A Rear View

We spend some time on the boring stuff...

...like sorting out the rear view. The view out of the rear window, that is, not anything else....I only chose that as a title to raise the Google hit rate. That's a joke, in case somebody gets "precious" about it. When I typed it into the computer at work to look for some amusing picture to go along with it, the results might've got me sacked if The Management had walked in.

This has been a long-standing job which has eventually come around with the onset of winter and all sorts of crud on the back window which I can't see through. My original thought was that I'd just "give the glass a bit of a wipe" as necessary, but the aerodynamics of the Defender makes this ineffective - the window gets "clarted up" - as they say around here - in minutes if the weather is bad. And this is Scotland, in the Highlands, and not the 2 days in Summer when it isn't. Bad. So we need a rear wash-wipe that works. A previous post has covered the prep work for this upgrade, which amounts to gathering all the bits and doing the research to work out what wires go where.

So. Should be an easy job, right?

I really wish I hadn't said that.

Getting the required parts together took a while since I tried to group them all into one order to save on the postage costs. After everything had - at long last - arrived, it would seem a simple job to connect all the bits and get wiping and washing at the rear end. 

Hah!

Wash wasn't a problem. At least, not compared to Wipe.

After dismantling most of the interior trim I managed to find the end of the washer hose that I'd "thoughtfully" laid in place earlier. Only I couldn't get my fingers or anything else into the space behind the Alu-Cab trim to pull it out. This meant that I had to remove the trim panel and, of course, I had a screw that was held in place by a "spun" rivnut. See previous post on this. It wouldn't come out in the conventional way so had to be cut. I'd anticipated that, one day, I'd have to do this but at this stage it was just another imbuggerance to progress. Having got the panel off I was able to grip the back of one of the nuts and get the remains of the screw out.

I took the opportunity now - before I forgot - to get all the nuts cinched up using the bolt/nut/washer method. Far more effective than the hand squeezer. In fact I think that Alu-Cab probably used one of those during assembly and, quite frankly, I think they're a bad tool. The nuts are often set slightly out-of-true due to the leverage the operator can't help using when squeezing the tool, and this means getting the screw to start "straight" can be difficult. There's often some resistance to overcome on the screw even when the nut sets properly, so if it's not properly aligned then it's too easy to force the screw across the thread. It'll go in a few mils, then jam...and that little bit of extra force now spins the nut, jams the screw and you're stuffed!

Then there was the problem of where to put the jet. I want it almost in the centre of the panel over the door, obviously, but the Alu-Cab brace is double skinned at this point so there's no easy way to get the hose into the right place and connected except by drilling a rather large hole in the skin either inside or out. As I wasn't prepared to do that, I had to drill a 6mm hole right through it and run the hose along the surface. This could have been done on the outside but it'd be vulnerable and probably freeze, so I think I've got the best compromise. 

When I'm sure it works I'll put a plastic cover over it, probably a bit of electrical conduit painted black.

The place that it needs to be mounted isn't very "tall" either, and could get in the way of lifting the roof since the nozzle assembly is quite big. 
 

Mounted slightly off-centre because of the locator for the rear awning pole.

I mounted it as low and as far out of the way as possible, bearing in mind the top of the door has to clear it. If I did the job again I'd drill the hole about 5mm higher but I was worried about getting too close to the top edge on the inside and not having enough room for some kind of cover. As it is, there's only a couple of mil clearance. If it's turned slightly sideways it protrudes far enough allow the water to be directed to the right places. In future I might experiment with a smaller nozzle/jet assembly from some other vehicle. This might allow the hose to pass inside the cavity but there needs to be enough room for it to turn the corner. The hose spigot on the Defender nozzle is too long to allow this. Or drill another hole....

With the switch pre-wired - there's no way I'd be able to read the numbers on it if it was in the dash - I removed the radio, switch panel, gauge pod, 12v sockets, GPS mount, Ipod connection and accessory switch box...pauses for breath...before being able to remove the MUD console and cut a hole in it for the Carling switch mount. I then had to grope about in the rat's nest of wiring to find the wires for the switch I hoped would already be in place. They were, but two of them had been "commandeered" by the PO to power other things, like 12v sockets. 

