Following that first trip at the end of July I had a few snags… not surprising as I hadn’t driven the van very far in about 6 months or so, it had a multiple engine removals and a new engine and had be submitted to a load of welding.
Firstly the lid for the cooker came off, resulting in me having to glue and clamp it the laminated chipboard back together and ended up using some wood shavings and matchsticks to fill the screwholes so the new stainless screws could bite into something.
Amd fixed...
Secondly the viscous fan i fitted actually caught the radiator. I thought it was a tight fit, but ended up actually to tight… so the radiator had a love mark. Amazing it didn’t leak but it was annoying as had to replace the whole radiator that was brand new. At least got the right one this time so no need to swap over the brackets id made. I put back the original non viscous fan although had to modify it slightly with a dremmel to go over the threads of the viscous coupling water pump.
Thirdly the gearbox was leaking a noticeable amount of oil. The speedo drive had been damaged with all the engine removals that was part of the culprit so I swapped in a new one. This had the bonus of that as the dash was appart, I was able to reattach the air ducts to the vents (one had dropped off on the drivers demister) and I also did some wiring updates to change the centre console I made so I had 2 voltage guages one for each battery.and 2 12v sockets again one for each battery.
Going back to the gearbox, the second cause of the leak was the join between the main body of the gearbox and tail. When Id previously started to swap the gearbox then aborted I had already drained the oil, as at the time i didn’t have enough of the right oil I just popped in what I had lying around and asked the garage to top it off when they were playing around with it so maybe it was slightly thinner than previously in there so found its way out. I thought id make sure it had the right oil in it, so got some fresh oil and added a gearbox/diff stop leak/stop whining formula to it as thought would do no harm and thicken it up a bit… it still leaked after all this but maybe not quite as much as a fair bit was coming out the speedo drive. I’ve added gearbox oil to my spares pack for the van although as of now its actually doesn’t leak. I think it was slightly overfilled when I did this. Now its a smidge under the fill plug it doesn’t seem to leak.
Fourthly, he started battery was loosing charge. I suspected it prior to that trip, it was confirmed on the trip so new starter battery required as had to jump start it off the leisure battery.. I also replaced some of the battery terminals etc… to try and improve things with the solar setup.
I also wasn’t 100% confident in the alternator, so also got a replacement and fitted (again these seem to be service items every few years) and the Voltage sensitive Relay had packed up again after a few years so replaced this.
After the snags I also wanted to do the front discs and pads so did those. Had some fun with an old rim and sledgehammer removing the hubs from the discs :-)
The vans always sagged on the rear ever since i got the front springs replaced, so got hold of some NOS heavy duty shocks and fitted them. They didn't make a difference to ride height but are definitely less prone to bottoming out with weight over the rear axle.
Noticed when doing this the rear wheels where sticky. Turned out it was the handbrake cable sticking on one side. I ordered a new handbrake cable but just to get it going i got it working just on the one side.
My temp fix...
I also replaced some of the bushes in the front springs as was knocking… this seems to be a regular occurrence as think i only did them a year or 2 ago., I think i may look at swapping out the front springs to some less high versions to bring the front down… so it looks a bit better and maybe put less pressure on these bushes.
During the multiple times I took the engine in and out the gearbox mounts took at battering and the rubber unbonded itself. So with some super super glue I restuck them together.
I fitted a lap belt on the other side to where the isofix is fitted so my wife could sit in the back a bit more safely if she wanted to sit next to my son. We tried this once and actually probably won’t use it as she didn’t like it and if a babys crying when driving there isn’t really a lot you can do. Maybe it will be used when he gets a bit older.
We needed more storage with the tent/awning plus baby stuff, so picked up this roof box for a bargain price off ebay. I bolted it to a tow bar rack added a cheap light board. The lightboard didn’t want to indicate right, so as the power was directly fed from the main loom, I purchased a relay that had its own power feed, to reduce the load and also tidied up the wiring. I Also upgraded the jockey wheel to a pneumatic one to help the swingaway towbar on rougher ground. I think the faded white goes pretty well with van and definitely doesn’t look to offensive… for a rear box
The top windows of our pop top don’t have curtains so we realised we needed the van as dark as possible with the baby so my mother in law made these blackout blinds, which just pop into place. Nice and easy plus practical
Then I felt like was on the home straight. I hadn’t managed to sort the cosmetic points on the van from the welding yet, so finally managed to paint the new steps and cills plus an area where I had a magnetic UK sticker on the rear door, that caused moisture to lift the paint. So glad I rollered the van. Can’t notice any of the touch ups i’ve done really, and very easy to do with some brushes in a couple of hours. To finish it off I also made some new floor mats, and re-stuck down some of the side trim to make the van look a bit tidier at the front. I had the rubber roll lying around for ages so was good to finally make them.
