Twas The Day AFTER Windows.....

This is just going to be a short entry (famous last words), Im cream crackered :). Ok what happened today, went and bought the tinting film for the windows, same Limo grade that the back window already has, so all back windows will match. Never done it before, but have watched some videos of it being done on You Tube and if I follow those cant see it being too big a problem.

Also finally (finally ? its only been here a couple days !) fitted the towbar, I know I said Id put photos up but forgot to take some ! I will take a photo of the fitted bar, but by the time I had done it the light was going. It is fairly straight forward, the rear bumper slides through the rear sill and bolts to the chassis with 2 bolts on either side, couldnt be simpler right ? Then why did it take me nearly 2 hours to get these bolts out ! 4 bolts, that was all. The underneath of the van has been undersealed, so the thread coming out the other side were locked with baked black goo, anyway..... once all 4 bolts were out, I had to bolt up one angle bracket, then refit the bolts plus add another one that there is conveniently a pre drilled hole for. Once the first angles are up, you then bolt another angle on to them, then the actual tow bar bolts either side via 4 bolts to the angle plates. Sounds complicated but honestly its very simple, and would have been done in about 10 minutes had I been able to get the bolts out to begin with. So now have the towbar fitted, just need to go buy a tow ball and pre-wired electrics, which I am going to pop up to Beckford for at Mendip Caravan Centre, they charge £8 for the electrics side of it, halfords etc charge £16.99 for exactly the same thing. So rather use the fuel and give my money to them if they are going to keep their prices down like that. The hard bit has been done now so thats a bonus :).

Wanted to tint the windows today, but just didnt have time, so will try and get it done one afternoon this week.

THEN I'm going to have to get cracking with the interior, speaking of which, I have been after a book on self building a VW camper van by Lindsay Porter, these books are £35 new, and even second hand ones on ebay seem to get very close to that price, so after a few failed bids, I found another guide from a guy on ebay called Martin, it sounds like he has converted a T4 into a camper, and written a guide as hes gone along and is now selling it on a cd on ebay, its only £7.99 and seems to cover pretty much everything I need, so bought one, emailed Martin and explained what I was doing and gave him a link to this blog, and got a great email back offering lots of advice and encouragement, and also saying that when I get the disk, which he has already posted, that if there is anything I need help on or dont understand, he is happy to help me out, I think he is a really genuine guy and look forward to keeping in touch as I go along with the conversion and the blog :). If you are interested in purchasing his disk, search ebay for user name "driftwood_61" and search his items for sale. Thanks Martin, look forward to receiving the disk hopefully monday. :).

Well thats pretty much it from me today, wasnt so short after all was it :)

Dont forget to come back soon !

All done, already looking to the next job ! :)

Well after a nervously excited kind of morning, I managed to get home a little earlier for Five Valleys Windscreens, they hadn't already been, so did a bit of tidying up etc, rang Dave from Five Valleys to let him know I was home, on the phone he was a little concerned about the weather, it had been wet and windy during the morning, but I told him if the worst came we could get the van half under the car port at least. Managed to have a bite of dinner when Jen got home before they got here, then Martin from Five Valleys rang the bell.


Well they didnt waste much time, got the kettle on while they set up, they left the van on the drive, and Dave set up under the car port to cut the glass, Martin started marking out the panels to be cut. I asked Dave if it would be ok to take some pics, dont think he realised just how many I meant ! But this is a big project for me, and means alot, so I had to record such a big change only way I know how :).


By the way, if you are looking to have anything automotive window related done, I can only recommend Five Valleys Windscreens, based in Stroud, have used them for a couple years now for windscreens, and they were the first people I called when I needed this done, nice guys and very professional, I was watching out for some cut corners today, but was pleased to see the attention to detail from them both. I hadnt even thought about a treatment for the freshly cut metal, but there Martin was dabbing rust treatment all round the hole. You can call Dave for a quote on 07796 154967.


Anyway these are the pics from today, in order they were taken, so you can pretty much see the job from start to finish, ended up with 18 to put on here, took far more !

Martin Starts Cutting The Hole... :-O

Almost done, I can see light.....

And out it pops !

Time To Start On The Sliding Door...

And Cut......Again..

Martin Treats The Fresh Cut Metal With Rust Treatment To Stop It Rusting In Future.

