Saturday Swap Shop

With the onset of snow and copious amounts of grit on the roads, this is the weekend for getting the BBS removed. So it's off with the grimy, salty alloys (ready for a thorough cleaning):

...and on with the steels:

Thanks must again go to JC at JC Motors for his handy-work with a trolley jack.

One thing we did notice when taking the BBS off was the tyre-wear; strangely there seems to be more wear on the rears than the fronts - is this normal? Tyre pressures? Van-load? Any insight as to why this might have happened would be most grateful.

Winter wheel progress

The wheels are back from the painters:

The Audi Nimbus Grey is looking pretty good, the wheels were shot-blasted before paint which has made for a great finish - I'm not after perfection, just something tidy to get through Winter.

I'm still unsure as to whether to put the black plastic centres back in when the wheels are fitted - the bolts are looking a little untidy and I'm running out of time to get them sorted out. Tyres will be refitted this week and the BBS are due to come off next Saturday morning - as usual; watch this space!

More tweaks

One final job on our latest visit to The Campershak was the fitting of a 12v socket just inside the tailgate:

This will be used for a number of items; as a keen mountainbiker who often ends up filthy after a long winter ride, I'm hoping to invest in a mobile power washer - something like the ones from Mobi:

 

The socket will also be ideal for an air compressor or inspection lamp should they be required.

The washer will be great for keeping the van wheels spotless in Summer too - is that going too far?! ;)

Interior tweaking

When we first picked the van up from The Campershak having just had the interior fitted their parting comments were 'live with it for a bit, if there's anything that needs some adjustment, just let us know'.
So we did.
One thing we have found frustrating was access to the gas bottle - this was done through the storage flap in the worktop, then through another flap in the cupboard floor, then down again to van-floor level - as you can imagine that is already the length of my arm!!!

So to make life easier we discussed the fitting of an access door - reached by opening the driver's side sliding door - straight to the gas bottle. The door is just large enough to get two hands in and turn the gas on or off and to undo the regulator when it comes to changing the bottle.

Obviously the bottle will still leave the cupboard from above but the addition of this little door has made life loads easier - we can now use the cupboard area above the bottle more effectively without requiring access every time we switch the gas on or off. Perfect.

I'm really happy with the Campershak's attention to detail - they even spent time looking for a piece of board where the wood grain matched as closely as possible - my kind of perfection.

Boxed-in clever

So here's how the heater outlet has been looking for the past two weeks; not pretty, but strangely ideal for grabbing the end of the hose and directing hot air straight into the cab - quite a luxury!

And here's how the outlet looks now after another trip back to The Campershak:

 

All looking pretty neat I think you'll agree. The centre piece of the outlet is directional and therefore we can direct the heat either slightly left, right, up or down. The top of the boxed section ends just out of sight leaving a large enough gap for the heater unit to be serviced or removed if necessary.

Post Nº100: A trip to the lakes

We took the opportunity of a free weekend to make the most of this Autumn's colours with a trip into the Lake District. The National Park is only 90 minutes from Skipton along busy but steady A-roads and pretty quickly we're treated to quite a spectacle of colour.

It was great to see plenty of other T5s knocking around and being put to use for various weekend activities; mountainbiking, walking and kayaking.

The route was a bit of an 'out and back' affair; driving through Windermere and Ambleside before our first stop at Keswick. A bite to eat and a mooch around town, we also went to check out the two Camping & Caravanning Club sites; The Oval and Keswick, the latter being closed due to flooding. Needless to say we'll be back next year for a couple of nights.

Then down to Ambleside down the spectacular road past Thirlmere and Grasmere - the Lakes scenery could have given New England a run for it's money on a day like today. A quick walk around town and a lust over a few bikes in Biketreks before our final stop at Windermere and Bowness just in time for a quick coffee before heading home.

As the title of this post says, this is number 100 - a small milestone in the van's history and ongoing transformation. Thanks for reading and sticking with it this far.

A warm welcome

Today was the first cool day of Autumn - a perfect opportunity to give the heating a blast. Here's the system showing +8ºC external temperature:

And showing +16ºC internal temperature:

I'm still looking forward to a night's camping where we're getting closer to zero degrees - if not below! We're hopefully off to York for a spot of Christmas shopping the second weekend in December, fingers-crossed for some frosty evenings...

Blog update...

Just a quick post to let you know I've updated the blog layout slightly - hopefully you'll find it easier to read - the keen-eyed amongst you may have noticed a few new features down the right-hand-side; there's a tally of the most popular blog posts and a new section called 'inspirations'. This is a handful of links that I find inspiring: car culture, photography, surfing etc.

If you're a fellow blogging 'van-converter' feel free to comment below this post and I'll add a link under that section.

Thanks for reading,
Richard