A Wheely Bad Problem for Brian

We were polishing Brian at the weekend when I noticed this.  It looked for all the world like a curbing.  It is not possible to curb these rims - the tyres come out too far.









Further investigation showed that under the road dirts, all 4 wheel rims showed the same crazing and damage.  They felt smooth to touch, so clearly there was no exterior damage, this was something underneath the lacquer.

We got on the phone to Retrodubs, from where we had bought the wheels less than 2 years ago.  The less than two years is important, because the wheels came with 2 years surface guarantee.

Immediately, the company couldn't do more to help.  All they wanted was some pictures (very reasonably) and they'd be in touch.  The next working day, they were in touch.  They would send us a new set of wheels.  We could get the tyres changed over, they would reimburse us when they received the invoice for it, we would let them know when it was all done, and they would arrange a courier to collect the old wheels, and have a look at them.  Now *that* is customer service.  Oh, and the two years surface guarantee started all over again!

Once again, Brian is looking fabulous.

What did we do next?

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Alright at the back?

This post goes right back to the back of the bus, and back in time, and well, just back.

Regular readers of Brian's Blog will be aware that sleeping in Brian was a bit like sleeping in a very uncomfortable coffin.  He had ancient foams underneath ones derrier, lumps of wood that seemed to shift underneath any boney part of your body, and the roof was low, because the hardboard lining had bowed.





The box came out quite easily.  It took a bit of working out how it had originally been put in so that we could reverse engineer it out, and we did remove everything apart from the actual seat in the end.

The hardboard came out alarmingly easily.



It appeared that the large piece of hardboard was held in by one large lump of black mastic, on both sides of the lump of wood that was supposed to space it all out nicely.





Anyway, it all came down, and we had another early morning ride to Bromsgrove.  It was cold.  Very bloody cold.








The bonus of having the cooker where it is though, is that we can always make a cup of tea.  Even later in his transformation, when he had nothing at all inside of him, we could have made a brew.




In the end, Bromsgrove opened up at the correct time, and we left Brian in their capable hands whilst we went for yet another breakfast and a wander around.  We did see this amazing coat though, which required a photograph.  The balloon tassels were actual ribbons.  It was fabulous.



We collected Brian again, and went home.  In the words of Forrest Gump "And that's all I really have to say about that!"

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A roof (lining) over our heads.

Today has been another very productive visit to the lovely people at BAT. The reason? The dire state of our front cab lining. This was it.

We knew it was torn.



We knew it had 42 years of dirt..




We didn't realise that it held the original colour underneath though. This is just further proof that Brian's current colour is not his proper colour, but a 'best guess' from a spray shop some time ago.




The abrupt removal of the rear view mirror showed the extent of the dirt. The original colour was white! Who knew!



This is a workshop. A proper workshop. With tools and spare fabric and heavy duty sewing machines and everything a girl could want.....





Anyway, away from workshop-envy, and back to the job in hand. The very efficient Stu took an alarming number of screws out of the van and was telling me all about how the conversion was done at Dormobile. Apparently this would have been the original tin top roof lining, and when the cutting out was done for the Dormobile roof, they just folded it up and nailed it into place, putting the metal frame on the top to support the roof.



Honestly, what BAT don't know about vans isn't worth knowing.

Anyway, then J and the boys and I left to get out of the way, and spent an enjoyable morning in Bromsgrove. Ahem. Well, we spent the morning in Bromsgrove. There's a lot of cafés and charity shops. In fact, there's so much to do, that when we have the back lining done, we're going to get the bus to Worcester.....

Whilst we having yet another cuppa somewhere, we had the magic phonecall that freed us from the town of excitement, before it all got too much. The roof lining was finished.

We came back to this!



Beautiful, shiny, white, smooth, untorn, unpuckered, and in our roof! Hurrah!

On top of that, lovely Stu had found a bracket that lowered my seat belt for me. Being vertically challenged, the belt was going across my neck, and I had visions of being decapitated if we had to slam on the brakes! Now I have no such worries, and am much more comfortable.



I am easily pleased. Next week we are making a special journey to get the back lining done. (And getting the bus to Worcester because a second morning in Bromsgrove would be too exciting for us...)

More photos next week!

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Catching up 3 - A Wet and Windy Dubfreeze

Roll forward 2 weeks from the last post, and you will find us at ASDA near Stafford, having lunch before heading into Dubfreeze.  We parked up, The Mark parked his T2 next to us, and by the time we came back, these two lovelies were also parked behind us.


