Propex is in. I'm pooped, it's been a mucky, busy day fabricating brackets and doing upside-down drilling! But the elation of ticking off a major job (for me)!! makes it all worth it! Pics from all angles, too late to pick & choose, so you get them all
Yeah Para. As you can see, the hoses aren't fully connected yet & I've not undersealed it. Oh, and there's two more holes to be cut in the side rails for combustion air in and exhaust which will also be strengthened. We reckon a 2mm plate along the bottom of the rail should suffice, although it looks worse than it is in terms of how much steel is left. 10pm last night was too late to get the welding kit out!!!!!
No picks coz I keep forgetting camera, but a quick update. Brakes now sorted (fingers X'ed) & a big thanks to @stevebay & @bluething for their advice. New stop light switches fitted and system bled through with a full fluid replacement. Solar panels fully mounted to roof. Steering box refurbished and refitted. Engine bay foam seal fitted. Ctek installed. DC Wiring started. Cab headlining replaced and fitted. All cabinets templated in MDF ready for the laminating and cutting of sheet. Old Campmobile DC fridge out of Westy box, refurbished and waiting for new box. MOT Monday morning. Pics to follow tomorrow......
Thanks Para . It's way, way from finished but the MOT will spur us on. The aim is still TE even if I have to sleep curled up on the ply floor.....
I took mine to TE as soon as I got MOT/registered and slept in a tent because it was like this inside... c/w black widow spiders some of which I found before TE and some after.
Well done thebusmonkey! What a great thread, I am also turning up at techenders unfinished but I just want to sit in and sleep in the van!! Looking forward to seeing you there and good luck with the MOT
Progress on units today. As I said, MDF templates have been made in order to define the positions of the opening doors and drawers. Today the main carcass blanks have been bonded up and trimmed. Here's the Ctek in place and the wiring conduit for the leisure circuit: Main blanks from the ultralight ply Spraying, placing, bonding and a bit of roller action from me! Laminate edge trimming And a quick rough placement. Next step, cut the doors and drawers out!
Result on the Propex! my neck still hurts from doing mine.... Tell you what....I miss having a nice big work bench....i'm having to do any woodworking jobs on the floor at the moment.....
LOL, it was a pleasure to be standing up today. I've spent the last couple of days grovelling around on the floor. What we really need is a four post lift, now that would be luxury.....
Cheers guys, progress today extends to firing up the beast!! & it's alive Two whirs of the starter & he was off. So a quick swap of positions in the workshop with another bus so I can roll out on Monday morning & that did us today.. After this shot I refitted the front spare & did a quick pre-MOT on the lights, horn, washers etc. Morning glory The dash idiot light for the brakes refuses to go out, but it must be electrical (I suspect the resistor in the dash assembly, or a bad earth) so black duct tape will do for now! I'm comfortable with the braking system overall so hopefully the MOT man on Monday will concur. Oh and as promised, this is a shot of the solar panels bonded and wired.
You do realize that you're now going to have to do a full run-down and feedback post on how these panels work...we want diurnal variations, mean monthly outputs plotted against irradiance....a few graphs and pie charts...No rush..... You're not allowed to fit these and then say..."all seems to be working well..." looking well sorted for an adventure
Love this thread. I'm currently relaminating my own Westy so it's interesting seeing the work you are doing.
Thanks Lofty, it's a slow process isn't it. The next step is even more laborious. The template cut outs are all 9mm oversize to allow for the cutter and bush on the router. Next week is when all the door fronts and drawers, fridge lids & vents etc. get cut out of the blanks. Any mistakes here will be ££ costly. I've kept all the OG Berlin cabinets & am undecided whether to relam, or move on in their OG state. They suffer from the Cali peel and 35 years of abuse. It would have been easier to strip the OG cabinets but we decided to personalise the interior so I guess the bus is no longer a Westy but at least it should be right for us. Don't tell the purists about the 70 x 5mm and 4 x 12mm holes I've drilled in a perfectly good Westy roof
It is indeed slow., but actually so far I found it easier than I expected. I've only done the kitchen unit and the fridge unit and it's been 1/2 day to take the old laminate off, 1/2 day to get as much glue off as possible and now I need to sand the surfaces. I also found that my fridge works so now I'm also looking at putting hook up so I can charge the LB and run the fridge. Not sure how it would all wire up so will have to start searching. I'll try and get some pics up soon.
Yep, get some pics up. I love pics!! The wiring is dead easy, somehow in this jumble of a thread I'll be showing how I will wire in the old Dometic RC 150 (I think off the top of my head, but in any case it's the Berlin chest fridge next to the bed) into the new system. A job for later next week after the MOT.
