One more Pic taken with a better camera ie NOT my iPhone :P

Nina lit up like a Christmas Tree for the Home Counties Boxer Welfare Christmas Party in St Albans last Sunday :).

The lights are from Maplins, 17 meters for £19.99. The two small trees I bought from Asda last year after Christmas for £1 each ! The red battery powered heart lights on them were from Tesco at £5 a set, and the white ones were £3 a set. The 17 meter lights are being powered by a 300w Inverter on a 70 Amp leisure battery, they run at 24 volts, and are rated for indoor or outdoor. On a fully charged 70 amp battery, they will run for 143 hours :), thats one LOOOOOOONG party ;)

Home Counties Boxer Welfare Christmas Party

Today was the Christmas Party for Home Counties Boxer Welfare, which is a Boxer DOG charity, and not a load of men and women wearing shorts and boxing gloves :S.

At the last meeting, I agreed to take Nina to the party, and use the back of her as a mobile photography studio to photograph the boxers in fancy dress for a donation of £5 to the charity.

Well, as ever, after weeks of not being started, Nina started on the button, and got us there and back faultlessly :).

Here are some photos and video of the day !

Merry Christmas ! :)

Festive Nina !

Not had very much to report recently with Nina, Christmas has overtaken finances etc.

Talking of Christmas though, today is the Home Counties Boxer Welfare Christmas Party in St Albans, and I promised i'd take Nina and use her as a mobile studio, taking photos of the dogs in their fancy dress costumes ! I had to make her look a little festive, so got a 17 meter string of LED Christmas Outdoor Lights, a leisure battery, an invertor, and a heap of sticky back cable tie pads and picked out the outline of Nina with them. Also dressed up a couple of 3ft trees to sit on each leg of the awning. I was kindly lent a couple of 10kg weights for the awning legs just in case there is a bit of wind around. The plan is to set up in the carpark of the hall that the party is being held at, and take photos of the dogs at £5 each, all of which goes to the charity. The photos to be emailed. Prints can be arranged for a further £2.50. Lets hope its a success, and if not, at least Nina will be adding to the festivities and hopefully making a couple of people smile :).

Heres a quick video clip from last night just after id finished putting them on :)

Oo errr!

BREAKING NEWS !

Today I agreed to take Nina to the Home Counties Boxer Welfare Christmas Party as a kind of Mobile Photo Studio ! Not only that, but as well as thinking of a theme for inside, she is going to have to look festive outside too ! Let's say she is going to need to light up the car park ! :P.

She is going to be used as a studio to photograph all the fancy dress dogs that attend the party in all their finery, and owners will get the chance to have the photo emailed to them for £5, or sent a 6x4 print for £7.50. 100% of the profits, ie £5 per photo sent will go to HCBW.

I've got three weeks to make it happen so watch this space :).




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Blinded by .... er....blinds....

Last time, for Scooby, I bought material that had lots of the colours in them to match the interior of my camper, which was blue, yellow, and kind of denim, with light coloured wood.

This time, I still have no idea what colour the inside is going to be, I did want the nice bright Yellow that I had last time, but all over, no blue on the bottom half, but the Yellow is no longer being sold in the amounts I need to do the whole inside out. There is someone selling 10 meters by 2 meters of Sand coloured ribbed carpet, which in all the places Ive looked, seems the most likely colour i'll be getting.

