Now that we've finished the turkey...

It's time to start some more little projects, or finish some old ones properly.

 I'd repaired the snorkel hose - the flexible bit that joins the two pipes together - a while ago and the repair worked well enough. Unfortunately it wasn't able to stand up to that piece of corrugated iron that whacked into it a few weeks ago and it split the repair wide open. I'd anticipated this and looked around for a replacement hose, but these only seemed to be available in a full snorkel kit, not as a replacement part. Since there's nothing wrong with the rest of it, I didn't feel like forking out a lot of Diesel Vouchers for a foot long rubber tube.
After the usual internet search over several days last year I'd found this:

It comes in other colours, too. All just as Bling.

A bit garish, I know, but the "trumpets" on the end are exactly the right diameter to accept the ends of the original hose and would seal well. A bit of surgery, some trimming of the new part and a smear of sealant adhesive and now we have a sealed unit again.

 

The new intake hose, with the mangled old one

The new part is mostly plastic, not rubber. It won't last as long but at just over £10 I thought it was worth a try. I made the final seal with self-almalgamating tape so it's very solid. In fact the expanded length is long enough to replace the upper steel pipe completely if necessary, although it'd be very vulnerable to damage from branches - or more flying iron, perhaps. I guess I could source something that'll slide over the new hose to beef it up a bit, but the important thing was to get a wade-proof connection back.

As the weather has been ridiculously warm I decided to have a go at top-coating the wheels. I'd normally have waited for the conditions to get drier but we struggle to get temperatures into double figures even in May, so to have 11 degrees on Boxing Day was too good to ignore. 
Before Christmas I'd tried to get some silver cellulose locally, but all the likely places had nothing other than expensive rattle cans. Having made the decision, though, I decided to invest in some Halfords "special" wheel paint and lacquer. An extravagant purchase but hey - it's a one off.

This is the result...

Not bad. Nice and shiny. I'll leave them for a week or two to really harden before getting the tyres on and balanced.






If you can tear yourself away from that fascinating picture of a wheel, maybe you'll find this bit of DIY more interesting:

You might recall "Project Flap-Down Table and Sand Track Store" from the previous entry. Having seen some other commercial variations on the theme I've put that on hold while I consider my options, as they say in Government. To fill the time - and the space on the other side of the truck - I had a go at making a storage box that'll hang off the cargo rails next to the jerry can carrier.

A trial run to check dimensions

The box is just an old, cheap camera case that was lying about, collecting dust. Like most of my DIY projects, I could probably have found something more suitable to use if I'd got the wallet out, but that's not the point. Well, not totally.
Anyway, this does the job well enough for us to test its usefulness, and we can upgrade the concept later without wasting anything more than a bit of time and effort.
The supporting hardware was made from a length of shelf support...

It would've been ideal to make them 150mm longer so I could use the extra length above the box to mount something else, but each bit is 1000mm long and I only had one in the junk pile. A quick spray with some silver paint - wonder where that came from? - and they looked quite professional. The mounting bolts were made the same way as I described before as I had none of the fancy ones I used last month for the can carrier .

The locks on the box wouldn't defeat a penknife, let alone a jemmy, so some better security was needed.

This is a combination of scrap ally plate, a suitably bent 14-inch Tee hinge and a hasp-and-staple door lock from Screwfix. A few pop rivets and a bit more silver paint later and we have....

The vulnerable outer face of the case has been reinforced with more scrap aluminium in front and behind, and a wire running from behind protects the lower edge from being forced open. Since the box is basically just hardboard covered in plastic I painted all the black bits with Plasti-Dip which should give a degree of water protection. The extra bit of cargo rail fixed above it gives me another lashing point and all the accessible nuts have been replaced with anti-tamper fixings.

OK, it's not bombproof but nothing is, really, if someone's determined enough. What will it be used for? Well, anything that we might need in a hurry or gets too manky to put away inside. Recovery straps, muddy boots, dirty overalls, that kind of thing and stuff it wouldn't be a tragedy to lose.
The space above is ideal to carry the rear awning kit or something similar. Actually, we probably wouldn't use the box for much unless we're away on a trip, where we tend not to be out of sight of the truck for more than a minute or two and then only in towns, where security wouldn't be so much of a problem. Except in Manchester, perhaps....so I wonder if one of these on the outside might work?

That's about it, except for the ongoing saga of the heater fan. It's stopped working again which probably means the lash-up "repair" I made before Christmas has given up and I need to do the job properly. I think that instead of trying to replace the Econoseal plug with another, I'll just use ordinary connectors, suitably waterproofed. It'll save me turning the air blue and upsetting passing dog walkers when I drop the little connector pins into the gravel.

I had intended to write a short review of one of these things, too...

