Big Push This Weekend....

It's been nearly three years now since Nina came in to our lives. I have done lots, over 90 posts would indicate that, but she is still not really looking very camper like.

The windows wasted a lot of time, that was a huge set back before I could afford to sort them. Happy to report that all are now water tight :).

So, 2014 is the year when Nina will be useable as a camper, I am determined. I can't believe we are halfway through the year already.

So, firstly, I need two things whilst the roof is down, the tv aerial, I want either an Omni or the Triangle type ones that you can adjust from inside. The hole in the roof and the wiring needs to be done. The second thing I need to do is replace her roof vent. Since I had to undo all the screws on the vent to get the roof down, it's started leaking. On closer inspection on top, the sealer is all really old, messy, and the cover has gone yellow and brittle from the UV rays from the sun. I feel that if I need to take it all off, clean up the surfaces ready for new sealer, I might as well fit a new more modern vent that has the mosquito mesh and a blackout blind. Its a 500mm or 1/2 metre opening, so lets in loads of light, the blind would be good for sleeping.

Today, I gave myself 6 jobs to do over the weekend, and managed to get 3 done today.

First job was to cut a hole in to the interior panel at the back, giving me access to the outer body skin, where I would be cutting a hole for the Electric Hook Up socket. Just as I was finishing cutting the fibreglass liner, the dremel cutting wheel disintegrated and flew in to my head, cutting it for the second time in two days ! Yesterday I lifted the bar up on the gate to the field, and as I was opening the gate it came down on my forehead and bloody hurt ! Bleeding everywhere and gave me a headache for the rest of the day. The Dremel incident wasn't as dramatic, but did draw blood. Luckily I had eye protection on, though thankfully it didnt go near my eyes.













Once the panel was cut out, I had to remove a load of insulation, glad to say that Nina is well insulated, although they didn't insulate the roof, weirdly.






When I was able to get a good look inside, I could see that when Nina was first converted to an Ambulance, they welded some steel girders to the van wall. I think this had a couple of purposes. The obvious one is so that they had solid mounting points for stretchers, wheelchairs and seats. The fold away seats that were on the near side all had seat belts so would have needed to be solid to be legal. The second purpose, if she had had a side impact, the interior and any affixed stretchers or wheelchairs would be pretty safe. Nina is a really solid old girl ;).

I chose a section underneath the rear window, then got my dremel working again, on the outside this time, cutting a big hole in the body.












Last time I did this, I didnt have my Dremel and ended up making a right old mess with a jagged hole, this in comparison was a very neat job. Cant count the amount of times I have needed it to do little jobs, its paid for itself many times over. If you haven't got one, get one.

I treated all the new cut edges with the black stuff they use when they fit windows, completely coats the bare metal and prevents any rusting. Then fitted my EHU socket, which will power a battery charger, and mains sockets in Nina.


















Next I had a quick play with the Solar Panel I fitted in the last entry. Wired the regulator to it, uncovered the panel, and tried out some lighting in the load testing points of the regulator. All working fine, although I did get a bit worried that I was only seeing 5 volts on the meter when not under load, apparently though this is normal. It went up to 10-15v when under load, ie the lights were switched on.


















Really pleased it all works ok, cant wait to finally connect it up to the leisure batteries and use all that sun energy !

Next job was to remove all the window surrounds and feed in the wiring that will power the blue LED downlights that will light the blinds for some mood lighting. This job took me most of the afternoon/early evening as the people that converted Nina to an Ambulance did a really good job and sealed/glued/fixed everything, meaning a simple job like feeding a wire through to each blind was very physically and mentally demanding !

I bought a set of feed rods from Aldi in one of their Specials, and broke two in the process. They are basically fibreglass rods that screw together, a bit like drain rods, and you can fix an eyelet or hook on the end to draw wires through narrow spaces. Got there in the end after much drilling, banging and pushing, yes, still talking about the wiring :S, and now have a feed to each window, except the side door one, which is a little more complicated and will need a set of contacts for the side door to take power up to the lights.






























By the way, when running wires, be sure to buy yourself a roll of masking tape, to mark the wires each end, so you dont get confused with what you are connecting up, when it comes to it.

The last job today was doing the front to back runs. I basically needed wiring to take the power from the leisure batteries which will be in the rear, to a fusebox that will be in the overhead bit above the front cab, powering the switch box and 12v accessory sockets. Another drop was made half way down for the tv I already have, and the aerial amplifier once I get an aerial.

This is how I left it all tonight, a right old mess, but it has to get worst before it gets better, and it certainly is !


