I didnt want curtains this time, I wanted nice neat looking blinds, motorhome blinds, I didnt want to go down the normal venetian blind or roller blind route, as they are too much like a normal house, and Nina aint normal :P. Motorhome blinds are pleated, and come in a frame which also acts as a catch to stop it from retracting etc. One small problem with this, is that they cost from £80 PER WINDOW, and thats if you can find them big enough for Ninas windows, which is unlikely, Caravan windows just arent that big, or plentiful. Sooooo I started Googling for pleated blinds, during my searches, I found out that you could get CORDLESS pleated blinds. I looked into this some more, and basically, like motorhome blinds, you just pull them down or push them up, they are on some kind of pulley system, so that there is no need for cords or bars at the sides. Making it all very simple and easy to use, and less to lose or break. So I started searching for Cordless Pleated Blinds. In my searches, I found some on the B&Q website, that looked like they would do the job. They came in about 3 colours, all pastel shades. All the blinds are smaller in width than Ninas windows, but I have a work around for that, all are more than long enough, which is fantastic. Now these blinds are normally expensive, but not as expensive as real Motorhome / Caravan ones, so I started putting them into my basket. I soon found that these blinds were discontinued, and that actually finding some in stock was going to be a challenge. My preferred colour was a white, I figured this would go with whatever I put in there after, the three colours were White, Linen (browny colour) and Aqua (greeny blue). They didnt do the white small enough for Ninas middle windows though, and they cant be cut down to size because of the pulley system in the head gear. The only colour that I could get enough blinds in the right sizes to cover 7 windows, the three side windows on each side, and the long window in the bulkhead behind the front seats, was Aqua, which was my least favourite, but beggars cant be choosers and I decided that maybe they could be sprayed with vinyl craft spray to whatever colour I wanted. Gloucester B&Q had the 4 longer side window blinds and the long bulkhead blind, but didnt have the smaller middle side window blinds, dont forget these are discontinued and they are running the stock down. I searched stores out of the area, and found that Birmingham had the 2 smaller ones in Aqua, so my friend Rich who lives up that way, was kind enough to go and pick them up for me and deliver the next time he was passing.

All in all, ALL SEVEN BLINDS, cost me £50 :) The five longer ones were £8 each in the end of line sale prices, and the two smaller ones were £5 each ! BARGAIN ! I cant believe I got them so cheap ! They work great too, in the up position, they are fairly solid and dont look like they'll fall down as Nina is driving along, and they feel positive when you pull them down too, and stay wherever you put them.

The sizes I got, if you are reading this and converting a long wheel base Renault Master Ambulance or Minibus, 4x 90cm wide, 1x 120cm wide, and 2x 60cm wide.

As I said, they are too small in width for the windows, leaving up to 3cm or so either side of the blind in the middle windows where the 60cm ones will go. I did say I had a work around. Well, what I intend to do, is fix a large board across the windows, so that they are completely covered, cover the board in the same wall lining carpet that Nina will eventually be done out in, and cut aperatures in the board where the windows are, but slightly smaller in width than the blinds, so that when the blinds are fixed into the normal window aperature of Ninas, then the board over the top of that, you wont be able to see where the edges of the blinds are as they will be sandwiched between the window and the board. From the outside, the windows which are dark tinted, will be normal huge size, from the inside once done, the windows will be a bit smaller. But from either inside or out, you wont really notice.

Sorry if that sounds complicated, but in my head I know what Im going to do, Im just not very good at explaining :P.

When you see the finished result, you will know why I did it !

So, thats the blinds bought and ready to be fitted. Lots of stuff to do first, but at that price, I couldnt turn it down, even the curtains I had in Scooby came to lots more than that, 3x more I think by the time we'd bought the material and got Robs mum to make them. And they look nice and neat when up or down.

Here I am just holding one of the middle 60cm ones in place to see how it looks :)

That will do nicely thank you ;)

Nina visits......

Busy playing..... erm 'working' down the field with the dogs, and Nina came to visit me on her way back from Gordano Services where she was on a food run. (our lot do have to be fed sadly, it kind of keeps them alive or something, really I think it's an excuse to get me using a scoop and spade !). Gordano Services don't sell our dog food by the way, she was meeting a man that does :P


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Location:Frampton On Severn

Nu Shooz

A week or so ago I ordered some wheel trims from eBay, I'd been looking for trims for a while, and these were about the only ones I liked the look of.

This was the eBay seller's (the-best-price-for-you) photo from the auction.





In my mind all that would show through was the silver spokes. But they came today, and I didn't factor in my silver wheels lol.





As you can see it all looks a bit of a mess at the moment, but when I get a nice day I will rub the wheels down with a wire brush and spray the wheels behind black, will look a lot nicer then.





Not quite as bad from a distance, but the spokes will definitely stand out better with black wheels.

