Andy's Atlantic (Wolfgang)

[Cob20]

Parts back from being powder coated

Looking good hombré

[brucieboy]

this is a really nice example of what a camper should look like and be used for mate, well done, I love the wheel choice too! really period and inkeeeping with the vans style!

[nordberg]

this is a really nice example of what a camper should look like and be used for mate, well done, I love the wheel choice too! really period and inkeeeping with the vans style!

Thanks bruciboy

I have been busy tinkering with things (again). In anticipation of getting my new skylight cover in light grey I decided to spray the plastic knob and shroud a similar colour. the original one was stained by UV and was looking a sad yellow colour.


Applied a bit of Humbrol paint and good as new


I have ordered my GoWesty roof canvas from Campervan Culture in Grey so it should all start to come together soon. As far as the roof bars and mood lighting are concerned, well it's a bit difficult to get a goot photo but you should get the impression its pretty OK.



Went to Matlock \ Cromford Canal for for Fish and Chips last week with a friend of mine who has an Autohomes. Trips out in the evening are probably going to become a regular occurrence.


Our calendar is filling up and it looks like we will seldom be at home for more than a weekend in every month the way things are going. Not going to overdo the show scene, but we have Bus Types next weekend, intend to do Camperjam, won tickets for T3BusMeet and Vans in the Sands towards the end of the season. We plan to make a real adventure of that weekend. We have two weeks and have already booked two nights at Woolacombe Bay, two nights in Newquay before we head over for two nights near the Eden Project. After that its Vans in the Sands, then over to the new forest for a week . Lots of weekends and weeks before that time so I'm not going to start wishing my life away. Never felt so excited about a summer before so expect a lot of random photos like this over the next 6 months or so...

[nordberg]

Almost wrote off the possibility of getting my second hand Eberspacher up and running due to the fact the diesel pumps cost in excess of £100. However by a strange twist of fate I popped in to see a guy that lives local to me who also has a Vanagon. Long story short he gave me a fuel pump which inspired me to carry on with the resurrection of my heater. Stripped and freed the combustion chamber components and it looks like there is a realistic possibility that it could work.

This is the culprit part. A build up of carbon was responsible for seizing the workings stopping it from turning. I assume this had a knock on effect which caused the electric motor to burn out. It's got a real nice movement now so hopfully good for a while longer

I have a couple of questions before i put it back together though. The image below shows the neck of the combustion chamber (at least I think that's what you call it?). I undid a collar which was held together with an allen bolt. It seems to have some sort of gasket. Maybe asbestos or some sort of heat proof fabric. Would I need to apply a bit of exhaust putty to this before i seal? Also, there are a couple of small pieces of white material that I can only assume is for stopping vibration and rattles between the alloy combustion chamaber and the outer case. It's in no condition to put back in. Can anybody suggest a suitable replacment. Obviously it's subject to quite high temperatures.

Also, there are a couple of small pieces of white material that I can only assume is for stopping vibration and rattles between the alloy combustion chamaber and the outer case. It's in no condition to put back in. Can anybody suggest a suitable replacement? Obviously it's subject to quite high temperatures. Below shows a sketch of an area that has a similar material that could do with replacing. Hopefully a suitable material could be used for this also.

Any help or feedback much appreciated

[California Dreamin]

Have you looked in the combustion chamber Andy, where the spark/glow plug is screwed. The combustion is more of a continuous glow as the pump spits fuel into the gauze wadding sleave. I found quite a large build up of carbon on the gauze...you need to be careful not to damage the gauze cage as you chip away at the carbon.
Are you leaving the old themo switches ?..
Martin

[silverbullet]

Diesel carbon cleaning tip from tame injector service man: use cheap cola to dissolve the black death...

[nordberg]

Have you looked in the combustion chamber Andy, where the spark/glow plug is screwed. The combustion is more of a continuous glow as the pump spits fuel into the gauze wadding sleave. I found quite a large build up of carbon on the gauze...you need to be careful not to damage the gauze cage as you chip away at the carbon.
Are you leaving the old themo switches ?..
Martin

Ah, OK! Didn't want to strip it down any further but if you think it's beneficial? I have the 3 new switches / sensors to install when I build back up

[nordberg]

Diesel carbon cleaning tip from tame injector service man: use cheap cola to dissolve the black death...

Hmm, May try that on a small area and see if it works.

