Rick Hurst Full-Stack Developer in Bristol, UK

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Category: campervan

Microcampers, teardrop trailers and compact caravans.

2cv towing teardrop

Our VW camper is already pretty small, but will sleep four adults, and will fit in a regular parking space, but it is (for us) a second vehicle, and being a vintage vehicle, currently off the road again for some body work tidying and preventative maintenance. It therefore can be an expensive hobby, and we often discuss how we might be better off with something that could be used as a reliable family car and run-around as well as a campervan, or towed behind a small family car.

I recently went on a surf/skate trip down in Cornwall, and with Rocky off the road, found myself back in a tent. I think once you’ve experienced the relative comfort of living and sleeping in a campervan, a tent feels quite a step down! It didn’t help that I was in a tiny pop up tent, on a deflating airbed, trying to cook on a tiny picnic stove, which I struggled to keep upright.

Teardrop trailers and compact caravans such as the Eriba puck or slightly larger Pan Familia would be one solution – small and light enough to tow behind a small family car. The advantage of a caravan is that once pitched up, you can leave everything set-up and still have use of the tow car. Unfortunately, we live in a city, and have no off-street parking, so unless we paid for somewhere to store it, a trailer or caravan wouldn’t be ideal for us.

An estate car or small van is easily converted to a micro-camper with the addition of a mattress of some sort and window coverings for privacy, but a small car takes a bit more ingenuity.

After doing some research, I was amazed to see how common car-campers seem to be. Basically as long as at least one bed can be squeezed in some how, a can be used as a microcamper. If you google for “microcamper” or “car camper” on image search, you’d be surprised at the lengths people, worldwide, are going to to make their cars into DIY mini-campers.

Popular base vehicles for microcampers seem to be the Renault Kangoo and Citroen Berlingo – small, economical family cars, with an “estate” car rear end, making them like a small cargo van with the seats folded down. All manner of gadgets and conversions seem to be available, to cram in a double bed. Cooking activities usually take place to the rear of the vehicle, rather than inside – probably a sensible idea! These vehicles, or at least the van versions are the modern-day equivalent of the 2cv/ Dyane based vans – I actually wrote about an Acadiane microcamper (van version of the Citroen Dyane), a while back.

It’s not just DIY eccentrics building microcampers either – established motorhome converters are offering one and two-berth campers based on the Kangoo and Berlingo (at fairly hefty prices!). Even luxury brands such as BMW’s mini are getting in on the action, advertising the mini as a camper, using different set-ups such as a roof tent, a teardrop trailer and a single bed crammed into the interior of the clubman model.

We have a 1998 Vw “new” beetle, which we’ve done plenty of tent camping in, before we got our current camper. I started working out if there was any possible way of sleeping comfortably inside, without having to modify or remove the seating. Just for a single person, obviously – a surf-trip overnighter rather then a serious live-in vehcle. With the rear seats folded down, there isn’t enough room to stretch out, so I’ve set myself the challenge of coming up with a solution.

Anyone who has owned a new beetle will be aware how deep the dash is – space that can be taken advantage of, and also, despite being a small vehicle there is a surprising amount of headroom in the centre of the vehicle, due to the curved profile of the roof.

I recently spotted a “tent cot” on a campsite, and was also looking at a tiny hiking tent, both offering minimal headroom, just the basics in shelter from the elements – so I started studying the roof void of the beetle, and realised there could be a way to fit a full length bed in after all.

Watch this space!

Cool runnings – France 2014

T25 overheating

There’s a saying that people use after a successful trip in an old vehicle, something like: “I just did a 1000 mile trip and it didn’t miss a beat!”. At the end of July we did about 2000 miles round trip from Bristol down to southwest france and back and Rocky didn’t just miss a beat, but played the wrong song, pushed the drum kit off the stage and started to try to steal the guitars!

Before setting off to France with our new tdi engine conversion we covered 1500 miles in the UK without a hiccup, so I was confident that the engine was going to handle a similar distance on the continent. We decided to take the Plymouth – Roscoff ferry as we planned on travelling down the west side of france over a few days staying at Aires and municipal campsites to reach a family campsite in the Gers region.

