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 long, so was flopping about like the proverbial limp dick.

Add to that the fact that the end of the cable seems to be designed to just slip over a nipple on the throttle lever and [presumably] be held in place by tension and it was yet another case of ‘improvisation across the nation’, as I made a wee metal clamp to grip round the cable itself, attach to the throttle lever and hold everything in the right position. If nothing else, owning an LT teaches you to think creatively.

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 fitted. £58 each. Not too shoddy; I reckon Kumho are one of the better ‘budget’ brands, albeit that I cannae help but think the name sounds unfortunately like “cum-hole”!

Herman seems as proud as punch of his new footwear and is sitting about an inch or so higher, since I got slightly larger radius tyres this time, than were on him before. I was a bit worried at first, that I’d gone a bit too big, as the front tyre seemed very close to the corner of the front wheel arch and the rear tyre likewise cheek-by-jowl with the exhaust pipe, but I was just being paranoid. I’ve not had any catching or rubbing on the bodywork, when going from lock to lock with the steering. 

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 huddersfield there is an almighty bang and the van tries to veer across two lanes of motorway.  luckily i had a firm grip of the wheel and did the right thing; lifted my foot off the accelerator [resisting the urge to jump on the brakes] and controlled the [by now shuddering violently] van into the hard shoulder, as it gradually slowed down - it seemed to take forever, but it was probably only about 20 or 30 seconds.

anyway, i jump out and have a look and find that the driver’s side front tyre has completely exploded; a huge hole in it and the metal cords of the ply  spilling out all over like wire wool.   half the tread was lying in bits along the motorway behind me.

we’d pulled to a stop, just by one of those wee ramps where the traffic cops usually sit, waiting for speeding motorists so gingerly, i begin to reverse back up the ramp, so i can put as much distance between me and the traffic as possible.  i get the back end up the ramp and suddenly there’s no power at all.  i look down and see the accelerator pedal is lying flat on the floor.

herman languishing halfway up the ‘copper’s ramp’

out i get again and look under the front and confirm my worst fears.  the exploding tyre has taken the throttle cable with it. the plastic coating is gone and the inner lining is stretched like a spring and the central cable is clearly broken.

one exploded tyre and ripped up throttle cable


since, like most folks,  i dinnae carry a spare throttle cable, this is clearly going to put a major spanner in my works!

off i wander down behind the metal barriers for about half a mile until i come to an emergency phone.  when i get near it, i find a cover over it bearing the welcome words ‘not in use’.  so i hike it back to herman again and me and the missus sit there on the grass verge, wondering what the feck to do next.  you can bet your bottom buck that, if i’d just nipped up the ‘coppers only’ ramp to have a wee or eat a sandwich, a police car would have been along in about five mins, asking us what the feck we were doing in their spot.  but needless to say, half an hour later, no-one had decided to come and investigate us yet.

the only thing i can think of is to ring 999.  so i do so, apologise for ringing for a non emergency, but tell them the emergency phone on the motorway is out of order and i need a number to ring for the traffic police.  the emergency folks give me the west yorkshire police number, so i ring them and they put me through to their traffic police.  there i speak to a complete ignorant arse, who wants to know why i’m ringing them for a puncture, instead of phoning the AA or RAC.  i tell him i’m not in the AA or RAC, that the emergency phone is out of order and my throttle cable has been smashed, so i cannae move the van.  he says he’ll send a patrol car along in a bit and they can arrange to get me towed off the motorway, but it’ll “cost a hell of a lot”. his whole attitude stinks of “what the hell are you wasting my time for?!”. so i await the arrival of the patrol car with less than enthusiasm.

about twenty mins later the motorway cops turn up; working their way down towards us on the hard shoulder and occasionally nipping out of their car to dash into the motorway and retrieve a bit of our shredded tyre.  we even get our name up in lights, when we notice that the LED sign over the carriageway is advising “caution - debris in road”.  

when the coppers eventually reach us, i’m expecting them to be as arsey as their mate on the phone - if not more so, given that they’ve had to risk their necks, retrieving the bits of tyre off the carriageway, but they turn out to be nice as pie.  really friendly and cheerful.  

