Boris

[mike202]

Looks like you had nice weather. 8)

Was the drone the wheel bearing then?

Glad you were able to overcome all the issues, never a dull moment with an old VW is there? :lol:

 

[gas1man]

Hey Mike,
Weather was terrible and only cleared up on the last day. :roll: Typical.
Was the wheel bearing and now no drone. Your right never a dull moment. :lol: :lol:

J & P

 

[gas1man]

Saturday spent in the garage. Tappets reset, now a little quieter.
Install bracket thingy behind petrol pump so centre pin does not fall out again. :lol: :lol:
Oil check and none needed even after our Welsh escapade.

J & P

 

[gas1man]

Saturday spent installing trickle charger into bus and an attempt to find
220v power adapter for 13.5v fridge, not happening.
Sunday decided to join the local vw club, "Scrumpy Dubbers " and went in convoy to a
classic car meet on the grass at Hazelbury Mill. Ended up displaying Boris not intentionally and
received loads of nice comments. Made new friends,and all round an excellent sunburnt day.







On to another week, have a good one everyone.

J & P

 

[gas1man]

Finally!!!!
New proper battery charger arrives from Germany (4 days). To be installed this weekend.



Other arrivals this week. Levelling chocks for camping.



Oh and internal lighting for around the inside. Also got a strip light but no pic.



Hopefully a dry weekend to do the work , and then away the following weekend all being well.

J & P

 

[gas1man]

Boris' new toy finally installed.(in good company) :lol: :lol:
Waited a long time for one of these, no more battery problems on site.



Have a good week everyone.

J & P

 

[gas1man]

Got away for a few days, bank holiday weekend.
Stayed at Nordens Farm outside Corfe Castle.
Got to do some walking and joined by our friends in their new motorhome.
Far to posh , ovens ,microwaves ,toilet shower etc etc.....
Anyway had a great few days away and very pleased to report that not problems encountered.



Same colour later bay, lovely couple.



Pippa enjoying the walk and views.



Corfe Castle from the steam train station. Nostalgic ride to Swanage.



Some of the permanent new lights under the cupboard and rattan balls for effect.



More of the same , double the effect in the windscreen.



Lost amongst the fat cats. However a good time was had by all.
Enjoy the short week.

J & P

 

[mike202]

Happy days

The others might have microwaves and showers, but I bet they don't have fairy lights in the window

 

[Supertramp]

Love the lights . How did the Ctek perform?

 

[gas1man]

I went for the larger C-TEK MXS 10 and I had no worries all weekend. What I now have to do is find an on site heater that does less than 1000watts as the ctek pulls 10 amp on max and could throw the electrical hook up on site. Everything I wanted it to do it now does, it was important that all I needed to do was just plug in and not have to push buttons etc. So , yes a great piece of kit and worth every penny.

J & P

 

[gas1man]

Mrs off to Bournemouth with her mother for the weekend so guess who gets to work on Boris.







Also time to install new controller for the hopeful arrival of the solar panel.



Couple of other bits and pieces seen to.....................
Enjoy the weather folks.

J & P

 

[aogrady]

Nice! What size solar panel are you going for? I have a 80w on my westy luggage rack, pics on my thread if you haven't seen.

The splash pans look great!

Cheers

Alistair

 

[gas1man]

Thanks Alistair,
I was thinking of going for either 100w or 120w so it will do the 110 a/h leisure batt.
The splash pans do look cool but the bumper bolts on one side feel like they have given way, when putting it all back together.
I guess I will now have to find out how to get in to replace or repair said nuts.
Saw your 80w on the bus , how does it perform and what do you run on it ?
I'm guessing that keeping the battery topped up is the hard part if you are running a fridge.

Thanks for the comments

J & P

 

[aogrady]

Hi

I reckon that will work well. I have just changed to a new battery, think mine is 110ah too.

I only run the Waeco Coolmatic CR50-E compressor fridge, and the Propex.
I have a fairly large inverter, but hardly use it now, I have 12v adapters for the laptop and phone chargers.

In the sun I found it was about 56+W from the solar panel when I was parked in town, the panel was flat not tilted.

The panel will pretty much run the fridge on it's own as long, and you can configure the fridges electronics to run just from solar.

I just have the solar panel topping the leisure battery, and the t max split charge system auto switches and links both batteries together when the panel has a good input, above 13.8 or so, so treats it as if the engine is running with a alternator output. This way, I can run the radio and it'll top up the starter battery from the solar panel

It's 4 amps or thereabouts at 56w, so the fridge runs fine, will power still going to the battery's as well as running the fridge.

I've not been away proper to test it over a few days break, but I don't think I will have a problem

The fridge will stop when the battery is low, and I can manually link the battery's together for starting should the main battery be flat, or just to run the fridge if the leisure battery went flat.

I have a pair of heavy duty Trojan units which I was going to use, this would give me a ultra deep cycle bank rated at 210aH, will probably sell them now.

Are you going to run the 100-120w solar panel on a roof rack? I have fitted the biggest I could find on the westy roof rack, would have liked a larger unit, but couldn't have hidden it on the rack.
Are you going to have it fixed or tiltable?

I still need to really test it, unfortunatly, where I park it under the house, no sun, and the front of the house is in the shade unless I leave it in the road!

Good luck with yours!

Cheers

Alistair

 

[gas1man]

Cheers for that Alistair, I am going to attempt to set it up so it will be attached to the rear of the roof rack and some how tiltable. Not to sure yet and will put up some pic's when I do. I think I have the same fridge and that's all I need to run whilst away from the bus.

J & P

 

[cunning plan]

Very Nice! arty0021:

 

[gas1man]

Thank you!!!!!!!!!Sir.
J & P

 

[gas1man]

Finally got some time off and went down to South Devon Salcombe side for 6 days.
Great time had, loads of coastal path walking(knackered) :lol: :lol:
Fantastic weather and generally a nice break. Boris performed faultlessly bar the
occasional flickering oil temp light on the dip stick type. Was a lot of up hills though.
Few pic's taken, and the obligatory bus stop pic, also the Dartmouth ferry crossing pic.

Great camp site all the mod con's and a very nice couple. Kerrageen if interested, 1 mile to beach.















Back to the grind stone on Tuesday, have a great week all.

J & P

 

[mike202]

nice pics, especially the cliff shot. Haven't been to Cornwall for a few years and I'm missing it.

 

[gas1man]

Hey Mike , this was a great trip and it was south Devon just before Plymouth, but I do agree
Cornwall is special.

Well this week last piece in the electrical puzzle arrived.
100watt solar panel from Amazon delivered with 5m of cable and connections at £89-99.
Yes it is a little heavy at 8 kg all in. However nice and robust.
Did a quick check to make sure it worked on arrival. 22.3volts at 7-30 pm in the evening. Open circuit
- nothing connected. Giving approximately 4.5Amps. Should keep the leisure battery topped up.



As you can see an expected 22.9 volts according to manufacturer. Not bad considering time and strength.



So handy having the 5m of cable there. Am going to place a piece of leftover parcel shelf board on the back
to assist with keeping the wire from falling about.



Will keep the polystyrene cover it came in to look after it in transit.
3000 mile service this weekend including oil change etc. Busy weekend.

Have fun in the sun all!!!!!!!!!!!

J & P