Burst tyre

Again a non-starter

Wanted to drive this morning, but did not start again. This time it was clearly a weak battery - the alternator turned only slowly the engine. Fortunately I had the new auxiliary starting booster battery - connected it, then the engine started right away. Then I drove a bit to charge the battery. Need to do one longer drive some time.
And possibly need a new battery.

Does not start

Wanted to start the bus in the morning, but the motor did not start. Alternator rotates ok, but motor does not start.
When I tried again in the evening, the motor started right away. No idea what that was.

First Problem: Water Ingress

Yesterday evening I did a closer inspection of the van. Should have done it before I bought it, but I was not thinking very thoroughly then. At my first inspection on Saturday morning it looked OK, and the price was reasonable. But now I did look closer, and I noticed that the front windscreen moulding is very brittle and is broken in some sections. This means it will let the water through.

Today was a quite rainy day. The LDV stood there in the rain, and I wanted to check if some moisture got into the inside. Upon a first glance - nothing. The whole floor dry. No wet spots, while it was pouring down outside. The side windows appear to be tight. Nothing on the dashboard. So I wanted to leave the vehicle happy, but then I stepped onto the rubber floor in the driver area - and as I stepped on it, a bit of water seeped out at the opening of that rubber floor, where the driver seat is mounted. Now I saw the reason for those rusty bolts: water must have come in from underneath that rubber floor. The only reason for this I could see in the defective windscreen seal. The water probably ran down inside the seal, then dropped into the floor. I tried to identify, but in order to really find it, I would have to remove the rubber floor and check where the water was coming from.

So the next most urgent thing is to get the window seal repaired. I called AUTOGLASS - they do not do these kind of jobs. Strange, why not - but they only put new glass in. I would have thought it would be the same: to take the old glass out, put a new rubber seal around, then put it back in. But for some reason they so not put in back the old glass, but they want so sell a new glass. That is not what I need.

On some blogs I read that people tried to repair these leaks, and changing the window glass themselves is a real pain (see the comments to this blog post : Fixing water leak in LDV van). So this I will not be able to do myself - instead I am trying to find a garage. Have contacted two in Leeds, am waiting for their response.

In the meantime I started to put "stuff" into the LDV van. Some of my car repair things, some stuff from my previous conversion. Those roof shelves are great! Very sturdy, and provide lots of storage space. These roof shelfs (left and right side above the seats) will change the design I had originally for this... I will have to rethink where I put the bed and the shower. I thought I would place a bed on top, as a kind of bunk bed, but I will probably not do this, and instead keep those robust shelve in place.

This evening it continued to pour down. I decided to take the van for a random drive around Leeds, through the night and the rain. It drives really well. OK, is a bit loud, and feels like driving a truck (sorry, a lorry, for UK readers). But this is OK. It goes reasonably fast, with a slow acceleration, but is sufficient. At least I may have a better chance now driving at the speed limit and not get another speeding offence...

Getting an LDV 400 Convoy

Already quite a while ago I had decided that I would need a larger campervan. My Fiat Doblo conversion is just too small for any serious travelling - may be fine for one single person, but for two it is just suitable for a weekend.

And so I had decided I would get something bigger. And I settled for an LDV 400 Convoy, despite the somewhat "mixed" reputation that this vehicle has. I read many reviews in which people (owners) complained about things breaking down with this van, but I also read others which praised it for its simplicity and robustness.

The deciding factor for me was the price - the LDV 400 Convoy is usually the lowest-price vehicle that one can get in this size. And I decided on a minibus. There are arguments against having all windows around in a camper van: one cannot do "stealth" camping, there is somewhat less security (glass can be broken into), also of course less privacy, and finally the heat insulation would be more difficult to achieve. But I do like to imagine that I park somewhere in a nice scenic spot and then have the full surround view of this spot from inside the car - which is helpful when it rains outside.

So last Friday I saw the ad for an LDV 400 Convoy minibus, just in the vicinity of 10 miles from home. I had a look at the vehicle on Saturday, and then later that afternoon decided that I would buy it. It claimed to have very few miles: 22,500 miles, for a vehicle from 2002, 14 years old. The seller insisted that this is the true mileage, as indicated by MOT receipts. There is some rust at the edges of the body panels, but overall the van looks good. Engine is a 2.4l Transit Duratorq, about which I also found mixed opinions. But I decided to go for it, because this van had a few interesting things going for it:

• there was a heater installed under one of the seat. The seller did not know how to work it, but I would figure this out later. 
• The windows were not the usual 3-windows on each side, as most LDV 400 minibuses have, but each side only had one long window, which make the vehicle look a bit more modern. 
• And finally the van has no sliding door - entrance is only through the front - or the back. This preserves some space for potential additional furniture or equipment inside. Disadvantage is that the front passenger seat is quite recessed, because that is where the entrance space is.

The van is also nicely lined inside - it seems there had been a conversion been done, with proper insulation of the roof. There is also a rooflight inside, which would cost a lot to buy and install myself.

And the price was reasonable, I felt: £1495.

Now here are the problems I encountered:

The first problem was to get insurance. Since this is no yet a converted motorhome, I could not get motorhome insurance. One would need to have a conversion done within 120 days, but DIY conversion is often not accepted by insurers. It seemed then to be very expensive to get standard van insurance: sites like confused.com and others gave me quotes from £1200 to £7000 - ridiculous annual insurance prices. I finally settled for Aviva. When looking for quote, I noticed that the registration information did show conflicting vehicles: the vehicle came up as a Convoy, but as a smaller one. Since I did not yet have the V5 form, I settled in for whatever the vehicle registration check provided. I will have to clarify this later.

Then this morning I went on the journey, with taxi, short train ride, then again taxi, and picked up the van. The following comments:
- ride is OK, but quite loud. There is a strong resonance at low rpm in the vehicle.
- the ventilation does not have a full-close switch, as is usually a standard feature. This means when there is bad air outside, I will not be able to shut it off.
- the engine temperature seemed to remain quite cold. The temperature indicator was only slightly above the minimum, and was not in the centre of the dial as it should be.
- as a consequence of the cool engine the heating seemed to work only very faintly. The blower fan only seems to blow air at level 3 - level 2 and 1 are silent, without any air movement. The central vents only blow out cold air, unheated - heated air comes through the side vents and the vehicle vents below in the foot area.
- there is a heater / blower in the centre of the vehicle, underneath a seat. It can be turned on when the ignition is on, but it only seems to make a lot of noise and blow the air around. I did not feel any warm air coming out from it, which is disappointing. Means I will have to install an auxiliary heater.
- the rubber seals around the front window appear to be not tight anymore, appear brittle in places, so I may need to change this.

So much for the first impression. I will need to give the car a good wash, inside and outside, then will begin selling most of the seats. And I will soon sell my 1999 Peugeot Expert camper.