Godsend

Yesterday I took a trip to Grimsby to take my son back to his mother but during the trip I became rather unwell with a migraine. I dropped my son off then spent some time with my eldest daughter on the beach. I was hoping the fresh air would help to clear my head, but it didn't.

So after I took her home I drove to Weelsby Woods, a large park near where I used to live, and parked up in a quiet corner of the car park. I closed all the curtains, shifted the driver's seat forward, set the alarm on my mobile and lay down in the shade.

It was rather warm at first, but with a side window ajar, the shade of the curtains soon became nice and cool. I did notice that the curtains didn't block out quite enough light (and my migraines are always susceptible to light) so I had to lie with my fleece over my head.

After an hour of lying in the cool and dark comfort of the van my migraine subsided enough for me to start driving again, although while I was there I took a few pictures.

If I'd been in a car I would have had to park up with my coat over my head, cooked by the sun, reclined in the front seat, which wouldn't have done my migraine any good at all. With Tyrion I had shade, comfort and privacy, and so recovered very quickly.

An absolute Godsend.

Ready

Tyrion is ready for his road trip. All of the curtains now have wraparounds on them (the last one was hand-sewn) and bundle up very tidily. The cupboard is stocked with food and water for the weekend - I just need bread and milk, which I will pick up on Sunday morning as I head out.

I have found my satnav cradle, which is a shame really because I've ordered another from eBay thinking I would need it before the trip. I have tested the coolbox working with the satnav and camera and the three of them do not overload the socket. This means I shouldn't have any trouble keeping cold things cold and battery-powered things charged during the trip. I have ice packs for the coolbox to help keep it cool when parked - at the site I will run the coolbox on the mains, but when I park up for the speedway or visiting anywhere else it will not be powered. I don't expect a few hours here and there to make much difference, but the ice packs might mean the difference between the milk staying fresh or going off.

I have checked the storage box and made sure it has everything in it I will need. I have spare gas, mess tins for cooking, teaspoon, sporks, cleaning cloths, a mug and a bowl. In the wash-bowl I have my gas kettle, electric kettle, washing up liquid and sponge-scourers.

Later this evening I will be packing a rucksack with clothes, towel, tea-towel and wash kit. My brew kit will be packed on Friday after work, as I am taking the small plastic tubs I use for coffee and sugar at work.

There's nothing more I need so as long as I remember to pack my speedway tickets, I'm ready.

Update: I haven't mentioned it here, but I also have toilet roll - there's a roll in the chair-back organiser and a spare in the storage box. I also have a 'waste water' bottle under the bed because I'm not trekking across the campsite in the dark looking for the toilet block if I need a wee in the middle of the night.

Camper Limo

I came across this picture on Facebook and shared it immediately, with the comment Oh My God!

I can't believe someone would chop up several VW campers and weld them together to create this absolute monstrosity - with half a VW Beetle welded backwards on the roof, complete with door handle.

The inside isn't much better - there are curtains on some windows, but not on others, which strikes me as plain weird, and the inside of the Beetle just looks ridiculous perched up above. There is wood-effect flooring and ceiling, but these do nothing to detract from the awful green colour used both inside and out.

All in all this is an appalling vehicle. Whoever has made this has taken four or five classic vehicles and created an absolute monstrosity. I feel sorry for anyone who orders a limo and has this turn up to collect them.

More Electricity

I've had to replace several bulbs today - on a routine lighting test I realised that I only had one out of three brake lights working and no side-lights. That's all sorted, but while I was in Halfords I found a handy little 12V extension with a doubler on the plug end.

This means I can send power to the coolbox all the way at the back of the van and still plug my switching adapter in to power my satnav, dash cam and phone. While the coolbox draws 6A, the satnav and dash dam draw well under an amp each and the phone charger about half an amp. This means that the 10A fuse for the 12V socket should be sufficient.

It also means that I have another pretty light in the front.

Wiring Repair

I have a switched 12V doubler with a USB socket mounted in the front of the car. Using this I can plug in my Garmin, dash-cam and phone all at once. However, recently one of the sockets failed.

The double shows a red LED by each switch when they are off and a blue LED when they are on. The blue light on the failed socket wasn't coming on so I decided the problem was likely to be related to the switch.