I couldn't just disconnect these wires until I knew what they'd been doing so this needed a bit of sorting out before I could re-assemble it all, which caused me another problem. I hate electricity. I don't understand it well enough to be sure of what I'm doing. I have to be very methodical, label everything and move slowly, so it takes ages to do anything. It actually took 3 days to sort out this mess as I was working by torchlight a lot of the time, lying on my side in a very uncomfortable position and constantly losing track of what I was supposed to be doing. By the end of it, some things worked but others that had been fine before I started, now didn't. For example, the rev counter worked as expected until I turned the lights on, then it stopped. In the end I got so frustrated I made a new earth point and ran everything to that. All works now. For the moment.

Leaving everything hanging off or out of the dash, I went to the back and connected the wiper motor. Switch on...not a lot happened. Nothing, in fact. Checked the wiring again for the Nth time, nothing obviously wrong there. Back to the dash, check the switch wiring again, same result. Go away for 24 hours, return rested and refreshed to have another go. Same outcome. Retire to the laptop and the LR forums for help. Now, given that the 2 parts of the system that are brand new, just out of the box, are the wiper motor and the switch you wouldn't expect that there'd be anything wrong with one of them, right?

So what's missing from this picture? No prizes.

Wrong. To cut this long story short, the new motor has a fault. Took me 2 days to work that out by elimination and on-line advice....Grumpy of Grampian, or what? And this was the motor that took 2 weeks to be delivered. Harrumph! This one will be going back and I've ordered another, second-hand, genuine motor from a breaker. Avid LR renovators won't be surprised to read that the busted one came with a blue-label box. I had a look at some reviews, and I'm not the first to suffer this problem with this item. I'm also getting a bit fed up with stuff that's "BNIB" but "NFG"!

 So, yet another job is put on hold. To fill the time - this is getting to be a bit repetitive, right? - I had a bit of an experiment with a rear step that we'd had lying around since Daphne's days. The rear step attached to the towball works well enough, but to have it set at the right height for towing the trailer means it's too high for comfort as a step. We get around this by using a Wolf box as a "hop-up" but this is clumsy and an unnecessary extra "step" to get in the back. Sorry.
So, a bit of work with some (more) bits from the scrap pile and we have this:

It needs to be folded up when not in use or I'm almost guaranteed to reverse into something and bend it, but this solves the problem and reduces the height of the junk heap at the same time. Bonus!

This set-up compromises the departure angle, but we can set the ball higher now for off-road driving and still have a useable step. It doesn't matter if the bottom of the towing bracket digs in - it's a plough.

Also, while sorting out the wiring for the wiper I tried to get a replacement rubber tube that feeds the loom from the cab to the door. Silly money non-starter there, but a bit of digging around turned up a bit that I took from Sue's long-departed Ford Fiesta before it was scrapped...must be 15 years ago...which, with a bit of surgery, does the job just fine. I need to find something to cover the door end of it...a sliced up tennis ball, perhaps?

So now we wait for the return of Wallas and the Wiper Motor. Could be a catchy title for something? Suggestions?

"Gromit, we have a problem!"

  After some frustrating days of headaches and diesel mouthwash, we finally took the advice of Mr B, the supplier, removed the whole Wallas unit and took the back off...

 

"Come on, Gromit. No time to waste."

 At this point I was glad I'd thought ahead a bit more than usual and made it easy to get the hob out. Releasing two jubilee clips on the hoses, two quick-release plugs and 4 Allen screws and it lifts out easily. I'd been told how to get the cover plate off so within 5 minutes we were looking at the insides.

I went straight for what Mr B and I had suspected to be the culprit - the fuel pump. He suggested that perhaps the union wasn't tight and was leaking....

This was a "Eureka moment" -surely that Gromit grommet or O-ring should be inside the nut? Confident that I'd found the problem, I relaxed, despatched the findings to Mr B...

...and set about working out what the rest of the hob's guts consisted of. This is useful knowledge if it goes wrong while we're away somewhere and anyway, I like to know how things work.
  Unfortunately, I was wrong. The O-ring is only there to prevent the union nut from slipping along the LP fuel line during assembly. Another theory torpedoed. We all decided, at that stage, that this was a Return-To-Base warranty job...a good thing I'd saved the boxes.

