Pre-trip Van modifications

My love for VW Campervans isn't an off the shelf one. It's more of a creative ongoing love hate relationship!  I go out in the van, see what I like/dislike/desire and start thinking about the next addition/modification. There's nothing like a deadline to get me motivated!

So the last few weeks I've been doing all sorts:

• Oil change
• Drive belt change
• New Sachs HD front suspension shockers
• Pair of lower ball joints
• Pair of tie rod ends
• Tracking

Vera has also been cosmetically treated! I decided to go back to black with the bumpers,,colour coding is so last year...I have also upgraded my head lights to the German Projeckt Zwo Scheinwerfer, with a bit of fly eye tint to boot :-)

Before:

After:

I decided as nice as the engine is..works doesn't it..gets me from a to b..etc.. couldn't help feeling she needed a bit more grunt...I certainly could think of a few scenarios when travelling Europe previously where a few extra horses wouldn't have been a bad thing! So I decided to bolt on a turbo from an ACV 2.5tdi T4!

Before:

and after.

A bit of self sufficiency has been called for since ive suffered the flat leisure battery situation at long weekends. So I went for this 50w slim semi flexible panel bonded directly to the roof to keep the profile discrete and not to spoil the looks too much. 

as a result I now get a steady float charge to my leisure battery during the day when the engine is off:

work didn't stop there. for a while now the desire for a side window has been on my mind. It made sense with a hot destination to get one with a sliding window so we can get some air flow around the back of the van. The van was well upholstered in carpet already, so I carefully had to remove this and figure out how to cut the ply so it all looked nice after wards. Fortunately things worked out:

had to remove the old panel seam sealant in-between the skins for the next task

Started by drilling some holes in the corner as close to the inside lip as possible and a few guide holes to help when I cut from hole to hole with the shears:

and voila:

So I dressed the paint back to bare metal on both sides and out came the spot welder (Thanks to Paul at Minichanics)

and after cleaning this all back, priming, and bonding, we now have a sliding window fitted!

Inside now had to be jazzed up, so a window surround and set of curtains was supplied by Richard at Dubconcampers the surround was deliberately carpeted in a contrasting black colour (ahem is all we had :D)  

Last night saw a monster session of working till 10:30pm, managed to get my units back in and whilst I was in my leisure fuse box  I decided to tidy the wiring up and add a circuit for the submerged water pump and hooked up to the micro switch in the tap so we now have running water! Heck, why the hell not, drilled a hole a through the floor and plumbed the waste in too :)

Also since the T4 suffers from a poor wiring loom to the head lights (multimeter shows 11.5v) and Im still waiting for a the loom to arive from a friend, ive decided to fit a HID kit to the projector lense. This has dramatically increased the amount of lumens and now means its safe for us to drive at night! Ive adjusted these too so I dont dazzle on coming traffic, well In the UK I will as the head lights are currently set up for LHD! But I have no need for night driving in the UK before the ferry so were OK and when I get back I will make sure they get setup for RHD

Have had some new gearbox oil sat in a box for a while now and thought I really should change it given its most likely never had any in its life,,now I know some people dont change this, but look at the colour of it! to me there is plenty of debris and crap in this. The new VW oil was clear! Gave it a bit of an additive I had lying around, molyslip.

Had to make a drain plug from an old 17mm wheel nut and ground the sides off. I do have the proper tool, but for now its 'misplaced'

Make sure if you do this you start by cleaning up the filler plug, and see if you can get this out first, you dont want to drain the oil from the drain plug and find you cant put any new oil back in via the filler plug because its seized! When drained just rig up a funnel and bit of old hose pipe to fill from above.

Drain plug.

New front suspension,,the old one's were ok,,,,well so I thought, but when I changed them, wow what a difference! These were a good deal too so couldn't resist,,I like new parts!