A quick disassembly revealed a broken track. Now I may not know how to repair a broken track on a circuit board, but I know enough to realise that I could bridge the break by soldering a piece of wire between contacts either side of the break.

Soldering didn't take very long and very soon the unit was back in the van and as the picture shows, both lights are blue.

All Wired In

I couldn't wait. Impatience is one of my weaknesses. I decided to bring everything into the living room and get it done this evening.

I was rather surprised when I opened the plug socket and found that the earth lead had come loose - this was a better way of finding out than an electric shock.

This is likely to have been because the wire was pulling on the earth cable so I made a note to leave the earth lead longer than the others when I rewired it.

It was pleasing to see that the suppliers had included a wiring diagram. This meant that I didn't need to go back onto YouTube to remind myself of where each wire went. 

The picture above is the unit with all the wiring finished. The next job was to screw it to the inside of the unit.

With the consumer unit fitted snugly up against the shelf it is easily accessible to turn it on and off - which is important because all of the instructions I have read say that it should be switched off before plugging it in on site. So I made sure all the switches were off, connected the other end of the lead to the 13A adapter and plugged it into the mains.

The green light in the picture below shows that everything is working. I flicked both the RCD and MCB off and on again and they both cut the power, which means I have wired everything up correctly.

So Tyrion is all ready for plugging in on site, safely protected from current leakage, short circuits and overloads.

The next project I need to tackle is lighting.

It's Arrived

As my consumer unit hadn't arrived in today's post I sent a query through eBay to the seller asking where it was - the estimated delivery for it was Thursday.

Then I realised that although I had updated my address on eBay, I hadn't updated it on PayPal. Sure enough, when I checked my PayPal account, it was showing as having been sent to my old address.

I closed the query on eBay, because clearly it was my fault it hadn't arrived and not the seller. Then I changed my address on PayPal and sent the seller an email asking them to send it to the new address if it came back undelivered.

Then it occurred to me that if nobody has yet moved into the old house, the parcel might have been left in a 'safe' place at the house - we often came home to parcels tucked in 'safe' places. So I jumped in the car and drove the ten miles (ish) to the old place and sure enough, there it was on the doorstep - not very safe, but it was there and now I have it.

So I came home, opened eBay and gave them top feedback, then sent the seller another email explaining that I am a little bit stupid but everything's all sorted now.

It's a little late in the day to start fitting it to the van - and besides, I need another 16A plug and socket before I can do that - so I plan to do that tomorrow.

Cupboard Door

I have been thinking for a while that I should put a door on the worktop unit. This would create some storage space where I can hide things away but can get at them more easily than the things stored under the bed - there's not a lot of other places I can think for storing things, apart from the footwell under the back seats. Rather than just diving into cutting and screwing, I have given it a lot of thought, considering the type of door and how it should open - I even considered using an elasticated net - but eventually settled on a door hinged at the bottom and secured with a magnetic catch.

Today that is exactly what I have done.

Hinging at the bottom means I have more easy access and visibility than hinging at the side.  It also means that I can finally abandon the mucky bungee cord I have been using to hold the stove in place and replace it with a more elegant looking option.

 

Here we can see the finished article. The shock cord attached to the unit serves two purposes, it holds the stove in place but also provides protection against the cupboard door popping open while driving - especially with the potholes around here.

 

So I'm back at work tomorrow and content that I have achieved everything in the van that I had planned to do during my time off. It's true that moving home got in the way a few times, but nevertheless, it's all been done.

 

Things for the future include fitting a 12v socket in the back (mainly for the coolbox while driving) and, of course, fitting the consumer unit once it arrives, so there is still more work to be done.

More Curtains

The 'found' curtains I used for the front of the van have been changed. I had four large terracotta-coloured curtains and realised that if I used two of those for the front, I could cut the other two into smaller sections for other windows.

The cardboard panels in the back windows have been falling out recently - the cardboard has soaked up some moisture from somewhere and lost some of it's rigidity, so I decided that it was time for a change.

I now have hand-sewn curtains at the back windows. To attach them I used net curtain wire which I have screwed to the inside of the doors - this meant actually drilling into my van, which was something I wasn't keen on initially, but after the first couple of holes I didn't think much about it.