A quick exchange of e-mails, and the re-packaged hob was picked up the following day, which was a pretty rapid response. With a weekend in the way, it took a few days to reach the workshop but once it'd been inspected it was found to have a defective pump. This is apparently unheard of - certainly I can't find anything on-line that complains about this - so, once again, we are in the unique position of being The First One. How exciting it is to blaze the trail! The duff pump was what we'd always suspected but I wanted to cover all the other possibilities first since the problem seemed to be a bit intermittent. Also, while the installation is pretty straightforward there was always a chance I'd screwed something up...put the hoses on the wrong way round or some other basic mistake. This in itself meant taking some of the kitchen apart to make sure I hadn't somehow swapped the hoses around behind the water tank. Wasted effort? Maybe, but perhaps the lesson learned is to photograph the final arrangement before boxing everything in...ho, hum.

Time for some reflection on all this, I think. The Wallas unit is expensive but the engineering standards reflect the quality of the manufacture. Having seen some of the cheaper options available the difference is obvious, and you definitely get what you pay for. I have some observations regarding the installation of the electrical side of things which we've already mentioned but apart from those the major issue has been identifying the source of the ignition problem. The fact that the hob would ignite but then flameout within a regular timescale suggested an automatic "shut down" signal was being generated somewhere. This and the erratic behaviour of the pump had us taking longer than necessary to do the fault analysis and get it sorted out.

MrB wasn't overjoyed that I'd shared my frustration here, but I reckon he can be proud of the fact that he responded quickly and effectively with advice and service. The bottom line, for me anyway, is that anything mechanical can go wrong at any time and it's how this gets dealt with and fixed is as important a part of the deal as the hardware itself. I doubt that the supplier of any of the alternatives would have been as quick off the mark as he was.

So now we await Wallas's return, and in the meantime get on with something else. Time to have a go at the problem of keeping the back window clear enough to see through.

"Tell ya what, Gromit lad. Let's have a nice hot cup o' tea, eh?"

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Quotes are from "Cracking Contraptions" and "A Grand Day Out".

Another glass of diesel, Mr Wallas?

Maybe not. I haven't ever had a glass of warm Dettol but I bet it tastes better than Heavy Oil....

 This afternoon I had yet another go at getting the Wallas to fire up. Wasted my time but not totally, I guess, as I've ruled out the fuel line as an issue! With the fuel line now plumbed into the main tank, I gave it a good sucking and received the predictable tasty mouthwash. Nice.

 As we'd planned, today centred on the Remembrance event at Roseisle and Findhorn Bay.

There was a lot going on, the single track access road was jammed with traffic so we walked the last mile to avoid the inevitable faff of trying to get out after it was all over. This avoided the embarrassment of admitting that our promised "NAAFI Wagon" refreshment van wasn't going to be presented as planned.

 The event itself was well attended and well worth the effort of getting to the beach. Very moving and, in our experience, quite unique.

Once home, I decided to re-attack the Wallas problem. I had misgivings about the routing of the fuel line - that over-the-top curve... It really shouldn't make a difference to the fuel feed, but we're clutching at straws now.

In desperation, I dismantled the hob housing and re-routed the fuel line so it had a pretty much straight run from the tank to the pump. 

 With the panel loosened and tie-wraps cut, I could remove the filter and re-route the inlet hose. This hasn't made any difference to the line of the hose into the pump but allows me the extra length to connect...

 ..the two ends together through the filter.
This required some more scrabbling around under the wing, dirt in my eyes and diesel in my hair. Joy.

To achieve this I had to remove the storage box, so I was grateful to myself for having made this easy. The feed for the fuel line is right behind the box. This would be the "natural" vertical position for the filter, but it's impossible to monitor for particles or, as we are now, checking for flow.

 With everything reconnected, we had another try. Didn't work. In fact, the filter wouldn't fill at all, hence my attempts to help it along with a good old fashioned suck. No doubt that the other end of the hose is in the right place, anyway. I can still taste it...and smell it too. The joy of facial hair! This is frustrating because the filter filled quickly during the last test and the issue seemed to be the "flameout" condition. Now there doesn't seem to be any draw from the pump.

