Hi all , Had the camper about 3 years and it's been drive once and that was when it drove back from the sellers house . When we got it we knew nothing about VW campers ,the interior is a dormobile from what I now know ,and gladly with the van we are now almost at the stage of getting it back on the road. The interior was removed and stored up the loft and we never knew that the table is required on a dormobile type ,to hold up the bed . The rear box is knackered ,so here is the dilemma. Do we search for a table and the filing leg that goes with it ? Or go for a rock and roll type bed , What's the thoughts on here then? Help required from all you knowledgeable folk! Thanks in advance Wee Dov.
Depends how original you want it to be. Personally if the rear box is goosed and you dont have the table id go rock and roll. Your seat will end up a little higher than it currently is from memory. Not sure if you can utilise existing cushions etc to make the bed. Shouldnt be too difficult.
I'm kind of hoping that the seat cushions will be re usable ,not really to worried about keeping it original ,don't have the original seats for the front anyway ,I think they're from a Citroen ,been recovered by my better half . Probably end up going with a rock and roll of some type ,what are the hinges like to fit rather than buy a full bed ?
Ours was a Dormobile, but had been hacked around a lot by previous owners. We didn't like the fact that the bed is significantly higher than normal: would rather a top cabinet above the bed than the large mostly-inaccessible storage under the bed above the engine. We built our own 4/5 bed using hinges and lots of trial-and-error to get the hinge locations right. Nearly full width, but with arm rests either side and constructed from a single 8x4 sheet of expensive marine ply. Now we just need to find someone to make some cushions to fit... Ours has a table with a clever fold-down leg (squeeze to unlock the hinge bit, patent pending) and tabs at the wall end that fit into an aluminium extrusion: the table can be moved some way forward or backwards in the van, which is very handy. Not sure if it's original Dormobile, but it could well be. We also have the bed hinges and heavy metal poles, which may or may not be useful for a proper Dormobile restoration: we aren't using them any more.
the after market hinges vary in quality (so i've been told)....as with all these jobs, they're pretty straightforward until you start...@Dicky did a thread on RnR hinged bed a while back....can't remember the title but showed the process....
We got the decent ones from NLAVW, good and strong and with the longer strap that goes to sit on top of the engine bay (in one of the corrugation troughs). This strap has a bend in it to make a ledge for the top of the seat back board to sit in for support when in bed mode. The cheaper ones with the shorter straps don't look as good. If you do go for building a bed from hinges, I'm make sure you have some scrap wood to build test prototypes with, and at least one weekend to fiddle the prototype until the hinges are positioned right for seat and bed mode. There are measurements on the web to use as a starting point, but we found that things needed moving a bit for our van.
I do have some plans for constructing a bed, originally using jk rock and roll hinges. The nla ones are very similar. Will post a link to my bed thread using nla hinges but message me with an email adress if you want a copy of the plans. They are a good starting point. Do read my thread though to avoid some common mistakes.
Yeah we've got most of the hinges etc ,just the table with thr folding leg thingy , But we don't like the idea of the bed being so high and resting on the table , Probably end up with Rock and roll type hinges and make something up to suit ,joiner to trade so wood stuffs ok for me . Thanks for the help !