On the approach to Plymouth, I noticed that the temperature gauge was a bit higher than usual, but it was a hot day, we were fully loaded and there were some steep hills. After the overnight ferry we headed off south, armed with the All the Aires in France book and a recommendation for a nice municipal site at Chatellerault. Once again, the temp gauge seemed to be a bit higher than usual (on test runs so far it had always sat mostly bang in the middle).

It was only when we came off the motorway and crawled through some roadworks near Cholet that things went seriously wrong. The temp gauge suddenly went to the top, the coolant light started flashing and we dived straight into a garden centre car park, switched off the engine and saw a plume of steam appear in the offside rear air vent.

One of the annoying things about a T25 is that to get to the engine when the van is fully loaded you need to remove the bikes from the rear rack, then all the stuff packed in the rear section to get to the engine lid. This was the first of many times I had to do this..

After letting the engine cool down a bit, I started looking for problems – it was clear that the coolant had vented off through the expansion tank pressure cap (the expansion tank is the one inside the engine bay – my tdi conversion doesn’t have the second top up tank behind the number plate). I couldn’t see any other leaks, so topped up the coolant and thought it would be a good idea to bleed the system. To do this you need to start the engine – but the starter motor was dead – nothing at all.

We had European breakdown cover, but I was determined only to use it as a last resort, as I know from experience that the first thing they are likely to do is tow your camper to a garage, where you won’t hear anything for days, leaving you homeless.

So I tried all the usual things – jump start from the leisure battery (ours is suitable for starting engines), running a live feed straight to the trigger wire on the solenoid (as taught to me by an AA man in Norfolk on our first road trip in Rocky). Nothing got any response, and the only thing I didn’t try at that point was the “screwdriver across the starter terminals” technique – I was a bit nervous about doing so, until I had consulted the forums to get a consensus whether that was a good idea.

As the engine was cool now, we managed to bump start Rocky, with my wife at the wheel and myself and our 10-year old kid pushing. I can confirm that a fully loaded T25 is a very heavy bus – if we weren’t on a slight slope I don’t think we would have managed it!

The temperature seemed stable so we decided to make some progress, and started picking out nearby “Aires de camping car” from the book. Just to clarify here – Aires de camping car are entirely different to the motorway aires – they are allocated spaces in towns and cities where motorhomes can overnight for a small charge, and luckily there are thousands of them across France.

We started overheating again on the slower roads, so stopped at a supermarket in Mauléon – parked on a slope, and I bought some more coolant and topped up again. Once again we had to bump start the van, but this time rather than heading straight off, I ran through the bleed procedure in case we had any airlocks in the system.

camping a Le Moulin de Chaligny near St. Amand sur Sevre

We headed for an Aire listed in the book, camping a Le Moulin de Chaligny near St. Amand sur Sevre, which turned out to be a really nice private campsite in the grounds of a bar/restaurant. Arriving in a cloud of steam, I picked a spot and parked up before enquiring if there was space, as I knew we weren’t going anywhere for a while! I would highly recommend it if you are passing by.

Luckily, the next morning the van started straight up, and has continued to do so every time since. My best theory is that the battery earth connection was bad and that the liberal soaking the battery and straps got during the first overheating episode was the cause?

Bleeding a T25 radiator

We spent the next couple of days at that Aire, with me mostly working on the van. – after consulting the forums and using the “phone a friend” option, I removed the thermostat (to allow coolant to always flow to the radiator), and extensively bled the system.
A few test runs showed that although the problem wasn’t fixed, the van behaved OK at higher revs. We filled up the diesel tank (I had a new tank fitted by Jeff’s VW shack before the trip as the old one would leak if you filled it to the top – although he problem was just a breather, the old tank was very corroded so a new tank was fitted). Once on the motorway the temp stayed stable, so we ploughed on down to the campsite we had booked at La Romieu in the Gers region. Once off the motorway the temp started to rise again, so we pulled over and let it cool down, and topped up and re-bled the system – frustratingly only a few miles from our destination.

