January 2012
1 post
5 tags
Latest
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July 2010
8 posts
3 tags
Wall-to-wall
Having got the roof up and the floor down, it was time to turn attention back to the walls and start filling in the gaps there. We decided we’d use up the rest of that Pergo flooring we’d got first and then take it from there. Another marathon session of measuring, cutting drilling and sanding ensued. That Pergo stuff is as hard as iron and eats jigsaw blades for breakfast. Slowly but...
4 tags
Floor show revisited
Back to “Operation Floor Botch” today.
Several more hours cutting, tin-snipping, hacksawing and wire-brushing and I’d cut out most of the rust that was cuttable out, without resorting to heavyweight equipment. I then gave everything a damn good going over with the wire brush attachment on my drill to get it all down to as near bare metal as I could and lathered the lot with...
2 tags
Holey show
Against my better judgement, I thought I’d clear out the back of the van today and take a look at how bad the holes in the floor around Herman’s wheel arches were. Not a pretty sight. This is a notoriously rust-prone area on LTs and Herman’s not been standing at the back of the queue when it came to getting his helping.
Thankfully, because these old LTs have a separate...
6 tags
Leccy cupboard
A bit more internal tidying up today. I thought it was about time the leisure battery and split charge system had somewhere to live, instead of just sitting inside the side door, getting in the way. So I knocked up this crude but ‘does-the-job’ leccy cupboard from some of the spare timber I had left lying around.
Leisure battery and split charge system
Let’s see what we can...
3 tags
Meanwhile, at the back of the van...
…Mazza finished of carpeting the back wall around the doors. It’s starting to look quite cozy now!
4 tags
Bright spark
Today was the day I finally solved the niggling problem of Herman’s alternator. The astute reader will remember that it has been giving me gyp since I first bought the van and I’ve made at least two abortive attempts to sort it out before [exhibit A, exhibit B].
Having a split charge system and hence a spare battery has ameliorated the problem somewhat, in that I’ve got into the...
3 tags
Let there be light
A few days ago whilst visiting that little corner of Manchester, which will forever be Stepford [ie. B&Q in Old Trafford], I came across this packet of six brass downlights in the bargain bin, for a fiver. How could you go wrong at that price? Just the right look to complement Herman’s rustic timber interior.
Only one problem tho’, the lights were 240v only. Still, I thought...
5 tags
Raising the roof
In a final heroic effort today, me and Mazza finished off panelling Herman’s roof and the last sections of the upper side wall panels. Not much else to say really. Cut, cut, drill, drill, screw, screw… rinse then repeat until complete:
Before
After
Mazza, putting the finishing touches to the day’s work
June 2010
2 posts
1 tag
Island hopping
After all the misery and death of blow-outs on the motorway, niggling electrical problems and too long throttle cables, it’s nice to report a bit of fun with Herman, for a change:
Off to Anglesey for the weekend for a bit of summer solstice shenanigans and camping out in Herman on my mate’s farm. The boy didnae miss a beat there and back, his new shoes allowed him to get on and off...
2 tags
Throttle back
Off to VW, this morning, for a new throttle cable to replace the one which snapped on ‘the day which will go down in infamy’. When I got home and tried to attach it, I found that either I’d picked up the wrong one, the design had changed, over the years, or Herman’s injector pump sits further forward than it should do. For, whatever reason, the cable was a couple of cm too...
May 2010
1 post
4 tags
New Shoes
Well, after Herman’s unfortunate loss of footwear, on the way to Whitby, the other week, it was time to pony up for a new pair of shoes [or, to be more exact, two pairs of shoes] for the lad.
On 26th May, I ordered a set of four Kumho 857 215/80 R14 Q (112), 8Ply from blackcircles.com, who I’ve used before and found pretty good to deal with. Then went down on 28th to have them...
April 2010
8 posts
4 tags
snatching defeat from the jaws of victory
well, after my heroic ‘charging round like a blue-arsed fly’ efforts to get herman MOT’d and taxed, ready for my expedition to whitby this morning, i thought that the fates might leave me alone to enjoy my weekend away and go and make someone else’s life a misery for a change. how wrong was i!… heading along the M62 towards leeds, just near junction 23 for...
1 tag
get in!
woohoo! - herman’s all MOT’d up and i’ve stuck 6 months tax* on him. so presumably have doubled the value of my investment now.
a passing cameraman captured the moment when i got my MOT certificate.
