Decision has been made - rip it all out and start again.
Remove. Well, everything short of the wiring. We've finally accepted that the constraints imposed by the water filler and the sink have got to be removed. Easiest way is to do exactly that. Once the tank is out, everything else will follow it as the pipes connect it all....No, that'd be a little extreme but by the time we'd wrestled the tank away from its hidey-hole in the wheel arch I was beginning to feel that attacking it with a saw and stump puller would've been far less effort. |
| It's a tight fit. |
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| Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My...lens. |
The cooker and sink came out next, followed by the airline boxes and the plumbing, giving us a blank canvas to work with. Since the trigger for all this was the position of the water tank and the filler, I started with that as the foundation stone. We also want - in no particular order:-
The diesel hob/heater near the back of the cab so we can use it when the bed is down but the "cat flap" up.
The airline boxes re-used in some orientation.
A pull out table like John has made - see the last post.
A set of storage drawers for kitchen utensils etc.
A permanent sink to allow us to dump waste water into a container instead of the nearest bush.
Some comfortable seating for when we need to hide from the weather, again, like John has incorporated.
A second auxiliary battery. One is OK for Morocco or places equally sunny, but not up to coping with our needs if we can't use solar to recharge.
The ability to sleep one person (me) inside without having to raise the roof. This means keeping the central "aisle" clear but capable of taking Wolf boxes to provide a bed base.
After 2 weeks of work and a lot of recycling and/or rethinking, we think we're getting there.
The water tank came from here, and holds 60 litres which is enough for our needs for about 4 days if we aren't careful, over double that if we are - like if we clean our teeth in the dregs of the morning brew and "wash" with a wet sponge (no re-wets allowed). It has no holes in it apart from the large one for cleaning, so we have the freedom to be more creative with the positioning of the plumbing. It's the perfect size to sit on the wheel arch and overhang the load area far enough to mate with a Wolf box - the Basic Building Block of the plan. We'll reuse the pump and the pipework since it uses those easy push-fit couplings that make maintenance so easy. The pump'll be placed so we can clean the filter more easily, too. The tank will be insulated and of course warmer anyway being inside now, but have a drain tap that'll allow us to fill a kettle without needing the pump. This might be important as the height of the sink and tap may make this awkward with the bed down, and that early-morning cup of tea is important!
The size and position of the water tank dictates the layout of the rest of the "kitchen". After playing around with half-a-dozen combinations we agreed on this as a basic layout, to be improved and fine-tuned as the build developes. The airline box sets the height for the hob and the sink, with space at the front for a sitting area.
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| The dog bowl was intended to be a "representative" feature, but... |
Sue went away for the weekend to visit Glasgow and daughter, leaving me to fiddle about with the options, drink lots of tea and spend lots of time ruminating over the possibilities. As usual, the details morphed as they were incorporated into the Grand Design and I decided at the beginning not to use any glue until everything was in place and working. A lesson learned from several earlier attempts at "camper planning"...making it up as we go along works until that essential item, assumed to fit, doesn't. Previous designs have all shown the scars left from unplanned "modifications".
This more flexible approach creates its own problems, though. The Flexibility, in that nothing is firmly fixed to anything else, has created a few annoying errors of measurement when a datum point has shifted a little, which throws out the rest of the plan for that item. While it adds work, I've cut everything slightly oversize to try to get around this until final assembly, when the excess can be trimmed off....since it's easier to cut off than add on.
At some point, though, we need to have all the components to hand to make sure they all fit and we haven't built something that makes maintenance etc next to impossible, or makes it necessary to dismantle four things to get access to one. With this in mind, I delayed some of the more critical jobs until the Wallas hob and the sink arrived.
Moving now to fitting the hob. It'd arrived during the week in a large shipping crate that required a 2-2 in Safe-Breaking to open.