I think I can hear the pump working but there's no indication that it's having any effect. While pondering this as I put everything back together, I noticed that one of the clamps holding the fuel line to the filter was bigger than it ought to be. 

Not a great photo as it was getting dark, but the lowest clip is clearly too big.

Three of them are correct and one won't tighten as much as perhaps it should. If the clamps inside the hob casing are like this......? I dunno. Frankly, getting very disheartened.... Hoping for some enlightenment tomorrow.

Three-Two-One....

...ignition. Blast off! With a whoosh and a roar, the Wallas hob is up'n away!

Or, in our case, not. If this was a moonshot, we'd have got about as far as first-stage separation before the mission was terminated with an embarrassing "phutt". We are dismayed....

But before we get to that, it's time to unveil our new rear end. So to speak. Elly has had a massive makeover over the last few weeks purely to accommodate the Wallas hob, some of which we've already shown. With all the trim and fancy stuff now in place, it's time for the Grand Tour of our Grand Design. Actually, Kevin McCloud probably wouldn't be that interested...more in the territory of George "Oh My Word" Clarke and his Amazing Small Spaces. 

So, cue drum roll, here is our new home-on-wheels, our latest room-with-a-thousand views, with sales pitch from Bodgit & Scarper, Estate Agents:

The view from the entrance hall

"Hello and welcome to this rare opportunity to view a unique approach to Pikey Living. From the street you could be forgiven for thinking that this is just another 110, but open the back door and...
The designers have thoughtfully provided space for 3 Wolf boxes along the entrance corridor which can form a bed base if the occupant is solo, unmarried or in trouble. There's room to stretch out too - the area under the drawers and storage box which used to have the wheel change kit is now clear, allowing a space to place the feet. Or foot, if pedally challenged. We like to be inclusive.

Moving along, on the left we have..

The kitchen

 This is mostly 12mm waterproof external grade ply with aluminium edging, sensibly finished with quick-drying, heat resistant woodstain varnish from Messrs Ronseal. The drawer and closet fronts are 6mm ply as they carry no loads. The rubber flooring which extends up the skirting boards (or where they would be) is waterproof, hardwearing and easy to clean and is insulated underneath.

And on the right, we have...

 

The lounge/diner

😃The tip-up seat won't be a pair - see previous on this - but it doesn't matter since the only time it needs to be is if we're carrying passengers, which almost never happens. If/when it does, someone's going to be sitting on the floor or on the guest chair:

This is a seat from an old Series which was thrown out from a mate's garage. I thought I'd never find a use for it and it almost went into the bin... The load rail can act as an anchor point for a lap belt in extremis. Probably not legal....must remember to take it out when MoT time comes around again. 😶

Ahem...excuse me, don't interrupt! Moving on along the corridor, on the left we have...

The sitting room

This cosy little nook is a quiet haven for the non-chef to relax and enjoy the papers while other activities take place.

😉It keeps me out of the Soup Dragon's way.

60 litres of drinking water can be stored under the desk top which  is removeable to allow access to the filler cap, as well as being a lap-top laptop tray.

 With the worktop folded into place, the kitchen is 1/3rd bigger without sacrificing anything. The view through the blind spot window isn't compromised whether the flap is up or down. It's supported by timber fold-out bracing which makes it capable of easily holding 30kgs.

 Retracing our steps and looking to your right, we have the sink, neatly covered by this bespoke worktop, just like they have on telly. This can itself be covered with an aluminium sheet, tailored to fit, that was lovingly crafted from an old computer cabinet. It can be used as a cutting board or a heatproof potstand.

 The sink is an innovative design feature which came about in response to the extortionate delivery charges demanded by The Usual Suspects in the caravan accessories business. The sink has 2 depths depending on how clean one wishes to be or how dirty one has become. In the worst case, the sink may be extended...

...to provide a hip bath. There is ample headroom should the bather wish to adopt a more erect stance.