Pitched up at camp de florence

Safely pitched up on the campsite at La Romieu, the holiday continued, but short trips showed that the overheating issue hadn’t gone away. With the help of a French friend we tried to find a garage to take a look at it, but it seemed that every garage in the surrounding area was either closed or understaffed due to August holidays. We set up our tents (we bought enough camping gear with us this year, after our breakdown experience last year) and dropped Rocky off at the only open garage we could find. The next morning they phoned and said they didn’t understand old vw vans and could we please come and take it away (no charge)…

I was fairly sure at this point that the cause of the overheating was a faulty water pump. I’ll save you the suspense, and tell you that it definitely was. I didn’t have the tools with me to change a water pump, and having not changed one before, I was nervous of digging the hole deeper – taking a running but ill-behaving van and changing it to a non-running one with bits of engine missing. In retrospect, at that point I should have gone ahead and ordered one anyway, to be delivered to the campsite. In further retrospect, in preparation for the trip, the water pump should have been inspected and tested (I presumed I had a new one in there at the time of the engine swap, but there you go..).

I also connected a “chicken switch” to the radiator fan, so the fan could be switched on manually – I actually used one of my redundant mystery dashboard switches – on closer inspection I found some old wiring leading from near this switch down to the thermoswitch on the radiator, so i’m fairly sure this was the one-time purpose of the switch anyway!

Sunflower field at camp de florence

I’m missing out the good bits of the holiday here – campsite was great and the area was beautiful, it was very social, hung out with old friends and made some new friends, having a temperamental van that we didn’t want to take far from the campsite forced us to stop rushing around and enjoy the company, pool, ice creams, cheap rose wine, games and conversation (mostly about the van on my part, I have to admit).

Bar camp de florence

So at this point, the dilemma over the engine remained – call in the breakdown cover (i’m fairly sure they would just tow the van to the garage we had already tried) or struggle on. I then contacted the legendary John (aka “Sarran1955” -see his youtube channel here), as I knew he was only a few hours away in the Correze region, and had heard good things about him in the club 80-90 forum. It was arranged that we could visit him (if we could get there), camp on his land and he could help us out with tools and expertise.

Breakdown in Agen

The trip to Sarran didn’t start well, as we were approaching the town of Agen, the van started to struggle on hills and the turbo whistle had become very loud – we pulled over, offloaded the bikes and unpacked the back for the umpteenth time, to discover one of the silicone hoses for the intercooler had popped off. As the engine was hot and the pipe slippery from oil residue it took a while to reattach. About a mile down the road, as we accelerated onto the motorway, the same thing happened again, luckily as we passed a convenient Aire. Second time around I did a better job of re-attaching it and did a few hard acceleration test runs around the Aire (to the disapproval of several picnicking families).

Once on the motorway the intercooler hose stayed on this time and the van stayed at a stable temperature, but would rise quickly once on slower moving roads. We managed to reach the town of Sarran without any further breakdowns and met up with John at the Musée du président Jacques Chirac in Sarran. We were soon pitched up in a spot that will be familiar to several club 80-90 members, overlooking the surrounding landscape.

Pitched up in Sarran

I’ve already spoiled the story and told you that the overheating was caused by a failed water pump, but at this point we weren’t sure of this, so spent a few days investigating some other possible causes – we bled and re-bled the system, checked that water was flowing around the system, checked that there weren’t any leaks allowing air to get in. The confusion was caused by the intermittent nature of the water pump failure, so several times we came to the (wrong) conclusion that the water pump must be ok – it turned freely and we could observe water circulating in the expansion tank (most of the time). At one point we though it was solved and even did some fun hill climbs following John in his air-cooled T25 up to Puy de Sarran, the highest point in the area, without overheating, only to overheat on a leisurely drive a few hours later. In the end we decided that the water pump should be replaced anyway, even if just to rule it out as the cause.