Tomorrow, will see big changes, something more visual and a definite sign of things to come.

If you want to see, you better come back and take a look ;).

Thats it for today, I'm now going to sit and relax and wait for England vs Italy to start.

COME ON ENGLAND ! ;).




- Thanks for stopping by ! Come back soon ;)

Location:Gloucester

Nina Goes Green !

I really wanted to get something done on Nina this weekend that was preparing for the wiring, but also gave me something visual to motivate me to get more done.

So I chose to fit the Solar Panel that has been sitting in our spare room for almost 18 months !

I started getting everything together that would be needed to fit it, and finally took it out of its box. I put the brackets on ready and familiarised myself with its wiring and controller.

Once outside, and with my trusty million uses ladder / platform, set up as a platform alongside Nina, I ventured up to have a look at where I could fit it. It looked very different from when I fitted the fan, the roof was black after the winter we just had and im assuming the sahara sand that came over a while back.

So the first job was to go get the jetwash out and give the roof a quick blast. You will see in the timelapse video at the end just how dirty it was and how handy a jetwash is !

Once I had done the roof, I decided to get all the green algae and moss stuff that was growing in all the cracks and joints, shes been stood up a while, and it showed. Quick wizz around all the trim and finally all the green, black,twigs, leaves and spiders webs were all gone. She still needs a really good clean, with soap and stuff, but she was good enough for today.

Had a quick look inside to find where the roof braces were fixed, and decided on a couple of channels that were single skin and easy to tighten the bolts from underneath. This turned out to be right in the middle of the roof, in between the vent and the fan.

First job was to put the panel in place and work out where I was going to drill the holes in the roof, to fix the brackets to. Once I had decided that, a quick mark with a permanent marker through the bracket holes, and the panel came back off, and the drill came out :S eeek !

Always hate drilling roofs on vehicles, but had to be done, made the holes for the bolts only just big enough, less chance of moisture creeping in. I should say, that at this point, the foam packing that protected the panel in the box, was taped across it to stop the sun hitting it and producing voltage. I was a bit worried after reading the sticker on the back of the panel that said it could produce up to 1000v !!!!! Without being plugged in to the regulator which tones all that down to use on a 12v battery, I didnt think it was wise have it producing full voltage from the very bright sun above me ! (Though I may have suggested to Jen she put her tongue across the two wires like she did across a 9v battery when she was younger :P).



Holes drilled, metal filings cleaned up, if you leave them on the roof, over time you will get a roof full of rusty marks, so important to clean them up.

Next job was. To go back inside and decide where the cable entry holes woukd go without affecting the interior roof. Supplied with the panel were two plastic cable entry plugs that sealed with a rubber seal. A silicon ring that tightens down as the cable passes through ensures the point of entry for the cable is water tight too. I wanted them mounted under the panel for some extra protection from the elements. Then it was a matter of drilling two 20mm holes to house them. Obviously drill bits dont go up to that, not in normal drill bit sets anyway, so I have a stepper bit, which has been so useful, I may have said about it before as I used it to make the holes in my switch panel for the 12v accessory sockets. I bought it from What! Shop and I think it was around £8. Money well spent, it saves loads of hassle when you need to make a bigger hole. It steps from around 6mm to I think 24mm. Very useful bit of kit.

After putting the cables through and attaching them to the panel cables, I had to enlist Jens help to hold a spanner on the locking nuts underneath while I went up on the roof and tightened from the top.

And thats it, I coiled the cable up inside, put some strips of masking tape on them and marked the positive and negative so I know which way round the go.


Thinking about it I should have temporarily fitted the regulator to check it worked ok. Might do that tomorrow.

So Nina is now green and can pretty much keep her own batteries topped up when stood up.

The other day I bought a storage box from B&M for about £3, it has lots of compartments in it, and is perfect for keeping all the screws Im taking out at the moment seperate so I know which area they came from.


From this.....


To this.....

Much better than trying to keep them in seperate piles on the window sills !


Tiz making sure I dont take too many breaks and that Im doing a good job :/.

And finally the timelapse of the whole thing as seen from the roof ;)
Thats it for this time, hopefully more to come soon :).
br />
- Thanks for stopping by ! Come back soon ;)

Location:Gloucester

And the roof came tumbling down......

Bank Holiday Monday was a good day to start stripping out things in Nina ready for wiring, fitting the solar panel, and the mains hookup socket. The sun was out and for a change I didnt have anything else to do.

I started by removing the air con grill above the cab, and the rear head bumper that were holding the centre roof strip either end.









Next to come out was the bulkhead behind the cab.