they ask what happened and i explain about the throttle cable and the lack of RAC/AA membership.  they reckon that i should probably try ringing “one of those organisations we can’t make specific recommendations about, because we are public servants”  and see if we have any luck joining ‘after the event’. they say that they’re allowed to give us two hours to ‘get out of dodge’ under our own steam [or that of anyone we can get to help us], before they have to come back and arrange to have us towed off the motorway - which is where the hefty fees will come in.

they make sure we’re OK, ask if we have coats and drinking water in the van and then off they go.  before they leave, one of them gives me a phone number and says that ‘unofficially’ i might have some joy if i ring it.

when i ring the number, it turns out to be the RAC.  they say yes i can join there and then, after breaking down,  and all seems to be going swimmingly until they ask what the car is.  when i tell them it’s an LT35, there is some silence and muttered “i’m not sure about that kind of vehicle…” and i’m put on hold for about five mins until a voice comes on the line from “RAC commercial”.  i tell him i’m not a commercial driver.  it’s my daily drive, which happens to be a van. he tells me that RAC cover does not extend to anything over 3,5 tonnes. so even if i were to join the RAC they wouldnae do anything for me coz of the size of the van.  he says they can come out and tow me off the motorway, but that’s about it.  when i ask how much, he tells me the *minimum* for someone to come out and look at the van and then tow it back to a garage will be £300!

i [politely] tell them where they can stick their £300 minimum and hang up.  as, so often in life it looks like i’m on my own again!

strangely, situations like this usually bring out the best in me. for some masochistic reason i seem to think best when everything’s gone completely to shit, so i get the oul’ grey matter ticking over and after a while come up with a cunning plan;  i’ll extract the cable for the dashboard cold-start mechanism and see if it’s the same as the one for the throttle.  they look similar in the manual. maybe i can do a swop.

before doing that we need to get up to the top of the ramp, where there’s a nice flat area to park up and work on the van.  i jack up the front wheel [dangerous stuff, since i’m parked on a slope, but i stay to the side of the van, leave it in reverse gear and prop toolboxes etc. under the wheels].  i give the brake disc and hub a good looking over but, thankfully, there’s been no damage there from my exploding tyre.  so i go ahead and fit the spare wheel.

then, with the spare wheel on and the engine cover off,  i am able to reverse herman fully up the ramp onto the flat area, by manually twisting the throttle lever on the injector pump itself.  now, i can get on with the next part of the plan:

after about an hour of wrestling, i’ve got the old shredded throttle cable removed and the cold-start lever cable off too.  as luck would have it, the cables have completely different ends and the cold-start one is about three feet longer than the throttle cable, so there’s no way i’m going to be able to do a straight swop.   “alright then”, i think.  “let’s just turn the cold start cable into a ‘hand throttle’”. 

inspecting the old throttle cable. definitely not salvageable.


so i begin attaching one end of it to the throttle lever on the injector pump.  as i’m doing so the missus tells me she’s just seen our friendly copper mates travelling up the opposite side of the motorway.  she reckons our two hours must be about up by now and they’ll be coming off at the next exit, so they can head back down to us on our side and then it’ll be ‘extortion city’ as some local gyppo creams us for about an ‘RAC’ [my new cockney slang for £300!], for towing us off the motorway. 

time to make a move! - so i quickly finish attaching the cold-start cable to the throttle, feed the other end through the engine bay and up through the hole in the floor where the accelerator pedal used to be.  on with the engine cover, in with the seats, close all the doors and we’re ready for the maiden voyage of the world’s first hand-throttled LT35!

makeshift throttle connection at the diesel pump end

i fire up the engine, and give the cold start lever an experimental tug.  it’s bloody hard to pull but, when i do, it does rev the engine.  so off we go - down the hard shoulder, with the hazards on, at about 20mph and then straight off at the [luckily nearby] junction.  we can relax a bit now.  whatever else happens, we’re no longer on the motorway, so we dinnae have to worry about being forced to pay ridiculous amounts of cash for rescue anymore.  we drive along for a bit and it’s not too bad, except that the cold-start cable is so long, i’m having to hold the end of it up near my chest and then work the cold-start knob [or ‘accelerator’ as it is now] with my thumb and forefinger.  it’s bloody tiring!