Speaking of wheels, I've been designing some advertising signs to go onto the spare wheel cover :).

I'm going to somehow make the cover magnetic, and get some round magnetic signs that I can interchange depending where Nina is.

This first one is the one I think that will be on Nina most of the time, give people the chance to go and read about her on this blog after they've seen her out somewhere :). Hello and welcome to Ninas blog if you are reading this after seeing her wheel cover ! :P.





This one is the one I will put on when we do the shows or go to any related events to photography...





There will be a couple more done, a Noahs Ark Rescue one, our rescue charity, www.noahsarkrescue.org.uk, and maybe one for a charity Jen is a trustee for, HCBW, or Home Counties Boxer Welfare (www.hcbw.org.uk), and maybe some more fun ones, depending on how much they cost of course lol.

Not sure how to get magnets to stick to the cover yet, maybe stick a metal disc to it first. Will have to do some research !

Did a quick mock up in photoshop to see how they'd look :P





Pretty cool huh ;)

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Location:Gloucester

Spare Wheel Solution

If you remember, the spare wheel I picked up from Trowbridge didn't fit Nina, so this was a fairly important thing to remedy before I got stranded somewhere !

I found a seller, yes on eBay :), 'vanservicesltd' based in Bristol, a commercial breakers, and he had a 16" wheel with the correct tyre size already on with plenty of tread on for a spare.

Although not cheap, I remember when you could go to a scrapyard and get a wheel with a decent tyre for around £8-10 ! He was cheap up to everyone else though, and his eBay photo made the wheel look worse than it actually was, although I didn't know this until I received it. I paid £30 plus £12 delivery. I could have gone and got it but would have spent the postage on fuel anyway.


The sellers eBay photo ....

Once ordered, I wondered what I was going to do with it, as in when Nina had her air suspension, they took away the spare wheel cage underneath. The answer is obvious really, where do you see the spare on most motorhomes etc ? Hung on the back door. So I found a bracket for the door, eBay seller 'wheelcoverbargains', for just shy of £38 delivered, they also had a website that sold the wheel covers too as their name suggests, which I got for £32 delivered for a semi rigid one. Seems a lot of money to house a spare tyre, but couldn't find it cheaper anywhere else, actually the bracket is really hard to get hold of full stop.
So when they came, I put them on our garden table and took a purposely bad photo to see if people would guess what it was, I think they were playing with me a little, satellite dish was mentioned, and leftover parts from Darth Vader ! :P


The Facebook picture ...

Well when it all came, the next thing was to fit it all ! So as we were out all day Sunday at a Boxer Welfare meeting in St Albans, I decided to set Saturday aside to do the job.

First job, decide where to put it :S ....


Well, this looked about as good a place as any, the drivers side rear door, as it didn't have the number plate on it, I was a little worried about the handle, but could see it would be workable. The next thing was to start destroying it...




So after lots of measuring and marking, you can see my pencil lines here still, I started drilling - eeeeek ! It's a scary feeling, drilling big holes out of a perfectly good door, And you are never quite sure you got it in the right place until you actually fit everything up to it.




The bolts were a little difficult to fit in, as inside the door there are various strengtheners that were getting in the way, but I managed it and tightened it all up, this is the resulting bracket fitted.

And now the finished result, wheel on and cover in place. Shes starting to look like a camper ! :). It sits nice and firmly, doesn't vibrate, dnt even know it's there when driving, so a good job done and another problem sorted :).















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Location:Gloucester

A Key Post......

One more problem we've had with Nina since the start (it sounds like we've had loads, it's not that bad, honest :P), is the fact we have only had one key. This has resulted in me breaking into Nina on more than one occasion to retrieve a locked in key ! Why does the key get locked in ? I think they must have put a locking timer on or something when converted to an Ambulance so that Nina could be left in a hurry and she would lock herself. Or maybe it's something Renault themselves do. Anyway, a couple of times I have left the key inside while ive popped out for something and Nina has locked herself, most probably with a cheeky grin on her face !