A portable jump-starter unit

Given the difficulty of getting Elly started when the weather is really cold, I thought it'd be worth having one of these as a back-up if the aux battery linking option wasn't available - a possibility after a few days in one place. Since the day it arrived it's been almost Spring-like here so I haven't needed it. Someone did suggest that I left the lights on overnight to give it a fair trial, and I responded too quickly to the suggestion. It took until the following morning for the "Lightbulb Moment" to come and for me to realise he was joking. 

I think I need to get out more.

'Tis the Season to Be Jolly.

Tra-La - Lala - La. Doesn't feel too wintry here at the moment, though, and certainly not very white...unlike the smiles that we hope we've helped to give the kids in Morocco. 

And Malawi. Since Sue retired in September we've had her surgery chair taking up space in the shed.

 Too good to throw away, we wanted to sell it but given our location just on the Wrong Side of the Arctic Circle, no-one was interested in collecting it, even though it was worth ten times what we were asking for it. A chance conversation with our dentist provided the solution, much as a similar conversation had generatd the idea for "toothpaste to Tan Tan" earlier in the year.
To cut a long story short, Sue's chair is now en-route to Africa under the control of these guys:

We were very happy to see it go, not for the space it was taking up but more because it was going somewhere it was going to be useful.

Back in the workshop, things were not all going according to plan. 

1. Water supply. I had a long play about with the pump and decided, after dismantling everything related to it, that it was going to be more trouble than it was worth to rearrange plumbing etc to get the pump down to the same level as the bottom of the tank. It woud seem that the thing doesn't have the "suck" to draw water up through the filter so it's easier to remove it and use a submerged pump instead, like this:

 Not only did this work well, it's made more space under the sink for storage and maintenance, which is always a bonus.

2. The sink came in for some modification too, as I noted before that it didn't drain completely. Even mounting it at a slight angle wasn't going to solve the problem as it needed some kind of recess around the plughole to get all the water out. Having given this a bit of thought I did an experiment with a similar bit of plastic, the careful use of a hot air gun and a paint tin. This did the job and now the sink has the proper "dimple" around the drain. I thought I'd taken pictures of the process but they've gone Walkabout, so maybe these will appear in due course.

3. I'd congratulated myself a few weeks ago for overhauling the heater system and getting everything sorted for winter. Tempted fate a bit, there, I'm afraid. Not only was the air now coming out of the vents with some force again -a good thing - it wasn't exactly hot. In fact it was barely above body temperature for the first 15 minutes. Time to investigate the thermostat....

This bit of chewed-up plastic isn't normally found inside the thermostat housing. It's another Special Modification carried out by the Previous Owner. It's actually the remains of the top plug which has been broken off at some point in the distant past and left inside the housing. Since there isn't a lot of room in there and that which there is only just allows the thermostat to operate properly, I suspected that this bit of detritus might have affected matters a bit. I removed the old thermostat and, not surprisingly I suppose, the witness marks on the remains of the plastic plug matched the edge of the thermostat frame exactly. I think it got jammed under the frame and stopped the valve from closing. As it happened, when I tested it the thermostat was jammed open anyway so no wonder it was taking the coolant an age to warm up. With a new unit fitted, "hopefully that'll be the end of it"....I thought.

4. Wrongly. A few days later the fan stopped working on slow speed, and a few days after that stopped altogether. Fuse checked, nothing wrong. Ho Hum - yet more electrical fun to be had trying to track down the fault. I got back under the bonnet and luckily found the problem pretty quickly. While checking the connectivity to one of the funny little plugs the movement of the loom produced some reaction in the fan. A bit more pulling and twisting of the wires revealed a very iffy connection in the 3-pin plug. I pulled this apart to find 2 rather burnt connectors which I can repair but not with the wiring in place - there isn't enough space to work in for such a fiddly job. I found that by a bit of bodging and ty-wrapping I could get the connection to work, so that's how I've left it for now. A two-speed fan again, though for how long?

5. I had a thought about the heater control as well - the hot/cold air selector, that is. Any "slack" in the mechanism would lead to cold air leaking past when "full hot" was selected. I loosened the pinch bolt on the arm, pulled it hard over to the hot position and re-tightened the bolt. I gained about 15mm of travel in the process, which must improve the heat output....mustn't  it?


6. More mail-order fun. I bought a proper Landrover bottle jack - the one with the proper "horns" on the top - from a salvage yard which arrived as planned but a bit dusty.

In fact it was full of crud and cobwebs so hadn't been tested before posting...and it didn't work. I've done my best with it, of course, but the seal's gone inside and it won't pump.

  
7. The same day the new side locker arrived. 

Great, I thought, an easy job for the holidays. But no. Unpacking the box I found that somebody had been using the parcel as a seat while they ate their sandwiches. 

