In goes the Wallas.

The hob'n heater is out of the box and into the kitchen.

 

With the whole kitchen now redesigned to accommodate this expensive machinery, it's satisfying to find that everything fits in the way I planned it should.

The challenge has been to squeeze all the components into the minimum possible space without making it difficult to adjust and maintain and not set anything alight with the exhaust. The installation instructions are pretty comprehensive although there were some things that could've been better explained or an amendment included. For instance, I spoke to the supplier about the problem I was having in getting the fuel pump to draw - see my later comments. During the conversation he suggested not fitting a master switch as the instructions stipulate as "a lot of people fit poor quality switches which cause problems". Given the cost of this kit and the instructions in the manual, would it be a terrible erosion of profit to include a suitable switch to avoid the problem? The alternative to the switch - which is necessary to recycle the system logic if it "locks out" - he suggests, is to pull the fuse. OK, that works, but I'd prefer something a little more sophisticated.
 

The hob control panel needs to be "reachable" from the sleeping platform for the heating option. This is the best I could do....place it too high and the thermostat won't sense any cold air and won't switch the heater on.

The NAAFI flap can still provide some ventilation and a view of the World.



The hob is as high as it can go and still have room for the cover to open, but only just.

The hob lid only just clears the mounting for the gas strut- not visible in the photo - so that was a little tight on the tolerances I worked with. There's a bit of wasted space under the hob, which is necessary for ventilation and to allow some clearance for the table to slide out but I could have  - should have? - pinched a few millimetres of that to guarantee the rest of it would work...lucky! 
I didn't need to move the main aux power switch panel, though, which was a bonus, and the power for the hob controller - as opposed to the hob fuel pump and ignition - comes off the old radio switch and cb.

Routing the fuel hose took a bit of working out since there's a filter which has to be both accessible and vertical. If I put it inside the cupboard it'd be difficult to service, so it's had to go on the outside.

This is the wiring and plumbing before it was all protected with sleeving.

I 'm not too happy with the upwards bend in the hose but there's little option other than an elbow fitting, which is probably just as bad from the fuel flow point of view. Not the neatest of arrangements but at least it's easy to get at by lifting the NAAFI flap, as is the fuse. I did have this tucked away but since it's now the "master switch" it has to be easy to access.

There was a similar problem with the air intake hose and, more importantly, the exhaust. Luckily the hoses are flexible enough for them to be pushed right back against the side of the vehicle, but even so, things are tight as they have to be routed behind the front storage box and clear of the water tank. The outlet-cum-balanced flue head has to go a minimum of 300mm ahead of the rear wheel - at least that's the recommendation for a VW T5, and that's all I had to go on.

As you can see, it protrudes a little below the rock slider although I've kept it as far "inboard" as I can. given we don't want exhaust fumes coming up from under the floor. Unfortunately the maximum hose length only allowed this minimum clearance and has effectively blocked one of the hi-lift jacking points. Nothing I can do about that.

This is the view underneath. The bracketry etc is provided in the kit but, again, optimised for the T5 so needed some inventive thought to convert the bits into a frame to work under the Defender. It is a pretty solid mounting now, though, and all the bits are, I think, galvanised. All this metal and hose does take up some of the space we freed up by removing the water tank and which I wanted to use for storage, so we'll have to come up with something other than the stock solution if we want to put a box under the arch. Everything was tucked away as neatly as possible using stainless steel tie-wraps.

We put the end of the Wallas fuel hose in a jar of diesel and fired her up. Eventually. The aux battery was a bit down and the Wallas needs a few more amps to start than it had available, so I had to run the engine to overcome that snag. Then the fuel pump wouldn't draw the fuel up the pipe. After messing about for an hour we just connected a pipette to a short bit of pipe and fed the hob by gravity to get it going. Once fired up, all appeared to work as expected although we couldn't get enough fuel feeding to keep the hob running for the recommended 2 hours of "burning off". Actually we could only get it to run for just over 4 minutes. It was a bit windy, which can, according to the manual, affect things a bit so I put a shelter around the flue but this made no difference at all. The hob fires up as expected but we're getting an indication of a flameout after 4 minutes or so. Hopefully we'll have better luck once everything is connected in the way it ought to be.