I am a joiner and decided a year ago to work on a 30 year old dodge, it has taken me 4 months to get it perfect and in that time I have made a few............sorry a lot of mistakes but the main thing is I didnt work it out properly from the start. recently I had an enquiry from a customer of mine who asked if I could do one for them as they had seen the works progressing on mine. As it was work I decided it would be good to learn from my mistakes and so I set out working on his minibus to convert into a 4 bed conversion. My origianl plan didnt work as we went into the ins and outs of where to put everything and in the end I decided it best to sit with a scale ruler and plan the whole motohome on a sheet of A4 paper. This is where to start because you will need to know where the metalwork is underneath for drainage, how will the finished article look, how to work things around the wheel arches and try to have a vision of it before you do anything. I am now onto my third as seem to be addicted.............or stupid (not sure which) but it is fun if it goes actording to plan and that is the thing............planning, take some time to plan it so later you are nott having to undo work already done.
Hi, good to have your thoughts on this issue....that's kind of what is recommended in the planning section on the site. Although I guess as you have found out there are always some little things that you seem to only really be able to learn about by doing them first and that means sometimes doing them wrong!! I guess the thing is to assess the ratio of the potential 'ease of screw-upness' to 'ease of fixingness'. Some mistakes while annoying (having to take flooring back up to wire etc) are not the end of the world. The main one I've had nightmares over is when the boyfriend was cutting a large hole in the side of our brand new T5 to put a window in. That is one you don't want to get wrong, in particular cutting too much. A mate did that with a boat dashboard, where he cut a hole just slightly too large for the instrument he was setting into it. One bodge and extra wood stuck back in later....... Anyway, great you've got set up to do conversions. Be good to see some photos if you have the time to post them up.