Back on it. Firstly, these arrived from the US a couple of weeks ago. The standard US hook up is neat, discrete BUT only rated on the insulation of the conductors at 120V. I didn't consider this safe, especially after 36 years. I now know a bit about the US electrical regs thanks to my mate google, & eventually found a replacement socket and plug, rated at the correct amperage, IP rating and 250V AC. All for less than 20 quid delivered! For those interested, it is a NEMA 6-15 machine receptacle and matching plug!! The old one is the black & bright metal part, with the new receptacle being all back with a different pin configuration. & today I've had a play with the floor. Firstly, got my head around the Westy floor. I'm going retro after much thought and basically replacing like for like. No fancy materials and no thick insulation layers. Thanks to @Chrisradioman and his thread on Chug Chug, and this awesome build thread on Samba, I was able to see that the floor originally was only 9mm fibreboard with carpet over the top. Coincidentally exactly what @zed had in the earlier Continental. This shot looks towards the passenger wheel tub and shows how 9mm base sheet will fill the floor well and allow a nice transition for the final floor covering. & that is all I will do, apart from maybe a very thin foil faced membrane below the 9mm ply just to bring it up a mil or two. After all what are Propex's for Cleaned, treated, sanded, cleaned again & the primer coat gloss-rollered on. I've used this from Dacrylate It's a bit whiffy but dries quickly and lays down beautifully. It will provide a nice key for a paint finish no one will see but at least it's done. Tomorrow, the first of the top coats. Cleaned, sanded and masked 1 litre of primer for about £8 Edged with a bristle brush (solvents in the paint destroy synthetic bristles) Tadaa, the paint eats foam rollers as well. The ones from Tool Station last marginally longer than those from Screwfix before the end falls off!
So much easier to do your interior if you don't bother with insulation. Join the club - heaters without insulation. I've been in a T-shirt in mine when it's snowing outside. All those windows soon cool the bus down anyway, whatever you do with the rest (IMO).
Hallelajuh to that. It's been a pin-ball ride in my head to get to this stage Steve but it's all peaceful now I'm here...
Was it Confucious? ..the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.. It feels good. What's the score with the welding?
And today we have mostly been.....painting, again. However, before the tedious rolling & brushing I started with replacing the old hardboards that holds the sound insulation in place above the engine. They were broken, brittle & warped so using the old ones as templates, these are the new Then a lot of faffing about upside down and in they went, Before the first top coat went on the main floor, it was easier to measure & cut the 9mm ply. You can't see very well from this shot but the edges have been profiled to fit into the chamfered edge of the floor well The far floor section, under the galley unit, is in two pieces as you all know the floor is too big to make it a single cut from a standard sheet. This shot shows how far the floor will extend towards the rear, just tucking under the front edge of the R&R bed. And then on to the real fun, the laying down of the first coat of enamel Now, we do not know the code or even the name of the interior white. So the paint does not match. It will not be seen so it's no great hassle, but it bugs me never-the-less. I've purposely not done any bits that are obviously seen as we will take the the bus to the paint suppliers when it's on the road & get them to do one of those spectrometer things. For now this will do. It's gloss rolled, left for a few minutes, then laid off with a dry brush to remove any bubbles or orange peel. Any paint that the bristles of the brush pick up can be wiped off with a rag soaked in thinners, to keep the bristles separated. With practise, you can nearly get as good a finish as sprayed paint. This is just the first coat, but I'm pleased with the results so far. Still plenty of time to make a horses arsk of it
It's seemed like slow progress last two days. Cleaned up tin to receive new foam engine bay seal. Replaced breather hoses on FI and wiring in engine bay. Replaced all crimped connections I dared to remove. New cable from battery to starter motor. Broke the cylinder head temp thermocouple that was under no.3 plug. Doh! Drilled holes and put in grommets ready for leisure wiring Installed split charge relay (above the starter battery & next to the ECU) & charged and test fitted 120 amp leisure battery.