Then started removing the speakers, light fittings and roof vent trim which were all holding the roof up.








Then it was just a case of removing the millions of screws either side and dropping the roof down.

What I didnt know was that a small inspection panel held on with 4 tiny screws, one of which was rounded out, still attached through the roof panel, and when I dropped it, I was stuck between a rock and a hard place, I couldnt move in case the fibreglass panel cracked and broke while I tried to release the screw. I ended up shouting for Jen who had thankfully popped back from her petsitting job.



Jen held the roof up enough to stop it breaking while I worked on the screw, oh and found time to take a picture of her with my Gopro much to her disgust :P

After breaking a pair of Britool pliers that I bought many years ago while working as a mechanic, I managed to get the screw out, the roof came down.






Things kind of ended here, I spent a while trying to work out what wires I need to go where, looking very important with my clipboard and copier paper attached ;).

I need a lot of wires, for a lot of lights, this thing is going to GLOW when they are all switched on :P.

Thats it for now, next thing to do is remove all my window frames and blinds, so I can send wires down to each window for my downlights on the blinds.

The solar panel has to go on while the roof panel is down as well, so lots coming up !




- Thanks for stopping by ! Come back soon ;)

Location:Gloucester

It's starting......

Well after a long period of inactivity, and now Emma is out the way, I have started turning my attention to Nina again. The weather is improving, and the house is full of parts waiting to be fitted.

So today I removed the seating and cupboards and all the rubbish that was in the back, next I need to remove the bulkhead divider seperating the front cab, then remove the central roof strip, once all the lights, speakers and fan are disconnected. This will enable me to fix the solar panel on top and run all the wiring to where it needs to go for lighting, power sockets etc and all the runs that need to go to my control panel which is actually starting to look cramped !

I removed one of the 12v female sockets and replaced it with a double USB socket, 1amp and 2amp, making it easier to plug things like mobile phones, tablets, e readers etc straight in to that use USB charging. I also fitted a voltmeter to keep an eye on the voltage of the leisure battery.

Lots of work ahead, but once its done, its done, then I can start sorting the outside out :).

Hopefully some more updates soon !






- Thanks for stopping by ! Come back soon ;)

Location:Gloucester

Bye Bye Emma.....

Today I sadly said goodbye to Emma. Over the past couple of weeks I have been preparing her to be sold, starting with her MOT. I took her to Jon at Bedford Street Motors, and he handled it all for me. When I say all, she flew through the MOT bar the headlamp aims being too low, and a number plate light not working, so a quick adjustment and a new bulb later, she had a spanking new MOT, with just a couple of advises, slight play on the inner joints of the steering rack, something which I dont really believe, I think its just the way they are, Nina is the same, and I think a different tester would not say it. The other advise was a lower ball joint starting to have a bit of play. But, they were advises and obviously something to think about for the future, all is safe and ok to use now. The wiper blades needed doing too and a couple more bits and pieces which I did before she went for MOT.

So with 12 months MOT and over 4 months TAX left, I started to tidy her up, removing the junk that had been dumped in the back for storage over the winter, and then put the double rock n roll bed that I removed from the Transit Camper that I scrapped. We just had our kitchen replaced at home, and I kept a bunch of units for Emma, I put two base units in and cut the worktop down to fit so she at least has the base for a sink/cooker and cupboard space. I also included the Campingaz fridge I bought for Nina as I am now getting another one.











Replaced the facia for the overhead blower, and generally tidied things up. I did remove the overhead locker for Nina, but left the Eberspacher Heater as I decided I didnt really need it for Nina and it was a lot of hassle to remove.

I took her up to the usual Robinswood Hill and took some photos and a 12 minute video showing her main points and any defects I knew about.

http://youtu.be/1eb_4ABhAPE

Follow the link above to see the video.
















With all that done, she was listed on Gumtree and Ebay on the Friday, by the monday she had an £1800 bid on ebay, with 70 plus watchers, ending the following Wednesday. Quite a few phone calls from the Gumtree advert, with a few people wanting to come see her. We had arranged for a guy in Cornwall to come on Tuesday through the ebay Ad, but in the mean time Ben from Oxford was in contact with Jen arranging to come the same day. Obviously first come first served, and Tuesday morning Ben turned up on his push bike ! He quickly told us that he hadnt cycled from Oxford but had caught the Train along with his Bike ..... Phew :P.

He spent almost 2 hours here, chatting about Emma and Nina and what his plans were, we went out for a test drive and Emma as usual behaved impeccably, just like Nina, since we had the fuel filter on Emma refitted correctly, there has been no air getting in to the system and she goes like a dream. It was the first time Ben had driven anything as big, and he did great, a very careful and confident driver, especially considering he confessed he hadn't driven for over a year !

