Volkswagen Transporter T5 pimping!

portreathbeach · 02-22-2008, 02:07 AM

Here is my 12 month VW project. It started as an ordinary panel van and ended up with a folding bed, surfboard storage, pop up tv, custom carPC with my own front-end.

The van...

The back of the van...

Sound deadening installed...

Some 18mm Plywood added to make the inside frame for the bed, cupboards etc...

My friend added the black coving on the floor so that he could install the 'safety flooring', the hard wearing floor that you get in the hospitals...

The safety flooring goes in...

Added a power inverter and a socket, just incase I need one some time...

Front seat taken out to allow the cables to be run from the amps, and computer to the dash...

Here is the fold out bed that I desisned on Autocad and had a friend weld for me...

Finishing off the plywood cupboards and surfboard storage...

portreathbeach · 02-22-2008, 02:24 AM

The van after the wheels had been put on and the side windows installed...

Masked up ready for the soft 'moleskin' fabric for the sides...

Part of the bed is installed...

12 volt LED decking lights added to the ceiling, don't use much power and look pretty smart...

Custom made amp rack made from aluminium sheets and threaded bar, to hold my 2 Genesis amps, and eventually the VoomPC 2 enclosure on the top...

Custom made sub box, made to fit under the back seat/bed...

Added the Hertz Spacline speakers in the doors, and the tweaters in the dash...

This is the 18mm Plywood 'worktop' with metal strengthening for the pop-up TV...

This is the 12 volt linear actuator used to pop the TV up and down...

portreathbeach · 02-22-2008, 02:42 AM

The worktop installed and a relay added to allow me to control the actuator...

Here is the TV installed. I had to use a sheet of 6mm aluminium stuck to a sheet of 12mm plywood to support the TV, as the actuator is pushing the wholethis up very close to the hinges, therefor a lot of torque exerted on that one spot...

The back of the van, finally everything done...

Now on to the good bit, the Car PC. I built a carPC for a college project 6 or 7 years ago, a DOS based one so I obviously wanted to do one in this van. After downloading and trying various front-ends and not being 100% happy with any of them, I decided that I would write my own. So while I was building the back of the van, I was also reading a book called 'Beginning Visual Basic 2005'. A year later, and I have a fully functional carPC and self written front-end. In the next picture you can see the VoomPC 2 enclosure and my software running on a 15 inch LCD. AS well as MP3, DVD, CD player I also programmed a tide table into the front-end, so I know what state the tide is at my local beach...

Right, now to install the 7 inch Lilliput, here is where it will go...

The Lilliput is too big, so it needs to be cut down. I cut the buttons off the bottom of the Lilliput because the infra red controller can be used instead of the buttons, if you ever need to change any setting on it...

I placed tin foil in the dash, as it it a good release when fibreglass is used...

The Lilliput housing is placed in the void along with some 'fibre fill' car repair fibreglass...

After the fibreglass is cured, the housing is popped out of the dash and rough sanded...

portreathbeach · 02-22-2008, 03:00 AM

When waiting for some fibreglass to cure, I started trying to work out how to support the back PCB of the screen. I came up with the idea of using 4 bits of plastic with Velcro wrapped around them and some Velcro on the PCB's...

Next I cut the buttom PCB of the Lilliput in half, just to save space, and extended the IR reciever, so I can place it somewhere in the dash...

Right, back to the garage for a bit of filling...

After a few more sanding sessions and more filling, the plastic primar is applied...

Now a thicker coat of grey primar is sprayed on...

After the primar is added, you can see more clearly where to sand, so after a bit more sanding and some more primar, it was ready for 5 - 6 coats of colour...

Here it is with the Lilliput LCD installed...

Here is the IR reciever which has been glued into a dashboard button blank...

This picture shows the inside of the passenger seat. The VoomPC enclosure is sitting above the two Genesis amps on a hinged shelf to allow the DVD drive to be used. Also, you can see the secondary battery that I installed along with a control board I built so that everything in the van runs off the secondary battery when the engine is not running...

Completed...

I'm pretty happy with the factory finish look that I have created. And the screen can always be pulled out if I need to get in behind it, to get to the GPS, wireless reciever or USB radio. The wireless reciever is used to automatically update the MP3 files on the carPC when I park in my drive and there are new MP3's on my home computer.

Well, that's it, 12 months of hard work, ready for my next project.......

MZDASPD6 · 02-22-2008, 08:55 AM

Wow!!!

bambam · 02-22-2008, 11:16 AM

Nice setup!

Question about the "fibre fill'...did it adhere to the plastic monitor case and if so, what brand/product did you use?

Thanks

fwaggle · 02-22-2008, 11:51 AM

where does the beer go?

otherwise, i love this surf van.

portreathbeach · 02-22-2008, 12:14 PM

I used a product called 'UltraSmart 2Kfibrofil' by a company called Tetrosyl.

Below is a picture of the original housing which I drilled holes in and screwed a couple of screws in from the inside. I also used a knife to key the edges. This ensures that the fibreglass sticks, well I hope it stays stuck. I've only had it in the van for a couple of days!