CONVERTING YOUR MOTORHOME - part 1

The Interior

Planning and fitting out a campervan or motorhome is a major and oft times frustrating task, particularly if you have not done it before. Finding out what works and what doesn't takes time and experience. One rarely gets it quite right first time and what seems ideal in theory often proves less so, when tried across a range of usages.

Studying commercial layouts assists, but their layout tends to be dictated by the big hire fleets that form the major commercial market. Unless your usage is that of a family or small group using the vehicle for short periods, such layouts may not suit your needs.

Hopefully, this several-part feature will help you avoid some of the major traps, but even so it's best to mock up an initial version then test it in varying climates and usages before building more thoroughly.

Unless you're rich, or you intend to carry your lifetime's possessions, buy the smallest vehicle that fulfils Your realistic needs. For most purposes, Toyota Coaster size is about right: big enough for comfort, small enough to park.

An exception is the family with children using a motorhome for long-term living. Here, one really needs a converted coach to provide the space and privacy that parenthood demands, and to carry the gear required.

Indoors or Outdoors

Your layout should be substantially governed by whether you intend to live and cook mainly inside, mainly outside the vehicle, or somewhere between the two.

If you're an outdoors type, your primary need will be access to tables, chairs, cooking stove and utensils, food, and water. The latter four items should ideally be accessible from inside and outside the vehicle (see accompanying OKA pix). It's advisable to have a strong awning that can be rolled out over the cooking area, plus provision for lighting this area. House the gas cylinder such that it does not have to be relocated every time you set up the stove.

Unless you're fanatical about being outdoors, you'll find it's simpler, safer and more comfortable to sleep inside most nights. This also requires less setting-up and repacking. Try to arrange the layout so that the bed can be left made-up during the day, but make sure you can still access commonly used cupboards and drawers with the bed in place.

Mainly Inside

Here, most campervans are just too small. It's more practical to use one of the smaller motorhomes based on light truck chassis, or build your own using a Coaster or similar basis. Do your best to have walk-through (or crawl-through) access to the driving cab.

Design a layout that is light and spacious. Plan specific storage for known essentials, but allow space for bits and pieces that you are bound to overlook, and/or acquire on your travels.

Full-height wardrobes waste space and are claustrophobic in anything smaller than a medium-sized motorhome. Better to carry crease resistant clothing rolled up, or folded in a drawer. If you absolutely must have a wardrobe, use the minimum possible height and see if you can sink the base below floor level. Doing away with full-height everything enables you to have the entire layout open at window level. We have done this with our OKA , which, with its 800 mm maximum height cupboards, feels very light and spacious despite its mere 3.6 by 2.0 metre living area.

Storage

The simplest, lightest and cheapest and most space effective storage is racks and wire baskets within some form of enclosure. They are light, cheap, strong, extremely versatile and are available in a wide variety of lengths and widths. Baskets are made in one, two or three 'units' of height.

Our choice is the Elfa range (stocked by Just Storage in Sydney ). We've tried cheaper ones but they fell apart after a few months.

Once the rack layout is proven, the frames can be enclosed with light plywood sides, a heavier top, and 7 mm-IO mm doors. Good door latches and rubber stripping inside the doors are required to prevent the baskets sliding out on bends.

Shower/Toilet

Whilst an inside shower/toilet is probably worth having in a medium to large motorhome, it is less practical in anything smaller - not least because it usually takes up the only space that is available for accessible storage.

We initially felt some form of toilet was essential- and eventually compromised with a Porta-Porti stored in a sealed cupboard. Finding it still unused five months later, we scrapped it; and have not missed it since.

If you're staying in the bush, an outside shower is fine. If you're staying at organised sites, there'll be showers anyway.

Weight is the Enemy

At 'touring' speeds, fuel consumption is primarily related to weight. As a very rough guide, a diesel­ engined vehicle's consumption increases by 1.0 - 1.5 litres/l00 km for every 1000 kg over 3000 kg (at speeds below 80 km/hr). Whilst excess weight degrades fuel economy, it is a very serious problem

with tyres. Recently, and following a spate of publicised tyre failures, a survey of thousands of private US motorhomes showed that almost all exceeded tyre manufacturers' maximum loadings by 20%­30%, and many by 50% or more. Further, most users were running on tyre pressures lower than specified for the rigs' maximum recommended loading - let alone the gross overloads they were running at. The US trade tyre association that commissioned the survey stated that: 'With gross overloading, and all-but universal under inflation, US recreational vehicle tyres are subject to more abuse than any other known form of tyre usage. . . . this includes mine, quarry and exploration vehicles' .

In Australia , many commercially built campervans, and quite a few motorhomes, are already close to their legally permitted maximum weigh 'empty'. Check carefully before buying. You may well find there's only 300 kg or so still available - for people and everything else.

One simply must stay within the maximum weight-carrying capacity, often specified as GYM (Gross Vehicle Mass) to avoid vehicular and legal problems.