I rang Renault and asked for the price of a replacement key to give us a spare. To get the same key that we had, ie a remote and programmed key, they would need a week to order the key, then need Nina for an hour to program the key, which is obviously an inconvenience. On top of that, they want £170 for the privelage PLUS vat. As much as we wanted a key, I just couldn't pay that for a key, it's a rediculous amount of money for something that probably costs them a couple of pounds.

After locking the key in when I fitted the tow bar, it was dark and I scooped it up with my tools and put in the back of Nina accidentally, I decided to call Vern from Vern's Autoparts in Tredworth, Gloucester, and see if he could cut me a key that would just unlock a door if it were to happen again. It didn't need to be programmed to start the engine. He said yes that was fine, so I popped in with my original key. He asked if I'd like it programmed, I was a little surprised he could program it but asked the price and said I'd have to pop home and get Nina for him to do it. He said he didn't need the van and it would be £24 !!!! £24 for a key that would start the engine, unlock the doors, only thing it wouldn't do was remotely unlock the doors. Within 5 minutes the key was cut and programmed and I was on my way !

Tried it in Nina when I got home, and the physical key fitted all the doors fine, AND it de-immobilised her and started the engine ! Result :).

Saved myself £150 in the process and now don't have to worry about locking the key inside :).


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Location:Gloucester

Knocking noise ......

Since we've had Nina, there has been a knocking noise coming from the passenger side front. As she has been through two MOTs and neither had thrown anything dangerous up in that area, I wasn't overly worried. That was until we went to Devon. As we drove through Tanyas estate, the knocking sounded worse than ever. I even had a good look underneath to make sure nothing was falling off !

The knocking was consistent with a worn driveshaft, a problem we had once before with our small Ambulance. I had been looking at driveshafts on eBay for a couple of weeks, and had contacted one seller about a used one that was being sold via a breakers. It was from a similar aged Vauxhall Movano, with the same body and engine, so would have been exactly the same. It was advertised for £35 plus £12 postage but had a Best Offer too. I offered £30 and that was accepted, so with postage it cost me £42. To buy a new one where I would have to exchange my old driveshaft, so that it could be reconditioned and sold again, was £119.99 plus VAT, so a lot more.

I could have done this myself, but I really don't have a love for mechanics anymore, despite being a mechanic for around 5 years, so I gave the job to Jon and Malcolm at Bedford Street Motors. Whilst they had Nina, I asked them to fit the Brake Valve Compensator that I had removed from one of the vans in Trowbridge. To do this they had to make a bracket for the valve and weld it to the chassis just forward of the rear axle.


This is the valve and linkage (unit with spring middle right, and rod to bottom left bolted to axle) just before I removed it from the Trowbridge van....


And this is the same valve and linkage fitted to Nina with the newly fashioned bracket welded to the right side chassis. It's also had a clean up and a coat of protecting paint against rust.

I hadn't thought the driveshaft had cured the problem during the drive from town to home, I could swear that I felt it knocking still, but driving it since, I think it is cured, and what I was hearing was something else :S.

The new brake compensator valve works just fine, as it was before with the quick fix, the reason I wanted it done was so that next year, it wouldn't be a problem on the MOT again, and I also wanted it put back to original as much as possible.

So all in all it was a good visit to the boys at Bedford Street, and a couple of jobs less to be done :).

She's getting there !


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Location:Devon / Gloucester

Nina & Malc

I wasn't sure whether to do this post or not, but it is relevant in Nina's history now, and I know that it would have made someone happy, being mentioned in Ninas blog. So here goes......

Wednesday 12th October 2011

Nina had a sad job today, to take us to Weston Super Mare to say goodbye to our very dear friend, Malcolm Bradley, or 'Malc' as we called him. Malc had been suffering for over a year with cancer, putting up with a major operation to remove his bladder, and the following hospital visits, chemotherapy etc. He did it with dignity and courage, most of all with love for and from his family and friends. I'm sure I wouldn't have been as brave in his shoes. Sadly after suffering a major set back when the cancer returned, Malc passed away at his home, surrounded by his family and friends. We visited Malc, Mary, Bel, Pete and Mel a couple of times in the later stages and were lucky enough to spend precious time with all of them. Even though Malc was in bed, feeling just about as grotty as you could feel, he wanted to see us and share some memories and laughs. We were very lucky to get that time.