John in Sarran

A nearby VW parts supplier was found, but to be sure we got the correct pump, he suggested we remove the existing water pump and bring it along for comparison. So we set about removing the water pump, but somewhere along the line deviated from the plan. I had read, and been told, that it is possible to remove the water pump on a 1z engine without disturbing the timing belt. It is possible, but you need to remove the whole assembly (including disconnecting the hoses). For the record (it’s easy when you know how!) to remove the water pump on a 1z engine without removing the timing belt:-

  • disconnect the battery (for safety reasons)
  • remove the auxiliary belt (rotate the tensioner arm with a wrench until the belt goes slack)
  • remove the alternator, and the mount/bracket that it is bolted to.
  • disconnect the hoses from the back of the water pump assembly (obviously coolant will go everywhere when you do this, so be prepared!)
  • remove the four bolts/ studs on top of the water pump assembly
  • you can then remove the assembly and detach the water pump and front plate from the housing

1Z waterpump fitted

However, we missed some key info here and ended up removing the timing belt. If you remove the timing belt, the water pump and the front plate can be separated from the water pump housing without removing the alternator etc. As water pumps are usually replaced at the same time as the timing belt, most people do it that way, but be warned – fitting a timing belt is a tricky job and an engine can be seriously damaged if the timing is out.

worn waterpump impeller

detached impeller

Once removed it was evident that there was a problem with the water pump – the plastic impeller showed signs of wear, so it must have been making contact with something, and we then noticed that the impeller could be rotated on the shaft (and easily removed, once out of the housing). This explained the intermittent nature of the overheating – sometimes the impeller would catch on the shaft and therefore be pumping correctly, other times it was slipping on the shaft and struggling to pump at all.

new waterpump ready to be fitted

The water pump was replaced with a new one – the whole assembly, as this is what the supplier in the nearby town had on the shelf, it was a bank holiday in france the next day and we needed to make our way back to the UK sooner or later! I’ve since thought about this, and realised that a potential “get us home” fix if we couldn’t source a pump, could have been to araldite the impeller back onto the shaft.

using bolts to help with timing belt tensioner

Next we fitted a new timing belt. We didn’t have the correct tools or time to source them. Notably missing was a timing belt tensioner tool. John came up with the ingenious solution of tapping (creating threads in) the holes in the tensioner so that we could screw in a couple of 4mm bolts. These bolts could be held by a wrench or pliers to rotate the tensioner and tension the belt.

The next challenge was timing – despite our best efforts to mark up the old belt and pulleys with paint marks, the timing was slightly out on first attempt, so that the engine wouldn’t start. We consulted the internet (youtube videos of processes such as these are gold-dust) and then went through the full timing set-up from scratch – we removed the rocker cover and locked the camshaft at Top Dead Centre (TDC), using a steel shim and some feeler gauges. We located TDC on the flywheel – my 1z conversion uses a JX flywheel and the TDC mark is actually on the clutch pressure plate – an arrow that can be found between two lugs. This can be spotted through the inspection hole on the bell housing, and needs to be lined up with a pointer on the housing. This can be locked in place by putting the van in gear.

fuel injection pump pulley

The bit that threw us was the fuel injection pump – this can be locked in the correct position using a tool pushed through the smallest hole on the pulley. We used a socket handle with tape to shim the difference in the size of the hole in the pulley and the corresponding hole in the plate behind. There was too much play, so first attempt again, the engine wouldn’t start. I should add here that before trying to start an engine with a new timing belt, always crank the engine over manually (using a socket on the crankshaft cog – take the engine out of gear and turn for two full revolutions), to check for any mechanical resistance – which would indicate something seriously out on the timing, probably leading to a very broken engine if you tried to start it like that.

Anyway, there is probably a whole blog post to be written on this process, and one that should be written by a mechanic rather than me! To cut a long story short, after a couple of false starts (fuel injection pump one tooth out) we succeeded in fitting and tensioning the new belt and the engine starting on the button as it should.