This was around Mid August and we then did our furthest trip yet, and drove up to the peak district to spend the weekend with my family (we all have campervans… i was the first to get one so think I inspired them all :-)) Drive up was good until the issue that has been there since the engine swaps… getting into 3rd gear, was progressively getting worse, until I could select it at all anymore. I ended up forcing it and lost access to most the gears, however a bit of wiggling around meant I could all gears again bar 3 but was a bit disconcerting as the gearstick was very floppy. I was only a few miles from the campsite so got it there and parked up for the weekend. It wasn’t as windy as the first time so did manage to get the awning over the rear doors (one of the criteria i wanted to make sure I could do prior to getting this one).
I then investigated the gearstick, turned out a pin had come loose, so we literally field repaired with some foil to wedge the pin in place that meant I had all gears bar 3rd again. I assume that the combination of failed gearbox mounts and the gearstick having a load of force put on it when I was taking the box out had knackered the pin causing it to go loose. Luckily the power of the engine was such that I was able to drive around the lack of 3rd and we got home safely with no real dramas although the field repair had pretty much failed by the time I got home.
So i mentioned previously briefly that we had a trip planned to Portugal… hence me rushing around to try and get everything sorted on the van. We had the eurotunnel booked on the 1st of september. We got back on the 22nd August from the Peak district. So rush was on to sort the gearbox out. Initially I tried fixing the current gearstick, i used chemical metal to glue the pin back in place. This didn’t work. I was then searching for gearboxes as wasn’t sure if id be able to find the exact same gearstick for the van as none on ebay or the normal spares suppliers where the same. Luck would have it that some lovely gent in South Essex had left an add up for a Transit gearbox on facebook… he thought he'd removed the add. Even though the gearbox looked different I messaged him to see if was available and if he knew the length of the gearbox, no. of splines etc… so I could work out if it would fit. He responded to say he had another gearbox and I could have both for £80 and he reckoned this other gearbox was the same as the one in the van. So I rushed off to essex, with my chemical metalled together gearstick with no 3rd gear on the evening of Thursday 24th. Yep he wasn’t lying he had 2 gearboxes, 1 which was the same as my current box including the gearsticks, and a gearbox mount result. As a result of me not being able to get anywhere near selecting 3rd gear, I by this point had resigned myself that something in the box was knackered so had the bank holiday weekend to replace it.I had just jacked the van up/put it on ramps when i thought i should just try the gearstick from the replacement box… instantly i was able to select 3rd what a result was supper happy with that as a fix and meant I wasn’t spending the whole bank holiday weekend replacing a gearbox :-)
Gearboxes collected :-)
With that result, I could then focus on a few other snags and improvements to the van. Firstly the gearboxes in the back had caught the door and was extremely loose on the hinges. I replaced the screws to sort that out with slightly larger ones.
I mounted a mirror with some velcro so we could keep an eye on the baby when driving.
The rear box was flexing a fair bit, so I reinforced the base with some wood battons and added some tie down points, so I could ratchet it to the gutters (like you would with a bike rack on the top of a hatchback) and also strap it to the swingaway to give it triangulation points.
It then still wasn’t dark enough in the van for our son to sleep, so I ordered some thermal insulation foil roll and cut it into shape so all the windows had a thermal blind as well as a curtain. This improved the darkness in the van so much more.
I had wanted to make some additional storage boxes and get rid of the need for the table to form part of the bed. I had run out of time due to everything engine, so I asked my Dad to help. He ended up making me 3 boxes. They can be moved around to give me different configurations, but essentially theres 1 large one that sits in the centre permanently, then there are 2 that sit either side under the bench seat. The bench seat front section can be folded away to enable the seats to be forward facing so these 2 occupy that space. When I need to make the bed I can pull one box out and refold out the front of the bench seat that means I then have a full bed.This also means we have 3 boxes that can be removed, making it easier to load and unload the van with our clothes etc… These were extremely useful.
I think finally I also fitted some door pockets that were considerably larger than the single one that was on the drivers side so had a pocket on both the passenger and drivers side. I had to rearrange where the speakers were on the door cards, but I think don’t look to out of spec to the originals.