Dave Cuts The Glass Ready To Go In, He's Using Bonded Glass, Similar To Windscreen Glass That If Impacted Will Shatter But Stay In One Piece.

Martin Starts Fitting The Rubber Frame / Trim That The Glass Will Sit In.

The Trim Is Installed Ready To Receive The Glass.

Pushing The Glass Into Place...

The Final Push And Its In !

The Final Job, Fitting The Beading That Locks The Glass In Place, Stops It Dropping Back Out ! :)

Yes ! Its Finished, And I'm Very Pleased With The Results !

And Its Now Starting To Look Like A Camper :)

Looking Through The Drivers Side Window From Inside......

And Looking Through The Sliding Door Window.

As I said Im very pleased with the results, it has made such a difference when you are driving, it feels like it has loads of space in the back now, and I can see when Im backing off the drive ! Dont have to guess whether something is driving by :)

I did get Dave and Martin to pose for me in front the window at the end, but caught Dave in mid speech which didnt look so good ! So have decided not to put it on the blog ! :) Dave sorry I made you go through that for nothing !

Whilst they were fitting the windows, I asked Dave about the stone chip bang in the middle of the windscreen, its a pretty major one, and although he said it could be fixed, it would always look like a big stone chip, so advised me to just get a new windscreen fitted, I have had Five Valleys out twice before over the past couple years, first time for a windscreen on the Combo van, and last year for a windscreen on the Astra, so we know my insurance is good with windscreens, and Five Valleys do alot of business with NIG my insurers. So the upshot is that Five Valleys are coming out again next week to fit a new windscreen, NII is having so many new parts ! :)

Once they had packed and gone, Jen and I went down to look for some insulation to go behind the van lining at Focus, but nothing jumped out that would be suitable, so we went on to Halfords to look see what they did, they have the window tinting kits there, so may be going back tomorrow, as I want the windows tinted asap to stop prying eyes. I searched the net for some caravan blinds too, and found some that would fit, but on looking at the inside of the windows, I dont think blinds are the way to go, so now looking out for a curtain track for a T4 instead, that along with the Limo Tinted windows should give more than enough privacy.

Anyway thats all for today, I am aiming to fit the towbar and maybe tint the windows tomorrow (saturday) whilst Jon is fitting the engine to the MG, if I can get a tinting kit, will try Verns Autoparts in Tredworth before I go and buy the kit in Halfords as I think Vern could do it a bit cheaper. Dont forget to check back and see if I did ! Obviously more pics will follow too !

Twas The Night Before Windows, When All Through The House.....

....was the sound of tapping keys on a keyboard, whilst I was looking for interior designs and materials :)

Ok tomorrow the windows are being fitted, getting quite excited, will be a major change and a big step on the way to its conversion. Have been trawling the net for ideas on what to do with all that bare metal thats in it at the moment, and have seen some pretty cool professional looking fittings. My intention is to not have any metal showing, so have been looking for that carpet you use on sound boxes, thinking well black wont be so bad, I have only ever seen black or maybe grey, so thought that was my only option...... I was soooooo wrong ! Jen and I have decided on a bright funky yellow for the top half and what I can only describe as an Everton type blue on the lower half ! Not yet decided what to do with the roof or floor yet, Im thinking a rubber floor at the moment, but also thinking that a beech coloured laminate flooring might look nice with that colour combination, just worried about the dogs slipping, so rubber may be the way to go, AND they do coloured rubber flooring too ! Found a nice orange coloured one earlier, which Jen liked but I think it might be a colour too far !

Yellow for the top, Blue for the bottom..

I was also looking to see what I could do with the 15" freeview monitor we bought for the caravan when we had it, wasnt sure how to put it in, I want it flipping down from the roof but wasnt sure how to go about it, anyway found a made for it bracket on ebay, that takes tvs much heavier than mine, so hoping that it will do the job when I get around to ordering it, am thinking about building some kind of cabinet or surround thats going to be covered in a sympathetic colour to the rest of the back. Apparently this bracket will swivel 360 degrees, so where I am going to put the screen, at the back by the back window, it should swivel round and be viewable from outside the rear of the van if we needed it to be, am thinking lots of Wii gaming at the back of the van where you can be as animated as you like ! :)

Have also been looking at awnings, the Fiamma kind that pull out from the side of the van, but unless a really cheap one comes up, will think more seriously about that once the bodywork has been done and its been bodywrapped or painted.

