On the road again.....

Now, this post should have been written last week, but we weren't allowed to put up a fishing bivvy to store the fishing gear in so we had to come home again. Apparently they don't take tents. They take awnings, which you can drive away from, making them into...... Well, we said tents, but hey. Their loss is our gain, as we have found a beautiful new camping and fishing place.

Woodstock Farm, Wereham, Norfolk.

See. How beautiful is this? Hard standing for the camper, with grass for the bivvy (that isn't a tent...) and metered electricity on the hook up. The lake is behind that fence that you can see on the left.........









........ and is this stunning. The weather was lovely, the area was beautiful, and we saw a hare, a barn owl, a red kite and something that unfortunately might have been a mink. I say unfortunately, because you don't want one of those at a fishing lake.






The fishing was good - 115 fish on the first day and 54 on the second part day. 28lb over all. There was a lot of small fish, but also some bream and we had sight of a koi, but he wasn't interested in what we had to offer. This week. Next week, he is going on that hook!


The Younger Boy had a good time as well. He's been very tired recently, so took the chance to chill out and read.






The whole weekend, with electricity and a bivvy and a child and 2 days fishing, was £54.

Obviously, as Brian has been sitting around over the winter with only a few runs, there were things for us to find out.

Thanks to last weeks abortive attempt at a weekend away, we had found them out. He has a back window seal leak. He must have. His back end noise dampening was full of water. Full, as in, you could push it out by putting a towel from front to back. This had then wicked up into the upholstery, and ran out as we dragged the back piece out and had it drying in the hall for a week. Thanks to spending the extra on getting the upholstery done properly, it hasn't warped, just obligingly dried out. No smell of damp, nothing.

Brian's intermittent indicator fault, which wasn't intermittent, it was all the time, has fixed itself over the winter. This is helpful in one way - having indicators is a good thing. However, it may become intermittent again at any point, leading us to to be confused once more.

On the whole it was a good run out for him and us. We also found out that you can fry bacon in a saucepan if you are the kind of person who remembers to take the frying pan in to wash it, but forgets to put it back in the van again.......

It's a simple fix.....

Ssshhhhhh!

I've found a simple fix to do on Brian that really was a simple fix. It was simple to do, and it fixed it!

I know! You're as surprised as I, dear reader!

Well. Following yesterday's post and video, it was clear that Brian had a brake switch that had let go.

Getting the part wasn't hugely simple but that had nothing to do with Brian and everything to do with the fact that EuroCarParts are ageist in their vehicle parts stocking. I ended up getting the bus (an actual public transport bus) over to Swaffham where our fabulous mechanic usually is, collecting the part and some instructions, and heading back here via Halfords to get some dot4 brake fluid.

This is the offending article.




This is the shiny new replacement. The red stuff is a sealant. The adjustable spanner is set at 24mm.



1) Top up your fluid. We used halfords dot4, on Lovely Welding Man's recommendation.
2) Have everything ready, and a spare pair of hands.
3) Remove old one and slide new one into place, just catching the thread.
4) With your spare pair of hands/feet, depress the brake pedal so that the fluid is just oozing out.
5) Screw the new switch in all the way.
6) Tighten with the spanner.

You are done!

We now have a passenger side rear light cluster with brake light and indicator. More importantly, we have brakes.

(Still nothing on the left except the rear light when all the lights are put on. Confusing much?)

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The moment you realise just how much your VW loves you.

Last week we went to Blackpool, via Llay.  We spent the week up there, we drove back, via Leamington Spa.  I suppose over the week we did about 700 miles, Friday to Friday.

Thursday, we had a bulb blow in the back indicator.  Our friend was following us, and she cheerfully informed us that we had no brake lights either.  Oh we did.  Oh we didn't.  Oh we did.  Oh we didn't.  You get the picture.  Intermittent earth fault, we thought.  Nothing we can do here.

We got back on Friday.

We slept a lot of yesterday.

Today we decided to see what we could fix.

The right rear indicator was indeed bulb blown.  Melted and kaput and fubar.  (All technical terms!)  We replaced it, and..... nothing.  We cleaned the contacts and...... nothing.

Ho hum.

We checked the fuses, cleaned the contacts, tidied it up a bit, and ...... nothing.

We then stopped for a brew, obviously.

We went back out.  We checked the brakes again, ready to check the brake switches, and Jack thought he heard something.  He stuck his head under the van.  I pressed the pedal.

This is what he saw.

Hmmmmm.  I'm not a mechanic.  I've said this before.  I'll stick my neck out on this one though - I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to do that.

Thankfully, Brian didn't lose it on the way home barrelling down the M6, he didn't lose it around a roundabout, he lost it on the drive, at home.  Even now, he's got some braking.  We're just not sure how much!

Today, we realised how much he loves us too.

(Yes, I'm fully aware that this is anthropomorphising to the extreme.  I don't care.)

Living the dream (and too busy to write about it!)

Dear Reader,

I must apologise.

Since from the 5 long weeks that Brian was away having his refit,  Jack and I have been living the dream.  We have been having our one life and living it.

You have missed -

"Alright at the back?"
"A Wheely bad problem for Brian"
"Brian gets nekkid"
"Jack and My Dad Kill some Noise!"
"Oh what an ugly Bay"
 "The Empty Drive"
"The Wanderer Returns"
"Cooking on a WHAT?"
"I see your Ford Ranger and raise you...... a Brian!"
"Aircooled14 - at last!"
"RAC v AA"
"Am I too old for Camper Jaaaaam?"

Admittedly some of those are from before he went away, but I am blaming SATs and all sorts of other stuff for why those didn't get done on time.  I've now made the online drafts, so all I have to do is to put the words in, and we are happy days, full steam ahead.