When I was converting Scooby, Malc loved advising me on the electrics, and we talked about the conversion almost every time we met. He was very helpful to bounce ideas off. He had a van, a Renault Trafic, called Rusty :). His plan was to build a removable modular camper interior, so that it could be used for camping in, and then everything easily removed so that it could be used as a stock van for the various events and shows held by the Last Resort Dog Rescue, of which he was a co founder and Director. Sadly he never had the funds, and in the end, the time, to carry out his plans.

This makes me even more determined to push the boat out as far as I can with Nina, make her something I can be proud of, and as importantly, that Malc would be proud and impressed of.

After Malc passed, Mary, his wife, asked that I bring Nina to the funeral, she said Malc would have gotten a real kick out of it.

So there we go, Nina carried out her duties, there was enough Ambulance left in her to raise a few smiles as she pulled up at the crematorium.

I know Eric and Joan, who are Malc and Marys bestest of friends !, were able to look at Nina sat in the car park after the funeral and manage a small smile through their tears. Mary was right, Malc would have loved Nina there.


R.I.P Malc, I hope that you are surrounded by fur babies (dogs) and loving family and friends that left before you, and that you still inspire me as I convert Nina over the next few months or so.

We all miss you already.

Damon (Ninas Dad)




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Location:Weston Super Mare

Glue solution

Just a quick post, finally found a solution to the problem with the glue being left behind by the checkers...

Whilst Malcolm was welding the tow bar for us at Bedford Street Motors, Jon was asking about the graphics, and suggested I use Brake Cleaner to remove the glue, scornful, as nothing else had worked so far, and brake cleaner is, well a cleaner not a dissolvent ?, Jon went and got some on some paper towel and started rubbing where I'd taken the checkers off on the passenger wing, and it started coming off ! It doesn't damage the paint underneath, evaporates really quickly, even smells nice, but be warned, is highly flammable, I remember when worked In the garage with Jon and Malcolm years and years ago, we used to spray brake cleaner down the carburettors (remember those?) to get them going if the engine wasn't starting due to fuel starvation etc.

I went and bought a gallon can of it, Swarfega branded, and decided to try it on the wing, I had the wing completely clear of glue in less than ten minutes. Don't get me wrong, it doesn't just fall off, you have to keep rubbing at it and scratching away with a nail or a plastic scraper, but it shifts pretty quickly once the brake cleaner has soaked in a little.






As you can see, it's left no trace of glue at all, and the paint is just fine that's left behind :).

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Location:Gloucester

More work for Nina with her new Tow Bar

Some of you may know we rent a field to run the dogs in, it's about 10 miles from where we live, and is right next to a canal in Frampton On Severn. It's brilliant, out the way, nobody bothers us, nobody is bothered by the dogs barking, and we can all enjoy some quality time running the more difficult dogs off lead without worrying about other dog walkers coming in and making a beeline for you when its quite clear you have difficult dogs and are trying to keep out of the way of other people. One problem with the field is, that it has no services, ie no toilet, no electric, no running water etc etc. With winter coming, we wanted a shed or something that we could use to put a chemical toilet in and some facilities to make a hot drink and sit and drink it.

Then we thought a cheap caravan would be better !

With no towing vehicle out of all our three vans, Nina was elected as the van we were least likely to change in the next few years, and the fact that she weighs a bit herself, and has a 2.8 turbo diesel engine, means she can pull just about anything, in fact a perfect towing vehicle.

As I'd just sold some of the camera bits from the transit camper that preceded Nina that ended up scrapped, I had some money in paypal to do something about it, and bought a tow bar from eBay. I look to eBay first most of the time, if used carefully, it can be a great source. This seller, towbarman01, was selling a brand new tow bar kit for Nina, including the tow ball and electrics and and covers for £80 including delivery. Well I don't think you can get better than that. They rarely come with the extras, usually you have to go buy your own tow ball and electrics.

