Calamity Strikes!

Last weekend headed down to Portishead to visit the grandparents. Opa was a little sad that we didn't turn up in the 'Yellow Peril' (apt name, will explain later) but at this point I still didn't know if the heating worked!
Had a lovely time, consumed a rather large amount of food and the weekend was finished off by this amazing vanilla panna cotta with raspberry coulis and controversial grated chocolate.

YUM

Now fast forward to Sunday evening, as the TV offering was pretty lacking the decision was made to try and get the van started. The ultimate aim was to fill up with diesel and add a cleaning additive to cut through some of the gunk in the tank. So after jump starting the van (as the van battery had completely given up the ghost) we drove to Stoke, setting off at about 7:15pm.

Good Points:

1. Managed to get heating! Basically played with the many toggles and had hot air flowing round the cab.

2. Van sat at 55mph (by sat nav) all the way to Stoke with no complaints.

3. Filled up with fuel and started first time.

BUT....

Upon leaving the petrol station I spotted that the engine was running very hot and the coolant light was on.

Tentatively drove back onto the dual carriage way and the engine starts to cool. Phew we thought.

We were wrong.

Suddenly the temp starts to rise and we loose all heat to the cab. Dropping down to 35mph we limp to the lay by at the end of the road and Sarah points out there there is smoke coming out of the engine bay.

I pull over very quickly.

Having heard of all the scary stories involving fire and camper vans we clear out the stuff form the back and open the engine bay. I'm stood at a safe distance with the fire extinguisher. Luckily at this point Dad points out that it's steam. Tension wound down a notch.

Note steam. 

Once the steam cleared it was time to investigate the engine. Sadly I didn't take any photos so you will have to take my word for it. Discovered that although the filler tank (?) was full, the other tank was pretty much empty. Probing the hoses connecting the two identified a pipe which wasn't attached to anything. First guess was a clip had come loose and the hose had come off. Luckily we had a cable tie so reattached until a proper metal clip could be added on.

Next stage was to try and start the van. Nope. Nothing. Nada. Not a peep from the starter motor. Fearing the worst a call was made to the RAC. We were advised there may be a 3 hour wait. It was at this point that I realised that draining the water from the sink system meant we couldn't even have a cup of tea :(

While waiting for the RAC man we attempted to start the van using the leisure battery. Partial success, got the engine to turn over (so starter motor worked) but not enough to start the van.

Which, it turns out, was a good thing.

RAC man turns up at about half 9 and promptly declares he used to have a T25! Anyway properly connects the pipe, fills up the bottle and bleeds the radiator. At this point there is a little bit of a silver lining, no rust under the front grill! Possibly the only part of the van that isn't. Sadly a check on the coolant revelled the presence of oil.

At this point my heart sank. Having previously wrote off 'The Pig' due to blowing a head gasket and ruining the engine I got pretty upset.

But it wasn't as bad as I thought, I had missed the word 'leaky' from the sentence and the RAC man assured me it was a 4 hour job to just change the seals. So the rest of the engine should be OK. Managed to limp home and hugged the dog for comfort. Back to Manchester by 2am. Ouch.

NO RUST!! (honest)

DIY Curtains - Part 3

FINISHED!

I now have 6 lovingly hand made VERY bright curtains. Took a while to get them finished as we had a weekend in Paris (pics and post will appear as soon as I get my camera back from Kat).

Curtain stack

Ok when I said finished, I actually meant the bulk of the work has been done and I'm now on to the finishing touches. These will include handy poppers on the tailgate curtains to keep them closed while we are snoozing (an upgrade from safety pins) and also some new curtain ties.

Keeping things as simple as possible for the curtains ties I just used the old ones as a template.

Lovely colour comparison here :-)

Drew round the old curtain tie, added a bit for seams then sewed along 3 sides with the fabric inside out.

Then turned it the right way round, ironed it flat and folded in the last edge to make it nice and neat. Then next step was to add some kind of fastening mechanism. The old curtains were attached to the van at one end and had a popper on the other end so they could loop round. I have gone for a slightly cheaper version and just used poppers to close the loop. I will attach the middle of the tie to the van (or maybe one end, not yet decided) to keep the curtains tamed while we are bouncing around the countryside :P

2nd time lucky, I sewed them on back to front the first time

Anyway, should be putting them in the van this weekend so will add photos of the van looking pretty and bright!

In other news, wood working has been happening. Tom has gleefully purchased himself a power tool. Can't give out too many details as it's going to be used for Christmas presents but I am allowed to post the pic of me messing around with it.