 The slide-out fridge freezer is a masterpiece of the Skip Diver's art, using as it does items that have been carefully retained 

 he means "hoarded"

for many years. This re-use of materials doesn't reflect the previous, numerous and failed attempts to achieve this result, which have reduced the Materials Store 

He means "junk pile"


to a mere fraction of its former volume.

Kitchen storage has been imaginatively arranged to get a quart into a pint pot. Once again, recycling of various items has reduced the carbon footprint of the design and freed up space to accumulate yet more treasures from the Tip.

 A family-friendly dining experience is enhanced by this pull-out table which allows 3 people to dine in close proximity provided they are not over Size 10 or have big arses. Prospective occupants who exceed this criteria may have to dine Al Fresco. If he's open. 
We hope you have enjoyed your tour of this delightful bijou mobile residence."

All we need now is a bloody cooker that works! We're going to the Danny Boyle "Pages of the Sea" Remembrance event in Findhorn Bay tomorrow and had hoped to be able to provide tea and bacon sarnies to friends from our brand new kitchen but it's not to be; at least, not using our very expensive Wallas hob, it ain't. We can't get it to work. We'll be using the Old Faithful gas cooker instead. Hmmm.

We've spent a long time this week firing the Wallas up and trying to get it to stay lit. It works fine - up to a point - now that we've finished the fuel plumbing. I'm still waiting for some parts that might be useful to come from the supplier since he's happy to swap the "bean tin" for the VW T5 kit. In the interim I've plumbed the fuel line into the main tank using the redundant breather pipe I blocked off before since it was breathing a little too readily! I've passed the fuel pipe through some PVC hosepipe so it's protected under the chassis and now the connections are made the diesel flows properly into the filter and beyond. In fact the filter filled so quickly the pump must have quite a powerful suck to it.

This is the final Final Arrangement of the feeds to the Wallas hob. I think....hope?

The ignition sequence works just as the manual says, but after exactly 4 minutes and 50 seconds - actually plus or minus 5 seconds on that - we get a flameout indication and everything cools down. This time is consistent over the 15 attempts we've now made to get it going and suggests to me something other than fuel starvation; like some kind of auto-shutdown is happening. We've been through the fault-finding guide in the manual and eliminated all the listed causes, so we're stumped. Again. Not only that but I've had to run the engine occasionally to keep the battery up to charge and I've now got a bloody headache from the fumes.

Having got thoroughly fed up with playing about, I gave up and turned my attention to something else. 
In the box of bits that the PO gave me was the broken cover to the rear door latch. I nearly binned it but now that I've seen how much these trivial bits of plastic cost, I'm glad I didn't. Obviously nobody makes copies of these so we're forced to pay Landrover Dealer prices. You can add a nought or three to the actual production cost to get a replacement...so I've repaired it with a bit of aluminium trim left over from the kitchen.

 I intended to put the ally under the edge to make it neater, but this makes the cover stand so proud of the frame the chequerplate skin won't sit down correctly, so I had to put it on top. It's not too noticeable, though, and a lot cheaper than the alternative.

Another quick job now that the heater box and blower duct are back in, was to put one of these on...

We've replaced the cable grips on the drainpipes with proper p-clips too

This is called a Snow Cowl and hopefully will keep the water out of the blower duct and prevent the problem that the other one suffered from. Some people reckon that a ram-air duct on this intake works to assist the blower, but our experience doesn't support that theory. I reckon that you need to be moving at considerable speed for a small duct suchas anything that can be fitted here will have any significant effect; otherwise it just gets in the way and actually collects more water than the standard intake grille. Since we never get up to anything approaching Escape Velocity, we wouldn't ever get any benefit.
I thought I had some photos of the final stage of refitting the blower motor, but can't find 'em. Suffice to say that the resistor

arrived last Friday at 12 and everything was back together and blowing like the London Philharmonic by 2pm. At 2 speeds anorl 👍

 

I also made up a couple of these:

They need a slight dimple in the centre of the slot to make them easier to use, and a coat of, in our case, black paint to make them less obvious. If you're an Alu-Cab owner, you might realise why I've made them. If you're not, I'll not give anything away. 'Nuff to say that they address another security problem in addition to all the others that Defender owners have. If anyone wants an explanation, post a comment with your Alu-Cab receipt and I might tell you...

