Hi , sorry for the very late intro which i have been meaning to do for a while but never finally finished writing it... After two years of renting campers for holidays and having friends who owned T25’s, finally decided to get one myself. So I sold my motor bike and started looking - swapped the fast lane for the slow lane. Even though we liked T25’s we really wanted a bay as I had beetles when I was a lad and wanted to stay air cooled with an engine I was familiar with.. After looking around for 6 months and seeing some good, bad and awful buses, one came up through word of mouth locally. It had been stood for nearly 3 years in a hangar, was non runner and looked ok for the money . We got it running and checked the basics and put it in for an MOT which we failed with many points although some were very minor. With effort from me, help from father in law and the local garage we cleared most of the advisories and had our 1st MOT and ventured out on our first trip. We stayed pretty local to be on the safe side and went away in glorious late March warm sunshine but not the greatest preparation as it was a very cold night -6 and ice on the inside! Good to get some experience and kids had a great weekend. Armed with a list of must do’s and wish lists we carried on repairing and replacing bits as and when we could and serviced the engine. We prepared for a 2 week summer holiday only 2 days before departure were set with staring and brake problems requiring new calliper/track rod and some replacement wiring. Loaded the van and headed down to family in Cornwall, taking our time whilst our boys telling how much traffic was behind us and us telling them to ‘smile & wave boys, smile a wave’ akin to the penguins from Madagascar. Great holiday, 830 miles covered we all got to know the bus and each other well, and only had one minor starting issue and bonded with our bus Sofia.....(long story #1 for another time.) Got stuck in over last winter to further work, and changed cab doors, removed the interior and repaired and weld which we found as we went along. We took the interior out and copied what we liked of the Devon range and made new units (luckily friend is a bench joiner). This took a lot longer than thought as more things needed doing the further we went along and only got back on the road July last year. Did another big 2 week trip in some of the worst summer weather ever , but much better prepared than before and still had a great time. Now off the road again for front beam replacement and a few other items we can afford as plan not too miss so many months being out of action. We still have a fair bit to do to get where we would like our bus to be and have learnt tons along the way, meeting many friendly & helpful veedubbers. There has been many a time I have cursed, cried out and wondered for my sanity, wandered around and found it, skimmed knuckles, lost blood and even wept one time (another long story #2) and have box full of invoices and receipts I never want to add up. On the flip side we have had great memories, learnt loads and had fun. I have found the Late Bay forum and great source for knowledge, experience ,motivation, and even through some of my darker moments the wit and humour has been spot on to lighten any late night garage disaster. Sorry is taken too long for the intro, thanks y'all of ya for help so far and hope to make it to a TLB event this year. Cheers Clink & Family.
Thanks for all the comments guys and I'll post some other photos up soon. In the middle of sorting my front beam out and will post a new thread on Mech & Tech as I have a few queries as I'm a beam replacement virgin!
