Replacing light bulbs

I put new bulbs into the rear lights.

Engine sound insulation

The engine is quite loud. So I decide to put some sound dampening material around it. This needs to be material that is specifically for use in hot environments such as engines. The dampening material is on one side covered with metal foil. The other side has some adhesive, so it can be attached to a surface.

I read that it is very important to clean all the surfaces onto which this dampening material is to be attached. If there is residue of oil, then the material will not stick properly, and parts can fall onto the engine and into the belt mechanism, which can lead to expensive repairs.

Therefore, the first action was to extensively clean all the metal surfaces around the vehicle engine.

Looks quite shiny after the cleaning!

Now the dampening material can be attached:

Indirect Lighting

This bus has on both sides at the ceiling the "luggage rack" above the (former) seats. This tray has been retrofit by the conversion in 2005, and it is very sturdy! It is made out of metal; it is quite hard to drill holes in it, and one can actually lift oneself up on it.

I am using it for an indirect light effect: I place two LED stripes, one left and one right, inside of the rack.

Gas Heater Control

The electronic control unit for the gas heater will be mounted on the left-hand wall.

Now both walls are standing:

Working at night

The day is too short, and I have to work. So the only time I can spend working on the camper is in the evening, when it is already dark.

Now the 2nd wall, the one on the left-hand side is being built. A vertical pole provides the support.

Wiring the batteries

The volt-/amp-meters are in place. The lowest instrument is connected to the vehicle 12V system. It will show how much current will flow into the leisure 12V system.

Connected and running. No current yet. The voltage is a bit on the low side... a full battery should be 12.6V.

Now the 2nd battery is connected to the display instrument. Shows a high voltage: 13.01V. The picture at the right shows the wiring at the back.

Above the three displays is the circuit breaker panel. Here most switches are on (green illumination). The top circuit breaker is defective - the switch does not stay on. I could have sent it back, but I can live with this: I do not want to go through the hazzle of a return.

Electric instrumentation and fuses

I will have a total of three batteries: the vehicle battery, and two leisure batteries. They all will be linked to the internal 12V leisure power bus, and with relays each of the batteries will be switched off independently. This will allow to charge either one or both leisure batteries from the vehicle alternator during driving.

Here are the openings for the three battery volt / amp meters:

On this wall there will also be the circuit breaker panel. I do not want to install fuses, because they would need to be replaced in case of an overload. The circuit breaker simply needs to be switched on again.

Wall refinements

A few days later I continue working on the wall: add a few horizontal wooden bars to provide stability and points for attaching shelves.
I mount the whole wall outside and then bring it into the bus. This avoids cutting and drilling inside the bus, where the dust would accumulate.

Then I put wooden cladding on the front face of the wall:

Beginning some interior work

I began to use MDF board to construct the interior. The first project would be to have two vertical walls behind the seats, to separate the "passenger compartment" where one sits while driving, from the living compartment where one is when staying somewhere.

I did make use of the floor railings and attached the walls on these rails, so that one would be able to move these walls later.

First I created a cut-out around a floor socket which looks like it is for a table. This socket had been under seats and was not used for its intended purpose. I was not able to remove it, the screws were very tight. So I left it in place and cut the floor board around it.

The leisure battery #1 is located behind the double seat on the right-hand side of the vehicle.

In the picture above the heater outlet can be seen. This outlet actually does work: when it is switched on, it produces warm air from the vehicle engine coolant which is led through it.

It is getting dark. The vertical post is attached to the floor board outside of the bus, then the board is carried into the bus and is attached to the floor railings. This is for the wall on the right-and side of the vehicle:

New washer liquid cover

The cover for the washer liquid was missing. I got a new one for £5, which is originally for Citroen Saxo, Xsara, C4, C5 Peugeot 106, 206, 207, 406, 307. I had looked at the diameter, and it was the correct one.

Door top cusion

The entry door is quite low, one has to bow down a bit. I already have bumped my head a few times. So I decided to place a foam cushion at the top of the door opening, so that the head bump would be softer.

LED interior light

The lights over the door, which switch on when one of the doors is opened, are very weak. So I decided to add an LED light, which is much brighter than the original. The wiring was a bit tricky - I wanted to preserve the functionality of the switch next to the original light, which allows to override the automatic setting and switch the light either on or off, independent of the door open or closed.

It works OK, but one shall not touch the light anymore, because the wiring is a bit precarious and not very stable.

The difference in brightness can be seen here:

Driving every evening around in Leeds

In order to charge the weak battery, I have decided to do a run with the bus every evening. Driving around Leeds, on the Ring Road. This should help to get the battery powered up, so that I no longer have the risk of an empty battery in the morning. And it also re-energises the van, which has not driven very much and needs to be coming out of its lethargy a bit.

Sometimes for 30 minutes, sometimes for a full hour (the full circle around Leeds). Am listening to  ClassicFM on the radio while driving.

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.

Installing Gas Heating

It is winterly, and the temperatures are low. Or at least they have been low in the past few weeks - right now is actually a quite mild weather.