Mrs suggested using another wire at the bottom of each window to stop the curtain flapping and this works perfectly (please excuse the dirty back windows, Tyrion is overdue a wash).

The success of these curtains made me want to try more, so I replaced the black curtain along the offside of the van. I used another net curtain wire, again screwed to the metal of the van, and ran it above both the windows on that side. As the bed presses up to this side of the van there is no need for a lower wire, which is good because it would block access through the sliding door on that side when in 'car mode'.

This left one single red shiny window infill. I thought about replacing this with a curtain but quickly realised that this was right over the worktop where the gas cooker would sit. I don't think having a fabric curtain that close to a gas burner would be a good idea, so I removed the infill, placed the fabric between it and the window then pushed the infill back in place. A quick trim with scissors left my GMB logo still visible on the inside, but the outside now showing black fabric.

So I have terracotta fabric front and back and black fabric down both sides. A very productive day's work.

Stable Table

My multi-purpose worktop has been very successful so far, but the issue I had with it was movement while driving. It was held in by a bungie cord which stopped the top part from moving but the bottom kept sliding out.

The easy answer would have been to attach it to the inside of the van with brackets, but it has to be removable so this wouldn't work for me. Instead I have used toggle clips (I didn't know they were called that until I found them in B and Q and read the name on the packaging). I have riveted an angled piece of tin to the interior trim in the back and riveted the hook to this tin. The toggle clip itself is simply screwed to the bottom of the unit. To prevent the toggle clip popping open while driving I have popped a split pin in the holes.

This sounds fairly simple but I had to cut holes in the trim using my dremel then cut and shape the tin, drill and rivet the hook and then put it all in the van so I could accurately mark the holes for the toggle clip screws. It was time consuming and for someone as inexperienced with tool work as I am, a bit of a challenge, but I finished it and it works.

Once again the craftsmanship is well below the standard anyone would expect from a tradesman, but as DIY done just for me, it's a pleasing thing to look at and it does what I need it to do.

New Curtains

On moving into the new place I investigated the loft and found that it is going to be perfect to set up my keyboard and guitars and maybe even do some more recording. None of that is relevant to this blog, but the curtains that were left behind by the previous occupants certainly are.

I found several pairs of very large curtains - more than six foot square. Two pairs are a terracotta colour with some sort of arty writing on them. The other pair (perhaps two pairs, I can't remember without climbing back up the loft ladder) are dark brown, almost black.

I had a few metres of shock cord in the van (the stretchy stuff bungies are made from) which I had bought with something else in mind, but I found that this was the perfect solution to 'hang' these curtains. The cord runs from the hooks in the roof each side, just above the sliding doors, around the front of the cabin and hooks onto the sun visors. Once the idea had occurred to me it was a simple case of knotting a loop in each end and hooking it on. There was some playing to get the length and tension right, but that was the hardest part.

The pictures below show the original black curtain solution compared with the new brown curtains.

The black curtain ran across the van behind the front seats. This meant that when lying in the bed my feet pushed against the curtains. The new curtains run around the front of the cabin, meaning there is a lot more space in the curtained-off area. Their size means there is no issue with gaps and they are thick enough to block out a lot of light.

I am very happy with this new curtain solution and hope to make something similar happen in the back of the van, which is currently blacked out with window-shaped infills, one of which keeps falling off and is currently held on with sellotape.

Speedway Event

I have this evening booked a pitch at Pentney Park for Monday 8th June when I will be travelling 140 miles to watch the second round of the Speedway World Cup. This will be an exciting event for me for two reasons.

Taking Tyrion out for a real expedition is something I have been looking forward to for some time. I plan to pop out for a night or two locally between now and then (although there are only 43 days to go) but this will be his first proper planned expedition.

Secondly the arena where the event is taking place is one where I used to go every week to watch the home team, the Kings Lynn Stars. It will be a trip down memory lane just being there again and I plan to stand between bends one and two, just as I did every week twenty six years ago.

As well as revisiting the arena, I will be watching some of the great names in speedway - the same people I have been watching on television and YouTube, in their team events, best pairs matches and grand prix. It promises to be an extremely exciting evening.