another brainwave; i pull into a side-road and reroute the end of the cold-start lead back up behind the dash into its former place.  so now, instead of having to take up all that slack cable, i just have to operate it as if it was the original cold start lever.  the problem is, it’s so damn hard to pull, i dinnae think i’ll be able to keep it held out for too long.

yet another brainwave; i find in one of my ‘miscellaneous junk’ jars an old piece of steel about 3”x1” with a hole at one end. i remove the knob from the cold-start lever and fit the piece of metal behind it.  i now have something i can get a grip on and, by wedging one corner of the metal against the edge of the dash i can use it like a lever and accelerate by lifting the other end easily with two fingers.  

hand throttle with ‘paddle control’

we set off again and manage to make it from huddersfield back to manchester across the moors, without further incident. at first, i’m really clumsy and revving like a bastard every time i try to change gear, but after a few miles, i’m getting quite adept with my home-made hand throttle and by the time we get back to manchester, i’m pretty much driving as smoothly as normal. we even have to do a bit of motorway driving again, on the manc side of rochdale [actually this is easier, as there are no gearchanges to worry about].

driving along with the hand throttle in operation. sorry the pic’s a bit blurry. the missus took it on her mob.



as we drive along, i’m still unconsciously making the necessary up’n’down movements with my right foot, every time i change speed or gear -it’s just too hard a habit to break- even tho’ there’s no accelerator pedal.  and by the time i get home, the muscles across the back of my shoulders are aching from hunching forward working my throttle but, given what might have been and what it might have cost, i think ‘the lad done pretty well’.

accelerator pedal - what accelerator pedal?

closeup of the exploded tyre. that’s going to need at least two puncture repair patches!

this is the cab floor under the driver’s seat, after i removed it. the exploding bits of tyre hit the underneath of it hard enough to knock chunks out of the paint

‘operation whitby’ will be attempted again tomorrow.  a mate has just said he’ll lend me his car so, if i can get the insurance necessities sorted out in the morning, i’ll hopefully get there yet!

phew! - quite an adventure!

the ironies:
* just passed the MOT yesterday. i remember at the time thinking ‘something is bound to break now!’
* last week i nearly bought a new set of tyres, when i mistakenly thought one had a bulge in it? [not the one that subsequently exploded, BTW]
* the missus told me she had a dream last night that we crashed the van on the motorway

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 sending me out the reminder letter last month and me taxing it today]

only two advisories; bit of an oil leak from around the filter and rust in the floor, near the wheel arch.  both of which will be sorted long before the next MOT - now that i can turn my mind away from getting him MOT prep’ed and back towards stealth camper conversion again.
woohoo! - whitby here we come!

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 had a closer look and noticed that there is a tiny orange LED set into the edge of the switch, which does light up when the foglamps are on.  the thing is, it’s so bloody dim, i could only see it by shading the switch with my hand [it was a bright sunny day today, here].  i was expecting the whole switch to light up, like the hazard light switch.

so now i’m not convinced the old switch was dead anyway because i had turned my foglight switch ‘upside down’; because it looks wrong the ‘right way up’ and also because, when it’s the ‘right way up’ it turns on by rocking it outward [away from the instrument panel], whereas all the other switches turn on by rocking them inward towards the centre of the instrument panel [hope that makes sense!].  it seems like the switch is made upside down - maybe VW only make it in a LHD version?

anyway, because it’s just an LED in the corner of the switch that lights up, you cannae see it when the switch is ‘upside down’ because it’s on the edge of the switch facing away from you.  i’ve now [temporarily] turned the switch the ‘right way up’ [according to VW - the ‘wrong way up’ according to my aesthetic sensibilities] so the LED is visible to the driver and hopefully that will meet the requirements of the MOT. 

fingers crossed- the retest is tomorrow!

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. the guy seemed to actually want it to pass and was quite apologetic about the fail items. 

the last MOT garage i went to [with my previous motor] the bloke reeled of the list of things it failed on in a tone of voice with suggested he held me personally responsible for everything wrong with the car.

i bought some packets of bullet fuses the other day, to swop out a couple of the more dodgy looking ones,  and i found that the new ones [made of plastic] are actually very slightly longer and fatter than the original ceramic ones and seem to fit a lot more snugly into their holders.