We've got a show break now until White Noise, (Not doing Bug Jam - too expensive for what it is, but there's a whole post to come on the cost of shows)

In more good news though, another friend has bought herself a van.  Admittedly it's a T5, but she's got to start somewhere!

The Wanderer Returns

It was a long wait.



It was almost 5 weeks, in which things took longer than we thought, and we began to despair of ever seeing Brian on our drive ever again. (Yes, that's melodramatic.  We didn't realise how much we would miss him.)



So then we got the phonecall that said that BAT and ATT had pulled out all the stops to get Brian finished in time for Uttoxter Bus Stopover.  We'd already missed Deva Dubs and Rods.  Jack got the train up to York, lovely Adrian collected him from the station, and after tea, and a look around the gorgeousness he drove back.



He got home at about 1am.  It was too dark to take pictures, but I did have a look around it in the middle of the night.  Although I never thought it was possible, I fell in love with Brian all over again.



Here, oh beloved reader, is why.





Brian, back where he should be.





The beautifully upholstered seats, cream centres, Snodgen red surrounds, double diamond stitching.









The fridge and sink unit.  The fridge front was cut down from the one we did originally which wouldn't fit.  See the roundedness of the finished wood.  See the perfection of the vents.  You can't see the little oval properly, but it says ATT number 52.
























See the level of the red cushion with cream piping?  This is significant later on.



This is the extra cupboard.  It holds the gas cylinder and converts into a buddy seat.  It deserves a post of it's own later on and will get one.  It is genius.





This is the floor.  We ummed and ahhed about the floor.  Should we have it checquered?  Should we have it not?  In the end, we had it not, and we are glad.  With the business of the Dandy and Beano everywhere, the solid floor is good.



And the crowning glory, for me, is the bed.  Oh, the bed.  The old bed had 42 yr old foam, fabric with dodgy stains on it, it took 2 people to get it up, took 30 minutes on a bad day to get it up, and I had to have help getting into it.  (What can I say?  good things come in small packages.  Mostly...)

This bed has 5 inches of foam and a memory foam topper.  It has beautiful stitching and no weird smell.  It goes up so simply (I will do a video next time we go out.)  and I can get onto it with no problem.



It also, (smugness alert) takes a kingsize sheet and duvet.  Oh yes indeed.  Plenty of room here!

Two years of planning and doing and choosing and hoping and saving and travelling and meeting, finally came together.  And I do love it when a plan comes together......

Obviously he immediately needed a run out, and so we went to sunny Hunny for tea.  Beautiful fish and chips (from the yellow chipshop at the top of the road by the roundabout) in a beautiful van, with the interior and man of my dreams.






Even the sun shone with approval........


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Oh what an Ugly Bay!

Ok, this is an unkind and snobby post.

No, really it is.

I am not a nice person.

Now that we have that out of the way, here is a modern Danbury. (I hope you aren't eating whilst reading this.)


I like the Zippy character.  I have no issue with Old School education programmes and their assorted stuffed merchandise.  I do have a problem with over stuffed seats that look like my Nan's sofa.




I like the black and white cushions.  I have severe misgivings about the mdf/laminate interior.  Come on Danbury - the owners will have paid over the odds for this van, and you couldn't use real wood?




Hmmm.  Regular readers will be aware of my feelings about check.  We had Burberry Check.  We destroyed it with much delight.  This should be happening here....



I did like the wheels though!



So why do this post?  I'll tell you.  Because I was told "You've got an old T2?  We've got one over there."  No.  No you do not.
NO! I tells ye!
This is a polo engine in a Brazilian body made of metal found on the beach and beaten in to a rough shape.  This is an example of a vehicle which is rotting more after 10 years than ours after 42.  This is an example of people who want image over style, the joy of the waving without the commitment of the tinkering, people who want the way of life that they see, without truly understanding the two-way adoption that is the T2 and the family. I may not always like Brian when he bangs out of gear, but I will always love him.  He is family. This is creation is not an original T2 dear boy.
I shall leave this subject with a quote from an Indian philosopher.

“Do not repeat after me words that you do not understand. Do not merely put on a mask of my ideas, for it will be an illusion and you will thereby deceive yourself.” 
― Jiddu Krishnamurti

Indeed so, dear Danbury owners, indeed so......

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Brian gets nekkid

Now, dear reader, you need to understand that we are slightly pessimistic when it comes to the length of time that Brian jobs will take.  We always think they will take a bit longer than they do.  This is mainly because the first jobs we did on Brian did take a lot longer than they should have done, although this was probably due to our incompetence.

Anyway.

We thought taking Brian's insides out would be a loooooong job.

We started with the long side.














We had hoped to keep the sink, but it had been glued in, and the top end had cracked, and then been reglued in. It was not coming out in one piece, which initially we thought was a shame, but then we realised that we are still keeping the hob rings, and so there will be part of his original interior still there.


This was the view after the sink was out.  It was also our first view of Brian's naked floor.  It didn't look too bad.  This was also when we realised how nervous we were about Brian's naked floor.  We had heard so many horror stories of vans that looked ok, looked gorgeous in some cases, and yet were rotten at the core, that we felt the apprehension.













The icebox came out.

The seatbelts came out.

-

And then there it was.  One massive lump of Dormobile interior, on it's backside.


Ooooh.  See the water marks?  See the grimness?  There was only one place that this was going to go.



And there we go.

One naked Brian.

Importantly, one naked Brian, with a lovely, solid floor.


Apart from the bit under the icebox, which was a hole, and then three holes, and then a new patch of floor, and a new outrigger and a new bit of chassis rail. But as this had had water going through it for the best part of 40 years, it can be forgiven!  Paul fixed it.  It's all good now.

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