One of the first jobs we did after we bought the van was to remove the bulkhead. We toyed with the idea of joining the cab area to the back of the van by installing swivel seats, but that’s an expensive conversion, and we liked the idea of having what amounts to a separate room in the cab. Our current plan is to have a ‘soft divide’ – likely some kind of insulating curtain, that we can draw across behind the seats, and otherwise leave the cab pretty much standard.

However, there’s a lot of vertical space above the seats that we wanted to make use of, so we fitted a shelf, faced with a wall at the back that forms a partial bulkhead above our heads.

The shelf is made from 9mm hardwood ply, and it’s supported at the front and sides on oak battens, which are bolted onto existing attachment points on the cab body.

We used oak because these supporting battens have to take a significant weight, and softwood wouldn’t be up to the task. Also, we knew the frame would be visible, so we wanted something that looked good. Fortunately, the particular plywood we’re using here, while not the high-grade birch ply, does have one nice face, which matches the oak quite well.

The shelf is supported by the back by the partial bulkhead, made of 12mm birch ply, which itself hangs from bolts rivnutted to the frame of the van.

We intend to use this area to stuff in bedding when our bed is not in use, so the large cavernous space is idea. We don’t need to worry about things rolling about, and all we had to do to provide access was cut a couple of large stuff holes, with rounded edges (using a roundover bit on the router).

On the passenger side, we also mounted our MT-50 solar controller monitor, which gives us some live info on the state of the battery, power draw, and the performance of the panels.