Hi folks,
I've been a lurker on here for years but have been inspired by benwalsh91's USA E30 thread to document my New Zealand van and trip.
I am still in NZ and am not quite sure when I'll be leaving given the current state of things. I came here mainly to mountain bike, however I hope the fact I'm living in a van older than me and numerous photos of the vehicles I've encountered on my travels will keep it RR friendly. I'll try to not make it too much like a blog! Heaven forbid.
Feedback is warmly welcomed!
**Advanced warning** The quality of both photos and literature will be pretty low but it might keep a few people amused and will be nice for me to look back on.
Anyway, a little background.
I studied Mechanical engineering in Edinburgh then started working for a well known British motorcycle manufacturer. I was there for a little over three years.
Good place, learnt loads, made some great friends etc etc but I didn't want to spend my twenties in an office in a pretty miserable part of England. Living in a campervan in New Zealand sounded way more fun!
New Zealand fit the bill for many reasons, it's a wild place with great mountain biking and had been highly recommended by everyone I'd met who had been.
Knowing that living in the UK was not on my agenda for the foreseeable future I sold or gave away pretty much everything I had accumulated. Two cars, three motorbikes and a plethora of curse word. Apart from some snow sports equipment a dirt jump bike and some moto kit, stashed at various friends houses, I slimmed my belongings down to the checkin limit (ish).
I should mention that I had convinced a friend to come along (it wasn't very hard). We were going for pretty much the same reasons to do pretty much the same stuff but would get our own vans so we could do our own thing and have personal space etc etc.
Arriving in Christchurch we had an AirBnB for the first week to give some time for van shopping. Everyone knows the best purchases are made with a time constraint!
I'd spent the previous few weeks messaging a load of sellers and trying to get the lay of the land.
Now, I'm well aware that you get what you pay for with most things. I'm also aware that I have a tendency to spend well below my actual budget and end up with stuff that's a bit err 'well used' much to my friends amusement.
Despite promising numerous people and having multiple words with myself, I bought pretty much the cheapest van I could find 🙃.
I justified this because everything I looked at was shonky to some level, the price of things only seemed to reflect the camper conversion not the van and, well, old habits die hard.
This is my 1990 Toyota Hiace dubbed 'Clifford' for what should be obvious reasons...
It's a povo spec ex minibus with the 2.4l petrol, a camper setup created by someone who liked nails and MDF, paint that's so weather beaten it has texture and a suspiciously high clutch bite point. Perfect!
I'm in love with the rear nudge bars. It's really handy being able to backup into things 10/10 good call previous owner.
It's worth noting that this is probably the quintessential NZ van. They love Toyota's over here and vans are mainly the cab over engine layout. I think at one point 43% of vans on the road here were Hiaces...
Anyway, I wasted little time in ripping out the janky MDF bed setup and remaking it so you could access the storage and fit my bike in. Fixed a few little niggles, got the sliding door working off the central locking, handbrake cables being too tight etc then headed off to do some riding.
I don't have a good image of the rebuilt bed set up to hand. I'll add this back in later on.
Interesting cars from the Christchurch area:
I had a good chat with the owner of the Laurel. It had a 1uz in it and sounded lovely!
It wasn't long after this that Rob's van, the same shape Hiace as Clifford but with a diesel, pegged it's temp gauge then spat its coolant out. Oh. Dear.
After a host of research and chatting to a few workshops it turned out to be a common theme for the 2.8 N/A oil burner to crack cylinder heads when overheated. We were on the other side of the world with very few contacts and tools that are intended for bicycles.
Well we came here for an adventure!
I've been a lurker on here for years but have been inspired by benwalsh91's USA E30 thread to document my New Zealand van and trip.
I am still in NZ and am not quite sure when I'll be leaving given the current state of things. I came here mainly to mountain bike, however I hope the fact I'm living in a van older than me and numerous photos of the vehicles I've encountered on my travels will keep it RR friendly. I'll try to not make it too much like a blog! Heaven forbid.
Feedback is warmly welcomed!
**Advanced warning** The quality of both photos and literature will be pretty low but it might keep a few people amused and will be nice for me to look back on.
Anyway, a little background.
I studied Mechanical engineering in Edinburgh then started working for a well known British motorcycle manufacturer. I was there for a little over three years.
Good place, learnt loads, made some great friends etc etc but I didn't want to spend my twenties in an office in a pretty miserable part of England. Living in a campervan in New Zealand sounded way more fun!
New Zealand fit the bill for many reasons, it's a wild place with great mountain biking and had been highly recommended by everyone I'd met who had been.
Knowing that living in the UK was not on my agenda for the foreseeable future I sold or gave away pretty much everything I had accumulated. Two cars, three motorbikes and a plethora of curse word. Apart from some snow sports equipment a dirt jump bike and some moto kit, stashed at various friends houses, I slimmed my belongings down to the checkin limit (ish).
I should mention that I had convinced a friend to come along (it wasn't very hard). We were going for pretty much the same reasons to do pretty much the same stuff but would get our own vans so we could do our own thing and have personal space etc etc.
Arriving in Christchurch we had an AirBnB for the first week to give some time for van shopping. Everyone knows the best purchases are made with a time constraint!
I'd spent the previous few weeks messaging a load of sellers and trying to get the lay of the land.
Now, I'm well aware that you get what you pay for with most things. I'm also aware that I have a tendency to spend well below my actual budget and end up with stuff that's a bit err 'well used' much to my friends amusement.
Despite promising numerous people and having multiple words with myself, I bought pretty much the cheapest van I could find 🙃.
I justified this because everything I looked at was shonky to some level, the price of things only seemed to reflect the camper conversion not the van and, well, old habits die hard.
This is my 1990 Toyota Hiace dubbed 'Clifford' for what should be obvious reasons...
It's a povo spec ex minibus with the 2.4l petrol, a camper setup created by someone who liked nails and MDF, paint that's so weather beaten it has texture and a suspiciously high clutch bite point. Perfect!
I'm in love with the rear nudge bars. It's really handy being able to backup into things 10/10 good call previous owner.
It's worth noting that this is probably the quintessential NZ van. They love Toyota's over here and vans are mainly the cab over engine layout. I think at one point 43% of vans on the road here were Hiaces...
Anyway, I wasted little time in ripping out the janky MDF bed setup and remaking it so you could access the storage and fit my bike in. Fixed a few little niggles, got the sliding door working off the central locking, handbrake cables being too tight etc then headed off to do some riding.
I don't have a good image of the rebuilt bed set up to hand. I'll add this back in later on.
Interesting cars from the Christchurch area:
I had a good chat with the owner of the Laurel. It had a 1uz in it and sounded lovely!
It wasn't long after this that Rob's van, the same shape Hiace as Clifford but with a diesel, pegged it's temp gauge then spat its coolant out. Oh. Dear.
After a host of research and chatting to a few workshops it turned out to be a common theme for the 2.8 N/A oil burner to crack cylinder heads when overheated. We were on the other side of the world with very few contacts and tools that are intended for bicycles.
Well we came here for an adventure!