Moving House

Tyrion Vannister has been worth his weight in gold these past two weeks. We are moving house and almost everything we own has been transported in the back of my little red van - even a two-seat sofa and a double mattress.

I know I've used this image before, but it's too damn good to use just once.

We have a van coming tomorrow to move a very small number of items that won't fit in the back, but the price difference between what we are paying these guys and what we paid the movers last time we moved runs into the hundreds of pounds.

My little red hero has certainly earned his keep this week.

Some Winter Usage

I don't like winter, but now that Christmas and New Year are behind us the days have started getting a little longer and I'm pottering around in the back of the van during the evening again. Yes, it's dark by the time I get home from work, but between the outside light on the drive and the head torch I have just about enough light to work by.

Yesterday I put the bed back in. I know I posted about it being unsafe, but if I put it down the other side I can't have any back seats up at all and I can't see any sensible way to carry it on it's side, so I'll just have to hope that nobody hits me in the rear hard enough to ram the bed forward - for now anyway.

Having taken the mattress and bedding out for the winter it seemed silly to put them back in just on a whim, so I have inflated the airbed and am using that on top of the bed frame. I figure that not much can happen to a plastic airbed in the cold and damp (although if something does I will call it a learning experience and head to Asda for another one).

An airbed in a van - neither are mine,
just a pic from the net to break up the text

So today's lunch break was spent lounging in the back of the van, propped up on a rucksack full of spare clothes, drinking coffee and watching Netflix on my tablet. It was more comfortable than sitting at my desk (we have no staff room), quieter than Starbucks (or any other coffee shop or restaurant at lunch time in a busy city centre) and afforded me some privacy.

I have experimented with different storage options, starting out with a single plastic tote with a hinged lid. When I started planning the bed I hoped to store the tote underneath it, but this didn't work out so it slid around in the back of the van, sometimes on the top of the bed and sometimes beside it. 

I had to add a second tote when I bought more gear and new then that something had to give. Although they stacked beside the bed, there was no room to move around them and they had to come out if I needed to carry anything else.

I may have too much stuff in the back of my van,
but at least I know mine will never be this bad.

Recently the totes were replaced by a pair of folding crates and these took up less space, but still didn't work around the bed very well. Last week I came across under-bed storage boxes in Asda for three pounds each and bought a couple. Most of my gear is now stashed in these and they both slide under the bed and out of the way. I still have a few things in a folding crate, but have an idea to get rid of this and to gain a worktop which will support either a laptop, wash bowl or gas stove and which will store the cooker and gas underneath when not needed. This will free up a lot of space in one of the under-bed boxes, which means I can get rid of the last folding crate.

Of course, like many of my ideas this may not happen, but I will be popping into B&Q tomorrow for a dig in their offcuts bin.

I've added some random pictures from the web but I wanted to add a couple of my own. I got a Selfie Stick for Christmas, so here are a couple of 'in the van' selfies taken this evening.

Winter Hiatus

Changing the Bed Again!

Tyrion has been in car mode for the winter. All the soft furnishings (bedding, mattress, etc.) have been taken indoors for the duration and the hardier gear has been boxed up in the boot. This has given me some time to think about how to move it forward when the weather improves.

The bed that I had in there for a while is standing on end in our spare bathroom, but I am wary about putting it back in the van because I suddenly realised how unsafe it is. 

Because the bed reaches from the back doors to the back of the driver's seat, if anyone were to drive into the back of Tyrion, the force of the impact would travel through the bed and straight into my back. I could avoid that by putting it on the passenger side, but that would then offer the same risk to anyone travelling in that seat. 

So for now the bed will stay in the spare bathroom unless I need it for a solo trip - and then I will have to pay attention to how I travel with it - but for longer term I need to return to the drawing board and come up with something else.

Lower Bed

I have reduced the height of the bed by 11.5 cm - which is strange, because all the measurements were in inches when I built it. My able assistant today was my son Robert, who has assisted with measuring and cutting, gluing and screwing. He made the first measurement and as he works in centimetres, we stayed with them.

It was a simple case of measuring between the bed and the highest point of the folded back seat to work out how much we could reduce the height by, then removing that amount from each of the six vertical pieces of wood that make up the bed frame and the end support.