[*£112,75 for six months - bloody robbing bastards! it’s not that long since it was £97 for 12 months… and it had gone up by £8 in the time between the DVLA...
1 tag
a bitch about a switch
picked up a new foglamp switch today from VW - £22 feckin’ quid for a plastic rocker switch. i was at least expecting it to be gold-plated at that price! i think the MOT man might have sent me on a fool’s errand anyway. when i got the new switch and plugged it in, i thought at first that either it was bust, or the wiring was knackered, because it didnae light up at all. then, i...
1 tag
MOT post-post-mortem
well, i’ve been out for a tinker tonight and sorted the diesel leak problem. it was one of those bloody leak-off pipes had split again - they’re the bane of my life. they seemed OK at the MOT station where i went. i just took him to the same place as the old MOT cert said he’d been done last time, as i knew they’d have a tall enough shed to fit him through the door....
1 tag
MOT post-mortem
well, i’ve just been out for a post-mortem: * swopped a couple of fuses around and my hazards started working again. so obviously a loose fuse [yet again!] * detached the horn from the steering wheel to check the connections - at which point it naturally started blaring away for all it was worth. put it back on the wheel again and it shut up. [the horn has been like this from day one....
1 tag
M.O.T - N.O.T
well, herman went in for his MOT today and failed - but i’m not too gutted. things got off to a bad start, before i even got there; i did a quick walk round check of the electrics before setting off and found one of the mini tell-tale indicators on the side wasnae working [sorted that with a quick sandpapering of the terminal - just a dodgy connection]. then one of the headlamps...
3 tags
SORNly the lonely
well, herman’s tax ran out at the bbeginning of the month and –seeing as how he’s currently without an MOT, i had to declare him SORN. that should give me a bit of added incentive to get the few remaining minor niggles sorted, that i reckon will need doing before i can MOT him.
4 tags
floor show
today, to give my arms a rest from working overhead for hours at a time, i thought i’d set my sights a bit lower and rip up herman’s carpet and filthy plywood flooring and see what horrors lay beneath. from having lifted the carpeting and boards at the edges, i already knew he had a couple of hefty holes in his floor, around the wheel arches –a common problem with LTs, apparently– but...
March 2010
2 posts
2 tags
pergo-matic
today we started using up our stash of pergo flooring that we sniped off ebay, to panel the walls. first up was the annoying, kind of sloping, kind of curving space between the edge of the roof and the flattish sides.
it was a fairly straightforward job, although that pergo stuff disnae half take a toll on sawblades and drillbits. the veneer on it is as hard as iron.
o well - at least it...
4 tags
i snipe pergo i am
at the weekend mazza sniped a load of pergo flooring plus underlay on fleabay for £21. apparently this represents good bargain hunting, as mazza assures me that pergo is the dog’s bollox, when it comes to poncey interior decor and all that. so scoring a load of it for a pony [as del boy might say] was a bit of a steal. we went to pick it up tonight from some posh gaff out towards didsbury...
February 2010
3 posts
5 tags
more of same
today, i finished off panelling the underside of the roof with the big sheets of hardboard. nothing much to report in the way of anecdotes or incident - unless you count the fact that i broke one of my 3mm drill bits as worthy of comment? …nah. i didnae think you would anyway, here we have it: at last the mighty hardboard expedition reaches the back doors view from front to back view...
6 tags
i'll be ceiling you...
freshly armed with my new stash of wood, i thought i’d strike while the iron was hot and crack on with panelling out herman’s roof. i’m going to start at the top and work down, as i’ll need to get some welding done on the holes in the floor, before i start boarding over the lower regions. anyway, we’d already insulated the inside of the roof with that bargain bucket...
6 tags
wooden it be nice
well, with the snows of winter seemingly behind us at last, we thought it was time to crack on with actually doing some boarding out on herman. i’d had enough of staggering round the livingroom, clutching my wallet, when i saw the ridiculous prices plywood sheets seemed to fetch these days [even on fleabay], so i had a search round on the intarwebs for something a bit cheaper and nastier. i...
January 2010
1 post
1 tag
the abominable snow-van returns
some more heavy snowfalls and herman once more dons his festive hat and scarf. we took him out one day to go shopping when it wasnae this bad - and when we got back it took half an hour to get up the very slight incline, leading into our carpark. i had to dig two trenches through the ice in front of his wheels for him to slither up. poor lad. he wasnae exactly at the front of the queue when...