Jen took NII in to have the tyres fitted on Tuesday, had all 4 replaced drove out the garage and down the road, and the I get a phone call saying that there is a noise coming from the back which speeds up the faster you go, I assured her it didnt do that before the tyres were fitted so told her to take it back to the tyre place and get them to have a quick look see what had happened, all the while thinking oh no there goes my window money, something awful has happened !, anyway it wasnt too bad, the handbrake cable on each side were sitting too close to the wheel, which wasnt a problem with the old balance weights that were on the inside of the wheels, but the new weights were either chunkier or the cables had moved as the weights were grazing the handbrake cables as the wheels went round. The nice people down Discount Tyres cable tied them back for us, and this has sorted the problem, jen made them a whole £5 richer for their trouble ! :)

The same day my "spinner" wheel trims arrived, and I think they look ok on, show the van up a bit at the moment to be fair :). But am happy with them, makes NII look a bit shinier :).

Was having a chat with Jamie from Signs Express tonight, and he is trying to push me away from the body wrap idea, saying it would be better to get it sprayed and then apply the mystery machine graphics, which could be nice, but im thinking im not that good at bodywork, so was hoping the vinyl would hide any blemishes I may miss :) We'll see, said I would leave it to him to organise, and for him to find me a ball park figure that I can start saving for !

Its 11.30pm, and Im just considering going out and taking one last pic inside NII with its panels intact, before they get cut out tomorrow, wont see them again :)

Im itching to get started on the interior, have seen some really smart jobs done tonight, although the whole camper idea is kind of tongue in cheek, as in its design, its meant to stand out and give people a laugh, I do want to do a professional job on it that I can be proud of, so its going to be a steep learning curve for me and I will probably get frustrated along the way, but am really looking forward to it. Need to learn electrics now, have learnt window tinting from the net, and hopefully carpeting, now for electrics :)

Car Sold - Things Moving Quickly With Norman II

Ok good news on the car front, thursday after getting Norman II (as it has now been named after Norman, our T25 from last year), the ad that was online on Trade-Its website must have gone in the paper, as I had 2 phone calls, one from a guy in Bath, who said he'd ring back at the weekend to view (he didnt), and one from a guy in Cheltenham, Matthew, well I say one, he rang about 10 times in all bless, anyway he ended up buying the car offering me more money than I had agreed to sell it for to the guy in the forest, so was very happy about that, so now its gone, and what I had begged and borrowed has now been repayed :). So Norman II is now my sole vehicle apart from our Ambulances and Jens MG (Jen you should start a blog for that !).

Took NII (Norman II) to the chinese last tuesday and wednesday nights, and he went great, didnt use excessive fuel, was easy to get around in, and I enjoyed driving him. Wednesday night Id got my act together and set the LED projector up on a board on the interior box opposite the side door, closed the side door and gaffer taped a piece of white vinyl against it and sat on the seat and watched an episode of 24 through my ipod on the projected 25" or so screen, how cool :) Had the ipod audio going through the stereo. Really enjoyed that, it re-enforced my thoughts on how useful a camper will be to us.

I have now designed how I want the interior to look, I have decided not to go for the traditional rock and roll bed design with hob and sink opposite side door, but go for a more caravan look and feel, I got the idea from the red transporter we went to see in caerphilly, he had actually used some donor caravan seats and chopped them about, i intend to make mine from scratch, made to measure. I have done a crude diagram of how the back of the camper will look when viewed from the back of the front seats, so you are looking down toward the back door (Yes that is a flip down LCD TV hanging from the roof :) ). With this design you can have 2 or 3 people sitting and chatting or watching tv, with some floor space left, rather than 2 people sat side by side on one seat with the more traditional rock and roll seat. Also this one you can just go in and lie on the long seat without pulling anything out into a bed. The seat going down the length of the van will have a fold out top which will foldout across the van and form a double bed as in a caravan.

