We have a roof!

(and we've camped in him, but lets get the roof post done first!)

As regular readers may know know, I might have mentioned that J was due to take Brian all the way to Romsey to Dormobile so that he could have a new roof.
We had a quote done over the email, and when I described the problems we were having, Jim said he thought he knew what the problem was. Although we had a few problems with Brian the weekend before he went down, (I.e. he completely stopped and had to be AA'd home!) it all worked out fine in the end.

Brian ended up here. Dormobile, Romsey, In the South.

When Brian's roof was 'persuaded' to open, it looked like this. This is not good. This is the original canvas.




Jim, Pete and Paul had a good look and several things were clear to them.
1) The canvas had shrunk.
2) The canvas was torn.
3) The retaining strips weren't screwed down properly. Or even drilled through the cap. Or anything!
4)The lifting arms were on the wrong way around. The front one was at the back and the back one was at the front. This meant that as we tried to lift it, we were actually working against the spring that was supposed to be helping us. Not only that, but the bolt that was supposed to poke the switch to put out the light to tell the driver the roof was down was at the wrong end of the van. *sigh*

Anyway. To continue.....

The roof was cut away using a Stanley knife, the hinges were undone, and this happened.

The roof was craned off and put on a set of trestles. This was the first picture that I had sent up to me.




On closer inspection, it appeared that the hinge wood was as rotten as a pear. Now, one of the reasons that we made the effort to get Brian to Dormobile was so that, in the event of anything unforeseen occurring, it could be dealt with. After all, they did the job 42 years ago! (Well, not these actual people, you understand!)
The rotten wood was removed....




..... and Pete made new ones. Just like that!




Meanwhile, Paul was removing canvas and screws and stuff.




The new wood was installed.




The view from inside Brian.




Pete fiberglassed the new wood.....




..... and that was that bit done!




The following day the canvas was put in to the roof. I thought that the cap (as is the proper name for the white bit!) would have to be on there first, but no! Shows what I know!




Then it was back on the crane again.




And there is the roof, back where it should be.




The hinges were attached and the cap lifted to enable the hoops to go on and the arms and the canvas to be stretched over the lot.




The hoops were put back in.




The retaining strips were put on.




Pete and Paul trimmed off the excess.




This is Brian, completed in the workshop.....




.....and this is he, 24 hours later, parked up at the lakes, roof up ready to go!




The roof curtains need turning around, because they are upside down compared to those side curtains.



It is nice to have a fully functioning roof. I like it, and I'm only 5ft3! J, being 6ft2, likes it more, although we were both still crouching down for a bit, before we remembered that we had a good 8ft of space above us!

The roof however, is finished, and we are very grateful to Jim, Paul and Pete, who allowed J to help, take pictures, took him to and from his overnight accommodation, and bent over backwards to get the job done as soon and as quickly as possible. They are a lovely bunch of people working for a jolly professional company!







Next job is fitting the bunks. As they are a little rusty, this could take some time.....

Brian recovers but..........

Isn't there always a but with a T2?

Brian's problem turned out to be a 'minor' wiring break. It was exactly where Official Richard said it would be.

This is the wire that went from the battery, through the engine bay bulkhead, and onto the starter motor.



Look to the left of the picture and you may see what the problem was.




Here's a close up. That is a) not good, and b) clearly hasn't been good for a while.




This picture shows the only strand that was long enough to be making the connection to the rest of the rest of the wire!

So we (and by that I mean The Mark and J) replaced the wire and then took off the old starter motor.






They compared it to the brand spanking new starter motor from EuroCarParts.





Hmmmmm. The eagle-eyed amongst you may notice that there is an extra piece of shaft below the splines. We debated it, and then The Mark offered it up underneath. It didn't fit. The extra shaft meant it couldn't fit. The stock photo shows no shaft, but then the entire thing looks different to the stock photo.

We took a pragmatic approach - it was 6pm on a Saturday evening so there wasn't a lot of choice - and refitted the old one after cleaning it up.





Brian turned over, coughed, and started!

What should have happened next was that we cheerfully went inside and made a cup of tea and had pizza and celebrated a good job well done.

Oh no. What actually happened was 4 hours of electrical fault finding. At this stage Brian went through having all his lights, but then if we tried the indicators he dumped all the lights and just displayed the generator warning light. After some fiddling, he went back to no lights on the dash at all. Then he returned to the indicator problem.

Every wire in the engine bay was tested for continuity. They all had it. Every fuse was tested. All good.

There was a mysterious white wire from the coil. It goes into the wiring loom and from there into the depths of Brian. A white wire appears again at the front of Brian, and we assume (but cannot tell for certain) then ambles up into the fuse box.

Much wriggling and testing of wires later, much changing of spade connectors and removing wires and replacing them, and for no apparent reason, everything worked.

At 10:30pm we finally got to the cup of tea and pizza and celebration stage.

Fast forward to this morning, and we triumphantly left the house to give it a little test out of joy. The joy swiftly turned to despair when the same problem was back. No dash lights, then the engine starts, the lights are on, then test the indicators and POW! No more lights!