December 2009
1 post
1 tag
in the meadow we can build a snow[her]man
nothing to report, tinker-wise, but here’s a nice pic of herman looking all festive, during the recent heavy snow we had. [memo to self: take his bloody hallowe’en broom off, will ye!]
November 2009
2 posts
1 tag
charged GBH
i noticed someone was breaking an LT on ebay, so i emailed him to see if he still had the alternator. he did, so i snaffled it for £30 and then, when it arrived, spent the most infuriating afternoon i’ve had in a long time, removing the old one and fitting the new one. now i’ve worked on many a motor in my time and done many a job that had me wanting to headbutt brick walls in sheer...
3 tags
woo! scary!
with winter getting ever nearer, we’d got to the time of year when it’s dark by the time i get home from work in the afternoon and usually too bloody wet’n’cold at the weekend to go out and work on the van, even if i wanted to. so work on herman has pretty much stopped for the next few months, until i come out of hibernation again. that’s not to say he hasnae had...
August 2009
6 posts
2 tags
herman in ireland
well, after making our bed and table and doing a bit more tidying up inside, we were ready for the off. we insulated and panelled the bottom halves of the back doors and mazza knocked up a dinky pair of curtains for the back windows and we were as ready as we’d ever be. i also picked up a cheapo leisure battery from atlas auto electrics on stretford road: i couldnae resist, when i nipped...
3 tags
table for two
OK - folks. on with the show. you’ll remember that the previous evening had seen us retire to the pavillion with the following arrangement constructed in the back of herman. the state of play from the night before during the night, my subconscious chewed over the problem and, in the morning i had a plan! - off to B&Q for some heavy duty velcro and a couple of piano hinges. then i hoked...
4 tags
alternator ulsterman
[jeebus! - that’s the worst one yet!] with the long nights drawing in, i found myself driving herman in the dark a few days back, on the way back from mazza’s mum & dad’s. i noticed that his charge warning light was glowing very faintly and slightly less faintly, when i had to put my headlights on. so today, working on the tried & trusted ‘try the cheapest remedy...
4 tags
leaky leak-offs
i mentioned previously that i wasnae totally convinced that the new leak-off pipes i’d fitted to the injectors were tight enough to make a completely airtight seal and, sure enough, when i was tinkering about with the alternator drive belt earlier in the day, i’d notcied that there was a bit of diesel leaking out around the pipes, where they pushed onto the injector bleed nipples. not...
4 tags
bed heads
due to having to start back at work after the summer earlier than usual this year, me and mazza were going to do our annual fortnight in ireland [a week visiting the mammy and a week camping in the wilds] a month earlier. we usually go mid to late september. this year we were going the middle two weeks in august. when we got herman, we’d thought he’d be all converted up by the time...
3 tags
overheads
today, i decided to do something about the bare plywood ceiling herman’s cab has had, ever since i ripped out the skanky old headlining material. i had two big pieces of blue coloured, quite heavy canvas type material, that had previously been covering one of those portable partition type thingies which you get in offices and which was in my wood stash for a while - before i realised...
July 2009
4 posts
5 tags
pack o' tubes!*
about the same time i scored my non-return fuel valve off ebay [see the point of non-return ], i also ordered a shitload of new fuel lines from butts of bawtry, as i was fully prepared to have to rip out all herman’s fuel lines and replace the lot since, up to that point, i had had no luck whatsoever in trying to banish the accursed bubbles from his fuel system - in spite of having crawled...
3 tags
the point of non-return
well, today i finally put paid to herman’s occasional recalcitrance when it comes to starting and likewise said farewell to having to watch a diesel pipe that might as well have been pumping coca cola into the pump with the amount of bloody bubbles that were zipping past my helpless gaze. i scored myself this nifty non-return valve off ebay [for about a fiver, if memory serves me right] i...
5 tags
dripping and ripping
another attempt to find the mysterious source of the indoor lake, which laps contentedly round the vast and lonely shores of herman’s bleak passenger side footwell. owing to the fact that LTs are notorious for leaking in at the corners of their windscreens, this looked the most likely candidate. however - unlike most LTs - herman’s windscreen surround is pretty much rust free, which...