Off we trundled to DubFreeze.  And the rain started....  We did, however, discover a bonus with The Mark having bought a (as yet unnamed) left-hooker.


We can go from van to van very easily!

Sam loves sleeping in the van, and although he ended up sleeping in tracksuit, hoodie, and woolie hat, and giving himself a stomach ache trying not to go to the loo in the middle of the night (it was that wet and cold!) he had an excellent time.


And although the weather was wet, and the van was small with all 4 of us tucked in it for a considerable length of time, Tyler had a good time as well.  Something to do with grumpy avians.  Or naughty porkers.  Or something.


We had burgers, beans and sausages.  I think.  We had burgers anyway.  They cooked quite nicely in the end.  (As a side note, I have several recipes that I want to try when we are up and running.  Possibly another page on the blog might be required!)


Of course, whilst the camping was good, and the company was lovely, there was really only one reason for being at a cold and wet Staffordshire showground.  Brian's new seats.....


We went straight to BAT when we got in, and collected them, all bubblewrapped, and they were beautiful.


Jack and The Mark installed them, and the colours were just right! (Well done Mrs BAT!)


This picture isn't great, because the wind was well and truly up again by now, and we were keen to be on our way back to the FlatLands, so it's a bit hurried, but you can just about see how everything matches in the way it should.



Now we are all caught up.  Now, we just have to wait.

The waiting is so hard.  Brian goes to ATT at some point in April, and ATT and BAT will work together in harmonious synchronisation to produce the Brian of our Dreams.  The one where the cupboard doors shut properly, where the space under the bed can be used for storage and, the best, the one where the bed goes up and down as easy as anything, and can be slept on by two grown adults comfortably!

Well.

Two grown adults and this fellow!





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Catching up 2 - Back to BAT

I have just dredged back through the annals, and I can't find a picture of his front seat, although I know I have some somewhere.  Until I find one, here is a photo that I have robbed from somewhere ages ago. Unfortunately, I can't remember where from.  If this is your photo, I will cheerfully add the acknowledgement or take it down or whatever.  Anyway, this is what the seats used to look like.  Ours had a rip and were dirtier.

Ah ha!  What is missing from this picture? Yes.  The seat.  My seat I think.  This is because we were at the lovely BAT again, and they were taking our seats away. Not because we had been naughty, but because the plan was that they would recover them and we would get them back at DubFreeze, which was, back then, a fortnight in the future. (Ignore the temporal shifts, I promise it's easier to write at the right time!)

Passenger seat, on the pavement.


Passenger seat on the bench at BAT.




Sneaky photo of someone else's van at BAT, with an ATT interior, showing us what an excellent decision we had made to go with this particular combination of craftsmen.


Now, the decision made at BustFest was to probably go with the 'Snodger setup'  Now that we had decided on the oak, we thought we would check the colour against the wood.  We also had the advice of Mrs BAT, who knows more about colours and matching than I would ever know.




Deconstruction of the seats begins.






In the meantime, we we borrowed a couple of seats. Look carefully at these seats dear reader, because this is BAT's idea of a scaggy pair of seats that we can borrow because they are due for recovering.  This is a pair of seats so bad, that if the back of my seat hadn't fitted properly over the hook and the cooker, the chap was happy to slice it out with a Stanley knife.  I actually winced when he said that.  These seats were beautiful.  Fabric inner, cream leathery-stuff outer, fabric piping.  They also had proper inners, unlike our 40 year old inners, and therefore were lovely and comfortable!



So we drove back again, leaving our seats at BAT, due to collect at DubFreeze.

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Catching up 1 - Brian gets given a sample

I'm sorry, dear reader, that we have not updated the blog as regularly as I should have done.  The next couple of posts will bring us up to date with Brian as he stands so far.

This is Brian outside BAT.  We were supposed to pick up the wood samples from ATT as arranged at BusFest, but life had caught up with all of us and the postman actually delivered them after we had been.  Frustrating.



However, BAT being awesome folks, promptly sent them on to us, and the process of holding them up against everything in sight began.

The lighter one is Ash, the darker one is Oak.  We tried it against the floor.



We tried it against the seat backs.



We tried it against the fabric.


We tried it against the exterior.



And we tried it against the cushions again.
Our conclusion was to go for the darker one, the oak.  When I write it like that, it sounds so simple.  In fact, this took several weeks of wandering about with lumps of wood, making a decision, changing it, deciding for definite, changing our minds again, deciding for absolutely sure this time, humming and harhing once more. But it is definitely, absolutely, totally, completely, going to be the oak. Honest. Well, it has to be now.  It's ordered...... (But ATT say we can change our minds until March.....)
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There were four in the bed...