I'm wearing safety goggles....normally seen in the pool

First attempt at something

DIY Curtains - Part 2

Last night I finally got round to doing some more work on the curtains. Over the weekend I had finished hemming all the sides and bottoms of all the curtains but had to stop as I had no pins!
The bottom and side hems are very simple, just fabric folded over then folded over again. The corners are just square, no fancy bits. I ironed everything to keep the hems flat and neat. Did have a little problem with the fabric shifting slightly as it wasn't pinned it ended up looking surprisingly neat, if I do say so myself!

Simple hems

So once I had taken delivery of some pins from my little sister (thanks Sarah), it was time to get round to pinning on the curtain tape. I bought mine from Ikea at the same time as the fabric and then cut it in half to double the distance. This did give me some slightly raggedy edges but managed to keep them fairly intact.

Ironing the hems

As described in an earlier post, the top hem is double the size of the other hems to accommodate the curtain tape. I started off using my handy tape measure but soon was confident enough to fold the hem by eye. Luckily this worked.

First pin, first injury!

The curtain tape consists of two bits, the loops to attach your curtains hooks and the drawstring to create your ruffles. Should point out here, after looking at the final curtains, I think it would have been better to have put these on the other way up (you will see what I mean in later pictures).

All pinned and ready to sew

I managed to pin the entire length with only once pricking my finger. I would say that's quite an achievement! Next step was sewing. As in some places the fabric was doubled over a few times, I ended up using the sewing machine manually to make sure the needle didn't get stuck. All in all it was very easy, the pins even stopped any fabric slipping (should have used them before really).

Sew, sew, sew.

Should point out that this isn't my sewing machine, it's been borrowed off my granddad (Thanks Opa).

And finally, the moment you have all been waiting for....

The finished curtain! 

(yes I have only done one so far, and it was the smallest but hey)

Should brighten up the van a little

And yes they even have pleats

 As you can see in the final picture, the pleats are pretty close to the top. In the rest of the curtains I am going to flip the curtain tape so they are a bit lower down.

Anyway one down, five to go. 

This weekend I got my first flash!

Yup first time getting flashed and waved at by another VW driver :-) It happened to be a nice lady in a silver T5. It may have been a pitying wave. I would have tried to flash back but I still have issues finding things in the van.

Was back home at the weekend with the idea of sorting out the rust on the van and doing some insulating. Unfortunately the rust that we did find was a fair bit worse that expected. Treated both foot wells in the cab, might have accidentally put my finger through an unsuspecting patch on the passenger side but luckily it was a very tiny hole. Discovered both front door were rotted out at the bottom, which I am guessing means the windows are leaky. But anyway, treated the rust I could see then got the Father to give the patches a quick coat of white spray paint before it started hailing. Yup hailing. Welcome to winter.

In other news it was the first time Kat was able to ride in the van, think she enjoyed it given the grin on her face! Also for anyone from Sandbach, we managed 55mph on the speedo before the bridge on the by pass. And Dougie didn't sound like he was about to blow up, which is a plus. It is also pretty handy driving round with a tool box in the back, got to Mums house and had to utilise the 'Gear stick correction device' aka adjustable spanner, in fixing her toilet.

 Sadly didn't take many photos this weekend and the ones I did aren't uploading! But I did find the video Tom took of me the first time we went camping. Notice the camera shake.

DIY Curtains - Part 1a

This isn't a proper post. No this is me being a little bit proud that I have used a sewing machine!
Not only did I test out all the stitches, I made Alex a small and pointless pillowcase (it was approximately wallet sized) and I made a present for the kitchen.

If you squint, that line is straight. Honest.

Who needs a working boiler....I HAVE A DRAFT EXCLUDER SNAKE THINGY! Pretty much just a tube of left over fabric stuffed with plastic bags (these may get upgraded to rice or something similar). It does actually make quite a bit of difference.

Excluding drafts

So I am now happy to tackle the curtains. Need to purchase some pins first and acquire an iron to get nice straight hems but other than that am good to go.

DIY Curtains - Part 1

It's cold. No, I mean really cold. It's the inside cold. The inside cold that means the boiler is broke.
(This is not actually that surprising as 2 weeks ago there were plants growing out of it)

In an effort to stave off hyperthermia I finally worked up the courage to start working some home-made curtains to brighten up Dougies rather grey interior.

Last night was spent trawling websites for custom curtain measurements, asking my dad obscure questions about the length of things in the van and making myself pretty pictures on the computer to try and make all the curtains come out of the 7m x 1.5m bit of fabric I had already bought.

Top tip 1 - Work out how much fabric you need before you buy it!

Yes I know I should have done this but hey, it was an impromptu Ikea trip. Took some minor adjustment to fit everything in, but I had intended to alter the length of the tail gate curtains anyway so it was OK.
The easiest way I found to fit everything on was a scale model in powerpoint.

Scale plan of fabric (red) and curtains (blue).