Hope you can make that out ok, its just a picture of a drawing using my mobile phone, will maybe try and scan it properly sometime. *update - Now Scanned :)

So thats the design, I went and took some photos of it for this blog, whilst I was doing that I had a look underneath and what I could see was solid, not a bit of rust anywhere, rear floor looked solid and like new, and the sills were solid, so no idea what the MOT report was talking about, maybe find out when I put it through an MOT myself, but my mind is more at ease about it now. Just in case I am on the security camera tapes of Wingets in Gloucester, and someone is reading this, just want to say thanks for the use of the rear car park at Wingets for my "photo shoot", even though there was no-one there to ask permission from to do so.

Here is what I came up with from that day -

These are some exterior shots, trying to get that Top Gear look :P. At this point I had done nothing to the van, the following pics are of the interior as it was given to me -

As I didnt intend to keep this interior and had designed the above interior, rather than throw all this interior into the shed and let it rot and mould, thought I would try selling it on ebay, ended up with lots of questions and 10 watchers ! Started it at £50, thought that was fair and anyone looking to do something similar wouldnt have been able to buy all the wood, foam and material for that kind of money, it would be some more much needed cash to put towards something for NII and it would be out of my way. Anyway Sunday James from Wales rang and asked to view it, haggled a little, I told him I would end the auction early for £80 if he decided to have it, he came back with £60 but I stuck to my guns and sunday afternoon he drove up from Cardiff and paid me the £80 for it, we took it out there and then, took us about an hour and he went off with it to put in his own SWB T4. Good luck with that James, hope you finish it off and dont just leave it in your garage or shed :).

So now I have an empty T4 van, or maybe a better way to think about it is a blank canvas. Itching to get started on building the interior, but a couple things to sort first.

Tomorrow morning (27th - Happy Birthday Brian and Mike !), Jen is taking it to Discount Tyres in Gloucester, they are supplying 4 new budget tyres (195/70/15) for £38 a piece, £48 cheaper than the quoted price from Formula One Autocentre, who were price matching my fictitious quote from Bathwick. I have ordered some funky looking Chrome trims from ebay that are known as "Spinners", as in they carry on spinning when you stop driving! Tacky, maybe, naff, maybe, Steve like them ? Not at all, but its my camper and I like them :) Well at least on ebay, may be a different story when they are on my van !

Friday I have booked 5 Valleys Windscreens to come out and cut big holes in the sides and fit 2 new windows over the holes :) To do this myself, parts come to approx £60 per side, and I have all the worry and hassle about cutting big holes in my van and not knowing what I am doing, a quote from a recommendation from the guy at VW Vans in Cheltenham was £240 plus vat, which is getting on for £300, Five Valleys are coming to my house, and supplying the parts and cutting the holes and fitting them for £100 per side all in, result :) I will tint them to match the back window and also makes the van more private when sitting in the back during the day, also darkens the back slightly if watching tv or my projector :).

Have also ordered a towbar from ebay, just the bar, not the ball or electrics, can get those anywhere, it was £53.25 delivered. Hopefully that is being couriered here for tomorrow. Will take pics while fitting. Apparently no drilling or bumper removal nescessary, so thats good.

Also played with the heater controls, it was stuck on hot air, the lever that the temperature cable acts on was broken, so need to look out for a new 3 way heater control.

Gear knob has been a problem since I picked NII up, very loose and feels like it will come off, took it all apart and it attaches to the gear stick but 3 little worm screws that bite into the stick metal, 2 werent screwed in at all, only one was holding the knob on, (which is a posh brushed aluminium type thing that lights up with blue led's), so tightened all 3 and now its solid as a rock and not going anywhere, just need to sort some new batteries out for the led's in it and its good to go.

Sorry its been a long entry this time, but havent had time to sit down and do this as its all been happening.

See you soon ! :)

Ebay Woe But Got There In The End....

Right, after 2 listings on ebay, the car didnt sell, lots of watchers both times, so shame on you watchers, although, the second time once the auction was finished I had a phone call and numerous text messages which ended in me doing a deal with one guy, that said he'd pick it up saturday, when I gave him the address by text message, after not hearing from him, texted him again to see where he was and he said he didnt want it !!! By now we are in to saturday afternoon, so not really a lot of time to park it up with signs in it. Never mind.