We got back to the house, and his mind was made up, we signed all the paperwork, he handed over the money, then arranged his insurance before he left.

Ben, please do keep in touch, and if you do keep a blog let me put the link here so everybody can see how she turns out.

Hope she gives you many years of good camping and maybe her and Nina will meet up again at a campsite somewhere :).

This is Ben just driving off earlier today, good luck Emma !




- Thanks for stopping by ! Come back soon ;)

Location:Gloucester

It's that time of year again......

It's that time of year again, when Nina gets an awesome present.

This year was no exception :).

Sorry for the lack of activity, there hasn't been any to speak of, so no recent posts, but Nina's conversion is still alive and well, and just waiting for me to find the time to get stuck in again.

Watch this space, because I intend to get some bits and pieces done while i am off before New Year, if the Gales we have been experiencing die down a bit :S.

Anyway, I can hear you shouting 'come on then what did she get ?', :P.

Nina was lucky enough to get her seating/bed cushions for Christmas this year ! :)

We have had to rethink a little bit, as the colour of vinyl I had in Scooby, and had intended on having in Nina too, just isn't available anymore, so Jen took the executive decision, as they were her present, and changed the colour to a lovely chocolate brown, the vinyl used is a little more heavy duty than Scooby's, which is great, especially with the dogs.






They fit great, and if you can imagine the walls being covered in sand coloured carpet and the floor a dark wood effect lino, the bed base covered i. The sand carpet too, you can see how warm and welcoming it will look. If not, well you will have to wait until I actually do it, but you are missing out now :P.

So pleased, the cushions were the last big expense, I have everything else here waiting to be fitted, so hopefully, by Spring, you will see a big difference, and I will hopefully be far enough along to use her as a camper ! :).

In other news, Emma has now made the trip back from the field at Frampton, and is currently sitting on the drive, right next to Nina, waiting for me to get the engine looked at so she is tip top and ready to go to her new owner who hopefully will have some great ideas for a camper conversion. I have decided to leave the Eberspacher Diesel Heater in Emma, as its all too complicated for me to worry about taking out and refitting to Nina, if I need to warm up the inside of Nina quickly, I can just put the gas hobs on for a few minutes. I also still have the tube heater which I want to fit in somewhere to take the edge off on a night time.



I have acquired an Ikea type sofa bed, that I have actually seen used in a camper van before, which may well go with Emma, though it needs re-covering, the sponge, which is the most expensive bit, is in perfect condition. The same as this, but in Navy and Linen.



Well, that's it for now, but I hope to have some more updates for you in the next week :).

Hope you have all had a great Christmas and had lots of nice conversion type pressies if you too are converting, and a very Happy Progressive ( if you are converting) New Year !

Location:Gloucester

A Long Awaited Update And An Unexpected Bit Of News !

Hi Everyone !

I'm sorry for the lack of updates since the windows were finished and I fitted the fan in the roof.

Things got quite hectic around here, and although I have lots of bits ready to fit, I just haven't found the time to do it. I am hoping once the summer is over things will calm down a bit and I can spend some quality time, converting.

Well, that was the plan, as ever in life things probably wont work out that way.

Nina's MOT ran out on 18th August. The day before, I had picked up a three piece suite in her, and until today, that's where it stayed, as I hadn't gotten around to doing anything about the MOT.

Well this Sunday, I have the HCBW (Home Counties Boxer Welfare) dog show in Milton Keynes, and we need Nina to fit all the stuff in, mine and HCBW stuff. So needed to get it sorted asap.

Jen rang up Halfords, who did her first MOT a couple of years ago, and booked her in for today at 11.30.

Nervous ? Very ! I cleared a load of rubbish out but had to leave the suite in there as I had nowhere else to put it.

Put the key in the ignition after 3 weeks spent on the drive, and as ever, she started on the first spin ! Have been so lucky with Nina, she has never once not started for me, well ok once, near the beginning, when I hadn't realised that the kill switch had been activated in the cab !

I had about 20 minutes before the MOT was due, so took her for a quick run down the dual carriageway to clear the engine a bit and get the brakes working properly after not being used for so long. All seemed ok, so got to the MOT station 10 minutes early !

They took her straight in, I was told it would be around an hour. So went and sat on the edge of the canal for a while....