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. it’s one of those things that works perfectly while it’s in bits, but as soon as you put it back together again it dies, just to wind you up]

* checked my headlamps; one parking bulb was missing and the other was blown, so fingers crossed that’ll just be a bulb replacement and not a wiring issue.

* checked my foglamp switch [another electrical failure was the telltale light on the switch didnae glow when the foglamp was on]. after taking the switch apart, i came to the conclusion it was made from parts of two different switches.  it had a green LED inside it, but the switch rocker was not transparent enough for the LED to show through when lit [it was pretty dim anyway] and they didnae line up properly.  looks like a new switch needed there.

* diesel leak investigation will have to wait til tomorrow.  it’s been a long week and there are a few beers here with my name on them!

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 decided not to go on full beam [another twiddle, this time with the fuse sorted that].  the horn [surprisingly! - it’s usually the most temperamental] was working.  i was all set and everything electrical was [at least for the moment] working fine.

so off i went to MOT land. 

as soon as  the test began, the guy said “well it’s failed already - your horn’s not working”.  so i had a twiddle with the fuses again, while he moseyed round looking at other stuff, then he said “your hazards aren’t working either”.  so, he goes to start the van and the battery suddenly decides to go flat! 

“it’s going to be one of those days!” i thought.

luckily i had a spare battery in the back, so i was able to switch ‘em round and get herman started. next, the MOT guy discovered that the headlamp parking light bulbs had either been removed or were not wired in, coz the headlamps did not stay on when the ignition was off.

“OK” - sez i to myself - “at least it’s all electrical so far!” but i was feeling pretty abject by this stage; he’d failed on about five things already and they hadnae even looked at anything apart from the electricals yet.  and needless to say, none of my fuse twiddling [which usually does the trick] had any effect on his recalcitrant electrics [just coz the bloody MOT man was watching!].

so, off i went, pacing up’n’down outside like an expectant father, while herman underwent the rest of his scrutiny - and would you believe it, there was hardly anything else wrong at all;  one missing bolt, where the silencer box bolts to the tailpipe and  a bit of a drip of diesel from somewhere in the engine bay [i suspect the fuel filter, or those damn leaky take-off pipes again] - and that’s all.  chassis, brakes, steering, tyres, suspension - all fine and dandy. 

so i’ve just got to sort that diesel leak, stick another bolt on the silencer and then give the electrics a good going over, tightening everything up and cleaning any dodgy looking connections. then  hopefully i can drop him in again on wed morning and get him MOT’d [i’ve got a half day off work], then a quick nip to the PO for a tax disc - all [fingers crossed!] just in time for going away for the weekend, first thing on thursday morning. 

phew! - talk about going down to the wire!

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.

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 i’d never seen what the centre of the floor was like.

so i piled up all the rubbish ‘precious things’, inside, towards the back of the van and got to work wrestling the carpet and plywood off the floor at the front.

herman’s floor revealed for the first time

i was actually pretty pleasantly surprised; there was a small amount of surface rust here and there but, otherwise, the floor was pretty solid and sturdy looking.  i also really like the corrugated style panelling of the bare floor, which makes him look a bit like a kübelwagen inside but, unfortunately i dinnae think it would be very comfy -or very warm- as the floor in a camper wagon

early LT35 flooring prototype

once the stink carpet was out and safely dumped in the nearest wheelie-bin, it was time to measure up for some more substantial flooring.  at last a use for the large sheets of half inch thick MDF we bought from the timber recycling place.

this should be a bit more sturdy than the flimsy plywood that was originally under the carpet.

next, i gave the floor a good scrub out with white spirit, to remove any dirt or moisture and then got to work with my old faithful bottle of vactan rust converter.

white spirit and vactan.  that’s as near as herman’ll ever get to being valetted!

that should keep the rust at bay, should any moisture seep down through the carpet and MDF, when mazza inevitably knocks something liquid over on the floor.

once the floor was vactanned up and dry again, i cut to size, some underfloor insulation that came along with our pergo flooring, and laid that down.  then on with the MDF and the job was a good ‘un!

underlay cut to size. forgot to take a pic, after i laid the MDF on top, but i’m sure you can imagine the scene - just picture this, but with wood on top!