Brick cleaner is a bit aggressive on alloy. Don't ask me how I know

[nordberg]

Update on the van
Well i got round to getting the Wolfgang stickers for the van. Decided silver was the colour to go for based on the fact the Westfalia sticker on the rear of the pop top was silver. I think it looks fine (simple things for simple minds is what they say isn't it ). Anyways, my van was booked in for a full service a couple of Mondays ago at Brickwerks. The weather was so good the Friday before that so i decided to take the afternoon off to install my new GoWesty roof canvas. Thought it would only take half a day to do, but how wrong was I? Took a day and a half of frustration.

The start of it...


Clean the fixings down with wire wool and Autosol


Eventually got it finished late Saturday night. (Jed, i knew should have bought it to you ). Anyways as much hard work and effort as it took at least it was out of the way.


All is good in the hood!..... Well at least thats what i thought until i woke up Sunday morning with severe pains in my left shoulder. Went to the local walk in center as it was so bad and put on strong pain killers. Turn out I had aggravated an already dodgy shoulder joint fitting the roof canvas (Jed, i knew should have bought it to you ). I have been off work now for over two weeks with tendonitis in the shoulder and have had some really low moments with it, much of the worst in the first week! On the mend now.

I digress. We drove over to a quaint Pub / B&B called the Woodmans Arms local to Brickwerks on the Sunday after the pain had subsided enough to make sure we were local enough to get the van to the garage early. I was having a full service including cam belt and a couple of other things also. Simon said he would need to have for a complete day so it made sense to stay local for both myself, my wife and the garage. All went smoothly and after a day in sunny Huddesfield we collected the van and drove home. I was told that the LDA (boost control) was faulty / not working at all. After the service the van was noticeably more responsive low down, and the real tell tale sign that the service had made a massive difference was when i came to reverse it back onto my elevated driveway. For the first time it just took it in it's stride with me not having to dip the clutch to make it slip and stop the engine from stalling.

I will say a couple of thing about my visit to Brickwerks. I came away with an extensive list of things that could do with addressing on my van. However, I was taken in the workshop and showed each and every thing on the list and was given a red amber green type of urgency list. I have every confidence that it I had taken my van to a none T3 specialist they wouldn't have been able to give the service that these guys did. Upto me which way I go with it obviously, but at least I have a full and thorough low down on my vans health. Also, the service bill wasn't worrying (in fact i would say I was pleasantly surprised).

So knowing my LDA control mech wasn't working correctly i decided that this needed sorting. Bought a second hand one from North West VW at a cost of £29 delivered. Fitted it and it's made a massive difference to the drive ability of the van. Owned the van for 8 months and this is the first time i am thinking the van doesn't need to be upgraded engine wise!


Anyways, It's not all about pouring money and time into your van. the best part is enjoying it! We hope to be away every other weekend in Wolfgang. But the latest stop overs for us are the Donington Historic Festival bank holiday weekend (6 miles from our house)


and a night at Woodland Caravan and Camping site only a mere 30 mins drive from our house just outside of Ashbourne
http://www.woodlandcaravanpark.co.uk/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Other work i have done is buy a set of luxury car seat covers in grey from Halfords at a cost of £45. I have managed to get the rear seat covers on and the base of the front seats and I feel they are a good match for the late Westy interior. The back of the front seats are something that I am hoping my wife can modify in time to fit. I am a bit phobic about how rare these seats are becoming and i feel if i can maintain them in any way i can then that's got to be a good thing! Also bought a set of beaded covers for the front as I think they are retro now days and kind of match my sea grass MadMatz front carpet set I bought them from a local motor factors and they had a very old looking £7.99 each on the wrapper. Mandy did a search on line and the cheapest she could find them for is £16.99 from amazon so I think they must be NOS





This week at Aldi there are these car sun blinds that come as a pair for £5.99 (optimistically hoping for a hot summer)

[nordberg]

Eber resurrection continues

[nordberg]

Update on Wolfgang.
Unfortunately my Eber resurrection failed at the last hurdle. I was informed that the heater was in actual fact a petrol model so it halted things in it's tracks with my van being diesel and all that . Fortunately Oldie suggested considering a newer option so after a few pm's I settled on a Webasto Airtop 2000st. This should fit in the original (reconditioned) under slung Eber housing.