Make sure you add the hems, again here was somewhere I managed to save some fabric.Instead of having a wide hem on the top and bottom, just put one one the top. The numbers in brackets on the diagram are the actual curtain size and the other numbers are the actual size I cut.

Hems. Both for the curtains and of my PJs

OK so once i was reasonably sure that everything would measure up, I started drawing out the first set of curtains. Went for the biggest first but I'm pretty sure you could start anywhere.

Top tip 2 - Measure twice, cut once.

Do as it says. I actually followed this one and picked up on what could have been some pretty dodgy mistakes.

Top tip 3 - Find yourself a large, bright space where you have enough room to lay out the fabric flat.

Unfortunately I didn't follow my own advice and was trying to do this in my lovely dark and sloped roof attic room. And after spending a lot of time on my hands and knees (thanks roof) I can advise a softer floor as well. Never the less, got the curtains cut without too much hassle.

One of the biggest curtains for the front cab area

Top tip 4 - Use the right tools

I didn't. Sadly we didn't have any scissors in the house that were sharp enough to cut tissue paper, let alone quite sturdy fabric. Luckily my trusty pen knife came to the rescue! Yes some of the edges are a little rough, and it too AGES but it worked. Also when measuring things like this I imagine a meter ruler and a friend might help. I used a tape measure. It behaved like an agitated snake and was pretty useless when it came to drawing across. Took some gentle encouragement (I stood on it) to make it stay still long enough to use as straight edge.

Finally, once you have all your curtains cut, fold them neatly so you can stick a photo on your blog and enjoy the fact that your room is permeated by the smell of Ikea candles.

Success! Sink curtain, 2 for the tail gate and 3 for the front and sliding door

The next step is to start arranging the hems and practicing sewing. Hopefully i can find an iron somewhere.

Garage update

Have to apologies now; this is going to be another blog post with no relevant pictures.

But it does have proper update on Dougie’s first trip to the garage. Not going to lie, I was worried. I was especially worried when Dougie disappeared from the driveway on Tuesday and nothing was heard from the mechanic for a week! My dad telling me he might have been stolen at the weekend didn’t help. Git.

But I can now present the list of things that have been fixed!!

• Full re-wire of the front wiring loom. So the dodgy light/radio connection mystery was solved. At some point things appeared to have got a little heated up front (think ‘oh dear, but it was only a little fire). Given the horror stories I had read on Club80-90, I can now say that there is a much lower chance of Dougie doing an impression of a bonfire. This rewire has made the light independent of the radio, re-lit the speedo and rumour has it now the heating even works….

• Oil leak in engine fixed. Ok this is a second hand description but I will do my best, cam belt oil seal had been leaking. This is now fixed and the cam bet replaced. One less thing to worry about!

• Rust situation. It’s not good but the van isn't going to fall to bits anytime soon. The underneath is sound and the body work isn't bad enough to need replacing (yet). So there will soon be a rust repairing session occurring. The idea is to treat the current patches of body work to slow the rust over the winter then think about something more permanent in the spring/summer. Sliding door is still functional and will get some wirewool TLC and grease.

• Steering column. This was loose. Very loose. But not anymore!

So now he has a clean bill of health for the winter J

Next steps are concentrating on the interior. I have already heard rumours of a cold winter and snow in Scotland. Time to get insulating I think!

In the mean time here is a photo of my science themed fancy dress. I am GFP (green fluorescence protein) producing jellyfish Aequorea Victoria. Yup geeky and my namesake. 

Rain, rain go away...

This weekend we are making the 400+ mile round trip up to Scotland to visit Tom's mum. Original plan was to take the van then camp on the Saturday night after a day of biking.

*UPDATE* First trip to garage has some interesting news. Small oil leak was hitting the cam belt, so if not treated could degrade the rubber. Upside - no damage yet. Downside - no van this weekend so we will be in the trusty Ibiza. Due to be fixed next week :)

Sadly this picture sums up the weather forecast.

I cycled home in this.

So instead Dougie is in the garage today. Apparently his arrival and subsequent parking on my road has caused quite a stir with the Oakmere Close residents. Offers of help/advice/DVDs have been appearing left, right and centre. In particular is the guy at the bottom of the road who no only has his own garage, but has also restored a number of T3's in his time. So Dougie is off for a bit of a health check before the winter. Fingers crossed it's just going to be the bits I've already spotted :-P Also going to get that slight oil leak checked otherwise the driveway is going to start looking really bad.

Rust spotting

Although Dougie seems to be pretty rust free underneath, I have started to notice a couple of slightly dodgy spots. Fingers crossed these will be relatively simply welding jobs. Have also done a bit of investigating into the slightly hairy door opening while driving phenomenon. Seems the door drops a couple of cm when its opened, and while the hinges I can see look ok it will be doorcard off moment to investigate the inside. Fingers crossed its something that has just come loose! Was going to insulate behind the door cards anyway, and given just how scrappy the look, possibly getting some new covered ply ones in the process.

