Swivel Seat

I fitted a passenger swivel seat in the first year of owning the Syncro but delayed the second until I was in a position to remove the old interior ( the old units came right up to the drivers seat meaning the swivel would’ve been obstructed ). Unfortunately even with the new minimal interior the large steering wheel ( I have the extra large one due to no power steering ) still prevents the captain chair from rotating three hundred and sixty degrees ( it would perhaps be possible with the standard chairs but the arm rests on the captain chairs make them particularly wide ). I will consider fitting power steering this year ( although I’ve been put off as the non original units do not collapse in a accident making them more dangerous ) and when doing so will also add a quick release for the steering wheel ( this will also be a nice addition for security ).

Uprated Door Struts

My old door struts had grown saggy and were no longer able to support the rear door so I upgraded to the more powerful NitroLift struts. These work well…but could still be a little more powerful in my opinion.

Lighting Upgrades

I do huge mileage annually and much of this is during the night to avoid the worst of the traffic. The stock T3 headlights are woeful so I upgraded them with the Campervan Culture LED upgrade kit, which has definitely improved visibility. However, during the Norwegian winter months the roads are deadly and almost every local has either a light-bar or additional high powered spots in order to recognise potential hazards with enough time to stop on the ice. I’ve therefore been running additional LED aux spots for remote mountain roads and they’ve been essential countless times. However, these lights were really cheap and looking worse for wear so I swapped them out for some better quality alternatives ( NOTE: these still aren’t the best quality and in the future I’d love to covert the van to KC HiLiTES….but they are extremely pricey and not something I can justify at this time ). I also added rear mounted aux spots ( brackets also from Campervan Culture ) to assist when reversing and a high powered light bar for dirt tracks ).

Bodywork

Old vans rust. In fairness vintage VWs are pretty good compared to some of the other vehicles from the same period. However, rust has to be taken seriously as the damage/cost of repair is exponential if left untreated. My van will never be mint condition and is used daily for big miles, overlanding and everyday life. However, from day one I’ve kept on top of all rust and deterioration of any kind. Once I spot rust I make a note of it and once a year I get all the bad areas treated ( and treated properly with the best quality panels I can find…never filler! ). As a result my van has sometimes looked a bit like a patchwork quilt but as long as it’s structurally sound that’s all I care about. This year I decided to take body work a little more seriously and had every spot of rust cut out around the lower panels, repaired and repainted with colour matched Raptor paint ( for those of you unfamiliar with raptor it’s a specialist super tough paint used inside things like truck beds and is much more resilient than standard paint ). The colour match was extremely good and was used on both the lower panels and new roof.

Apocatron 6.0

Well, here it is. Stage one of the MEGA build. Those of you that have been following my journey will know this is by no means the first part of the build. Over the past five years I’ve been carefully designing & building my dream home-on-wheels. I have documented every step of this transformation and they can be viewed in the VANLIFE section.

However, as my life takes me further afield my windows of opportunity to work on my dream home have become increasingly rare and I’ve decided to narrow down my build schedule to less frequent but more serious sessions. Thus, over the next few years I will be allotting approximately one month annually to the van’s transformation, which began in November of 2019.

The build series will also be documented on Youtube and the first instalment is below:

Roof

I’ve always loved the factory original VW ‘ Bread Loaf ’ style high tops ( frequently seen on Finnish military syncros ). I had no real issues with my existing Reimo high top but liked the idea of a roof that was even the whole way across in order to mount solar and to increase interior space/storage. However, because this is a factory original roof it fits the van like a glove but in doing so it sits more snugly in the gutters meaning I actually lost a little head room. This wasn’t really an issue as I was able to remove an inch from the old flooring. That said, if you’re main priority is interior living space then I’d recommend the classic Westfalia high top. The combination of a high top that is both lighter, sits lower on the van and is now accompanied with a lightweight custom roof rack has noticeably improved the van’s handling/performance…particularly in cross winds! Moreover, my old roof was old, badly bonded to the van and had zero insulation. The new roof is made to fit the T3 and therefore sits perfectly in the gutters, was bonded to the van using copious amounts of heavy duty sealant and has been fully insulated. Consequently, the van remains much warmer in the cold and cooler in the hot. Further still, the addition of two side windows and a powerful fan have simply transformed ventilation in the Syncro and will be a game changer in hot climates.