Anyway, have managed to beg borrow and steal to get the remaining cash together and we went over today to pick it up, had a good chat with Paul the guy selling it, he seemed genuine (we'll come back to that in a minute), the van has a few dents around it but nothing serious, it will all be treated and made straight before the body wrap, the cab is in good condition, he had fitted a aldi all singing stereo, can use sd cards or usb pens for mp3's, it also had a nokia bluetooth hands free kit fitted which paired up with my phone straight away, the speaker is down under the dash somewhere, and worked great ! He also went and fished out a wiring loom that fits inline behind the stereo and can be plugged in to the nokia kit, meaning that when im on a call, all audio will go through the stereo system. The wheels are normal steel ones and look a bit naff, the tyres arent brilliant, so will find a cheap set of better looking alloy wheels and get new tyres fitted to those. All in all its in good shape, came with lots of service history, mot's, and receipts, but my main aim now is to have it mot'd so I can get a picture of its true condition, service the engine, the brakes were juddering slightly when applied whilst moving at speed, so will need to sort all that out, then I will start with the bodywork and getting the windows fitted, then start on the inside. Its not going to be a quick project, but main thing is that I have the base now to start with and I can use it straight away for bits and bobs once the car goes. One thing that is slightly worrying is that Jen was going through the paperwork, and found some descrepencies, Paul said that the cam belt had been changed 2000 miles ago or so, in the service book it said that it was changed 40,000 miles ago, no other paperwork to support a recent change, but thats not to say it wasnt, just no proof. Also now we have the details of the van, Jen checked up on its mot's, and last mot stated the underneath was "rusty and weak" as an advise, I had a quick look under the arches at the front of the steps to see if they were rotten, they werent, which is usually a good indication of rust, but didnt get underneath and have a good look, so if it is, then so be it, will get it welded, thats what owning vw campers is all about isnt it ! :) To be fair to Paul, he may not have seen the advise sheet for the van, it isnt in with the paperwork and we dont know if the cam belt has been changed or not, so cant really blame him without proof :).

Will take some pictures soon and post them up, these will be the "untouched" photos, the intention is to add photos of any work I do as I go along. I'm expecting this blog to now last at least a couple years ! :)

Last Day Of Auction On Ebay For Car !

Ok well this hasnt been going as well as I'd hoped ! One guy contacted me and said he wanted to come and view it, so I went all out and cleaned it up, fitted the dvd player back in etc etc, and he hasn't bothered ! I uploaded some new pics which made the auction disappear to searches for quite a few hours which Im not completely happy about, I cant see a reason for it, anyway I have about 5-6 hrs left, and 6 people watching it, but have been here before, watchers do not guarantee bids ! Some people are just nosey ! :P

Fingers crossed for a sell later on, really need the cash to go get the van at the weekend, so running out of time, this could be one short blog if it doesnt happen ! :)

Ok my car is listed on Ebay ! Fingers crossed because I really need it to get my van !

Have just listed my faithful old Vauxhall Astra on ebay, it has to go to fund the van we have already bought but not paid for yet ! I will be sorry to see it go, its been with us 3 years now and today passed its MOT with flying colours, straight through, there arent many 10 year old cars you can say that about ! If you are interested in buying my car and want to contribute towards my camper to be, you can buy it by typing this listing number into ebay's search engine. Please, pretty please ? :) I wanna camper !

Ebay Listing : Vauxhall Astra 130281066680

The purchase......

After wanting to get one of these for a long while now, since Norman (our Kickers T25) moved on to pastures new, Jen has bid on and won a VW Transporter T4 panel van, 1.9TD, T reg, in white, spookily from the same place we picked Norman up from, Banbury, its now all hands to decks to raise the money before next weekend. My trusty old Astra is in for MOT tomorrow and will be going on Ebay once photos have been taken, so hopefully that will help towards it. When she won the T4 we were like "oh no", but now I am excited to get started on turning it into something practical and fun.

We have some ideas about what we want to do, think MTV's Pimp My Ride but on a budget, and you will get the idea ! The outside is most likely going to be the world famous Mystery Machine from the Scooby Doo cartoons, most probably done via a body wrap, the inside will be decided as we go, but lots of gadgets and comfort is the idea.

Obviously projects like this can take a long time and vast amounts of money that you will rarely make back, so best looked upon as a hobby.

Will report back if and when we have managed to raise the money in time and it is sitting on our drive, or someones drive, maybe Mike and Gyda's, but shhhhh they dont know that yet :)