So then onto the test running – I was still running without a thermostat (to be replaced before running in cold UK winter temps), and the temperature now stayed right near the bottom of the gauge however it was driven, so we confidently concluded that the overheating issue was now solved! We could happily have stayed with John for much longer and got to know the area better in a more relaxed way in our now cool-running van, but we had already been there five days at this point and time and money constraints meant that we needed to start heading north.

John suggested a great municipal site at Spay, near Le Mans as a good “halfway point” and phoned ahead for us to check we could get in after hours. That leg of the journey was fantastic, as I started to relax into driving without checking the temp gauge every few seconds. The campsite was great, just as described and we relaxed into our penultimate night in France.

We had booked a very early morning eurotunnel crossing the day after next as it worked out much cheaper than travelling at peak times and at the weekend. On the trip to Calais we had to stop several times when the intercooler hose came off yet again, but the temperature stayed very low. On arriving at Eurotunnel terminal, the machine offered us a midnight crossing at no extra charge, so rather then sleeping in the camper in the carpark as planned, we had only a short wait before boarding the shuttle train.

We then drove back to Bristol through the early hours without incident and parked up at about 4am, and spent our first night in a proper bed in nearly a month!

Ironically back in the UK Rocky is now behaving perfectly – I took some time to clean up and properly clamp the intercooler hoses, and tighten the mounting. I decided to take it off the road for a few months to give the body work some TLC and sort out a few other bits and pieces in time for spring. I don’t really want to take it off the road for the whole winter, but time and money constraints mean that I don’t have much choice, so Rocky us now resting up in a friend’s warehouse for the winter.

Rocky in the warehouse

New versus vintage Dilemma

T25 gearbox

I’ve recently started to wonder whether I might be better off aiming to get a more modern van and do a self-build camper conversion. I’ve even joined the Self build Motor Caravanners Club. The dilemma comes from exploring the idea as having a camper van as daily-driver vehicle, and having spent lots of time and money recently keeping a vintage camper on the road.

Pros of a modern vehicle

  • More reliable (at least in theory)
  • More economical (again theory)
  • Easier to insure as a daily driver (though reclassifying a commercial vehicle as a motorcaravan can be tricky)
  • Better for long motorway journeys
  • More safety features (ABS/ Airbags etc.)

Cons

  • more complex technology – more difficult to take on maintenance as an amateur
  • Repairs may be more expensive, as generally new, original parts will be sourced
  • less character – there’s no denying that a T25 puts a grin on my face in a way that the modern vw transporters/mercedes vito/ford transit/vauxhall vivaro etc. don’t. That’s not to say I won’t consider them.
  • higher price – though not always. Well restored vintage VW campers can be extremely expensive

The other thing to consider is that to suit potential budgets, my definition of “modern” includes vehicles that are getting on for a decade and a half old now, with 100 – 150 thousand miles on the clock, so may be prone to exactly the same kind of maintenance issues that an old T25 is prone to – although the older vehicles are more likely to have already had all these items replaced (maybe more than once).

The “repair it, might as well keep it” cycle

This is a cycle that most people with an old campervan probably fall into (I know I do!) – you experience a reliability issue, such as a gearbox problem, and while skinning your knuckles trying to fix it, or while waiting for the recovery service to tow you off the hard shoulder you decide that it’s time to sell it and move onto something more modern. But of course you don’t want to be selling a camper with a mechanical fault, so you go ahead and fix it. Once fixed you decide that you might aswell keep it! And repeat….

Surviving a rainy campervan trip

rainy day in the campervan

I’m sat writing this in deepest Norfolk, using the passenger swivel seat as my office chair, while on the other side of the curtain (seperating the cab of the van from the back), my wife and kid watch a film on a laptop. Outside it’s persistent drizzle mixed with howling wind. Our bright orange sun canopy lays miserablly on the grass outside the van alongside the wet bag of charcoal and soggy camping chairs. Despite setting it up in “ridge tent” mode to cope with rain, the wind unravelled the granny-knots I used to attach the guy ropes and by morning it was hanging pathetically from the van.

