New comfy steering wheel (which adds a bit more orange)

Got my Christmas present a bit early from Dave.  This was actually on his van but he has upgraded to a multi function steering wheel so another small upgrade for me.  Such a generous fellow.  

Not actually as trivial as you might think.  I had to source the right airbag for it as Dave was understandably hanging onto his.  Then change the wiring on the airbag so that it still fitted with the connector in my van.  This involved very carefully cutting and re-directing the wire connected to the ignitor on the airbag.  THE IGNITOR!!  What!!  I had visions of this thing going off in my face in the kitchen whilst i'm carefully cutting through the wire.  For about 5 minutes I had every bomb disposal movie scene flashing through my head.  Just double check the instructions on the forum - 
Black wire.
Cut the black wire.  
That definitely says the black wire.  
OK, lets cut the black wire.
Just check the picture one... more... time...   that black wire there.

A bead of salty sweat runs into my left eye just as I'm about to position the cutters.  I can't see!

Click!!!!!                                      I'm OK!                                                 It worked!!!

Certainly smartens up the cab a bit more.  Also significantly more comfortable that the horrible vinyl one that was on there before.

Orange!

Been toying with this idea for a while.  Looked at so many pictures of interiors to try and envisage what it might look like and, although I seem to love orange at the moment, would I actually like it?  Add to that, would my rattle can spraying be good enough?

Well, I did it.  I sprayed the obvious dashboard panels in orange to make the view a bit more fun.  As you'll see from the picture above, I've also replaced the original factory plastic grey door handles with nice chrome ones - another eBay purchase.

Whadda ya think?

Suuuunssshhhheeeeeeiinnne

What you are about to read here is possibly the most ambitious part of the build so far.  Install a solar panel that will charge the leisure battery.  This has taken some very long conversations with Dave who has also undertaken this modification - albeit in a slightly different way.

Ya see...  when we pitched up at Camperjam, Dave got himself busy setting up and materialised from the back of his van with a solar panel which he placed on the roof of his van and fed the wires in through the window.  Whoa , whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.  Erm... excuse me?  I hadn't really thought about it much until that weekend but this is the stuff of genius and from walking around the trades section of Camperjam, solar panels were everywhere.  The ones I was most impressed with were the flexible panels like Dave's - didn't really care for the glass one's in an aluminium picture frames as they are way too bulky.
As Dave puts it - free electricity when you camping for a few days!!  I needed to get involved.

From chatting over that weekend a few thoughts and ideas were discussed :
 - A lot of people were bonding them to the rook of the van.  What happens when it breaks?
 - Bonding does give an invisible look.  You can only really see the connectors.  This, we agreed, was they way to go.
 - PWM or MPPT?  Dave had clearly done a lot of reading and was trying to explain to me the difference between the 2 types of charge regulators.

After that weekend, I really wanted to find a way of introducing this to my van but really didn't fancy bonding it to the roof.  Low profile was definitely preferred.  My van has the roof rack gutters already fitted and I was hard at work conjuring some kind of bracket that would allow me to bolt it into these channels.

This is where I got to :

1.  I'd need some kind of L shaped aluminium strip.  I figured L shaped would hopefully give some rigidity and stop it drumming onto the roof of the van at high speed.

2.  I could glue the panel to the aluminium strip and curve them to profile of the roof.

3.  The front channel would need to be bent over so as no to just be square into the wind.

4.  Each aluminium strip could them be bolted into the roof channels by using upside down bolts that would slide into the roof channel.

5.  Oh and I'd probably want some foam sticky strip on the aluminium strip to protect the roof of the van.

So, I figured, I would prototype something and see how it goes.  

Here is a picture of the back of the panel being glued onto the aluminium strips.  The fancy tool work you see is old bits of wire holding the ends together.  This was singularly because when I bent over the L of the front strip it curved the ends in the opposite direction - I hadn't anticipated that.

And here it is in position on the roof of my van.

The other modification that I had to make to my design was to trim/shape then ends of the strips so that they joined into the roof channels properly and to keep them as low profile as possible. 

I think it looks pretty cool and is happily charging my leisure battery - at least I think it is!

