VW Transporter Van T4 Removing wheel chair lift

VW Van T4 – Removing mobility wheel chair lift and replacing floor, rear bumper frame, mountings and re-installing the spare wheel holder.

We were approached by a customer who bought VW T4 van that had been converted into a wheel chair accessible vehicle.

They wanted a new floor where the wheel chair ramp had been and removing the wheel chair ramp was a lot of work in its self.

This is with the ramp in the van see picture below.

We then removed the ramp, and underneath we found that there was no rear frame to support the floor or the bumper, so we fabricated a new cross member and associated brackets to carry the bumper,

We then had to make the section that crosses the top of the new cross member, which carries the door latch and door rubber mounting and finishes off the interior frame work and carries the floor.

Then we fabricated the floor in 2 sections, to allow removal to access the underside if required, these were strengthened with top hat sections in the floor and fastened with rivnuts in the floor frame surround and 6mm dome head screws and sealed in with body sealer.

Below is a picture of the pre-fitting of the floor and then we trimmed and final fitted once we were sure it worked correctly.

To get to this stage we had to remove the rear bumper, lights and trim, and re-fitted the door rubber, and the frame work and new metal work had to curved to fit the door profile and allow the door rubber to seal.

Once completed we re-assembled and made sure the door lock worked and it was secure, the only issue was the door light (Indicator being open) was on as the previous work installing the lift they had cut the wire and we were unable to locate the end..
See the pictures below please clcik to enlarge.