 1/3 of the screws either sheared off or the heads were already destroyed :S So it involved a lot of drilling out screws or using a set of maul-grips once the ply was removed. Any way the van is now clear of all ply and a start was made at cleaning it.

--- 8th April - Monday ---
Monday didn't involve much. I was at work & the driver did finished the cleaning and emailed the insurance. I fitted a new interior light to the cab when I got home.

--- 9th April - Tuesday ---
I have taken the rest of this week off to work on our EP, but the driver dropped off the van and we had a look at positioning the seats. He then left and I drew all of the possible obstacles like the chassis and other strengtheners on the floor. I'll take a picture tomorrow.

Fitting the holes of the seat around those took a while to decide upon. It's not as far forward as we had hoped, but we have a nice gap on the drivers side for a cabinet (& possibly store a guitar Heres to hoping )

I also took a look at the electrics in the sliding door. As it is now going to be part of the cab we have been wondering if we should make it open with the cab, and not with the rear door. But I've not decided how to do this yet...

Thanks for reading so far... I'll get some images up tomorrow

James,
Clutching At Straws