Green light

A very quick update - I installed a nifty little indicator LED that will tell the charge status of the leisure battery.  I've had it connected for a while but decided to locate it in the B-pillar.  Easy to see and check at a glance.

That's all.  As you were.

Slider

This has jumped up the list!!  Escape hatch for the boys.

As the weather had warmed up, I'd been getting a lot of comments from rear passengers about how hot it was in the back - probably due to the the excellent work I'd done on insulating the van.  I had wanted to put a sliding window into the drivers side but not yet.  Ah well!  There's an upcoming week in Cornwall with the boys and Dave so it made sense to have it fitted in the hope that the weather that week would be cracking the flags.

Chose the thoroughly nice chaps at Van Doc Conversions (www.vandoc.co.uk) to do the work.  As with most of the work I get other people to do, I'd always go with a recommendation.  Dave had used VanDoc for his insulation (I think) and was impressed by their work.

Prepping the outgoing window and starting to cheesewire it out.  Seems to know what he's doing...

...ah, he's got a man on the inside.

I don't have any pics of it mid-work unfortunately - not much to tell really, they took the existing window off and bonded on the new window.  Little bit of jiggery pokery to see if we could put some edging trim on around the window to neaten up the carpet.  Sadly, as it's a factory kombi there isn't enough room, it makes the window stick out too much - I had been warned but worth a try.  Bish, bash, bosh - an hour and a half later...

And back home with all the tape removed.  Does make a significant difference in the back when the weather is warm - so I'm told.  Once again opted for limo tint to keep things nice and private in the back.

Speaker Replacement Pt 2

It had always been part of the plan to install rear speakers into the van.  The boys will frequently travel in the back and we all love our music.  I also think it gives a much more complete sound.

Not a trivial job but not a complicated one either.  Another flashback to my beetle and running speaker cables the full length of the vehicle although somehow I envisaged that this one would be easier than it was back then.  I'm older and wiser these days and I'm getting to know this van now.  Not surprising with the number of times I seem to be removing panels from the interior of the van.

So, off come the rear side panels.  Having decided that they were going to go high up and not too far back from where the rear passengers currently sit, I carefully measure the position and draw around the template provided in the Pioneer Box.   Not the most exciting picture in the world but this is where they are going.

Out comes the head unit (again).  Out comes the glovebox (again) in a time that is marginally slower than my personal best - 1:37.  Remove the A-pillar trim and fish the speaker wire over the passenger door into the rear of the van.  Thats actually the hardest part of wiring done.  Then its simply a case of lowering the roof panels and positioning the cables along the channel right to the back of the van and fishing them through into the void for the rear side panels.  Cable tie the cables to other cables to keep things neat and put the panels back.

Why all the way to the back of the van?  Well that's because I don't seem to have a way of getting in to that side panel void from the top without going to very rear corner of the van.  I'm not sure if this is because my van is a factory Kombi but there's no way in.  It's not a problem, just have to bear in mind when working out how much cable you need for these jobs.

They look good though and the sound really does fill the van now.  Very please with the results.

Leisure Battery

Working our way through the very very original list - a leisure battery.

This was one of those jobs that I umm'd and ahh'd over for a good month or so wondering whether this was a job I could undertake myself or not.  Not being the most savvy electrician around and car electrics usually causing me a good few head scratches before understanding it (sort of), I really wasn't feeling that confident that I would be able to pull this off without completely fusing the entire car and doing a whole load more damage than good.

As ever, Dave was on hand (text) to provide opinion and expertise...   ... this is how I kinda figured out what went where.

Easy right?  All I have to do know is replace the bit of paper with the actual van and away we go.  To be fair, I bought the leisure battery and split charge system from TravelVolts (www.travelvolts.co.uk) and the instructions that came with it were excellent - Martin was even answering a few questions via email despite being on a 2 week shutdown - Thanks Martin. 

 - Lower dashboard panels off again - with flashbacks to doing the electric windows
 - Under the bonnet, take the windscreen wipers off,
 - Remove the plastic trim underneath the wipers that keeps everything looking neat.
 - Remove two torx screws and then lift out the metal plenum out from behind the battery.
 - Now poke the very thick red cable through the grommet in the bulkhead and feed it down behind the gear lever column.

