Monthly Archives: May 2024

#Tourfest North West

30 Thursday May 2024

Posted by in 5th Wheel, Donkey Creek Farm, Fifth Wheel Company, Weekend Break

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Tourfest North west was our first time attending anything like a gathering of bloggers, vloggers and the generally like minded. It was organised by The Caravan Addys with a little help from others I’m sure as it must be a time consuming task and hard work to bring everything together.

We opted to arrive at the wonderful Donkey Creek Farm a day early. We had planned to set off from our compound at around 12pm…. and part way round the M60 on the other side of Manchester Sue realised we had forgotten my Chemotherapy Tablets…. so we turned round and diverted back home.

Some where along the M61 we realised we had forgotten all the contents of the bread bin…. bagels, wraps, hoagies and sliced bread for the morning toast. Not that we would have had any jam… or honey as we had forgotten that too!

The next little disaster, notice I didn’t title this post as “Disaster at Tourfest”…. as some people do like a bit of click bate goings on. Turning onto Naze Lane less the half a mile from Donkey Creek Farm we picked up a chunk… well more of a small piece of steel in one of the rear tyres of the 5th wheel. Sue noticed it as soon as we stopped at Donkey Creek reception and it was defiantly flatter when we came out of reception than when we went in!

It doesn’t stop there…

On setting up we discovered we had also left my trousers at home too….

The first order of business was to sort out the puncture. I carry a 12 volt compressor and tried re inflating the tyre. I got it up to 50psi but I could hear a hiss, so I’d not just popped it off the rim. I didn’t really think I had but you have to try. I managed to find the offending bit of steel and wheedle it out of the tyre with my leatherman.

Looking at where it had entered the tyre I didn’t really fancy a repair as it was right between two tread blocks. So a replacement was needed. In the past I’d have jacked the caravan up, removed the wheel and set off to find a tyre shop. However I’m a bit hampered nowadays so we needed someone to come out to us. I asked at Reception and they recommended a local garage… J Townsend & Sons (01772632238). I recognised the name as sometime back in 1998/99 they had done a full service and brake replacement on my old Land Rover Discovery 1 when I worked at Warton. Small world.

I gave them a ring and they said they would be out to me in about 20 minutes, and they were spot on time. They jacked the 5th wheel up in the correct place and removed the wheel. We were asked if we were staying in the 5th wheel overnight and as we were, he left the jack and stand in place to ensure there was support for that axle. Not a lot of people would have left a 5T workshop trolly jack overnight!

I had a wander down a few pitches for a quick chat with Martin – The Caravan Nut and Mrs TCN… which was really useful as Martin is the fountain of knowledge when it comes to cleaning products. He confirmed the “The Pink Stuff” would be a great product to use to clean up and re-whiten all the locker handles on the 5th Wheel. That was really helpful as I’d been reading about all sorts of self made concoctions on the internet for cleaning yellowed plastic and non of them sat comfortably with me because of what they contained. I left Martin and Mrs TCN putting the final touches to the show room shine on their caravan.

The following morning Townsends gave me a ring, new tyre all done at a total cost of £108, which for two visits didn’t seem out of order for me. Graham – Caravan Vlogger will be pleased to note I did manage to torque my own nuts before setting off for home.

So the current situation is…

I have my chemo tablets, no bread, no trousers and a new tyre on the rig. What else could go wrong?

It was now Friday and the day of the great arrival . Even though it was slightly inclement weather wise we set up shop ready to mark the arrivals out of ten based on reversing skill, use or not of a motor mover, amount of gesticulating of the reversing assistant and repositioning as the significant other was not quite happy with the exact location on the pitch and finally speed of erection…. of the awning!

No we didn’t….. HONESTLY ! We didn’t.

While we were sat out Hey Ho Let’s Tow stopped by for a chat and I can honestly say they are a great genuine family, it was a pleasure chatting to them and generally talking about all sorts. Sorry no pics but I feel at some of these events the stop and chat should be just that and not seen as a photo opportunity… if someone asks then that’s OK.

Friday night we were all due to go to a local social club organised by Tony & Deb…. I suspect more by Deb from the The Caravan Addys. However overnight I had started bleeding from my stoma. By late afternoon it was rather bad….. in fact blue light to the nearest hospital bad…. we hung on a bit and it subsided somewhat but it nixed on me going out to the Big Meet Up, buffet, disco and dancing that evening. Overnight it stopped and I started to feel a bit better. We narrowed it down to my trousers of all things…. yep bloody trousers featuring in the blog again!. The belt line on my trousers had been rubbing on my stoma and actually started a small bleed that actually seemed a LOT worse than it was. Phew….. I have never seen Sue actually worried before about a medical issue despite her 35+ years in medicine.

Saturday the weather was finally playing along.

Sun and blue skies. Himself decided that maybe a bit of fresh sea air up the nostrils was required… before his next scheduled nap.

You can never have enough Siamese on the internet….. well that is what Henry says.