The caravan we bought, was through a friend, Tanya you know who you are :P, and was in North Devon, Tiverton. We had to pick up the following weekend. So Sunday night I ordered it, the auction stated 4-5 days delivery, you can't complain about that as the delivery was free, so I ordered and hoped it would be here before the end of the week giving me a chance to fit it.

Well it turned up Tuesday ! So impressed with the seller, not only selling such a bargain, but good service too.

I started fitting it the same day, most of it was fairly easy, but I had two problems with Nina, the first was that the new kit came with built in brackets for the rear bumper, so you had to remove the old bumper and brackets, and refit over the new tow bar. The bolts holding the brackets in place inside the bumper were very rusty and either snapped off or just didn't come of full stop. I ended up removing the bracket bolts from the chassis underneath, and taking the whole bumper off and used a grinder to remove all the old metal work. This meant that I didn't have any metal work in the bumper for the new incorporated brackets to re-bolt to. I had an idea, a visit to Buildbase some months ago I remember seeing some wall retainers, long metal strips pre drilled with holes. So I popped in there, and found some smaller versions, probably twice as long as I needed for each one so had to be cut in half, with the right size holes for the bolts, and even better, where the original metal strips In the bumper had rotted away with rust, these were galvanised and should never rust, so the job will never have to be done again, during Ninas lifetime anyway. Expensive ? Yep all of about 75p each :).

The bumper when back on a dream, and actually fitted better than it had originally.

The second problem, was where the air suspension had been fitted, the chassis near the axle had been damaged. The tow bar comes with three main parts, the main bulk of the tow bar that bolts through with the original bolt holes for the bumper brackets, then either side, an arm is bolted on to the main part then goes back and bolts up on to the chassis where there are two ready made threaded bolt holes. Where Ninas chassis was damaged slightly, these holes were damaged, and couldn't be used for the bolts. I rang Jon at Bedford Street Motors, and they said they could weld the arms up to the chassis on Thursday. Which they did. Thanks guys ! They also Schultzed the welded areas too to protect the new weld from rust.

Well that was the tow bar itself all fitted and ready to tow, next job was the wiring into Ninas electrics, so that the lights on any trailer would work in tandem. I ended up doing this on the Saturday, had to dismantle most of the panels at the back to get to wiring, and find out which wires did what so that I could patch the new tow bar wires into them. When finished, I tried it all out on an old trailer board I had, and everything worked as it should, even the buzzer when indicating, that reminds you that you are towing.



New tow bar fitted, wired in, and supplied ball and electric covers in place :).

The day after the wiring, sunday, was Ninas big day and longest trip out so far. As we got to Tanyas in Tiverton, the usually quiet knocking on the front left side was pretty bad, and I was underneath trying to see what it was, but couldn't see a thing. I'm not overly worried as Nina has been through 2 MOTs with us and neither picked up anything dangerous down there, we are pretty sure its the driveshaft starting to go, so Tanya carried on and took us to where the caravan was that her friend was selling.



This is Nina in North Devon, the caravan had just been hitched, it's a 17ft caravan, which in it's day was probably top of the range, but now is rusty underneath and probably should be scrapped, with panels leaking water in and a windows cracked etc, but for our purposes, as a toilet and a tearoom, it is perfect as long as we can get it back to Frampton in one piece. One thing the caravan did come with, which won't be needed in the caravan any more is a electric hook up lead, worth about £35, we gave this to Nina as a reward for bringing the caravan back for us without any trouble :P. She was so pleased ! Lol.

So, Nina now has a tow bar and another feather to her bow, meaning she is even more useful now. Jen drove back with the caravan on the back, and said she hardly knew it was there, so it seems Nina is a good tow vehicle. :)



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Location:Gloucester

Solution to seating back rest

Remember earlier in the blog I said I wanted L shaped seating behind the front cab, and needed something to separate the front from the back ?

Well by accident I came across this on eBay, being sold locally, in fact only about 3 miles from where I live.

A full bulkhead taken from a Renault Master van, by a guy converting it into a camper ! :P. Obviously doing his different to me, probably with the swivel seats.

What's a bulkhead ? Want some pics to see ? Oh ok then :).