The most popular location for the leisure battery seems to be under the drivers seat.  There's a channel in the bodywork from the base of the gear lever column to underneath the seats for wiring already so just need to reach under the cab matting and feed it through.  That bit was actually a lot easier than I had expected, even with having to remove the drivers seat  Don't be too hasty here though as there's a very small thin wire connected to the seat that you could easily rip out if you don't know it's there - disconnect it first by reaching under the seat.  The other trick here for me was removing the drivers side step to get better access under the cab mat.

It does all get a bit snug under there but it does all fit.  I installed a 6 way fuse box at the front of the battery that can be accessed from the front of the drivers seat.  Just a simple eBay job but it does have little LED's indicators for each fuse which is a handy feature.

I'll need to tidy up the cabling at some point but it's in.  

Having got this far, the most nervous bit was actually connecting all of this to the main battery.  Everything crossed again as I really could do without fusing the whole van.  Installed the final fuse into the carrier just by the main battery and then connected it all up.

At this point, I assume it's working.  The van starts OK and there isn't any blown fuses that I can see.  All seems to be as it was intended.

Actually feeling quite proud of myself. 

No time to waste, now to connect stuff to it.  To begin with, I'll start with the USB sockets for the rear passengers and the 12v socket at the tailgate.  At least then things can be charged at campsites without fear of draining the main battery and not being able to start the van. 

This is where I'd like to think I'd been a little bit smart.  I'd already run all the wiring for the sockets into the roof and coiled up some wire up there ready for doing this job when I was doing the insulation and carpeting.  So for this job, the only panels that needed removing were the B-pillar covers and a few studs from the roof to retrieve the wires.

Connected the two USB sockets to one fuse.  The sockets are positioned in the end of the bed frame on either side so should be nice and handy for the rear passengers (mainly the boys).

That seems to be working fine.

12v socket connected to it's own fuse and actually has an in-line fuse too as part of the kit I bought on eBay.  That's working too.  This will come in very handy for blowing up airbeds when we all go away and take the tent too.

Actually feeling very proud of myself at this point.  Time to tidy up and have a brew.

Speaker Replacement Pt 1

OK, quick confession.  I haven't posted here for ages but need to put up the info for the stuff I did last year.  This job was actually done last July so I'm putting the original dates on the posts.  Sorry it's taken so long.

I'm the type of guy that would put music on to drive to the supermarket.  I love having music on while I'm driving.  I'd been tolerating the VW speakers but the whole time thinking that replacing the factory speakers with something a bit more meaty might need to be escalated up the list a bit.

The majority of forum users seem to highly recommend the Pioneer speakers. Unfortunately at the time Absolute Audio in Wiltshire didn't have any of these in stock and wasn't sure when he could get some more.  After a relatively short conversation, settled on a set of Hertz speakers for the front which are a similar spec to the Pioneers and a set of Pioneer 3-way speakers for the back.  Also bought the required speaker collars for mounting onto the inner door skin (MDF jobbies supplied by Absolute Audio) and some DynaMat sound proofing on recommendation to stop the door cards rattling and to deaden the inner skin.  Final thing needed were some converters from Amazon that convert the VW speaker connectors - nice tip off from Dave.

In order to fit these I was going to use the VW cabling but would still need to run cables through the door hinges for the crossovers and run the cabling for the tweeters that would replace the factory tweeters at the back of the dashboard.

Door cards come off quite easily, now that I have a set of car trim removal tools and the fact that I've done it before and know about the pesky VW clips that require "resetting" before you can put them back on.

Next job was to drill out the factory speakers as these are riveted into the door skins - easy enough.

The MDF collars then screw into the aperture left by the factory speakers and the speakers mount onto the collars.

Click, click with the converters.  A bit of cable crimping to fit connectors onto the crossovers.  That to there, that to there and that to there.  Done.  Sound coming from all the speakers so time to put everything back together.


Quick note here...   ...be careful to allow enough cable so that when the window is wound down the cables don't pull out!!  I know this now - I thought I'd allowed enough but clearly hadn't. 