A short update for Alu-Cab owners...the slot that I cut in these was slightly too long and I've closed the gap a little with a washer on the back. The important thing is to support the channel by the lock so it sits high enough to guard the vulnerable area. I'm sure you'll know what I mean....

And finally, say Hello to the newest recruit to the Elisfor Overland Adventure Society:-

"Jess" is a Coxie - a cross between a collie and fox, we think. Anyway, she's car-friendly, lightweight, quiet and likes to travel. She's been in the Shetland Islands since birth 2 years ago and spent the last week in trucks, ships and strange places. She's been with us for 36 hours now, and has already decided where she likes to spend her afternoons!

Killing Time

Mail Order. I've learned to take delivery times with a big pinch of salt, but it's always frustrating to have to wait a week for a tiny part that could arrive within 24 hours if the supplier could be bothered...

So, since I'm still waiting for the Pony Express to arrive with the replacement resistor, the heater repair has had to be put on hold. There's no point in putting everything back together only to dismantle it again, so we're immobile until this £3.00 bit arrives. I could link the heater hoses together but, to be honest, it isn't worth the bother of topping up and bleeding the cooling system just in case a dump of snow means we need the truck on the road. It isn't likely to happen.

So I've turned my attention to other little jobs. Now that we've proved the concept, I replaced the plastic tabs that had been holding the "downpipes" in place with proper "P" clips. I wouldn't say that this is the first experimental fitting that has made it to Full Production status, but probably not far off.

Having spent months thinking about the rear wash/wipe system I eventually admitted defeat and bought a new switch from MUD UK which is supposed to be a "plug'n play" replacement for the existing one - if it was there.

  Since it isn't I thought it would be easy to find the wires behind the dash - they must be there somewhere - and connect the two components together. Of course, the new switch arrived with more spades on the back than there are wires to connect....which goes where? And the promised wiring diagram is nowhere in site/sight. I went onto the website in the hope there was a clue in the "fitting instructions" menu. No chance. Never bloody simple is it? Especially when you discover this on Saturday evening and you can't get advice until Monday. Yet another job gets shelved...Late entry: the matrix  - on the website - that explains the pin locations assumes that you know that the pin numbers are etched into the side of the switch in numbers as easy to read as the Dead Sea scrolls. Simple when you've found 'em, though. I also got a bit stumped with the wiring to the wiper motor. I had 5 wires but only 3 connections. All the on-line diagrams and pictures showed a 3-pin Econoseal connector on the top - that bit was easy.

They also showed another 2-pin connector, apparently on the side. It is, actually, on the "back" of the motor. Having already bolted it to the door this connector is hidden...once I'd taken everything apart the connector revealed itself but, of course, I hadn't got a 2-pin plug to go into it. A bit of lateral thinking ensued. I'd bought 2 Econoseal connectors in case I messed one up, and the pins would fit into the connector with a bit of persuasion, all I had to do was insulate them...Of course, it wasn't quite that simple. Since the pins in the socket don't seem to fit the female pin I had, some force was required. This resulted in one of the pins disappearing backwards into the motor body and required the dismantling of the motor cover to get it back. Eventually, though, all 5 connections have been made and the wires - albeit not the correct colours - led out of the door to the loom. I'll make the final connections later, once the switch is in place. I'll make sure I keep a note of the wire colours in the Little Black Book, though.

The wires exit the door on the left of the picture and normally have a plastic cover and rubber tube to lead them into the tub. These are silly money so I'll make my own out of something, although I've ordered the little support bracket to keep it all aligned.
The motor and cover protrude quite a way from the inner door skin and this needed to be accommodated if we're going to retain the drop-down table. I could just cut the appropriately sized piece out of the table top, but this will look a bit odd and probably make the thing unusable. The solution I came up with was this:

First, cut the table flap in half, rivet a new hinge along the cut line.

 

...then re-attach the flap and connect the stays. There's a bit of a kink in the joint, but it's in the "right" direction to stop things rolling off.