We also made the mistake on this trip of not bringing any kind of tent/ standalone awning, so later on when we go for a drive, we have no choice other than to either take the soggy stuff with us in the van, or leave it on site to get soggier.

We don’t like the idea of a proper driveaway awning hitched right up to the van, we like to be able to sit in the doorway of the van and look out at the view rather than into a tent. We usually bring a Quechua seconds base pop-up shelter, which gets used as a kind of shed, and in this case even a small pop-up tent would be handy, but i’ve heard good things about the Coleman event shelter, and i’m now wondering if this could be the solution for a standalone rainproof canopy. I’ve heard good things about them and they are apparently very sturdy and hopefully won’t collapse in bad weather.

So we haven’t got it right with the canopy/awning/gazebo this time, but the things we have got right:-

  • We have electric hook-up on this site, so the electric fan heater is keeping us toasty. An oil filled radiator would be a less noisy solution. Without the hookup we could fall back on the propex heater. The fan heater can also be used to demist the front window before we go for a drive.
  • We have a full gas bottle, and the kettle is being used to it’s full potential.
  • Loads of films and tv-series on the laptop, there is no wifi and zero mobile reception here, so we couldn’t rely on streaming services or being able to download anything new.
  • As i’m doing a bit of work on this holiday, I made sure I had all I needed on my laptop to do the work without an internet connection – no point relying on cloud-based services. As rainy days are ideal times for fitting in a bit of work, we brought along a second laptop, so that work time for me can also be film-time for my family.
  • Board games! For when the films have run out.

Before we got Rocky, we did a lot of camping in tents, and I have to say after a couple of days of rain like this, we’d probably pack the soggy tents into the car and call it a day, but in a campervan, especially a warm leak-free campervan with a supply of food, tea and entertainment, we can still have an enjoyable trip.

Raspberry Pi project – the Camputer (Part 1)

raspberry Pi kit for my camper van in-vehicle computer

I’m building an in-vehicle computer for my camper van. I wasn’t sure whether to blog about this here or on my Camper van blog, but as the project will initially be about software, i’ll start here, then move over to the campervan blog when I get to the point of installing it.

Why does a campervan need an on-board computer?

Well obviously it doesn’t need a computer, but here are a few things i’d like to do with it:-

Media system

I don’t have many CD’s these days, so I currently use my phone or an ipod to provide music to the stereo system, but it is a bit of a faff, fiddling around with cables and chargers and stuff. I’m also pretty disorganised with my music collection and have several small collections spread out over different iTunes libraries etc. It’s also a pain (not to mention dangerous) to operate a touchscreen while driving. The main requirements for my ideal music system therefore are:-

  1. All my music in one library
  2. Physical buttons to play/stop and skip tracks (a bit like an iPod shuffle)

I have in mind a set of switches and buttons on the dash that I can operate by feel. Aswell as the basic functions listed above, there might be toggle switches for different playlists or genres.

The media system could have a small monitor or LCD display, but should be able to be operated using only the buttons. Other operations (such as creating playlists etc.) I would envisage a web interface, VNC or maybe plugging in a monitor and keyboard.

I haven’t decided what media player software i’ll use, but hopefully there is something with a decent api that I can hook my custom controls to.

I’m thinking mainly music, but with a ceiling mounted pull-down monitor it could also drive a (motor)home cinema system in the future,

Engine diagnostics

I have a bluetooth OBII adapter that I use with the Torque Android app. From a quick google around, people are using them with a Pi, so i’d like to set up some logging.

Security/ Tracking

It would be great to have the Pi send location updates to my server, to tie in with my travel blogging. It could also potentially be useful if the vehicle gets stolen, or I lose it in an unfamiliar town!

Remote switching of the heater

My camper has an on-board propex-heater, so the Pi could potentially be used as a thermostat or to switch the heater on from a web/ phone app.

Kit

So far I have:-

So the first phase will be to decide on an OS and media player and work out how to control it using physical switches – watch this space!