Not particularly exciting photographs for the van jobs at the moment but here's a couple of pics before the door cards went back on.

I guess it goes without saying but I'm going to say it anyway - massive improvement over the standard VW speakers.  Will hopefully sound even better with the rear speakers fitted.

CamperJam '15

Both Nicole and I spent at least half of last week really looking forward to a weekend away in the van.  We'd be meeting up with Dave (and his van) at Weston Park for this years' CamperJam.

I hadn't been to a VW enthusiast events since my Beetle owning days but that didn't matter, format was pretty much unchanged.  Scale was possibly larger.

So, a slog up the M1 (with its ridiculously long set of roadworks) and the M6.  Getting closer to the event and the rendezvous point, it was all getting very exciting seeing so many pretty vans approaching the venue.  I knew this wasn't even scratching the surface but I must admit I was very pleasantly surprised by the setup, organisation and so so many pretty buses and vans.  They were everywhere you turned.  With the sun beating down for the vast majority of the weekend, the weekend was spent lusting over every possible denomination and a plethora of possible mods acting as inspiration.  The phrase of the weekend very quickly became "oh wow, look at that!".

There was even enough room for some non bus VDubs

Managed to pick up a few things for small mods to the van - some small storage nets for the rear passengers and a few LED bulbs.  The traders market is a great place to pick up those slightly harder to find pieces.  I had it on my list to replace the rear plastic kick plate that goes across the inside of the tailgate as it covered in glue from the last owners attempts at modifications.  From browsing around, I managed to find a shiny version that'll look really cool with the chrome rear bumper kick plate.

Conclusion is that it was fantastic weekend and most definitely on the agenda for next year.

Oh, and the sleeping experience was much better than earlier in the year.  The difference made by the addition of insulation was very noticeable from a noise and warmth perspective and the bed covered in a layer of foam and then carpeted was significantly more comfortable.

CamperJam Reveal

Boom!!

Doesn't it look so much better with a big set of 19's on?

Not without a few jittery moments wondering if my research had been thorough enough - obvioulsy keen to avoid having another set of wheels that I couldn't use.

1.  The wheels started off with 255/50/19 tyres which I know would have thrown the speedo out but was prepared to maybe drive around on them for a short while as they were. 

2.  Having attempts to put the wheels on to see if there was any rub, I discovered that the rear wheels were rubbing against the wing liner. So, spacers needed. 

3.  Needed to source the Range Rover to T5 conversion bolts. There seems to be so many different designs of Range Rover wheels and a little bit of confusion about whether or not the wheel bolts are all the same so I had my fingers well and truly crossed that I had sourced the correct ones. 

4.  Which size tyre would keep the speedo as close to correct as possible?  Not just that but are they load rated?  What are my axle ratings?  The super friendly Harry at Budget Tyres in Hertford found a set of 245/45/19's. Actually fitted without spacers (in the end!)  They tried them with the spacers first but weren't happy with the about of thread going into the hub so took them off again. Thankfully the clearance was fine with the rear wing liner. 

All in all, whacking a new set of alloys on a T5 is not as simple as it might sound.  Having read an article on load rated wheels and tyres - and the horror story of cracked rims from going through a pothole - I'd say the big things to focus would be getting the right load ratings for your rims and tyres. 

The bed has gone back in. Not completely finished but certainly a lot better than it looked before. You'll probably notice strategic bits of carpeting to make it all a bit more co-ordinated.  The filing cabinet drawers need the runners who fitting and the second set need sanding down but love the battered bare metal look. Oodles of storage in the van. Love it!!!

Cosy warm part II

Update on interior stuff.

It's nearing the end of a great deal of effort on the interior.  It's been a long process and it's dragged on at times due to only doing work in the evenings.  Because of this, last weekend was a real push to get the van looking the part (a bit more) and less like a van on the inside.  It's been a very long weekend carpeting, fishing cables, taking bits off and putting things back on.

I really wanted it done before Camperjam because Nicole and I would be camping in it again and we both remember how bitterly cold it was last time.  Apart from anything else, the bed is out and I wasn't about to put it back halfway through a job just for a weekend away.