Anyway on to the nitty gritty (so to speak). Rust. Enjoy.

The sliding door.

Seal looks ok but the sill (?) is going to need replacing

And the bottom of the sliding door looks a little suspect too

It looks like this is probably going to be the biggest rust sort out job (not including rebuilding up the windows once i take them out). Fingers crossed it won't be too hard!

That bit that holds up the tail gate.

Nice patch just under the tail gate strut mounting point (can you tell I'm making these up??)

Bit more at the  bottom of the tail gate

So hopefully these will just be treated and painted (asap) bit need to see if there is a reason it's just this side that has succumbed. The tail gate is off a different van (as its green not red under the yellow) so could be it need a bit of adjusting.

Ahhhh windows. 

Sliding door window, yup I can fit a finger through that. Now sealed a little bit with duct tape.

Driver side sliding window

Tailgate window

Possibly the biggest window problem, sliding door

My plan is to sort out the windows and replace the seals when I paint but some may need looking at before that. Already cleaned out the guttering/felt for the sliding windows so now the water has somewhere to drain too. The worst one is the sliding door window, in the bottom corner you can still see the red paint from the previous, previous owner and it seems to move around. A lot.

That gear stick. 

So the gearstick will unscrew and lead to me punching the dash in 3rd gear. Despite that, since figuring out the combination of bolts to tighten, it now seems happy to stay changing gear without incident.

All in all it is a watertight van, that drives. I'm still happy lol.

Fitting a new carpet + birthday cake

Currently Dougie is white/red/green and yellow depending on where you look on the paint work, or grey. First chore was removing the curtains, which were grey. Very grey. And also pretty smelly and old so they are now ready to be used as templates for the new set. Next was sticking the cushions in the sun to see if that improved them. Nope, still interesting black vinyl which will be removed as soon as I have finished the curtains.

Cleared out

Next step was ripping out the stained carpet tiles. This left behind more grey. Obviously this won't do and as I've already mentioned my dear father has given us some lovely bright green astroturf (yes it smells a little rubbery but I'm very much hoping that will go). Following the sage advice of my dad, Tom cut out a template from paper after my assurances that he couldn't just do it by measuring as I doubted there were any right angles. I was right (or not, so to speak), there wasn't a single one!

Using paper as a template, observed my my sisters dog Harper

Finished template

Gravelly drive wasn't the best cutting surface but it worked out ok

Right side down right?

Yours truly tidying up some edges

Almost finished, cut in the hole for the table leg just after

Very please with the result! Sadly some of the ply near to the sliding door wasn't taking the screws very well but a couple more holes drilled in the door plate should fix that. Finished off by cutting a hole for the table base and DONE. We decided not to fix the astroturf to the floor as this means we can still flip it out of the van and shake it if it gets really dirty (easier than hovering it anyway!)

Used a spare piece to protect the back of the bed

 Once that job was out the way the only thing left to do was to put on the kettle and slice the cake with the family!

First camping trip

So Dougie has been officially christened as a camper van, we for a quick night out near to Delamere at Fishpool Campsite. Drive down only took about 45mins, but that was long enough for a slightly hairy moment when the drivers side door came open. Seems like it drops slightly when you open it so this can go on the to-do list.

Once we got parked up (not helped by me unscrewing the gear stick again) it was time for a brew!

First brew

Having spent quite while back in Sandbach cleaning out the van and fitting new gas struts (which are brilliant) we arrived at the campsite later in the afternoon. Plenty of time to test out the HUGE awning that came with the van. Managed to get it mostly upright, addmittidly with a couple of repairs to the poles, but having proved that it worked we didn't peg it out and took it down again. Sadly I forgot to take a picture but it is about twice the size of the van! More than enough space for a couple of mates, or more importanly, bikes :P

Turns out this was the most entertaining thing that had happened on the campsite that day and when asking if anyone had some fire lighters we got given a disopasble BBQ for our efforts. But that did mean lighting the BBQ was a lot easier than collecting twigs from the very damp woodland.

Takes a lot of concentration

Drool

Goats cheese, caramalsied onion and rocket. Plus double beef burgers. YUM.

Spent the rest of the evening seeing which of the lights work (most of them) and relaxing catching up on some reading. Very comfy and good nights sleep followed.

Next morning the plan had been to cook pancakes... but having not bought a bowl or anything to mix the pancake batter in we hit the next best thing, Fry up. There was a lovely lady who has a van on the campsite who makes a mean breakfast bun. Best enjoyed watching the sun come over the hills whole sat on your tailgate admiring how it's no longer falling on your head.

And just because I can, here are some more photos of Dougie.