2019-02-06_12_45_41.jpg

Iveco Daily Mk4 2008 Camper Van project!

Introduction

First of all, c'mon.. this is technically a Fiat. using the Fiat 2.3 JTD engine along with many other Fiat parts. it also rusts like a Fiat too, but nothing like a ford transit, i tell you!

anyway.

This is a joint project with my brother! :slayer:

my brother spent ages looking for "the right van" to convert.
fords are good but man they rust, same for mercs. trying to stay away from "rusting" vans he was going to go for a Renault Master. sadly the engines they use are not the highest in reliability. he then was looking at the (yey!) Fiat Ducato.. but for some reason he decided not to go with it..
he then looked at the Iveco Daily. now anyone who has ever looked into this will know.. for the price, the Iveco Daily is "The van". when people tell you these things are built like lorries. they are not kidding.
Dedicated ladder chassis, crazy over engineered running gear, an engine that never seems to ever get faults.. what is not to love.

then the Fiat kicks in...
rust (but not as bad as a transit), gearbox issues, electrical issues..
boy, do i feel right at home!

well we went looking at one a mk3 2004, it was pretty rusty in the back end, all the evidence of never being serviced for many years and metal filings in the oil! :eek::eek:

needless to say, we avoided that one like the plague

well we had a budget of £2500 with £3000 at a push. keeping in mind, we had to insure and tax it to drive it back, that also would cost.

anyway, i was at work on my lunch break at work browsing through of all places Facebook Market place. thought i'd stick in a search for "Iveco" and see what shows up. well i managed to find a pretty nice 2008 mk4 Daily that was a refrigeration van that has covered 130k miles. so after showing my brother it via taking a screen shot and sending it him, he told me to message the seller and arrange a time to view it. (now my brother does not have or use facebook so this was all done through me, relaying things on to him.)
we took the trip to Birmingham to have a look at it and this is what we were greeted with:



looks good, but sadly has some bodywork damage.




nasty dent, nothing i cant fix



not bad inside the cab, needs to be stripped out and cleaned.



well we gave it a damn good inspection. in and out, under and over.. all over!

taking it for a test drive revealed that the gearbox was crunchy in 3rd and a little in 4th. however it seemed to drive great!

we liked it, we wanted it, so we bought it. we managed to get it for (if i remember) £2200. leaving us enough to tax and insure it for the drive home.

upon making it home we set about the deconstruction of the refrigerated back.. and thats when i picked up my video camera.



Now we have had this van for a month or two so more work has been done but i will be slowly be releasing it until i am up to date on here!

For now, enjoy the video!
So after stripping out all of the fridge gear and insulation we were just left with the clean back of the van.

sadly the flooring had rust issues. so this happened..











yeah rust.. gonna replace that section with an insulated sheet of aluminium.

may as well do all the work around the rear axle while we have such good access to it. so cleaned up the rust on the chassis knocking the cross member forward to derust better, then prime and paint (and also waxyol).
to do that i had to remove the brake lines as they bolt through the chassis, sadly the union and steel pipe had corroded together so i was unable to undo them so just cut them off and replaced that section of pipe.



oh so shiny!









now just to cut it our and find a way to insulate it from the rest if the van.
i think some old rim tape from my moped will do great. just need to think of a way to hold it down.. wonder if theres some kind of plastic coated pop rivets..


also the brakes seem difficult to find with ours being a 6 bolt pattern wheel. ill find them eventually. also noticed that there was a very slight knock when yanking the front hub around.. ball joint.. took it all apart and found that the bottom ball joint was loose in its socket with noticeable knocking. wonder if i can press the old one out and replace just the ball joint. the ball joint is about £14 where as the whole lower wishbone is £70 up!
if i take it out i can also paint everything too
and we all know how much i like to paint things.


well till next time!
 
I did see this on your YouTube channel. Made some promising start but then not posted anything for over 6 weeks?

I did think you had over paid given the condition and mechanical issues.

The other down side with refrigerator vans is how much work they are to strip, they often stink and they hide a lot of rust.

But that’s by the by, hope you have fun with the project.

My brother owns a company that builds camper vans so if you need any advice give us a shout.

Cutting and fitting windows is usually the hardest part of DIYing itthat most people leave to professionals.
 
Ok so well over a year later.. and 2 years of us having this thing, we today have finally got it MOTed.

crazy amounts of work has gone into this. complete underside clean up, repair, repaint, reunderseal.. re.. re... re everything.

replaced the fuel lines with copper, replaced small wires, replaced thick cables, oh so much.

we still have much to do. like replace the brand new track rod ends for the correct size track rod ends (sigh).. and then we can focus on converting it to a camper van.

as far as camper van goes it has had the rear of the van insulated with 25mm celotex and had a sky light with fan put into the roof. and thats it.. the plywood floor is not even down yet sigh.. oh well.

slow progress but now it can be driven!

 
Last edited:
That's brilliant, well done, the video shows a lot more room in the cab than I imagined in a Scudo - never been in one! Don't finish too quickly, you won't know what to do with yourself...
 
some updated photos of the van. some parts missing.

pictures taken in my favourite scrap yard before getting tyres changed and balanced.







my brother taking the picture, with me at the back looking dopey. (checking how hot the back brakes were after the hand brake being stuck on)



found that the track rod ends are not the correct type for this van so we have the new ones on delivery soon. :D
 
Back
Top