One needs little more for semi-permanent living than for a week or two away: supplies are readily available Australia-wide. Even in the outback one is rarely more than a day or three from a supermarket. And, with rare exceptions (e.g. the Tanami Track (Halls Creek to Alice Springs ) fuel is available at least every 400 km - 500 km.

Before planning your layout, reduce what you think you need to the absolute minimum (and then reduce that by 25%). Not only will it be easier on the vehicle, and on your wallet, but things will be much easier to find. Every so often check what you have not used - and leave it behind.

Regard a larger rig mainly as providing more living space - not an opportunity to carry more stuff.

Minimising the Infrastructure

Many commercial rigs are fabricated from chipboard, mainly because it's cheap, easily worked, and readily obtainable. But chipboard is extremely heavy (20 kg to 30 kg/square metre for the 20 mm thickness commonly used). This amounts to 200-250 kg in a campervan. Very much more in a motorhome.

Plywood is more costly, but about half the weight. It's also stronger, so thinner cross-sections can be used: 7 - 10 mm is adequate. At a typical 8 kg/square metre, plywood will save over 100 kg in a typical small conversion and a great deal more in a large vehicle. In one medium-sized 4-berth motorhome with chipboard furniture, the use of plywood would have saved over 250 kg!

Aluminium provides massive savings in weight. Our OKA 's infrastructure is built this way. Its total weight including all cupboards, wire baskets, dinette/bed assembly, mattresses etc, is less than 100 kg. (It was beautifully custom-made for us by Out-of-Town 4WD, in Barnsley , NSW).

Once you've arrived a rough layout, draw it to scale and estimate how many square metres of plywood or whatever you need - plus its weight.

Around this stage, it's necessary to find out what your current or proposed vehicle weighs right now. This can be ascertained from the maker's literature, or more accurately by taking it to a local weigh bridge (listed in the Yellow Pages). If weighing, have the operator check also front and rear axle loadings. It will probably cost less if you let the operator know you are doing this for information only - not for an RTA certificate.

The next part of this series covers water and fuel, electrical systems, ovens, fridges etc. In the meantime, here are the weights of a few essentials.

Water weighs 100 kg/l00 litres. Add 20% for the weight of the tanks. Diesel weighs less but the tanks tend to be heavier - the above weights for water will still be about right.

Deep cycle batteries weigh about 30 - 40 kg per 100 ampere/hour, solar panels about 15 kg per 100 nominal watts.

My artist/sculptor wife (Maarit) and I travel extensively in the outback, hence our mini-motorhome is based on a 4WD OKA . It's about a metre shorter than a Toyota Coaster, but just large enough to serve as our home.

We stay mainly in bush camps, and spend a lot of time outdoors. But not being overly Spartan, we like the interior to be comfortable when it's wet and/or cold - so have a Finnish-built diesel heater. We have a custom-made pop-top roof with two Fiamma 600 mm square hatches, plus a powered Fiamma vent over the oven. There are two further solar-powered vents, one set into the rear hatch. Because of its enormously rugged construction, the OKA is an inherently heavy vehicle (5.5 tonnes). With duplicated fuel and water tanks, a second spare wheel and extra batteries, it has surprisingly little extra load carrying ability. For us then, weight reduction is not just advisable, it's practically and legally essential!

All cupboards are 750 mm high, fabricated from aluminium and powder-coated white. Each cupboard has a light compressed fibre door (again powder-coated white). All cupboards have Formica-covered compressed-fibre hinged top surfaces.

Most cupboards have internal metal frames to support Elfa wire baskets. Full length shallow overhead cupboards run the length and width of the vehicle. These also house individually-switched halogen lights. The dinette/bed assembly likewise is made of powder-coated aluminium, with perforated light­weight plywood seats. There is further storage pace over the wheel-arches, plus tools and spares storage via hatches cut in the floor.

A hatch in the side of the vehicle folds down to make a cooking table, and also provides access to four baskets containing kitchen necessities. These baskets are equally accessible from inside. We carry a two-burner gas stove and grill for use outside, a beautiful little stainless steel version of the SMEV oven inside, plus a Bedourie oven. This apparent overkill works extremely well.

There's hot and cold running water, with two sets of taps: one set inside the vehicle over a small fitted sink, the other set outside above the opening hatch. Hot water is derived via an engine heat exchanger, modified so that the heated water is stored in a 30-litre heavily-insulated holding tank that retains heat for close to 48 hours. The system works extremely well, but if making your own you'll need to experiment to get it right. We do not carry a privacy curtain - in the bush there's no one to be offended anyway, and even in a National Park site it's usually dark enough to shower unobserved.

We use and recommend stainless steel for cooking utensils, bowls, plates etc - cheap, easy to clean (and does not cool the washing-up water as much as china). Stainless steel is also light, and relatively rattle-free. We've experimented with various forms of wine glasses, but none seem perceptively acceptable so we've gone back to using glass and accept the odd breakage.