Lining my Kombi

 

Apologies for the long post - I have a lot to get off my chest!

 

I have a Kombi which has got plywood panels dotted around a metal framework - all standard stuff.   I have insulated behind the panels myself but everything is, as yet, uncarpeted.  I'm trying to figure out the best approach here.   Because mine is a Kombi there are seatbelts fitted into the side panels of the van.   These are significant as at the moment they are needed when I have my removable seats in the back.  They also make removing the small panels where the seatbelts fit difficult - in fact I've yet to figure out how to do that.

 

Anyway, I definitely want to carpet line my van.  But I want to make sure by doing so I don't cut off any future options for things I want to do to the van.   The options for lining seem to be:

 

I can buy some carpet and do it myself.   I think lining the panels will be easy enough.  Lining the metalwork will be harder but I think I can do this.   I'm not sure how I'll handle the seatbelt sections though.   And as I say above I can't permanently remove the seatbelts as I need them when I have the back seats in.  Another issue here is when I have my Reimo roof fitted (hopefully end of Feb) that will be finished off with a carpet and if I do the carpet myself the colour and cloth won't be the same as the roof.   Does that matter?  Maybe not.  The big issue here is if I mess up (I'm not all that practical) then I have spent the money on the carpet, and then I have to pay someone to fix my mess.  This ends up being very expensive.  But I'd get a great buzz out of doing it myself.   The kit to do this myself costs about £200 in broad figures.

 

This means I pay some professional to do this and he does it right.  If he messes up, I get him to sort it.  He has to deal with the worries of the seatbelts and how to carpet around them.  He has (hopefully) lots of experience of this sort of thing and has carpeted Kombis with seatbelts before and knows what he is doing.  Of course this costs more.  About £600 it seems.

 

I could get Country Campers (the people likely to be doing my Reimo Roof) to do a full insulate, ply line and carpet job.  This costs me about £900.  However I have already insulated the van so I might get it cheaper or they might add more insulation to what I have already done.   This approach also lines the van in plywood all over which will improve the general clean lines of the inside of the van.   I don't know what they would do with the seatbelts but I guess they'll deal with that.  They'll also use the same carpet as they finish the roof with meaning I get a nice consistent finish.  I think this will look fantastic and blend in perfectly with the roof.  But it's £900 as compared to £200 to just do it myself.

 

In a year or so I am thinking of fitting the Variotech 333 seat system, or something similar.  When I do this, these seats have built in seat belts so that the side belts in the walls of the kombi will no longer be needed.  What do I do when that happens?  If I remove the seat belts then I'll have big holes in the ply/carpet.  Can they be easily patched up?  Maybe, but they might look crap which would be a real shame after spending about £900 getting them done in the first place.  So whatever I do I'd like to come up with a solution which isn't wasting my money and  which my future plans are not going to ruin.

 

I'm off to see Chris of Country Campers (my local converter) tomorrow to discuss this but I suspect he'll try and talk me into getting the ply lining option as that is most money for him!    But we shall see.

 

 

Cheers for the response.  Yeah, I hadn't taken resale into account I guess.  A professional finish would make a great deal of difference to the end look of the van and I'm sure it will look amazing if I get them to ply line and carpet it.  However after a few years of being lived in, with bikes and surfboards being thrown in, I wonder if it will still look so great!

 

I hope my local converter has some spare time tomorrow morning as I've got about three hours of ideas to talk over with him!!!

 

Will let you know my progress as usual...

 

Blakey

 

I have spoken to Mark months ago about this actually and he was very helpful. 

 

I also went to see Chris of Country Campers with the van (Mark is too far away to actually take the van) and he recons it doesn't need play lining.  That's a bonus.  He also reckons I should get whoever does the roof to line the van at the same time as the carpet that is used to finish the roof can be continued on to the rest of the van.   Makes perfect sense.  So I think that is the route I'll probably take.  

 

Just need to figure out who is going to be doing the roof and what roof I'm getting now!