The end result is much better. Sitting on it is easier and leaves plenty of headroom. Lying down on it is easier too - I don't feel like I am climbing up onto it any more. There is not enough space under the bed now for the plastic storage box, but for now I can stack two on top of the bed frame. I hope to add sides to the bed frame and hinge the top so I can use the space underneath for storage.

This should now allow me to use the van during the day when I'm at work. Sometimes my back is bad enough that a lie down helps a great deal. At home that's not a problem, but at work it obviously is. With the bed at its previous height, getting on to it was difficult when my back was really bad, but now it should be easier, so hopefully I will be able to spend the occasional lunchtime lying down and easing my back.

I just hope I don't nod off and sleep through the afternoon.

White Kangoo

This white Kangoo van camper conversion is on eBay at the moment. If you are interested, the link to the auction is here.

I was attracted to this listing because it’s a Kangoo and I wondered if I could get any ideas for mine by looking at this – and the answer is yes.

The first thing that strikes me about this Kangoo is how spacious the back looks when compared with mine. There are two reasons for this. Firstly this van has no back seats (because it knows it’s a van and isn’t confused about whether or not it might be a car, like mine is). Secondly, the bed base is a lot lower and narrower than mine.

From the pictures you can see that the bed is half width when folded. It looks plenty wide enough as a bench seat and there is plenty of room between it and the unit. When unfolded it fills that gap, but the cushions from the bench sit snugly to form a mattress.

The supports for the folding section look like doors on the front of the bed base, but in the view showing the inside of the bed base you can clearly see that there is no access through the front. This is a clever idea because the supports do the job when needed, but look very tidy when not.

The bed base is a storage area, which is a better idea than mine – I have a plastic tote under my bed frame. If I changed my design to a solid box, I could lose the storage box and utilise all of the space in the bed.

I note that the bed is constructed using plastic angle connectors – this means there are no unsightly screw heads on the outside of the bed and no need for battens on the inside – which could look scruffy (definitely would if I built it) and which would inevitably reduce the usable storage space. This angle connector is the same colour as the trims around the doors (and the supports that look like doors) so it all blends in nicely with the wood (or wood-effect MDF) and the grey carpeting on the walls and doors.

The storage nets on the back door and side wall of the van look very useful – I would consider one but I would have to block up a window with ply to have anywhere to fix one.

The table is a common single-leg design and I presume that this is taken to pieces and stored under the bed when necessary. There is even a skylight in the roof, to provide natural light in the absence of windows and ventilation without compromising security.

This van has given me lots to think about.

Excellent VW Caddy

Also on eBay recently was this excellent VW Caddy conversion. On the outside it looks to be in great condition, with nice paintwork, alloy wheels and a bonnet protector. To me it definitely doesn't look its age.

Ignoring the cab (which I generally do), the back of the van is a fairly standard layout, with the bed down one side, storage down the other side and a small space between. The bed is a sofa during the day, with a cushion attached high on the side of the van - presumably to avoid banging your head. The laminate flooring is nicely edged with angled tread-plate aluminium, while the sides and roof are nicely covered in carpeting material. 

The rear doors both sport hinged tables, which are secured by hook-and-eye when not in use. This is a great way to create a safe surface for a stove when using a small van. It solves the twin problems of ventilation and headroom, without resorting to expensive and heavy slide-out units. Also visible in this picture are the mains sockets, which are presumably attached to an inverter.

The LED lighting in the roof and the worktop look to be sufficient to light the back of the van while being small and unobtrusive - and, of course, being LEDs, they will be less of a drain on the battery.

The TV and DVD player sits nicely between two small storage units and the worktop gives plenty of room for a laptop or a wash-bowl - or somewhere to rest a plate at mealtimes.

I like this van very much. The build quality is good, showing a lot of thought and attention to detail. The van looks cosy but not cramped and the tables on the rear doors save valuable inside space. I have a single criticism, which is that there don't appear to be any curtains. The windows in the back doors are tinted, but not blacked out. Privacy would have to be addressed to use this as an overnight van. However, that could be sorted fairly simply and once done, this van would be pretty much the perfect micro-camper.