Follow-up posts:

Part 2: RaspBMC installation

Part 3: The Camputer Part 3 – API hacking

Heating a campervan for winter camping (and day trips).

Propex compact 1600 installed in a T3

Rocky has sat parked up near our house pretty neglected since the summer, but now my thoughts are turning to winter camping and day trips. Last winter we did a few overnighters, using a combination of an electric fan heater (noisy, but effective), duvets and hot water bottles to keep ourselves cozy. I’ve also been told that an electric oil-filled radiator is a good solution for heating a campervan, as it is safe and silent, so can be left on overnight, unlike the fan heater.

Of course electric heaters require mains hook-up, and this isn’t always available, so many people have blown-air heaters installed – either an eberspacher, which runs on diesel, or a propex which runs on gas. Both these types of heater are expensive bits of kit, but luckily Rocky came fitted with an old propex, which I sent off to be inspected to check if it is safe to use.

The advantage of the propex heater is that it ventilates to the outdoors – ours is fitted under the rear seat with two holes through the floor attached to a couple of lengths of pipe under the van to provide air intake and exhaust for the part of the heater where the flame occurs. This makes it quite safe, though we have a carbon monoxide detector in the van anyway just in case. The other safety issue to watch out for is to make sure the heater isn’t buried under anything flammable – i’ve removed everything from under the seat except my jack now.

I’m writing this on a crisp November morning sat in Rocky parked up near our house, testing out the propex heater that I re-fitted last week. When I first tried it, I couldn’t get it to light. I’d read about how butane “freezes” below a certain temperature – the truth is, it doesn’t actually freeze, but the liquid just gets too cold to boil, and therefore it doesn’t produce any gas below about 4 degrees centigrade. I confirmed this by trying to light the cooker, which also didn’t work. The potential solution is to buy a propane cyclinder instead, which would need a different regulator. I’m reluctant to do this as it means buying and carrying more stuff around, that might rarely get used, and I like the fact that the second bottle of butane used for the heating is a backup for the one running the cooker and fridge. The blue camping gaz butane bottles that I use seem to be available virtually everywhere in the UK and on the continent too – less so for propane I think.

The solution today (I just wanted to check it’s all working, safe etc. before we go and try it for real) was to run an extension cable out to the van and gently warm the gas cyclinder with the electric fan heater that we use on electric hook-up. After about five minutes I tried the propex heater and it worked fine. Of course if we have electric hookup available, we’d probably just use the fan heater instead of burning up our gas supplies and running down the leisure battery. I guess one possible solution if we didn’t have electric available is to use a small portable gas heater (which run on a canister of butane/propane mix, which will hopefully still be working) to warm up the gas cylinders – yep, I know what you are thinking, possibly a bit dangerous! The portable gas heaters shouldn’t be used without ventilation and can be a fire hazard. Another (untested) possibility is that maybe you could use a small butane/propane mix stove to boil some water for hot water bottles to warm the gas bottles. I’ve read somewhere that another solution would be to stand the gas bottle in a washing up bowl full of warm water.

So my thoughts turned to insulating the bottles, but I read somewhere that one problem with this is that the bottle actually cools down as it produces gas, so having it insulated while it is being used will possibly lead to it cooling itself back down below operating temperature! In summary it is worth insulating it to stop it getting cold overnight, but then remove the insulation when you start using it. The more I read, the more I think maybe I should just bite the bullet and buy a propane cylinder..

I’ve actually removed the thermostat for the propex heater and wired it into a switch instead. The reason for this is that I couldn’t get it to work with the thermostat – the heater just squealed! The propex engineer I spoke to suggested that this may be due to a faulty relay, and that I could try to run it directly from a 12 volt source by removing the plug and joining the orange and red wires together and attaching to a 12 volt supply. This seems to work fine.

Bristol Volksfest 2013

sun setting behind Rocky the VW T25 parked up at Bristol Volksfest

A couple of weekends ago we headed over to Bristol Volksfest as it was on our doorstep and the weather was good, so it seemed rude not to really.