Oh you can imagine the delight. The unmitigated joy that we felt.

Another round of wire wiggling, testing and taking on and off again, and suddenly it's all back! The Mark and J took Brian for a test drive over as many potholes, speed bumps and sharp corners as they could. They had the lights on and off and indicators flashing like a cheap club night in Blackpool.

Brian came back, all good.

So far, he's fine. That leaves is with a potential intermittent earth fault, somewhere in the wiring loom lighting circuit. The roof job is still on for Thursday morning. In Romsey. Near Southampton.

It's a good job we decided at the last minute to take Brian this weekend, or this wire would have given way on the way to Southampton.

Our whole summer rests on the roof job.

Our whole roof job is now resting on a possible intermittent earth fault.

Not that I'm worried.

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In which Brian is hit with the Chinese Curse.

There is an (allegedly) Chinese curse, which says "May you live in interesting times."  Well people, this weekend, we are truly living in those times.

This should have been a slightly dull blog post, in which we mentioned Brian having his brakes fixed, totally, and it being just a simple switch. (Both had failed, and so one has been done and the other will be done when the rear anti-rollbar goes in.)

He went to the garage.  Paul did it and the steering drag link that needed doing.  Brian went up.  Paul went under and worked his magic.  Brian came down.  Job done.

Maybe I would have thrown this into the same post, or waited and given it a post of its own, but this week we also changed the wiper arms.  I know.  Rock and roll, right?

Having written this blog post, I would have written another one tomorrow night about going to Vanjamboree in Lincoln, and how fab or not fab it was, and that would have been that.  Maybe I would have mentioned that we were a little bit excited because this week is New Roof Week.  Brian has to be in Romsey, near Southampton, on Wednesday night to start his roof on Thursday morning.

Instead.........  What is wrong with this picture?

Yes dear reader, what is wrong is that those are not my legs, which means that something was Very Wrong.

Yesterday J, in Brian, picked the boy and I up from school, and we drove 160 miles to go and collect the other boy in order to go to Vanjamboree.  We got there, J turned Brian off, as usual, loaded the Older Boy, got back into Brian and...... Nothing. Nada.  Zip.

Nothing.  No engine.  No dash lights.  No hazards.  No nothing! Absolutely bugger all! Brian had slipped into a coma.

We had driven up with the lights on, so our first thought was that the dynamo had gone at some point, and the battery was flat, or that the dynamo was fine but the battery was old and unable to take a charge any more.  We were not concerned.  Through my bank account we have breakdown cover.  We could get then to take us the 5 miles to J's parents, and then get a new battery in the morning.  If it wasn't the battery, then we could get the AA to take us home on Sunday.

But when the breakdown service (which is run by the AA) sent a local garage lad out, who wasn't really sure what he was doing, I had that sinking feeling.  And when he said he couldn't help us, that there was "something wrong with a wire somewhere" and that he "only gets 25 minutes a job" and that he was "ordering us a truck"  the sinking feeling intensified.

And when the AA man on the phone (a very polite lad called Daniel) said that we only got 1 journey and that they would take us the 5 miles, but then charge us £49 +£2.50 a mile to get home to Norfolk (160 miles!) we knew we had to go home.  At this point, we thought we were now thinking we would also have to make a phone call on Monday, to cancel the roof, which would mean we couldn't have it done until August, at least.

All in the garden was not rosy.

The boys were collected by J's parents, who also brought us sandwiches.  Daniel organised a truck - for 2150, a wait of 2 hours.  In the mean time however, he sent a proper AA man with a big yellow truck and everything.

These are his legs.


This Official Chap was amazing.  Utterly amazing.  Every rude thing I have ever thought or heard about the AA was obliterated by how professional, how knowledgeable, how thorough,how generally fabulous he was.  He checked Brian's electrics in a logical manner, talked us through everything that he did, and explained anything I asked about.  His name was Richard and if I could have kept a tiny clone of him in my glovebox instead of a Haynes manual, I would have. (Ok, that probably sounds a little stalkery, I don't mean it to be lol, but he was *that* great.)

However, at 2150, the Massive Truck turned up.  It was HUGE. It had AA all over it.  It had lights that flashed and some that didn't flash.  It had a driver who was very Midlands and said "Ah... rooight" a lot, but waited patiently whilst we were finishing up the discussions about what was wrong.

Amazing Official Richard didn't just leave it as "Something wrong with the electrics".  He found the exact place where the live stopped being live and isolated exactly what was wrong. He even got Brian to start again, but as it is pretty impossible to drive around with a jump pack coming from a T2 mid section, we still had to take the truck.  Basically, the starter motor power lead has bust somewhere inside.  This is not a problem, and had somewhere been open, we could have potentially fixed Brian except...... the post where the wire joins the starter motor was rusted solid.  Even after two applications of WD-40 and a good wirebrushing, there was nothing doing.  The whole starter motor was starting to turn instead of just the nut.

So Brian ended up here......