Not designed for some lard-arsed Hermes bloke to do this, it'd collapsed on one side and popped the rivets. Another mail-order disappointment. At least the company that sent it reacted quickly to my complaint but, of course, the last post had gone and it was a Friday, so I wasn't going to see the replacement "until Tuesday next week". Make that Thursday, actually. So, what with the wiper motor, the jack, the side locker...not scoring well with long-distance purchasing at the moment, not to mention the non-Landrover related stuff that Hermes have delivered, got a signature for etc etc...but not from the person it was addressed to, ie me.😠

Given nothing better to do, I started work on the side rack for the sand plates and fitted the jerrycan rack. The latter needed a bit of inventive thought since the original position just aft of the window relied on the gutter for support, and now that's gone with the old roof, I don't think the Alu-cab replacement is really up to the job of taking the weight of 20 litres of diesel at 3g+ as we hit the bumps. A few little accessories for the cargo rails has sorted it, though.

These work in the same way as the ones I designed for the seat mountings inside before I realised these were commercially available. The "proper ones" fit better than mine and have a load spreader, so they'll take the weight of the fuel can if it's hung off the tracks.

The rack for the sand plates is formed from 2 strap hinges, suitably bent to clear the tub cappings but able to hinge downwards. 

 









A bit of scrap aluminium plate will do as a table top for the time being until I can find something a bit longer which can be used as a flap-down surface outside the NAAFI flap, and it'll need some wires to hold it up or the hinges will bend. The space behind - presently packed out with a blue box lid -  will be used to store another folding table like we had before, but made of some kind of waterproof board, if I can find something suitable.

Two ratchet straps hold it all up, and all the screws are secured with Rivnuts, some of which were a real PITA to set. I think that, in future and despite their usefulness, they'll be the fixing of last resort due to the "hit-and-miss" nature of their grip. I had two of them spin when I ran the screws in but managed to save them by whacking the edges with a punch. This gave them enough "bite" to allow me to get the screws out and have another go at resetting them, but only one worked.
The sand plates are very light and strong, and have replaced the heavy, awkward and unpleasant-to-use waffle boards. Although I doubt the new plates have the bridging strength of the waffles, they are apparently rated to 10 tonnes so maybe I'll give 'em a bit of a test soon, just to see.

Inside, we've bought a folding seat to go onto the "library chair".

It's just the right width to fit the space and much more useful than the re-purposed lounger cushion we had before.Like the lounger, this also folds flat but can be set at all the angles in between without the need for a separate back support, so it'll provide a seat for relaxing, can be slid towards the table for eating and be laid flat for sleeping, if necessary.

The newly-discovered, by me that is, Facebook Marketplace has  provided 4 new tyres and some rather tatty modular steel wheels this week. The tyres are 235 BFGs - brand new, never fitted and half price!

The wheels needed sandblasting at our local outfit in Mosstodloch, and they put a coat of primer on for me as well for £25 a wheel. This is the first time I've had this type of work done - I normally spend a few weeks, wear out a few wire brushes and DIY it - but I think it's worth doing the job professionally this time. In fact as the wheels cost £15 each, by the time I've put more primer on and the topcoat and lacquer for the few quid I've saved I might as well have bought new ones.

Anyway, I've made another useful contact in the sandblaster and had some good tips on finishing the wheels so they won't rust as quickly in future, and maybe the final finish will be better.

These steels rust quite badly around the inner part of the rim,like the ones on at the moment:

The rust around the outer part of the rim is easy to remove, but not the stuff closer to the centre and around the dummy beadlockers.

Here I've been "striping" the areas where the sprayed primer won't have penetrated, as well as the sharp edges that always show rust more quickly..

...and a line of sealant in the gap ought to keep things cleaner for longer.

Finally, the Engel has a new coat:

Sue made these up - top cover, fridge and freezer - from the same material as we bought for the window insulation. They fit over the camping mat insulation we fitted previously and are held in place with velcro and thin bungee cord. I don't know how much difference having them on will make, but the insulation is now much better than the commercially available jackets which are marketed as mere covers "to protect the finish and enhance the resale value". A lot of money to spend on cosmetic protection, so a hell of a lot cheaper and better value to make than to buy.  
The Engel's being used, as I type this, as the overflow fridge for the Prosecco...Happy Christmas!

Wallas and Wipers...

...working in time for Winter. Which arrived at the weekend.

The hob arrived back with us on Tuesday last week, with a replacement fuel pump installed. I took it apart again to check it over, added a few tie-wraps and some cushioning on the places where the HP fuel pipe might chafe, and since we'd had a bit of practice it didn't take long to re-install. After 2 priming runs it fired up and everything worked as we'd hoped it would, so now it's time to plan our first outing in the new set-up.

The "new" wiper motor arrived, too. I got this off eBay from a scrap merchant - sorry, vehicle recycling enterprise - for about the same price as the Britpart junk sent by Cr*ddocks. The difference is that this part was original equipment made by someone who knew what they were about, not someone in a sweatshop in Nanking, making pattern parts using a kerbstone as an anvil.