Think thats everything that made us Portugal ready! Will edit this post later with some extra pics where I didn't seem to take them at the time :-)
Next post will be roadtrip time :-)
Firstly the lid for the cooker came off, resulting in me having to glue and clamp it the laminated chipboard back together and ended up using some wood shavings and matchsticks to fill the screwholes so the new stainless screws could bite into something.
Amd fixed...
Secondly the viscous fan i fitted actually caught the radiator. I thought it was a tight fit, but ended up actually to tight… so the radiator had a love mark. Amazing it didn’t leak but it was annoying as had to replace the whole radiator that was brand new. At least got the right one this time so no need to swap over the brackets id made. I put back the original non viscous fan although had to modify it slightly with a dremmel to go over the threads of the viscous coupling water pump.
Thirdly the gearbox was leaking a noticeable amount of oil. The speedo drive had been damaged with all the engine removals that was part of the culprit so I swapped in a new one. This had the bonus of that as the dash was appart, I was able to reattach the air ducts to the vents (one had dropped off on the drivers demister) and I also did some wiring updates to change the centre console I made so I had 2 voltage guages one for each battery.and 2 12v sockets again one for each battery.
Going back to the gearbox, the second cause of the leak was the join between the main body of the gearbox and tail. When Id previously started to swap the gearbox then aborted I had already drained the oil, as at the time i didn’t have enough of the right oil I just popped in what I had lying around and asked the garage to top it off when they were playing around with it so maybe it was slightly thinner than previously in there so found its way out. I thought id make sure it had the right oil in it, so got some fresh oil and added a gearbox/diff stop leak/stop whining formula to it as thought would do no harm and thicken it up a bit… it still leaked after all this but maybe not quite as much as a fair bit was coming out the speedo drive. I’ve added gearbox oil to my spares pack for the van although as of now its actually doesn’t leak. I think it was slightly overfilled when I did this. Now its a smidge under the fill plug it doesn’t seem to leak.
Fourthly, he started battery was loosing charge. I suspected it prior to that trip, it was confirmed on the trip so new starter battery required as had to jump start it off the leisure battery.. I also replaced some of the battery terminals etc… to try and improve things with the solar setup.
I also wasn’t 100% confident in the alternator, so also got a replacement and fitted (again these seem to be service items every few years) and the Voltage sensitive Relay had packed up again after a few years so replaced this.
After the snags I also wanted to do the front discs and pads so did those. Had some fun with an old rim and sledgehammer removing the hubs from the discs :-)
The vans always sagged on the rear ever since i got the front springs replaced, so got hold of some NOS heavy duty shocks and fitted them. They didn't make a difference to ride height but are definitely less prone to bottoming out with weight over the rear axle.
Noticed when doing this the rear wheels where sticky. Turned out it was the handbrake cable sticking on one side. I ordered a new handbrake cable but just to get it going i got it working just on the one side.
My temp fix...
I also replaced some of the bushes in the front springs as was knocking… this seems to be a regular occurrence as think i only did them a year or 2 ago., I think i may look at swapping out the front springs to some less high versions to bring the front down… so it looks a bit better and maybe put less pressure on these bushes.
During the multiple times I took the engine in and out the gearbox mounts took at battering and the rubber unbonded itself. So with some super super glue I restuck them together.
I fitted a lap belt on the other side to where the isofix is fitted so my wife could sit in the back a bit more safely if she wanted to sit next to my son. We tried this once and actually probably won’t use it as she didn’t like it and if a babys crying when driving there isn’t really a lot you can do. Maybe it will be used when he gets a bit older.
We needed more storage with the tent/awning plus baby stuff, so picked up this roof box for a bargain price off ebay. I bolted it to a tow bar rack added a cheap light board. The lightboard didn’t want to indicate right, so as the power was directly fed from the main loom, I purchased a relay that had its own power feed, to reduce the load and also tidied up the wiring. I Also upgraded the jockey wheel to a pneumatic one to help the swingaway towbar on rougher ground. I think the faded white goes pretty well with van and definitely doesn’t look to offensive… for a rear box
The top windows of our pop top don’t have curtains so we realised we needed the van as dark as possible with the baby so my mother in law made these blackout blinds, which just pop into place. Nice and easy plus practical
Then I felt like was on the home straight. I hadn’t managed to sort the cosmetic points on the van from the welding yet, so finally managed to paint the new steps and cills plus an area where I had a magnetic UK sticker on the rear door, that caused moisture to lift the paint. So glad I rollered the van. Can’t notice any of the touch ups i’ve done really, and very easy to do with some brushes in a couple of hours. To finish it off I also made some new floor mats, and re-stuck down some of the side trim to make the van look a bit tidier at the front. I had the rubber roll lying around for ages so was good to finally make them.