This was my view, it was very nice, and a swan swam by and said hi, but eventually the sun got too hot for me so I wandered back to the garage. As I was walking past the entrance this is what I saw ! Eek :S





I was sat in reception a good while, and fearing the worse, stomach knotting up. Really didn't have any spare cash to do any major repairs, will come to that in a bit, so was really hoping Nina wouldn't let me down now !

Eventually the tester came in, a man of few words, and sat in the little office for a bit, no doubt printing off the huge failure list. He came out and passed paperwork to the reception guy, and I could see it was a failure :(.

Reception guy said she had failed.......my response was as expected, sheer misery, until he carried on and said "on one thing !", "whats that ? huh ? not sure I heard properly..... how BAD A THING ?", - "oh just a clip on the CV Boot has come adrift, do you want us to put one on so he can pass it now ?" -------- YES YES YES YES, of course I do :). That was all she failed on, a cv boot clip. WOW, well done Nina ! You didn't let me down :) So lucky.

Well it was done, and the bill came, £58 for the mot, plus the clip, £95 !!!! I said bloody hell how much was the clip, was it made of Gold ??? They charge £65 an hour, and had charged me £35 plus vat to put a clip on, I am assuming the clip is just a cable tie, 5 minute job including putting the ramp up in the air. Before I went in to a Victor Meldrew Rant, I took a step back, looked at the situation, and thought, 12 months MOT for under £100, that's actually not bad, so bit my tongue, said thank you and paid, then drove Nina away with her brand new MOT :). Next time though, I shall not assume that the tester is a competent mechanic who can fit a cable tie in under half an hour !

Well, regards Nina, that is about it, not much of an update I know, but pretty major anyway.

In the title, I alluded to some unexpected news, well Nina's MOT wasn't it.

Last week, I had a phone call from Graham. Some of you may remember his comments on this blog, especially when I was tearing my hair out over the windows ! About a year ago, Graham bought himself an Ambulance too, slightly newer than Nina, an 02 reg, 2.5DCi version, otherwise, pretty much exactly the same, with the intention to do a similar thing to what I was doing with Nina, ie converting to a camper.

Over the past year, Emma, as Graham had called her, Emma/Emergency-Emmaergency....had travelled to Sweden where he was living and brought all his stuff back home to Gloucestershire. Anyway, Graham had made the difficult decision to give up on his dream for now, as funds were stretched, and let her go.

Thats when he called me ! Over the course of the following week, he supplied me with photos, and we kept in touch almost daily. Graham didn't want Emma to end up scrapped or broken for bits, and stupidly maybe, I fancied the challenge ! The fact that Emma had an overhead locker similar to Ninas that I can use on the opposite side, and an eberspacher heater that I could also incorporate in to Nina's final design helped. But what to do with Emma, and could we come to a deal, as cash isn't in good supply at the moment.

We did come to a deal, yesterday, and Emma is now officially Nina's new sister, at least for a while !
























The plan is to do a basic conversion, leaving the new owner some room to put their own stamp on her, when I come to sell her. She came to me with MOT until March 2014, Tax just run out end of August. Lots of Service History from the NHS, a new battery and DECENT WINDOW SEALS ! The window seals are the normal H type ones with the securing bead all round. Windows are currently watertight, but if they did become a problem, its an easy fix, unlike Nina's were, eventually costing around £900 for a completenset of new bonded windows.

I am already growing attached, especially when I see them both together in the photos above at The Field, almost a shame to split them up ! :).

Am I tempted to stop working on Nina, and put my efforts in to Emma instead with a view to keeping ? I have to say, newer van, slightly lower mileage, it did cross my mind, but any doubts I had were soon blown away by Nina's continued good behaviour at the MOT test station ;).

So, if anyone is interested, Emma will be up for sale maybe early next Spring, with a full mot and probably a little bit of tax, and will most likely have a bed/seat, curtains or blinds, and a kitchen. All you will need to start using straight away until you decide what you want to do to put your own mark on her.

Well, thats all for now, I will probably use this blog for both Nina and Emma whilst we have her, but if it gets a little bit too confusing, Emma may end up with her own blog for a while.

Big thanks to Graham for giving me the chance to make good on Emma, I hope we don't disappoint you.

As for Nina, well done old girl, you ROCK !

Oh, and finally, not sure if any of you are following Janis The Camping Car blog, but things have been a bit quiet there too for a while, until recently when Codfangler posted saying he had been having a terrible time through illness for a while, but things were now looking up, and Janis is now on the move again, so, looking forward to new posts on her blog.

Things probably wont happen here again for a week or two, but hope to restart work on Nina soon after, so many parts taking up room in the house that need fitting. Dont forget to come back soon ! :)



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Gloucester