This is the Airtop. Well chuffed (thanks Oldie )

Anyways. That's going to get installed in the next couple of months. May be a combination of i work out all of the matching up of components, then i take it to an auto electricians to install. Not sure yet

Next thing was to source an under tray as my Atlantic was missing this when I bought it. I was told it will help with reducing noise and aid cooling because of it's design. There are people that say the cons outweigh the pros of having one fitted but my school of thought is that if VW dedicated time, money and effort to develop it it's probably better fitted than removed? Saw one advertised in the For Sale section claiming to be in good condition so followed that lead. I and am currently working on resurrecting it. Not got previous photos but it was covered in Tetroseal (which is probably the reason it's been preserved so well). However, I intend to get it back to as original condition as possible. This was after approx one hours worth of cleaning and shows all three components

This is the main tray after about another hours worth of work. Petrol is my friend and breaks down the oily sealer very well Hope to have it all sorted in the next month or so complete with soundproofing.


On the subject of using the van. We have recently been to Stanford (Fineshade Woods) Campsite. Loved it. Very nice, surrounded by miles of woodland. This is the first time with our new 'loo tent / utility room'. The campsite didn't have toilets so this was a gods send


And revisited Lincoln Lanes Campsite after we decided to buy a second hand Fiamma Ultrabox 320 from that neck of the woods. The first time we stayed here was new years day and was -6 on occasions during our 3 day stay.

[Adeybruce]

Andy, just a quick note to say I am enjoying your posts (but also to make sure I can find them again!)

[nordberg]

Andy, just a quick note to say I am enjoying your posts (but also to make sure I can find them again!)

No problem Adey.
Just going to pull in a little stuff from another thread I had going outside this to keep my van thread upto date

Well I managed to get the UltraBox Colour coded. Plan was to have it done next month when I had been paid but I seemed to get whisked along after I took it to a paint shop to ask for a quote. Still, It's one less thing to pay for next month . Colour was LA3E (Cherry Red). Seems to be a pretty good match.




For anybody that is curious this is what we intend to keep in the Box. Pretty much all of the outdoor gear leaving the inside of the van for purley living.


The weight of the box is 12kg. The contents pictured are 22kg giving a total of 34kg. This potentially leaves 16kg of extra goods to be transported on the bike rack which can take a total of 50kg. Prefer to err on the safe side so no plans to add much more to the payload. Just nice to know its not being over stressed .

Another little mod I have done is add a small (4") USB fan just to the rear of the drivers seat above the cooker hob / sink. It was mounted using a tap washer, a large diamiter stainless washer and an existing screw hole so nothing that's not reversible. I have a four way adaptor block which has two USB ports integrated into it which rests just behind the drivers seat and ideally located to supply the fan when in hook up. When not on hook up it can be supplied via a usb adaptor in a 12volt socket sited in the fridge vent which leads to the leisure battery. It's pretty quiet for a small diameter fan and seems to move a reasonable amount of air about the cab. It was bought on offer from Maplin. £7.99 instead of £9.99.

[seanmc1970a]

Excellent stuff, love the storage box

[nordberg]

Well after all of the hard work, time, effort and money spent on my van since i bought it back in October, last week was the true test in finding out if it had all been worth while. Our first main holiday started last weekend at Camper Jam for two nights. This was the first leg of our break which lead us into Wales at a camp-site in Llanrug which was conveniently located for a host of good locatiuons. Prior to this we had done a combination of one, two, with a maximum of three nights away.

Anyways, we set off from Camperjan (what a great weekend by the way) to be greeted with rain just as we got over the border into Wales. We were sceptical about visiting Wales after a few prior visits that were a wash out so this did not bode well. It stopped in the evening and we had rather a pleasant time chilling. Later on the weather took a turn for the worst and the Monday was an absolute wash out. We caught the bus into Caenarfon, had a meal and headed back to the van for a lock down.

After that the holiday was an absolute dream. I figured we have done a total of 600 miles and the van ran fabulously. We visited many of the bays, nooks and beaches on Anglesey ( Benllech, Moelre, Amlwch, Cemaes & Llandwin Bay) along with South Stack Light House on Holy Island. We also did Porthmadog, Pwllheli and Nefyn. The camp site was great by the way for anybody that is interested and is in very close proximity to Snowdon if your into walking ( http://www.llysderwen.co.uk/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; )