Thanks @Mucka ! I'd forgotten these shots. Not so good as they're off the foxphone but they may be of interest to some of you. Sink stripped It's worth taking the tops of your gas burners off and blowing down the tubes. There was all sorts of cr@p down ours. The burner caps twist & lift. The tap pulls out of the housing and underneath is a gauze filter (of sorts). Ours was quite badly calcified, which soon cleaned up with a bit of a batter. Gauze filter just visible but accessible from underneath when you undo the big nut under the tap plate. And, well last night we decanted 27 bottles of home brewed!! Chablis Blush and it's going down quite well. So much so that I decided to actually draw out our leisure circuit on paper. A seminal moment me thinks, as so far all the buying has been a bit random and from "what I think we need". Anyway, it all comes together here and quite frankly Ben Pon's got nothing on this... I hope some of you find it of use. There are both - and + bus bars (the dots above the "LB" in the diagram). The rest is obvious....
Two minor jobs done today that seem to have taken an age. Firstly, the leaking steering box was removed for a clean & seal replacement. Those of you contemplating this will do well to hire or buy a decent puller as the drop arm and drag link will not be moved safely otherwise. When they do let go, they let go with a bang! I need a replacement drop arm due to some fools foolery, but thats another story. Secondly, I'd ordered up some aluminium sheeting for the solar panels to mount to. These sheets will be fixed to the roof, following the contours of the curves. I had my Bruv over today as helper. First we cleaned the ally with isopropyl alcohol to remove any mill impurities. Then the panels were laid on top and the release liner backing removed to reveal the adhesive coating. Then the panels were pressure rolled to ensure good contact. We took them outside to test & on todays grey Midlands afternoon, both panels output a consistent 20.5 volts. More than happy as the rating of 16.5 is exceeded and they will give me a good 180 watts/10-15 amps input. We then chucked them on the roof to measure the fit. They can't be seen from the sides or street level & I'm pretty pleased with the look. Ran out of time but next job is cleaning the roof & bolting the ally onto the pop top to make them secure.
probably a bit late now but most solar panels work better and last longer with a air gap below them to help cool
Matty, good thought for conventional applications These are designed to be bonded directly to commercial roof systems such as galvanised sheet and synthetic membranes etc. They are CIGS modules and there should be no issues with the way they are being installed. Cheers for the comment though, & keep them coming, coz I don't always get it right
Funnily enough, I was going to PM you about solar....I've been looking at the thin film amorphous flexi panels for a while (about five years! waiting for them to come down in price) My cunning plan was to make up some thermo mats for the windows and run some Low wattage DC resistance wire through them.... would have to figure the output required from the PV but it could be a goer....
BTW...if anypne want's to nick this idea and make them up, feel free.... I was thinking of doing the maths and then maybe getting in touch with Mrs @Barneyrubble
Todays efforts have moved the project forwards massively. The biggest head-scratch has been putting the Conty bed hinges into a Berlin style interior. We will loose a bit of cupboard space from the projection of the longer bed, but the comfort of the 5 inch plus foam will be worth it. Here is the base mocked up with hinges in position. Some of you may see that they are now mounted on top of a corrugation instead of in the valleys. It's taken a lot of fiddling, cutting and chocking but tomorrow I will fit the bases and work on the rest of the interior can proceed. Yeeeeah!! (crap pics, sorry they're off the rubbish phone)! Here's the external gas filler point for the Gas IT refillable bottle And, a bit blurry, but this is the 250V receptacle (instead of the 125V US plug) and socket for the hook-up. We retain the original flap thing on the side of the bus & it now conforms to Euro power.
Nice idea. I do know that the ones we've gone for won't take massive amounts of handling. There are transportation specs etc for what radius you can curl them into & I've been paranoid about moving them around the workshop over the last couple of months. I'm sure I've seen some sort of military/outdoorsman application for small panels that fold into a small pack & inteneted for field comms. They're US made.
