FYI this post is all about tinkering and no awesome nature backcountry adventuring, you might want to skip this one.
Quite empty, huh? Well, it all got a bit dusty and many minor faults started to bother me, so I got into a cleaning bay and took our home apart.
The fridge had displaying “error” for quite a while everytime I’d try and turn it on, so I was rather keen on finding out what model it actually was to mybe get a grip on a manual. After fumbling around for half an hour to try and figure out how it was affixed to the ground, I was rather surprised to find it come loose the second I took out the passenger seat. It had just been stuck between the seat and gear selector. It’s always easier than I think.
With the model information, I also found the reason for the fridge acting up. The battery protection switch was on “medium”, which seems to translate into “I won’t even cool when I’m drawing from full batteries and the running engine”. Duh. Put it to low, all good. Easy fix. If you don’t mind taking both seats out to get to said fix :I
On the upper hand, its quite easy to clean out the cockpit properly now.
Broken glass hidden under the handbrake cover… That in connection with a manipulated odometer…
Trying to get the bedframe out, it wouldn’t work without help. But this was enough to properly vacuum in there.
Trying to follow a cable to the rear power socket, I found a bunker of sand. Naturally I did that after I had vacuumed the interior…
All fine and dandy on this end, no idea why it won’t wo…
Nevermind. Whoever is responsible for that, you deserve to rot in electrician hell. Isolating one lead is good enough in theory, but not if you’re leaving the positive unisolated in a environment where the whole chassis acts as negative lead :I
Made the braided knot slimmer and soldered it together okay-ish. And isolated *both* leads. Seperately. But still, the extra power sockets wouldn’t work. I’d really like to get the socket below the drivers seat to work, it’s just no fun having to decide between charged phone or the fridge.
After tearing up the carpet from the back of the vehicle up to the dashboard, I finally found the fault. Right at the battery. A missing fuse. But well, now the power sockets are working fine and I wont have to worry about any short circuits.
The previous owners had turned the headrests facing to the back so you wouldn’t have the ripped out metal bar sticking into the back of your head. Result is a round stubble which is sitting much too low to actually provide any meaningful support. Meh.
Two hoseclamps and two washers could have solved that problem, but nooo, not sloppy enough I guess.
The windscreen washer jets had been clogged since our little flaming fraser adventure, so I set up a small drug lab in front of my car.
All just for that. And I only got one of four jets unclogged with that. Well, water is getting on the wipers, so its working. Sort of. Much like anything in this car.
Of those three instruments, only the voltmeter is working. It won’t harm to have a look in there, huh?
Won’t help much either. Thermometer is way beyond me in terms of skill, and the attitude gauge?
Well, oil should be in there, oil isn’t in there because of a cracked case. Either buy a new one or forget about it. I choose the latter for now. There’s much more urgent stuff to spend money on.
One of the rear number plate lights didn’t work and now I made the mistake of touching the mount. Well, didn’t work in first place, so no real loss.
One of welded in intercooler holding nuts broke off and was rotating freely when turning the screw on the outside. The first night we noticed this, we lost our 10mm socket between the batteries when trying to get it onto said nut. Now guess what you need to remove before beeing able to remove the batteries? The intercooler. In the end, I snuck an inch socket of similar size behind there by turning the windscreen wiper motors out of the way. Fun times.
Remember kids: First detach negative leads so you can freely touch the chassis when removing the positive leads đ
Finally, the 10mm socket. I’ve been missing it for two weeks now.
Now for the greasy, messy stuff. The freshly replaced oil filter was leaking and I wanted to have a peek at the thread, last time I rushed it on quickly to not lose too much oil.
After half an hour of dripping, I could finally have a look at thread and outer seal. Nothing amiss as far as I can tell.
But something is still amiss, I’m just too blind to see it. When we put it on, we were in such a rush that we probably overtightened it. Also, the oil pan seems to be leaking. What worse could there be?
Just to heighten my mood, quick thunderstorm, because as it is generally known, oily fingers only live up to their full potential when combined with being DRENCHED.
Time to soil the library. I had talked to Silas before if we should give our Van a sweet livery to make it look like a working vehicle just to simplify the stealthcamping we’re currently practicing, so i scribbled down some ideas. Uncool heating solutions, delivery and mounting of radiators in your desert farmstead so you never freeze again!
Or Kraut’s weed control. I like the uncool one more though.
Or, well, we got a bit carried away there. Maybe we could get ourselves a crappy car, a trailer and open up the faboulus “Super Sonic Hobo Racing Team”.
Yup, that’s a thing now.
Yeah, well, greetings from some misty mountain range near the sunshine coast.
At least the evening tried to make up for the rest of the day.
Never seen a transition like this.
I’ve never seen a van used as a cinemascreen. Nice one. Hopefully, I’ll be back with a bit less pictures of repair jobs and more stunning vistas. I never think of pointing the camera at them…