Great weekend, great vibe, even if we did make the slight mistake of squeezing into the family camping next to the noisiest family on the site (but hey, it was a festival!) – next time I think we’ll take our chances with the party animals in the general camping!

Enjoyed looking around the arena, bought another vintage deckchair and a vintage windbreak, looking at interiors and paint-jobs of other people’s vans to get ideas of what we might do to Rocky in the future.

On the sunday, rather than join the queues to leave the site, we drove into an empty spot in the general camping and chilled out with a cup of tea and enjoyed the rest of the sunshine.

Campervan errand bike

milk crate cargo system on my camper van trip errand bike

One of the things people often mention when comparing camping in tents to camping in camper vans, is that it can be a pain to pack stuff down in a camper if you need to drive to a shop to fetch groceries.

There is some truth in this – once Rocky is set up with the pop-top up, with bedding in place, kettle and pots and pans on the stove, awning attached and thermal blinds attached to windows, we need a good 20 minutes to get it back into a state where we can drive it. I think it’s true to say that it affects your behaviour – not always a bad thing, once i’m camped-up and have a cup of tea in my hand, the last thing on my mind is driving. However, when you run out of milk, teabags, or beer something has to be done!

You often see people towing small cars behind large motorhomes, it makes sense that if you have a very large motorhome, once you’ve parked up on a site, you really don’t want to keep moving it, particularly if you need to take it somewhere where it would be difficult to park up a Winnebago.

We haven’t gone to quite that extreme, but the last few trips we’ve always taken at least one bike to use for errands – fetching water, shop trips. I’m now experimenting with cargo systems – a bike trailer would be good, but they aren’t cheap, and would be more to store and carry, so for now this milk crate attachment is proving to be a simple and effective cargo system for my old mountain bike. I think I might need another on the front to balance things out a bit!

Idyllic bank holiday weekend

Rocky the VW T25 parked up looking over Putsborough Sands

This is exactly what I had in mind when we decided to buy a camper van. A rare coincidence of fantastic weather and bank holiday weekend in the UK. Camping at our favourite “secret” Devon camping spot with friends, the first time there in Rocky, our T25 camper, surfing and lazing around in the sun.

We left on friday night, fully aware that we may get snarled up in bank-holiday traffic, but it actually turned out to be not too bad. This was the first proper road test for the new engine – fully laden camper and a motorway run before taking on some of North Devon’s finest A-road hills. The 1Y engine handled it all with no complaints, with no sign of overheating or (excessive!) smoke.

We arrived at the camping spot before it got dark. We made some new friends, who kindly shared their fire and wine, as we weren’t really prepared with these necessities!

The next day we got some time to work out what other kit we think we need for longer camping trips, what works and what doesn’t work. I got the 3-way fridge working on gas, which is ideal for spots like these where there is no electric hookup. I think for longer trips where there is hook-up, we’ll also take our powered coolbox, as there isn’t exactly much room in the fridge.

On the last day, we took Rocky down to the beach car park at Putsborough and were lucky enough to grab a spot overlooking the beach. It might be a bit of a cliche, but being able to sit in the van having a coffee, with the music on watching the sunset, really is living the camper van dream. If only overnight camping was allowed in that spot! There are a few camper van overnight spots at the back of the car park, which we might try another time.

One thing we did decide that Rocky would benefit from is window tints in the rear – although we have curtains and thermal blinds, it takes quite a lot of effort to make the van private enough to quickly get changed at the beach. I’ve also had that “being in a goldfish bowl” feeling when I use the van as a mobile office – it would be good to make it so people have to make more of an effort to be nosey.

The run back saw us caught in the predictable bank holiday traffic jam. Looking on the bright side this was a good chance to see if the engine cooling system works properly – which, i’m happy to say, it did. Being stuck in traffic is always a pain, but so much more bearable if you aren’t worrying about the engine overheating, have some decent tunes on the stereo and cold drinks in the fridge!