Ok that is same as mine I made up a bracket for each pipe and attached them to the side of the van, have a look at the instruction manual that came with the heater and it has a minimum distance and clearly exhaust goes behind! It is then fine to use! I also have a mobile carbon monoxide alarm in the van I will try and find a photo
@lhu1281 sent us a work of art in the form of a couple of rear mud flap brackets back in January. Today, I've had to modify them because our bus has US spec heat transfer pipes that foul the brackets Not happy coz they're beautifully made & I've gashed a drill through them & elongated the slot. Anyway, you can't see my bodge when they're fitted so all's good. Tomorrow the wheels come off so I can drill through the lower wheel housing panel & fit the upper brackets properly.
Flaps fitted. And a loose heater tin reconnected to a HX that I've been meaning to do for a while. This afternoon I've dropped a new LB into the engine bay. The Lucas LX35MF has always bothered me. It was a 120 amp sealed unit that was second hand 2 years ago (but nearly new). I'd used it for starting a friends boat & he flattened it, properly & several times, thus shortening the life anyway. Having solar panels constantly providing a charge never really exposed it as suspect but it would quickly discharge if left under load. They are built as a dual purpose leisure/starter battery so there's always going to be a compromise when cycling. Anyway, I've downsized in amps to 110. That might seems a backwards step but the case is bigger & the battery is heavier. This means thicker plates. Therefore it's a purpose built leisure unit that should provide more discharge cycles and more useable amps than the Lucas. We'll see.. Fuller Power Station. Removable cell caps for topping up. An essential for any charging system that is likely to take a leisure battery to the gassing phase.
Yay, post fairies came today. Having a play tomorrow. Anyone know what the 2 small collars are for that come with the fronts? They're clearly spacers but for upper or lower mounts? I suspect it will become clear but if someone knows for sure...
We've run that set up for the last 8 years. It was in fact gas-a-just on the rear & GR2's on the front. The rears are heavier duty than standard & we carry a load when out & about on a mission! Fronts are too, but Ratwell suggests the GR2's/Excel G replacement is not a great deal stiffer than standard. However, it works on our bus. The ride is smooth & the handling sure-footed. They're tired now I suspect. 35k miles & 8 years over all sorts of road surfaces. Greek roads are not kind to suspension so it's time to replace them. Like for like...
Job done. It's a lovely day, so why not. This is one of the simplest jobs that can have a real impact on the handling & safety of the bus. WHen they're unboxed, they have nylon strapping around them to keep them compressed. tip, keep the strapping on. The fronts are bolted on at the top & sit on a stud at the bottom. 17mm & 19mm spanners/sockets required. I like to use Morris K99 waterproof grease for all these external jobs that don't require high spec. So the bolts, shaft, inner bushes on the shocks etc all get a coating. As pkrboo told me, the bottom shaft takes a spacer, the shock, then the second spacer. I loosely bolted the bottom on, compressed the shock slightly, removed the strapping & guided the top mount in as the shock expanded, Easy peasy. The shiny black bit is spot sprayed stone chip from a can! There rears are the same, except the top mount has a captive nut & the bolt simply winds out. I compressed the rear suspension arm upwards so the shock wasn't fully extended. It just gives you a bit of wriggle room as the rears shocks are quite hard to compress compared to the fronts. Again, keep the strapping on until one mount is in place. Old shock New shock The new rears appear heavier duty than the old style so hopefully good for a few years yet
@theBusmonkey they are non standard sdhocks, but do you know if standard front shocks should have spacers? I died mine recently but they're were no spacers on the originals or with the new sdhocks
I don't know for sure @volkswombat . I suspect not, as there were none fitted to my original GR2's and it would seem very un-VW like to engineer in a spacer rather than design the mounts to fit the shocks (or vice versa). The bottom mounts on the KYB's are very narrow compared to the shaft, so I wouldn't worry
Heritage et al sell them, I'm sure we bought the ones on our westy from them. JK sell them too as does Coolair
Fitted me flaps this evening. Sorry about the poor pics but it was dark when I finished! Anyway, I had fitted cheapo trailer flaps & they looked like cheapo trailer trash. So thinking laterally & not wanting to spend heavily I took a punt on Landrover Disco 1 flaps part number RTC 6821 The ones that arrived from the ebay seller were Britpart copies & are heavy duty & nicely made. A bit of trimming & they look pretty good, well better in the flesh anyway Actually i may replace these pics with daylight ones as that one looks wonky. It's camera angle honestly, hic!
Excellent thread @theBusmonkey , nice planning and cabinetry skills going on! It's the first time I've read the thread, so as I've gone through I've bombarded your alert notifications with loads of 'likes'! I've been fairly slack at keeping upto date here for the last 2 years, but the Techenders weekend has revived my enthusiasm to get updated with the forum resto's and progress the interior build of my van.
Sorry we kept you up @Kruger haha. Thanks for your comments & company at the weekend. Keep safe on those tracks !!
