Oktoberfest

Not a bad weekend down in near Cheddar.
Everything working well and nice to have power hook up as it means we can save running the fridge on gas.
Noticed a bit of rust on one of the wheel arches so I'm about to deal with that and a few other areas before it spreads.

Jobs

Been taking care of little jobs that I keep forgetting to do.
Wired the rear with an ipod connector for the stereo and USB for charging other items.
Extended the awning rail.
Added somewhere to store the chopping board.
Sorted a bubble in the kitchen flooring.
Added a safe.
And to top it off added a cold air intake as an undersized air filter straight on to the turbo was far from ideal.
The new engine is running well and she'll do 80mph, on a track of course :-)

Tomorrow I should be starting to sew the thermal window blinds using a kit I ordered from just Kampers. Hopefully I'll have them ready for Oktoberfest this weekend in Cheddar.

Cuckoo Beer festival

We made it again this year. An improvement over last year as we have heat and a toilet!!


We also managed another weekend in the New Forest.

Solar Smurf

I've finally installed the 2 solar panels I had kicking around.
They were unframed, but I found white hollow soffit edging did the trick. They are connected to the main battery via a charge controller, when the main battery is fully charged the split charge relay should allow the leisure battery to charge, well that's the theory anyway.

The volvo is gone.

The Volvo went to the scrap yard today. I didn't bother taking any bits off to fleabay. I got £112 so it only cost me £140.46 for a recon engine, pump and turbo, if you include the change I found in the car!

Recon engine

I called the company who re-manufactured the engine today and they confirmed it was a completely re-manufactured engine with reground crank and cam, new pistons and rings, reworked valve and a new pump etc etc. Nice to know it wasn't a half arse job but a complete one. Basically as good as having a brand new engine in 2002. Since then the car it came from has been off the road for a year and a half so having talked to the previous owner I would guestimate the mileage to be an absolute maximum of 50,000 if not more like 30,000.
He used it to drive 8 miles to work and back, so even 365 a year would only be 5840 and for 6 years is 35,000.

Glow plug relay

Ever since driving the van home from installing the new engine the glow plug light has stayed on. I thought this would be another bad earth problem but couldn't find it. I put in a new glow plug relay today and problem solved. Shame all fixes aren't this easy.