Brummli
Swiss German inspired: from “brummen”, to rumble or hum, with the affectionate Swiss “-li”. In other words, our little rumbler.
This thread will document the complete build of Brummli, following the journey from a standard Mercedes-Benz Sprinter panel van to a fully converted campervan. We’ll share the progress, decisions, challenges, mistakes, solutions and everything we learn along the way.
The purchase of Brummli turned out to be a little more eventful than expected. We bought him through a popular Swiss online marketplace, completely sight unseen, and promptly made payment.
The Swiss system adds an interesting complication when buying a vehicle privately. Once the sale is complete, the seller needs to send you the original Fahrzeugausweis (vehicle registration document). You need this before you can register the vehicle in your name or obtain temporary day plates to collect and transport it.
Our timing couldn’t have been much worse. The documents were supposed to arrive on Monday, but we were leaving for our trip to Corsica on Thursday evening. That gave us just a few days to receive the paperwork, organise the plates, collect Brummli and somehow still find time to pack for Corsica.
For the first time, Swiss Post let us down. The documents didn’t arrive in time, and Brummli had to wait. 🙁
When we returned from Corsica, the paperwork was finally sitting in our postbox. We quickly arranged everything and headed off to collect him.
And there he was, waiting for us and, thankfully, in genuinely great condition. The Brummli adventure could finally begin.
That day, we had our first proper look inside the back of Brummli and immediately realised we had our work cut out for us. There was a lot to do, but that was exactly what we wanted. This was going to be a fun project.
Fortunately, the previous owners had fitted extensive wall and floor protection throughout the cargo area, which had done a fantastic job of keeping the van itself in remarkably good condition underneath.
When we were originally looking at Brummli, we noticed the faint remains of some old company branding on the bodywork. A little digging allowed us to piece together some of his previous life. It turned out that Brummli had spent his working years as a tyre delivery van for a family-run tyre business.
That was reassuring to discover. He hadn’t lived a particularly glamorous life, but he had clearly been looked after, regularly maintained and serviced, with the protective interior helping to preserve the van underneath. Now it was time to strip all of that out and give Brummli an entirely new purpose. A purpose for Adventure 🙂
As we started peeling away the first layer of protection, our suspicions were confirmed: the bodywork underneath was absolutely mint! After years of working life, finding the panels in such great condition was a brilliant surprise and we couldn’t have been happier with what we uncovered.
We continued stripping Brummli, removing all of the protective panels, the bulkhead and finally the floor. Once everything was out, we were left with a completely bare shell and it was time for the slightly unnerving part: bringing out the Kärcher pressure washer!
We drove the front wheels onto ramps to give the van a slight backwards angle, making sure all the water would naturally flow towards the rear doors. Then, with a little hesitation about deliberately pressure-washing the inside of our newly purchased van, we got started.
There was no turning back now.
With the sides and floor cleaned and completely dry, the next step was to decide exactly where we wanted to install the two roof fans. Our plan is to have one towards the front and another at the rear, allowing us to create proper airflow through the entire living space. One fan can pull fresh air into the van while the other extracts warm or stale air, creating continuous cross-ventilation from one end of Brummli to the other.
With the fan positions decided, it was time to start installing the Alubutyl sound deadening across the large body panels.
This was something we learned from building Nomad, our T6 campervan. Taking the time to properly sound-deaden a van makes a surprisingly big difference. It reduces road and outside noise coming into the living space, but it also helps contain noise inside the van, something we particularly appreciate when stealth camping.
The Alubutyl also reduces the resonance and vibration of the large metal panels, stopping them from behaving like giant drums. While it isn’t a replacement for proper thermal insulation, it does add another useful layer to the overall insulation and comfort of the finished van.
Having learned that lesson with Nomad, we knew that this was one stage of Brummli’s build we definitely didn’t want to skip.
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