Couldn't resist fitting this straight away, it was very simple, just bolted straight in, all the holes were there already for it, and the eBay seller supplied all the bolts with it. I did have on problem doing it, if you look at the above photo, on the right of the bulkhead you can see gaps down the side, the original conversion plastic meant that the bulkhead didn't seat properly, so the only solution other than cutting the plastic away, was to bend the edge of the bulkhead round slightly so it didn't hit the plastic. This is the best solution, because when all the Walls are lined with carpet, I can bend it back to there isn't a gap and you will hardly notice a join there as it will all look the same, like one wall all the way around.

What I liked about this bulkhead, normally they are solid, and this one had the window in it which means you van look out through the front when parked up. It will be another window to curtain or put a blind on, but I like having the window, also when driving, you can still look behind out the side windows when reversing.



This photo is looking in from the side door, and makes it easier for you to see how the seating is now going to slot straight in there using the new bulkhead as a backrest for the left hand part of the seat.

Having the bulkhead there also reduces the draughts you get around your neck when driving, which is a good thing.

This must have cost hundreds, a genuine lump of Renault metal with a window in right ?

Nope, I won it with my first opening bid of £29 :). Such a bargain, and really changes how Nina looks in the back now from when I first got her as you can see in this next photo, the back is like a proper room now :).



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Location:Gloucester

Cameras have arrived !

Yay ! Cameras arrived for the rear view monitor :).

Not sure why they took so long to arrive from the monitor which was ordered at the same time, I think from the same company, but the important thing is they did arrive.



This is the monitor in place inside Nina, as you can see, it's very revel give and works as a normal mirror too, but when you switch the monitor on it backlights and the reflection disappears pretty much.



This is one of the cameras just after I'd picked it up from the Royal Mail depot. First impressions were that they are made very well, the body, shade and bracket are all made of metal, and the camera is weather sealed. Looking forward to seeing the quality together with the monitor.



Although you can't really see from this photo, it's a very good picture, clear and sharp, the night vision works brilliantly lighting up most of our office in complete darkness. Yes that's my ugly mug taking a picture of myself on the monitor :S.

Looking forward to wiring all this in, but that's a way off yet, got lots of things to do beforehand.

Something else I ordered and that came around the same time, was a 12v amplifier for the back when it's converted. I will incorporate it into a control panel somewhere so that you can only see the front controls, along with an iPod dock that can be controlled by remote control, which I already have and in fact used in Scooby (T4).


You aren't going to believe how much these things cost ! They are SO expensive ! Even buying from Hong Kong. I paid almost SIX pounds for this, delivered. Disgusting :P. Yep, £5.99 delivered from Hong Kong. You'd have every right to think well it must be junk for that kind of money, and I'm sure Audiophiles out there will carry on thinking that once they've heard it, but for me with my humble ears, it sounds fantastic when connected up to my Toshiba Surround sound speakers I had with an old TV. You really wouldn't want anything better to sit and listen to music to in the back of Nina on a campsite somewhere.

I thought it was such a good deal, I've ordered another one to set up next to the bed to listen to music to there.

The eBay seller I bought them from was virtualvillage-uk-delta.

Takes 2-3 weeks to come, but at that price I'm not complaining.




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Location:Gloucester

Chuckin' Checkers !

Next, I thought I would tackle the checkers, the lettering was fairly easy, the odd bits of glue that it left, I managed to remove with some WD40 on a cloth for the most part. Some bits were stubborn though.

Started on the passenger side wing, seemed as good as place as any, and happened to be where I was stood when I thought "I know I'll start taking that off" :P.

Oh dear, heated it up with the hot air gun, peeled the plastic away, and it left 100% of the glue still on the wing. So much so it looked like backing paper.





So rather than carry on and leave exposed glue all over the van to catch flies and bugs and anything else that might be travelling in the air, I decided to try removing the glue on this patch first. I had been pre warned of the difficulty in this part of the job, and was reliably informed nail varnish remover was the answer. If only. Nail varnish remover didn't touch it. Neither did the WD40. Nor the tar and bug remover that the sign specialist advised. One thing that did make it a little easier to remove was petrol. But after I'd done a couple of square INCHES, the fumes were making me sick, so had to stop. I stank of petrol for hours after that too. So wasn't a feasible solution.