This was around Mid August and we then did our furthest trip yet, and drove up to the peak district to spend the weekend with my family (we all have campervans… i was the first to get one so think I inspired them all :-)) Drive up was good until the issue that has been there since the engine swaps… getting into 3rd gear, was progressively getting worse, until I could select it at all anymore. I ended up forcing it and lost access to most the gears, however a bit of wiggling around meant I could all gears again bar 3 but was a bit disconcerting as the gearstick was very floppy. I was only a few miles from the campsite so got it there and parked up for the weekend. It wasn’t as windy as the first time so did manage to get the awning over the rear doors (one of the criteria i wanted to make sure I could do prior to getting this one).
I then investigated the gearstick, turned out a pin had come loose, so we literally field repaired with some foil to wedge the pin in place that meant I had all gears bar 3rd again. I assume that the combination of failed gearbox mounts and the gearstick having a load of force put on it when I was taking the box out had knackered the pin causing it to go loose. Luckily the power of the engine was such that I was able to drive around the lack of 3rd and we got home safely with no real dramas although the field repair had pretty much failed by the time I got home.
So i mentioned previously briefly that we had a trip planned to Portugal… hence me rushing around to try and get everything sorted on the van. We had the eurotunnel booked on the 1st of september. We got back on the 22nd August from the Peak district. So rush was on to sort the gearbox out. Initially I tried fixing the current gearstick, i used chemical metal to glue the pin back in place. This didn’t work. I was then searching for gearboxes as wasn’t sure if id be able to find the exact same gearstick for the van as none on ebay or the normal spares suppliers where the same. Luck would have it that some lovely gent in South Essex had left an add up for a Transit gearbox on facebook… he thought he'd removed the add. Even though the gearbox looked different I messaged him to see if was available and if he knew the length of the gearbox, no. of splines etc… so I could work out if it would fit. He responded to say he had another gearbox and I could have both for £80 and he reckoned this other gearbox was the same as the one in the van. So I rushed off to essex, with my chemical metalled together gearstick with no 3rd gear on the evening of Thursday 24th. Yep he wasn’t lying he had 2 gearboxes, 1 which was the same as my current box including the gearsticks, and a gearbox mount result. As a result of me not being able to get anywhere near selecting 3rd gear, I by this point had resigned myself that something in the box was knackered so had the bank holiday weekend to replace it.I had just jacked the van up/put it on ramps when i thought i should just try the gearstick from the replacement box… instantly i was able to select 3rd what a result was supper happy with that as a fix and meant I wasn’t spending the whole bank holiday weekend replacing a gearbox :-)
Gearboxes collected :-)
With that result, I could then focus on a few other snags and improvements to the van. Firstly the gearboxes in the back had caught the door and was extremely loose on the hinges. I replaced the screws to sort that out with slightly larger ones.
I mounted a mirror with some velcro so we could keep an eye on the baby when driving.
The rear box was flexing a fair bit, so I reinforced the base with some wood battons and added some tie down points, so I could ratchet it to the gutters (like you would with a bike rack on the top of a hatchback) and also strap it to the swingaway to give it triangulation points.
It then still wasn’t dark enough in the van for our son to sleep, so I ordered some thermal insulation foil roll and cut it into shape so all the windows had a thermal blind as well as a curtain. This improved the darkness in the van so much more.
I had wanted to make some additional storage boxes and get rid of the need for the table to form part of the bed. I had run out of time due to everything engine, so I asked my Dad to help. He ended up making me 3 boxes. They can be moved around to give me different configurations, but essentially theres 1 large one that sits in the centre permanently, then there are 2 that sit either side under the bench seat. The bench seat front section can be folded away to enable the seats to be forward facing so these 2 occupy that space. When I need to make the bed I can pull one box out and refold out the front of the bench seat that means I then have a full bed.This also means we have 3 boxes that can be removed, making it easier to load and unload the van with our clothes etc… These were extremely useful.
I think finally I also fitted some door pockets that were considerably larger than the single one that was on the drivers side so had a pocket on both the passenger and drivers side. I had to rearrange where the speakers were on the door cards, but I think don’t look to out of spec to the originals.
Think thats everything that made us Portugal ready! Will edit this post later with some extra pics where I didn't seem to take them at the time :-)
Next post will be roadtrip time :-)