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.

Curtains?

Currently the curtains in the van are pretty dull so decided to jazz it up a little!

This is the FREDRIKA fabric from Ikea. At £4 a meter (150cm wide) it should cost about £28 to do a whole set of curtains. 

Good old Ikea

So far all  my working out has been based on this brilliant Vanagon Wiki so will update it following this weekends visit. 

The warehouse of wonders

Well the title is a little bit misleading, Tom thought it was wonderful but I'd been there before. Basically we raided my dads carpet warehouse for goodies such as....

 Carpet!

Apparently the brown monstrosity actually has 'V' and 'W' in it. Surprisingly the AstroTurf won. Currently the plan is to cut out a rug for the floor instead of sticking it down. Should do until we get the floor up to check the insulation down there. 

And speaking of insulation, here we have a choice of two types, one slightly thinker and the other with a (possible) waterproof backing.

Finally, my birthday present from my dear father.... gaffa tape, spray adhesive, stanly knife and tape measure. (The hacksaw is for a bike related bodge don't worry!)

As mentioned, first camping trip this weekend so should get some nice interior photos and a pic of Dougie's characteristic gearstick :P

Dougie in the dark

So despite my best efforts (and leaving the van at my dads while I'm in Manchester) I really haven't had a chance to observe Dougie in sunlight! So just so I get some pictures up here i shall add these.

Sadly what you can't see in the last picture is the tree I drove through to get the van on the drive. Guess I need to get some more spacial awareness. Quite glad it wasn't the wall to be honest!

Quick view of the rather dull interior, stolen from the original gumtree ad.

So already have a couple of big (ish) things to add to the To-Do list. As Dougie is currently off road the first thing I will be doing is popping to the post office on Saturday morning to tax him. Fingers crossed we will then give him a quick fabreeze then off on our first ever camping trip. Not going to lie, am playing it safe by heading over to Delamere Forest. It's far enough away to get some juice in the lesiure battery yet close enough to call for help if needed. 

Pay day = first shopping trip

So finally got paid, which means shopping!

So far have got myself some new gas struts to hold up my tailgate and the all important Haynes manual so I can figure out what it is exactly I'm doing :)

The bible (or so I'm told)

Sadly they don't seem to do one for a diesel engine so that could be interesting!