With that in mind, I lined up the tools, watched about a thousand YouTube videos and set to.

Despite watching all those videos, I didn't have the skill required to fit the carpet the way the purists would like - whole pieces for the sides including the wheel arches.  To be honest, I'm extremely pleased with how it has turned out and very proud.  It's incredible how much difference it has made to deaden the noise in the back and it SO much cosier.  Roll on Camperjam '15

Here's the various stages of transformation...

Wheel trauma

One thing that I always pay attention to on cars (mainly other people's) is the wheels.  So, one thing I am keen to do is get away from the factory steel wheels.  It seems the popular thing to do is store the steelies away for a set of winter wheels and I'll be doing the same.  Question is, what wheels to go for?  Actually, that's over simplifying somewhat...  what size, colour, intricate design or simple classics?

I've liked this style wheel for a while

So when I saw these advertised on eBay I had a sudden rush of blood to the head and bought them.

Stupid, stupid boy! - they are not van rated - despite being advertised as fitting a T5.  There's a big difference between fitting and being suitable.  If you're reading this wondering about getting alloys for your build, check the rims and the tyres are load rated - or risk cracked rims (so I've read).

Advertised them for sale straight away on eBay.  They are in decent condition so should be able to recoup my cash.

Lesson learnt.  Leave it there.

Budget right now is having to deal with a lot of different ideas so I think the best plan to get away from the steelies is the get a set of Range Rover wheels and run those for 12 months while I decide what I really want to do.  I'd love a set on for CamperJam '15 but time is running out.

Spring time in Summer - The Return

Many thanks to the folks at Mark Tempest Autos in Welwyn Garden City.  Top job fitting my lowering springs and replacing the drop links (highly likely due to my hamfistedness last weekend).

Before

After

Wheel arch shots

Front

Rear

Obviously not done a lot of driving since getting it back but the difference is very noticable.  A lot more responsive.  A lot less pitch and roll.  Less nose dip when braking.  Much much smoother ride.

Just need to sort out some funds for some alloys (actually not just - there's loads of things to do and Camperjam '15 is looming).

More interior work

After the aborted lowering attempt, time to focus on other things.  Dave set about fixing the cab light which has a habit of dropping down and also fitting a new microphone for the Bluetooth handsfree - hopefully people can hear me know.  

With the sun beating down outside, I did the final bit of insulating on the side panels.  Just the roof to go now.

Removed all the panels from the van ready for carpeting (this is Dave seeing to a stubborn fir tree clip).

Cut new holes in the tailgate boards to relocate the OEM interior lights. These will act as downlighters when the tailgate is open and the top one will be at a nice height as a reading light when we're sleeping in there. 

Lots of (often confusing/baffling) chat about first fix electrics for new interior LED lights and where to run cables for an extra 12v socket and a couple of USB sockets so the boys can charge stuff in the back on long journeys.  Solution sorted, thanks to Dave's electronic skills with the regulator for the LED's. Think I would have been able to sort it eventually but might have blown a couple up trying. 

With the weekend sun fading and the beer supplies almost exhausted, a fond farewell to Dave and I set about carpeting the roof panels.  For a while, I was going to go for something a little bolder (orange) but decided to go for a lighter grey to compliment the side panels. Really pleased with the results

Really pleased with the weekend's progress. 

Spring time in Summer

Saturday was the day chosen to lower the van.  Springs purchased, quick check of all the tools required, just needed to nip out and buy some axle stands. Dave was visiting for the weekend and had agreed to help out so...   ... we set to!

We managed to get one of the anti roll bar bolts free (the bottom one, as the top one was well and truly stuck (and I think I rounded the spline fitting on the first attempt - oops!). However, when it came to the separation of the strut from the lower arm, it all became a bit too scary with instructions of removing the drive shaft and "you'll need to replace this nut afterwards".  

ABORT!  ABORT!  ABORT!!  

Put the van back together. 

So, it's booked in at Mark Tempest Autos to have the springs fitted on Wednesday. 

Meh!!  On reflection, probably best it's done by a pro but at least we had a go.