But in any case, if I want to work on the LDV, I can only do this in the evening, because I have to work in my regular job during the day. I have now sorted the electricity with putting the leisure battery there and wiring it up, so there is light to work in the evening. But I still did not have any heating. My plan had been to install that refurbished water heater, which I purchased a few years ago, and which runs on plain Diesel fuel. But I have not yet figured out how to safely connect it to the vehicle fuel system, and so the heater is still in its box.

But since I need heating eventually, I decided to remove the blown air heater which I had installed in my Peugeot Expert four years ago. It is gas powered, and seems easy to set up and connect. So in the past few days, as the weather was not too cold, I did undertake this installation.

First I did remove the heater from the previous vehicle. Unscrewed the copper gas line, removed the two pipes which go out to the bottom of the vehicle: one is the air intake, the other is the exhaust output. I unplugged the wiring from the heater, then I could easily take it out.

The heater, with the cover of the electrics removed. The power and the control cables are already disconnected.

I had now to find a spot where to mount it. I wanted to avoid the hot exhaust fumes going near the LDV main Diesel tank which is on the vehicle's driver side (right side). So I did decide to put the heater on the opposite side. It will be there underneath the future sink and cooker installation, so the location of the gas supply on that side does make sense.

I placed the heater just before the rear wheel arch. This places it about in the center of the whole "living" area, which seems about right to me. I did place it along the vehicle axis, to ensure that it would not take up too much space. My plan is to have a quite narrow work surface for cooker and sink, because there must also be space for a walk-through way, and on the opposite side will be the enclosed bathroom which may take a bit more space.

Now I had to drill into the floor through the bottom these two holes for the two hoses: the air intake and the exhaust. I started to drill two pilot holes - worked fine, through the floor board and the metal underneath.

The two pilot holes from the vehicle underneath.

The two pilot holes from inside the LDV. I had here already used the circular cutting drill.

More difficult was now to make the holed wide enough for the hoses. I have a set of circular ring drills, which work fine cutting the circles out of wood or plywood, like through the floor. But these circle drills are not suitable to cut through metal: it was just barely scratched, and the drill just kept getting stuck. So I had to resort to another method: with a thick regular metal drill I enlarged the pilot hole,then I used a jig saw to cut out the circle shape. Did work OK, but I broke one of the saw blades when trying to cat the metal from underneath the vehicle. It worked fine when I did the cutting from the inside. Overall not a very nice cutting - due to a lack of proper tools my "circles" have quite rough edges. But the two hoses fit through well, and I was able to attach the heater on the top and connect the hoses through the bottom.

The light air intake hose I attached with some plastic cable binders along the structure which keeps the spare wheel underneath in place. The metal exhaust hose I temporarily attached with bungee cords into location, so that the hot exhaust air does not hit the rear tires which are nearby. I will have to add metal brackets and affix the hoses more permanently, but for now it is OK.

Then I needed to connect the electrical wiring. Was simple. For removing the control unit from the previous vehicle I had to disconnect the unit from the cable, to be able to pull the cable out through where it had been installed. No problem assembling it together again. Electrical power is coming from the leisure battery.

Wiring at the electronic thermostat controller. I may fiddle with this in the future for creating a remote control switch-on.

The final step was to connect the gas supply. I had purchased an 8mm gas hose, suitable also for high pressure. I did connect again the copper pipe to the gas heater, then connected it through the hose to the gas bottle.

This whole setup is only temporary, as I wanted to see if the heater is working. In the future I will make all of this more permanently, with all copper gas pipes secured to the wall, and with valves for shutting off gas supply. But for now I kept the valves out of the installation and only shut down the gas supply at the gas bottle itself.

Switching on the heater worked immediately fine, and a good warm air came out of the heater. So now no worries about cold nights!

I currently only have a Butan supply, but I will get a Propan gas bottle, so that I can also start heating at lower temperatures. In the final version I want to have the LPG refillable Gaslow container installed, which is currently in the Peugeot Expert. But that one seems to leak gas when being used - I need to bring it into the shop to check int and fix that gas leak which seems to be at the top of the Gaslow bottle valve.

Heating in operation, fully  functional.

Fixing the Window Seal

Already a while ago I had rang the company AutoGlass, to find out if they could fix a window seal. They declined - they only exchange full windows, and they do not repair seals.

I then found another company on eBay which would sell a full LDV front window - and that company is in Leeds! So I rang them, and yes, they also replace seals only. But they could not give a guarantee that the old window would not break. Depending on the condition of the old seal it might be impossible to get the window out or back in without breaking it. Well, that was a risk I had to take.

The window glass would be a bit below £90. The seal is £30, and the labour is £50. Reasonable. So today the two guys from YPM Windscreens came in the afternoon and began working on it. Yes, it was a bit hard to get the window out, and in particular to get it in again, because there was very little clearance at the top where the roof is attached in the front.

But they managed, and now I have a brand-new seal which hopefully will stop any water from coming in. I still have to make sure that the water that is already in gets dried out.

YPM have arrived, preparing for window removal.

Here is the LDV without front glass window. A rare sight, I hope!

The new rubber seal is affixed to the old glass window.

Some grease is put in place to allow the rubber to slide into place easily.

The new rubber is almost there on the old glass window.

And now the window is put in place with the new rubber seal.

Almost done!