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.