This one has been months in the making. Not only is this one of the larger undertakings, but there were also stock and weather issues to contend with (which I'll detail later).
Cab
So a long time ago, back in Part 1, I stripped the cab of its headlining and shelf.
Well, a good 4 months later I finally started working on insulating it. For this I used sheets of 10mm closed cell foam. This also serves to act as a sound dampener on the van metal, as well as thermal insulation. I used 3 layers of this, taking it to 30mm total. Due to the flexibility of the material and curvature of the van it was hard to put these sheets down in a straight line.
Ceiling and walls
This, naturally, is where the bulk of the work was. For this I used 50mm thick PIR insulation board for the large panels and recycled bottle insulation to stuff the hard to reach bits.
I was apparently cursed when trying to cut these panels down to size. I was storing the panels in the van, so had to work outside, but every time I got set up it would start to rain and the forecast said it would rain all evening. When I packed up the rain stopped and the forecast reverted to dry. This happened on multiple days, setting me back a bit.
Ceiling
First job is to re-do the skylight frames. Not only were the first ones pretty poorly built, but also they're not thick enough to match the insulation. For this I cut strips from 18mm thick plywood.
I also had to think about wiring before the insulation went in, so I ran some conduit and wires.
To hold the ceiling up I started with stick pins. Initially this was promising, as they were very easy to use, but the sticky pads eventually failed on them causing me to have to re-stick everything.
You'll also notice in the above image some recycled bottle insulation stuffed in the roof beam cavity.
Sort of done, anyway. Shortly after this the panels started falling down. To combat this I removed all the stick pins, a tedious process, and re-stuck it up with PU adhesive. This required some aggressive cleaning with isopropyl alcohol as the PIR boards have a very effective release agent on, which prevents the adhesive from sticking to the boards. I'm glad to report that since doing this the insulation has remained in place.
Walls
The process here was much like the ceiling; remake the frames, stick the panels on with PU adhesive, stuff the beams with recycled bottle insulation. With a small exception of the rear where I needed to use the thinner 25mm insulation to make room for the transverse bed.
One problem with using the thick insulation is that the windows aren't designed for that thick a wall, which leaves the frames visible. To solve this I painted the inside of the frame.
You'll notice that in the above two images I also had to cut holes for the electric hookup and water inlet points. You also may notice some closed cell foam on the wheel arch. This is the only image I have outlining the process of insulating the wheel arches.
Not quite done, yet
After I got everything in I was reminded that everything has to be difficult. The first drive I went on the insulation would rub against the van walls as the van flexed and shook. This caused a large chorus of squeaks as you drove along. To fix this I had to use spray foam to fill in all the caps and solidify everything. I really wanted to avoid the spray foam as it's super messy and you can risk warping the van metal, but it turned out to be OK.
Still more to do
At this point I'd got as far as I could with the resources at hand. The recycled bottle insulation, to my knowledge, is only available from B&Q and it was out of stock everywhere for weeks.
I used the stuffing in the doors because I want to be able to easily remove it should I need to access the door mechanics for maintenance. I then put the old plastic panels back to hold it in place until I can ply line it.