A quick bench test - Learning Has Occurred, you see - and it was fitted and running inside 20 minutes. The (w)ear window wipes, washes and is weddy for Winter.
Sorry.

With that in mind, it seemed an excellent idea to do the first full test of everything on Saturday, the First Day of Winter. We have a viewpoint in the hills just inland, so I packed up the truck with a basket of goodies, a sleeping bag and DVD and headed off. Sue went South for the weekend with the dog, so I was solo.

Everything worked just as planned, with one exception which I'll come to later. The Wallas performed as advertised and I was warm and in shirtsleeves within minutes. The bedding was dry - I was expecting a cold damp feel to it after weeks without an airing  - and the insulating window blinds that Sue had made up worked well.

The material for these came some time ago from Vanguard Conversions in Fort William but there hadn't been any impetus to get them done since we had no heating. 

We ordered enough material to make an insulated cover for the fridge, too.

Sue used my measurements and her sewing skills to produce them at a fraction of the cost of the same thing I'd seen at the AO Show in September. One downside of these is that it completely seals the inside from outside lights and the "situational awareness" that being able to see out gives you. During the evening 2 or 3 cars came into the area, hung around for a few minutes and then left. I was aware this was happening, but felt a little uncomfortable that I knew no more than that. With the roof up it was obvious I was intending to stay for a while, and some folk don't like that much. My cover story, as if I really needed one, was that I was waiting for the Northern Lights. I had a camera just in case....

I made dinner on the Wallas, which did the job well. Positioning the pot on the hob controls the range of heat as well as adjusting the controls and probably more quickly. It's more important now to make sure the truck is parked level since the hob surface is polished, flat and offers no "grip" like the gas stove. The pot I chose had a slightly convex bottom and the vibration from the hob's fuel pump made it head for the low side quite quickly! I might add a small lip around the edge of the hob to guard against this . It wouldn't be good to have an unattended kettle of boiling water fall onto the floor, or anywhere else.

Being able to stand up to cook makes the whole job much more pleasant. There's very little condensation, if any, but I kept the top half of the rear window open anyway, with no noticeable affect on the temperature. The work we did to insulate all the metal inside has paid off. 

No, not a super-kettle..I needed a pot lid

After eating, I settled down in the sitting room with a glass of wine to watch a DVD. Luxury camping, this. In fact the feeling, with all that space overhead and no outside light coming in, was like being in a cosy cave. Come time for bed, I thought about leaving the heater running to test its noise level but decided not to. I wanted see how cold it'd get inside. In fact, the insulation we've put in and the Alu Cab quilted roof lining meant it didn't get really cold despite being below zero outside. In the morning - I slept for 8 hours straight - I could reach down and turn the hob on from the bedroom, and with the kettle in place already I could make breakfast from the bed. Big grins.

In fact, almost everything worked just as I'd designed it to work, which is really satisfying. There's nothing that needs major changes but, of course, it hasn't got the Soup Dragon's seal of approval yet. Only two "gripes":

1. The only thing that didn't do its job was the water pump. What is it about electrical stuff, pumps and me? It worked well in the last configuration so why not now? It makes all the right noises but won't pull water up the 300mm or so from the tank to the filter. I tried sucking on the tap to prime it, but got nowhere, so I pulled the drain plug out and filled the kettle from that. Hmmm.

2. Another thing that is sensitive to being level, or not, is the sink. This is the first time we've had a fixed sink and I hadn't really applied much thought to how a sink is designed. It's just a fancy bucket with a hole in the bottom, innit? Well, no, it's not quite that simple. If the bottom of the sink doesn't slope down to the drain hole in all directions, not all the water drains away. That's not obvious when you look at one - it all looks level and "square".  Our sink bottom is completely flat and the drain is at one end of it so I didn't have to run the pipe horizontally (a potential smelly grottrap) It needs to be set at a very slight angle, compared to the horizontal line of the hob, to get almost all the water down the drain. This is easily done but something I missed - we try hard to get everything square and level and some things work best when they aren't.... Never really thought about it before.

Later, at home, I played about with the pump again. 

I can get it to work if it doesn't have to pull water "uphill" more than a tiny amount. I recall that the previous pipe run was just over a metre and horizontally from the top of the tank, with a very slight bow in the middle. Once I'd primed the pipe the water stayed in it so became its own non-return valve. Maybe this is why it can't cope now? I could lower the pump a little but, quite frankly, it's way too big for the tiny job it has to do so irrespective of the reason it won't work, I think I'll replace it with something a lot smaller - then we can use the space more efficiently anyway.

The trip home was in bright sunshine, frozen puddles and ponds and the gorse white with a hard frost. A fair test of everything, I think, that I was warm, dry and comfortable all night. Job done.