It's not right, is it?  However, even an unconscious Brian was cooler than any other car in the car park we were in!  But it was also 2215 by now, and we had a long journey ahead of us.  However, we had hope that Brian would be in Romsey, near Southampton, on Wednesday night to start his roof on Thursday morning.



We had to swap trucks and drivers at Peterborough services.  "Ahhhh roooight" was out of tachograph time, and I wish I knew his name because he was so gentle with Brian, and checked him all over once he was up on the ramp, double checked the straps, all that kind of thing.

The second truck driver was a local services chap, who was cheerful, chatty, helpful, discussed engines and so on with us for the last hour back to home.  Brian was gently popped on the drive at 2am.

By 8 am we were at EuroCarParts in Lynn.  The chap there was very helpful, tracked down what we needed and although they didn't have it there, they did have it in Peterborough, so off we trogged to Peterborough armed with their postcode, their phone number, in fact everything we could have needed from EuroCarParts Lynn.

I don't want to talk about EuroCarParts Peterborough, because my mother brought me up that if I can't say anything nice, then I shouldn't say anything at all.

Let's leave it as, well, at least we have a starter motor.


They had no leads suitable, so we went to GSF down the road, and they were brilliantly helpful, in the way that made us wish we'd gone there first.  Even though they didn't have the leads, they knew a place that sold it off the roll, and gave us directions.  We then didn't need the directions because the chap behind us said he was just off to there and we could follow him!  Sorted!

Millfield Auto parts had the lead on a roll, as much as you wanted, and all the connectors, and I would loved to have had a proper look around the place, but we had to get back to phone The Mark, who, as we know from a previous post, is our secret weapon when Brian slips into a coma, as he has at the moment.  There is no way we could get Brian in to Paul The Garage Man before Brian has to be in Romsey on Wednesday night to start his roof on Thursday morning. (Ok, I'm obsessing slightly about the roof.  I know.)












So that's where we are now.  On the sofa, waiting for The Mark to arrive, waiting to see what happens next.  I'll update this when I know.

As there are so many companies in this post, I feel a round-up is in order!

AA - loved the official Richard, loved the trucking people, will not be saying it's ok to send me a local chap again as Brian is too specialist.  I'm sure the chap would be great with the every day stuff! But I will be emailing them about Official Richard.
EuroCarParts - Lynn are great, superb customer service, excellent attitude!  Peterborough had the part.  And that's all I want to say about them.
GSF Peterborough - What lovely people!  We'll be going there again for certain, and using their website more often.
Millfields Autos Peterborough - lots of obscure bits which I want to spend time going around and helpful service.


We've just had the phone call to say The Mark is on his way.  After all, as I may or may not have mentioned, Brian has to be in Romsey, near Southampton, on Wednesday night to start his roof on Thursday morning, and a roof that lifts will enable us to live in many more interesting times!



Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone so don't mock the spelling and I'll be back later to sort the layout!

A break in usual service.....

We came back from a day out to find this.


For the confused, this is the back window of a T2 camper that has had a stone flicked up which has caught the back window at just the right place to utterly shatter it.  We stood next to Brian, at about 9pm at night, and just listened to it crackling.



We covered it up the best we could, bin bags and masking tape, until we could order a new one.  We had to have a dredge through the net, and in the end we picked one up on eBay.  The price was very reasonable, and the eBay shop, rccimports was very clear with his emails, very up to date, allowed me to change the delivery address, and was basically fabulous.

Vast amounts of packaging which was wrapped around the rear window.  Window arrived fine!



Not only that, but the item was ordered and paid for on Bank Holiday Monday night and arrived on Wednesday.  Fabulous.  Can't say fairer than that, and we will be looking at this chap again when we need a few bits.



Motorbike gloves came out to get rid of the glass.  2 old sheets were used to attempt to protect the Brian bus!




Then the seal was taken out.



Then all the glass was painstakingly removed from the seal.  This involved slightly prying the seal apart and then using a knitting needle (plastic, so blunt, and a 6mm, if anyone is that interested!) to get the glass out of the seal.



An old toothbrush was employed to get the last shards out, and then it was indoors to fit the seal.



WD40 became our best friend at this point, and was put inside the seal to help it slide onto the glass.



Then the WD40 was put around the outside seal, and the cord was put in.  All the way around, gently popped in, and then left with long ends dangling.



I was quite confused by this point, but I trusted the Power of String, and the faith that my man had in the Power of String.

The next bit has no photos, because it was a two person job.  Ideally, it needed to be Jack, who is 6ft2 and another person who is taller than me.  But I was all there was, so it was me.

This is the empty tail gate.

We offered the window up to Brian, and got the seal started over the metal lip by gently pulling on the string. At this point, the Power of the String was seen.  Basically, as you gently pull the string out, and the person on the window pushes the bottom of the glass and seal from the other side, and it all works.  It was a bugger around the corners, and the WF40 had to be brought out again, but eventually.......


Da dah!






It is all in!

Hurrah!

Normal service has been resumed...... aside from the fact that the brake light problem is back.

*sigh*  It's a good job we love Brian.  He has to have brake lights for the 22nd of this month, because that's when he's having the roof done!