Well, there were two in the bed and there were two in bunks, but that isn't how the song goes!



Those of you that have been following the bunking up saga will have realised that we now have 2 bunks in. The last one went on the Wednesday before we went to BusFest.



This is the view with both bunks in.   For those who haven't followed this, Brian has a Dormobile conversion, and we have had 2 new covers from Jim at Dormobile (who is great) and we've refurbed the mechanisms and poles ourselves.  We are that awesome.







Now, as you can see, the bunks don't sit centrally, don't sit squarely, but do, apparently, fit perfectly.  These are, I promise, in the right places.



This is the mechanism for the passenger side, which has an extra hole in it.





Obviously, we did the child test.  The child liked it.  He found getting into it easy enough, by climbing up from the bed height, although more about that later.









This was the view on Saturday morning.  As you can see, even fully loaded with 10 and 12 yr olds, there is not a great deal of bulging and so on, because the canvases supported the the boys well.  The only real issue we had was the noise of sleeping bag on canvas, and the feeling of rocking whenever one of the boys twisted over.  There were times, Dear Reader, when I could have sworn we were on a ship at sea.









We had also taken the new awning, the Khyam 5000XC, otherwise known as "The Albert Hall".  It's bigger than the Albert Hall.  Ok, maybe it isn't, but it feels bigger.  It was ideal for the boys to be shoving their sleeping bags away in, and storing spare bits and pieces.  The Mark slept in it (although he forgot his airbed....)







The extra bonus for us though, was the fact that we did all the things that one should never, ever do with a new awning.



We turned up late.

In the almost dark.

It had rained hard on the way there.

It was due to rain again.

It was Malvern, and therefore every other peg hit at least one stone.

We had never put the awning up before.

Or opened the bag.

Or even checked everything was in the bag.



And yet, it went up really, really easily.  It did take 4 adults and 2 children to do it, but mainly because it was quicker with two mallets and with children holding onto poles whilst ropes were banged in.  But make sure you don't do what we did.  It was a lot of stress for tired people!



In the morning, the sun shone, and Brian and his extension looked beautiful.





Tragically, this is the only show picture I took, because I forgot the camera and only had my phone with me.  I know.  Hopeless.  Never mind.









The show itself was fine.  I preferred CamperJam to be fair, but then that's me.  There was a lot of traders to look at, but typically Malvern in the chaotic layout, which meant we missed sections. However, we did see the main people that we wanted to see, which were All Things Timber and Bromsgrove Auto Trimmers.  Oh yes.



It is all arranged.  The deposit is paid with ATT, and Brian's slot is booked for April/May, meaning he will have a brand-new interior for next season.  Importantly, essentially even, he will have a new bed.  5 inches of foam, 2 of memory foam, will beat the 2 inches of compressed horsehair that we have at the moment.  Hinges being in a different place will mean Jack can sleep without his feet hitting the top of the hinge.  The bed being lower will mean that I can get into it without a hernia.  However, this may have implications for the boys getting into their bunks, but we shall see......  We are awaiting samples from them as I write, one of which is being machined up especially for us.



We've had a chat with BAT, and they are expecting our phonecall when they come back from holiday so that we can arrange a visit up there to sort out the upholstery.  It could well be "Snodgers setup."  I kid you not.  This is what they called it.  Lovely approachable people though!



We also made contact with Noisekiller, and will be ordering from them soon so that we can insulate and noisekill Brian before we send him to ATT.



Sunday was also brightish, and fairish, and the awning was soon dry enough to put down, and squeeze, and fold, and refold, and unfold, and fold again, until it all went into the bag.









It is a massive awning to go into this tiny (in comparison) bag!

This was the van we were parked up with, lovely people.







This was the van we were parked opposite.  Should you ever see this hideously pink van, park a long, long way from it.  At 11 am, it has a fabulous sound system.  At 3 am, I didn't appreciate it so much.  And that's all I want to say about that. (It's not, but it's all I can say and stay a lady!)







The show itself was fine, and we've decided that we'll go again to this one.  The timing of it is terrible - it's booked in to be the first weekend back to school for the next 4 years I think!



The next trip will be to Back2Basics at Birdingbury.  The tickets aren't bought, because we only decided last week, so we'll see about the weather, but I hope we're going.  Brian is so comfortable, that short of a hurricane, we'll be there!