Wow ! Second Day Of Big Push

Sunday saw me preparing everything ready to fit the wall lining carpet ! The last three jobs I had left to do, were carpet the OS wall, carpet the bulkhead, and measure the floor for new wood.

Well I did all that and the NS wall ! :).

I started with emptying as much back out of Nina as possible, she had filled up with tools and oddments. Then went and got Henry and vacuumed up every bit of dust I could find. Part of this meant clearing out all the metal channels in the floor, one less job when I come to remove them in the near future.

Next, I washed the surface of the OS wall down. Now if this was the metal wall of the van, I would have sanded the metal a little to get the glue to stick better, but as Nina is lined out with a Fibreglass shell, I felt that sanding it would create more of a problem than not, ie it would create lots of very fine fibreglass dust coating everything, so I left that part out, and so far so good.

Once it was all washed down, I masked the two windows using 50mm masking tape and newspaper. This was obviously to stop all the glue overspraying, and it does, you have been warned ;). Actually sometimes when spraying it, it looks a little like Silly String :S.

The next part was quite momentous, I unwrapped the carpet that had been sitting in my front hallway ever since it was delivered, NEARLY A YEAR AGO TO THE DAY ! Wow, how time flies. Slowly the house is emptying of everything that has been stored there all this time :). Past few weeks has seen the solar panel disappear and the carpet, as well as the smaller bits I have been fitting like the EHU socket.

Well, what happened from there on in, might be better illustrated by the timelapse video I recorded using my GoPro :)



Hopefully that showed you how hard (and fast !) I worked :P. Got lots more little bits of carpeting to do, the side door, the roof panel when it goes back on, some more bits of bare wall, and then the wooden window surrounds, the seat boxes etc. Wont have time now until the weekend after this, almost two weeks ! Hope I don't lose the momentum ! :). Its on my mind a lot now, I really want to finish soon and just use it even for one night at Frampton, just to say I did, it gutted me not to have used Scooby before I sold him !

I'll leave you with a few pics, see you in a couple of weeks, if not before if I manage something on an evening beforehand :).





































NEWS UPDATE -
Remember Emma ?
Had an email from Ben who bought her whilst I was doing this, he has put me to shame ! In the short time he has had her, just take a look at how far his build has gone ! Best get my skates on ;).
Well done Ben ! Sorry Emma has been playing you up, glad its sorted now though, fingers crossed she behaves from now on. Please do keep in touch :).












Thanks for stopping by ! Come back soon ;)

Location:Gloucester

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 :).
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- 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