Electrics

The existing electric system in the van was at least twenty years old and completely inadequate for my needs. Thus, me & Will set about completely removing the existing set-up and replacing it almost exclusively with Victron products. We wanted to create something that was simple but made up of the highest quality components where possible. The new system runs 220ah of batteries ( Lithium is just too expensive for me ), solar ( yet to be finished ), retains hook up via the Victron Smart Charger, features a super intelligent battery balancer and Victron inverter ( I’ll be adding at least one more battery at a future date ).

Fan

The old high top was not fitted with a fan and instead had a very small skylight, which was pretty useless. Condensation living in the van is a real issue and the more ventilation you have the better. The combination of this new Fan-tastic 1200 fan and the existing high top windows has completely transformed the air flow throughout the syncro and will undoubtedly reduce condensation. Moreover, it allows people to sleep on the top bunk during summer without the fear of cooking alive!

Tachometer

My Syncro started life as a 4x4 panel van and therefore did not come with all the optional extras found on the high spec Westy Syncros etc. Thus, over the years I’ve been gradually putting things right with upgrades big & small. I’ve been after a tachometer for the van forever but the prices for used units are just insane. However, I finally got hold of a reasonably priced unit and fitted the tachometer during the build out ( N.B. we did NOT touch the existing speedo/odometer and simply added the tach to the existing cluster ).

Solar

This ended up being a total disaster so I’ll keep it short. We ordered all the components to fit the solar but completely ran out of time. However, we did fit this 80w flexi panel to my roof box, which managed to fly off during the four hour journey home the next day. As I said, disaster. The solar set-up will be done this year and I’ll be making a bunch of additional upgrades to the electrical system inc more batteries.

Roof Rack

The van was previously equipped with a roof rack that I had put together myself and consisted of two sought after ‘ Thule High Top ’ racks and a more generic Rhino roof rack ( taken from a VW T5 ). This set-up worked great and provided dependable service over the past five years of vanlife. However, with my new build I wanted to keep weight to an absolute minimum and the temptation of one of Wheeliams handmade, beautifully designed and crucially lightweight racks was a temptation I simply couldn’t resist. Thus, Will put this beautiful rack together for me and we fitted it the day before my departure. The combination of my new roof and this lightweight rack has transformed the van’s handling and I hope it will make it less top heavy for more extreme overlanding in the future. The rack is not finalised as we’ll be adding solar, additional aux spots and some other overlanding treats this year.

Insulation

My Syncro was not insulated. Thus, this year I decided that with the interior being ripped out it was the perfect opportunity to finally address the issue. I used a combination of insulated alloy foil ( from Tool Station ) as a preliminary layer ( used everywhere…floor, walls, roof, etc ), Supaloft recycled plastic insulation for the main barrier ( although I’ve since questioned this choice due to water absorbtion so may change this winter ) and I also applied a sound deadening alloy product to the floor/walls called Silent Coat ( this stuff is very easy to work with and really has made the van much quieter on the move ). The big issue is that my van’s windows are all single glazed so if I really wanted to create the most efficient insulated vehicle I would have to look at changing them for double glazing….but not sure I’ll bother anytime soon!

Dash pod printed circuit board replacement

Anyone with a T3 will no doubt be familiar with the often temperamental blue plastic instrument circuit board that lives behind the instrument cluster. Generally speaking when there’s an issue with your instrument dials….speedo, rev counter, temp gauge, fuel gauge, etc,…it’s generally due to the fragile old circuit board no longer working properly. The new tachometer also meant a new style temp gauge that accompanied it, only issue was it didn’t work. I assumed that we’d damaged the plastic circuit board in the process and thus upgraded to a modern circuit board/harness system ( bought from Campervan Culture ) to fix the issue. In the end the fault was the gauge itself but upgrading the cluster circuit board was still a worthwhile purchase. The new system is far more robust and has hopefully future proofed the instrument cluster against any further issues.

So, whats next?

Well, during my time at Wheeliams I became increasingly aware of a tappety sound coming from my engine…more specifically cylinder one. Thus, after leaving the workshop I requested a compression test during my MOT and was told that cylinder one had lost a third of its compression. Now, I got a lot of mixed feedback on what I should do. Some owners told me to just run it, whilst others told me it was a ticking time bomb. In the end I decided that either way it was eventually going to be a much bigger problem and that I was not comfortable heading to Europe for the next eight months. I therefore decided that it was time to do a full rebuild, but that’s a story for next time.