This is where the checker removal stopped. The front wing left with the shape of the checkers in glue.

Time to do some more research I think. YouTube is a good source of info for this kind of thing, there is a guy in America that has some magic stuff that he sprays on, leaves a few seconds then wipes easily away with paper towel, he so hasn't got my van with 10 year old checkers on that's for sure. If only it was that easy !

PROBLEM: Ongoing


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Location:Gloucester

Ah well.....

The wheel I bought with all the other stuff from Richard in Trowbridge was a 15" wheel from a 1998 Renault Master, at the time, I knew it was the wrong size, but decided that for now it would do as a spare to get me out of trouble until I could find one the proper size.

Anyway, it doesn't fit :(. The stud holes are way different, the centre hole is alot bigger, and the stud holes further apart.

So if anyone wants to buy a wheel for an early Renault Master, 15", I have one for sale with an almost new tyre on !

Not all bad news though, I want to get Nina all gadgeted up this time round, didn't really do it before, and my first gadget is a monitor in the front that will have a rear camera plugged into it for easier parking when I build a cupboard unit across the back, blocking the back windows.

I searched eBay and decided on one that clips over your existing rear view mirror and looks like a rear view mirror. I found one with a 7" monitor incorporated and 2 video inputs for £29.55 delivered from a seller in Birmingham, eBay ID 'it-superstore'.

This is the sellers photo from the auction -



Once I'd spotted the monitor, I looked for a couple of cameras, as the monitor had two inputs, and I found some good quality ones, also on eBay, with night vision, or infra red so that it can see in the dark without any additional lighting.

Seller ID for the cameras was 'betashop1', also in Birmingham, and to be honest, I'm pretty sure it's the same seller that sold me the monitor, just under a different eBay ID for whatever reason. These were prices at £16.95 each with a best offer, I eventually got them for £16 each. Bit stingy on the offers but almost £2 off the price, and it was free delivery too.

These are the cameras as on the auction -



My intention is to have one on the top pointing down at the rear of Nina, so I can judge how much more I can reverse before I actually hit what's behind me :P, and the second camera will be fixed inside the back on to the dog cage that I am building so that we can keep an eye on the dogs we are carrying whilst driving. Useful for rescue dogs :).

Well that's it for this update, plenty more to come soon, so stop by again ! :)





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Location:Gloucester,United Kingdom

Nope, like a kid with new toys.....

Well, after all yesterday's excitement actually getting so many of the bits I wanted in one hit, and for such a good price, today, all I wanted to do was fit it to see how different Nina would look. Have gotten so used to all the yellow steel work inside and no front passenger seating.

So eventually started around 4.30pm, and was all done by 8.30pm. To me, it's such a change ! Finally the ambulance is turning into a camper ! Well, kind of back in to a van ;P.

So this is how Nina looked in the front when I first got her, no passenger seat and lots of ambulancey stuff !



So I carefully removed all the metal and plastic work, ready to put the new
old interior in. Looking very bare and uncluttered now :).





There seems so much space all of a sudden, even the back looks bigger.

Took me a while, but was a fairly easy job to be fair. As you can see, autumn is here, it gets dark so early now !








The hardest part was putting the seatbelt back in to the door pillar. When the Ambulance conversion company originally converted Nina, they removed the seatbelt and fed the air conditioning hoses down the door pillar, out underneath and up in to the engine bay, so I kind of had to squash two fairly thick hoses to one side, put the seatbelt inertia reel into the hole and bolt in quickly, I think the hoses clear any moving parts, so they don't get worn through during seatbelt use.

I've done a couple of before and after pics to show the difference.






I haven't fixed the step liner in properly yet, still need to clear all the rubbish out left by the heater that was installed in the doorstep. But the plastic liner is in place just to hide it for now :)


Jen says it's nice travelling in the front now after travelling in the 'variety club' seats in the back for so long!

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Location:Gloucester