1997 Ford Transit Convert - Budget Friendly Vanlife!

We came over from New Zealand and bought this van in February and drove around 12,000 miles over France/Spain/Portugal/Italy/England/Wales for nearly four months. Now, sadly we have to fly back to NZ and thus it time for the van to be someone else’s home.

The registration is R589XEV if you wish to view the full service log at:

https://www.gov.uk/check-mot-history

The highlights:

1) Just passed the MOT valid until 14th July 2026.

2) Banana engine. This design is known to be extremely reliable and easy to repair… like… peeling back a banana. The engine is controlled by a single wire (No ECU). It is a relatively noisy and slow machine, however the simplicity of it means that if you are intending to travel long distances like we did essentially any mechanic can fix it. We had a slight hiccup and but found a mechanic who was able to fix within 20 minutes of tinkering (for 20 euros!).

2) The interior is lovely. Giant bed that turns into a table, when it is in table mode we got 7 people sat around on the little sofas. There is a world map above the front seats. The wood pannelling is all in good condition and it is insulated. We were able to live in the snow in the Dolomites with no issues. There is a diesel heater installed underneath the cabinets but we never even needed to use it. The leisure battery is less than 6 months old and runs a powerful fan and nice internal rooflights. There is space for plenty of clothes, books and other possessions above the cab. Great speaker system that does CD’s and a phone connection (unusual for an older vehicle). Big sink operated by a footpump.

3) It can plug into mains power, all of the camping stove/mini fridge/mains cable/insulated curtains/baskets/boxs/jumper leads/fire extinguisher/etc will come with the van.
Also: we had the alternator taken out and fully refurbished in Portugal, and an Italian garage did up the system that charges the leisure battery from the car battery. They also cleaned up the starter motor electrics. There is a degree of external wear and tear that you would expect from a vehicle this age and a reasonable ding in the right hand side. When passing through rougher areas of Europe this actually made us feel a little bit safer.

On a less happy note there is a squealing noise for the first few minutes of driving, which a mechanic told us is from loose bearings in the water pump, this stops though. The fans in the front/airconditioning also doesn’t work.

If you come pick it up from London we are happy to pay the LEZ charge for you. We are open to negotiation as we are going back to NZ and need to sell it soon-ish.

Please contact us via whatsapp!