A bright and shiny "bean tin" with a pipe connected to it. Clearly some means of picking up fuel, but no indication in any of the manuals or on-line resources about how it should be used. I phoned the salesman. Had I looked at the You-Tube video? I had. It showed in some detail the fitting of the hob to a Volkswagen T5, so not a lot of use to me in answering my question. Once I'd described the shiny bean tin thing I could sense a large Thinks Bubble at the other end of the line. He'd call me back...
A little while later, he did. The upshot of the conversation that followed was that 1. he had no experience of fitting this hob to a Defender, wasn't aware that there was a special fitting for the fuel pick-up and 2. he didn't know if it had ever been done before, but his supplier had assured him that it was the correct fitting. He proceeded to explain how (he'd been told) it was to be used.
This was a bit of a surprise, as the manual and all the other illustrations showed a very simple flange and tube arrangement for tapping into the tank. The bean tin is designed to fit into the rubber filler tube between the tank and the filler cap. Easy, right? My problem is that I have a long-range tank as well as the normal one, and as a result I don't have enough room in the filler tube to fit this thing. It was, apparently, my fault for not informing him of this detail prior to ordering the kit. But...since he didn't know anything about putting the hob into a Defender or how it could be done, and didn't know anything about the special fuel fitting either, I fail to see how telling him earlier about my long range tank was going to make any difference at all.
Then there's the sink. I spent a lot of time searching the caravan shops via Google, trying to find a sink that was small enough, not too deep and with an offset drain hole.
Quite a few options came up, but all the suppliers wanted to charge me a ridiculous amount for shipping so the search took a lot longer than it should've done. Eventually, though, I found someone who'd sell me my chosen £48 sink and only wanted £5.95 to send it. While all the other retailers advertised "free shipping to UK Mainland" this somehow didn't apply to me, living as I do on the UK Mainland but north of the Iso-Postage Line, so I was happy to accept this charge as they levied it on everyone regardless of their postcode. They said. Until I got an e-mail saying that "their courier" had added an extra £13 to the delivery charge so would I authorise this extra charge, please?
No.
That's why there's a dog bowl in some of the photos. It'll be our new sink. Just needs a bit of re-engineering to incorporate a drain hole. Goes without saying that I'd like to make some alterations to that supplier's drain hole as well. I see they blame the courier, though...nothing to do with them...
Then there was John Cr***s, that well known purveyor of Parts Landrover. They accepted an order worth over £150 from me for the bits I needed to finish the rear door and the wash/wipe system that I began work on some weeks ago. Everything was, according to the website, "in stock and ready to ship" so I expected to have it within the stated time of 3-5 days. After 6 days, there was no sign of it. After 9 days, 3 e-mails and a long listen to a recorded sales pitch I finally got an answer. The order hadn't been shipped because they were "waiting for delivery of one item". Perhaps this was one of the major components, like the wiper motor perhaps? No. Part Number AMR3933, Sir. That's a washer, right? Costs £1.50...and you've delayed my entire order for that? Why? To save yourselves the cost of sending it later - a second class stamp and little envelope!!!! AArghhhh! Another name to add to my rapidly-growing
Which now includes these people; or perhaps just one of them. A Mr R****n BSc (Hons) - his bold type, not mine. Apparently this is important enough to highlight, but it clearly doesn't confer upon him any extra ability to read an e-mail. I first contacted the company for which this chap works as an executive back in August. I wanted to obtain a matching seat to the one I bought at a bargain price on eBay. Previous post refers. To cut a long and boring story short, my last e-mail to him offering to arrange payment for the said seat went without a response until I banged my fists on his desk - figuratively speaking - for about the third time. His reply, completely ignoring my observations on his communication skills, terminated my enquiry...I'll sit on a plank before I spend £150 on one of his products - with a 6 week lead time even after 2 months of negotiations.
Rant over. For now. By contrast, the folk at Vanguard provided what I ordered, on time and without fuss despite having to rob made-up kits for the bits I knew were out of normal stock when I placed the order. They sell bits for DIY camper conversions and are based in Fort William. Best to shop locally?
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