The flap then goes through a double fold before being retained as before. We might enclose the chains with something to stop them rattling.

We might do a bit of colour-co-ordination eventually to make it all look a little less experimental.
                                          An EGT gauge. Do we need one?

Having bought a "boost pin" - they can dramatically improve the pulling power, apparently -  I really don't want to fit it until I can monitor the engine temperatures more carefully. This requires a method of measuring the exhaust gas temperature. I have two from a kit that came with a Rotax engine and tried to find a way to connect the probe to the exhaust system without drilling through the EGR housing, which is how most people do it. I replaced the EGR system earlier this year for the benefit of the MoT rules which now state that any interference with OEM EGR systems etc will mean a "Fail", so I don't have this simple option and will have to find another. Before getting the drill out, though, I tested the probe by heating it with a soldering iron. The results weren't exactly spectacular. The temperature needle didn't budge. Either the sensor or the gauge are broken (or both?) or the connections between the two aren't good. Given that there are 2 wires from the sensor and 4 pins, some guesswork was involved anyway. Another job that didn't get beyond the tinkering stage.


About the only major progress this weekend, then, has been the installing of a waste water tank and the sink plumbing.

This is the old fresh water tank from Dapne's kitchen.

The pump, tap plumbing and sink waste are all shoehorned into the space between the cooker and the forward storage box. I originally had the cover screwed on, but Sue suggested that Velcro would be a more useful alternative if I needed to get in there in a hurry. It's a 6mm ply panel and very small, so we did it that way. The pump filter is now more accessible than before and the whole thing is much neater...

As is the wiring behind the passenger seat. This was sorted out when we installed the second aux battery. The wiring for that is now in place, although at the time I photographed it, some tidying was obviously needed!

Once it was all done, though, we could box it in  and sort out the lounge bar!

The seat base is an old cushion from a Series Landy....doubles as a seat back, too.

The seat back folds down and the fridge carrier can still slide over it.

I think the sink is a bit of a  triumph!  Having wasted a lot of time trying to find one that will fit into the space and find someone who's prepared to sell me one without ridiculous delivery charges, we changed tack and looked at simpler solutions. Well, not simpler, exactly but cheaper, a bit easier, outside the influence of the courier's charges and with a little bit of imagination applied.

This is a folding washing up bowl. Collapsed, it takes up little "vertical" space so doesn't take up space underneath that would otherwise be needed by a traditional sink.

Most of the commercial items are about 145mm deep - quite a lot of space for something that just holds air most of the time. This bowl unfolds upwards, and doesn't need to project below the worktop, so avoids that wasted space. All it needed was a waste outlet. The 12mm ply carrier allowed enough of a lip to secure the bowl's feet so when the Soup Dragon pulls it up, it won't take off!

The bowl is inset. A bit of carving to provide a flat surface...

..for the 90 degree 3/4 inch outlet,

..for the waste. 

The sink is aligned with the tub capping, so with the truck sitting normally it isn't horizontal and the water won't drain towards the plughole unless we've set up on the ramps, which is what we normally do anyway. If this becomes a nuisance I'll have to adjust the worktop a bit to compensate.

The waste water catch tank is in the wheel arch. I made a cradle to support it, bolted to the crossmember, and moved it as far to the rear as possible to give more room to fit a storage box in future. 

Looking aft

It's a semi-permanent fixing using a bungee and a rubber strap rescued from the garden. We've got dozens of these which were used to tie our young trees to stakes years ago. They seem to have a half-life of about 500 years, so should be ideal as underbody lashing! Routing and spacing everything around the exhaust for the hob was a challenge, as the tank is plastic, but we now have a simple system with no expensive bits to maintain or break. 

A right Lash-Up!Works, though...so far.

I'm still considering moving it to the rear corner, over the exhaust, where we had a storage box in the previous truck. This would allow us to make another storage box to match - almost - the one on the driver's side, but given that the hob hoses have already compromised the space under the wheel arch, it might not be worth the bother. I'll make some measurements and see what can be achieved - it's a valuable empty space which we don't want to ignore.

The kitchen is now almost finished, so when it stops raining and blowing the leaves about we'll pop the roof and check it all works....