My Vans

I'm always on the lookout for more Bedford Rascal vans in particular - see here.

E50TKE - 1987 Bedford Bambi Camper Van

Changing the interior

Let's remind you of what the interior looked like when I purchased the van:

It looks to have been originally brown and someone decided to try and paint it black while the dash was STILL IN the van.

I removed the dashboard and the heater box (which also didn't work) to find that the floor had started to rot under the heater box.

I had to cut out most of the area shown above and replace it with fresh metal

After repairing that area I gave the repair a coat of white paint just to finish it off and re-installed a replacement heater box from a van I broke for parts a while back (you can see it in the photo below).

Installing the dashboard was a bit more tricky than taking it out - routing all of the air vent ducting pipes was quite a pain in the ass. Very fiddly and definately something you need to take your time over.

And here's the finished result:

It looks much better even if I do say so myself. The entire interior (door cards/centre console/dashboard etc) are all now a grey colour rather than a paint covered shade of brown. I also "borrowed" the seats from one of my other vans but the driver's seat is a bit worse for wear. I also find it quite difficult to drive with the van seats installed - they're more comfortable but they don't slide back quite as far as the pickup seats so I have to slide my legs under the steering wheel and I feel like I'm sitting on top of it.

I'm on the look out for a good pair of grey Bedford Rascal pickup seats to replace these with.