2 tags
clocking on
today i’m going to take you on a journey into time! it had been bugging me for a while that herman’s clock didnae work. i wouldnae usually be that bothered about something so trivial, but VW have seen fit to make the clock in the LT the size of a dinner plate and stick it right in the middle of the instrument panel. so it’s quite difficult to disregard the fact that the hands...
May 2009
6 posts
1 tag
bumper vans - part 02
the weekend cometh and it’s time to don my wrestling gauntlets and go out to do battle with herman’s bumpers again. i’d found a nice box of chunky nuts’n’bolts in my toolbox, which looked the right size to attach the bumpers to the brackets. so i was at least saved the annoyance of having to make a soul-destroying visit to the ever-useless halfords. that still left...
1 tag
bumper vans - part 01
yesterday, me and mazza went off on an excursion to derby, to pick up a set of rear bumpers for herman from fellow brickyard forum member icky. no problems at all with herman in getting there and, in his first run out into undulating territory since i adjusted up the clutch, he seemed to cope OK with the hills down around the peak district. the only thing that slowed us up really was the fact...
4 tags
chair-man of the board
a couple of days ago i found a big sheet of 6mm plywood, about 8’ x 4’, leaning against the railings at the corner of the road. it was a bit smashed up at one side and had a hole about a foot long along another edge. but i reckoned there was at least some salvageable wood in there. so i stuck it in the back of herman. this sunday afternoon, after a morning spent wrestling bindweed...
4 tags
silicon enhancements
today i decided to take advantage of the fact that the rain had stopped and a mysterious yellow light had appeared in the heavens - i decided to christen it ‘the trouser press’ - and investigate the cause of one of herman’s less desireable features; the fact that he has an indoor swimming pool, located in the passenger side footwell. it disnae show up very well in the photos, but...
1 tag
chips away!
this weekend, i decided to take on quite possibly the smallest job to date; namely fixing a wee chip in herman’s windscreen. it’s only about half a cm long and not in the driver’s line of sight, so it wouldnae be an MOT failure, but every time i see that advert on the telly [i think it’s for some windscreen replacement company], where the guy drives over a bump and - with...
2 tags
clutching at straws
well, following on from herman’s embarrassing hill-climbing exploits in whitby the other week and also from some advice i got on the brickyard forum, i decided to see if his clutch just needed adjusting up, before resigning myself to the complete arse of a job that would be replacing it. i perused the workshop manual for the correct settings and found that the clutch pedal should have 20mm...
April 2009
4 posts
3 tags
gothswagen
not content with going to the far western fringes of wales a week or two ago, this weekend, herman turned his flat fizzer in the opposite direction and headed off to whitby on the north yorkshire coast for our annual trip to WGW. hulme to whitby - herman adventure no.2 hulme to whitby [close-up] - herman adventure no.2 no problems at all on the way there. he chugged along merrily for...
4 tags
fun in the sun
just a brief tinkering session on herman today. there’s not really much else major i can be getting on with, until i get some sheet steel and a bit of welding practice under my belt - and then i’ll patch up the holes in his floor, so we can start panelling him out. it was such a lovely day tho’, that i just wanted to get out of the house for an hour or so - especially since...
5 tags
island hopping
well, this morning herman went on his first great adventure; me and mazza’s long trek [well, about 140 miles] down to visit my mate baz in angelsey for the easter weekend. hulme to angelsey - herman adventure no.1 hulme to angelsey [close-up] - herman adventure no.1 no problems whatsoever on the way down; herman cruised along quite happily at around 55mph, topped 65mph a few times on the...
2 tags
maiden voyage of the good ship herman
a momentous day in motoring history! this morning my tax disc arrived in the post and herman was officially road legal. i was itching to get out in him all day but unfortunately had work. i might have inadvertently let my afternoon class out a wee bit early, but this was entirely due to the fact it was the last day of term before easter and not in any way connected with the fact i wanted to get...
March 2009
13 posts
1 tag
hot, steamy, pussy
the groaning sound you can hear is the disappointment of a dozen ‘one-handed surfers’, taken in by today’s incredibly witty and original title. since, as i mentioned previously, i’m at the thumb-twiddling stage now, until i tax herman at the end of the month, i thought i’d take advantage of blue skies and sunshine to throw the oul’ vaccuum cleaner round the...