Graham – Caravan Vlogger and Mrs CV stopped by for a chat and a quick nosy round the 5th wheel. It was really nice chatting to Graham after a couple of years of ‘chatting’ on line. Again Graham is genuinely as he appears on his channel…. a really nice chap.

Saturday evening was a bit of an informal do with various caravaners gathering, I was still cautious as I didn’t want to restart the previous days medical event so we ducked out of that but plenty of people stopped by for a natter including a chap that had hot rods and currently had a hot rod truck…. I never got his name but was great to talk to about everything from tyres to engine oil.

Sunday there were. couple of departures the main core however departing on the Bank Holiday Monday. We had booked through to Tuesday as we thought it might be quite on the roads… which it was.

So that was our Tourfest North West 2024.

Would we go again… heck yes hopefully with Tablets, Bread and Trousers!

Are you sure you remembered to pack my nom noms… this is serious dude!

In a few days we are off again this time to Glastonbury for a week staying in at The Old Oaks…. Gives us chance to call in to Clark’s Shopping Village and get a new pair of casual shoes! Then on the way home we are stopping in North Wales at the 5th Wheel Company while they do a couple of jobs and extending the stay for a few days…. and just maybe I’ll be back on the bike for short little trips for morning coffee.

Isn’t technology wonderful. I’m sat here at the Christie Hospital undergoing 5 hours of chemo via a drip and infusion pump and editing this post on my iPad which I originally started writing on my iMac back at home after drafting it on my Mac while at Donkey Creek.

See you on the road!

More Jobs Ticked Off…

19 Sunday May 2024

Posted by in 5th Wheel, Caravan Road Lights, Donkey Creek Farm, Electrical, Fifth Wheel Company, Maintenance, Projects, Water & Plumbing

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OK we are still working on a few bits and pieces but the weather on Friday and Saturday was ideal for cleaning the outside of the 5th Wheel. So while Sue made a start on the cleaning of the nose cap, I finished the first stage of the water pump relocation project and upgraded the wiring.

At some point the original wiring had been modified to include a 10 Amp socket in the wet bay to allow the use of an external pump to fill the fresh water tank. We still wanted to use this as the original external electrical connector was missing the original plug and it was just easier to sort out the wiring. It had been modified using 6 amp rated cable to both eh internal water pump AND the 10 socket. All fused on a single 10 Amp fuse. The wiring I upgraded to 16 amp rated cable but retained the 10 Amp fuse. So there should be no issues with cable rating in the future.

You can see from the photo above some of the work involved in moving the water pump. It was originally mounted where the holes are on the vertical wall. This resonated quite badly as it is located just under the bathroom and was particularly loud at night if the loo was flushed.

So to reduce the vibration from the pump before mounting it in a different location I made a aluminium cradle to mount the pump to and sat this on rubber isolation mounts before mounting it to the floor using stainless steel bolts, washes and lock nuts….. in fact I used stainless hardware for all the mods.

The next job was to install a 0.75 L SeaFlo accumulator with the bag set to 15psi and isolate this from water knock caused by the pump using a stainless jacket flexible hose in a loop. I have another stainless hose that will be used in a future upgrade that will allow this pump to be used to draw water from a 120 litre bladder in the back of the pickup truck….. but for now that’s going to be a end of season upgrade.

The two valves [in blue] are used to isolate the feed from the water tank and the output from the pump and are a bit untidy…. these will be repositioned shortly as I’m going to add an outlet to allow me to connect a hose so I can wash off the bikes and flush the grey water drain pipe when I disconnect after dumping on a serviced pitch. I’ll also swing the pump filter 90 degrees for a bit of space saving and I’m thing about a water treatment pre filter between the tank and pump. We have a filter on a separate clear water dispensing tap the we use for the kettle or food prep…. but this would allow all the taps to be protected.

The result of moving the pump, anti knock loop and accumulator is that now we cannot hear the water pump running in the caravan. Result!

Sue working hard cleaning the front locker wall after going a grand job on the front cap above. The task of cleaning…. including the use of a tooth brush around all the door seals eventually took two whole days.

If anyone has tips about restoring the plastic handles on the lockers I’d be grateful if you could leave a comment. I’ve been steered to something called “The Pink Stuff” miracle cleaning paste by a couple of other 5th wheel owners

Let there be light…. more light in fact!

The other title upgrade was to the rear of the 5th Wheel. I have been reading up on some proposed lighting changes for articulated trailers in some countries. What used to be called front and rear marker lights seem to have gone through a name change….. these are now called “edge out lights”.

If you are parked in a straight line they are not required to be seen, but if you park at an angle exposing the edge of the trailer, the edge is required to be seen by either on coming traffic or following traffic… depending on the angle you are parked at. I’m not exactly sure how this affects things in general in the UK, but it was interesting that I picked up on the watching a couple of training videos about hitching and unhitching a articulated trailer in preparation for your HGV test.

As I understand it, if you are stopped and an edge of the trailer is exposed past the normal line of the prime mover unit and trailer straight line width then this edge must be marked with lights.

From the front our ‘marker lights’ seemed to be located in the correct position…. but I could not find out about the rear in much detail, so a quick chat with a man that knows all about this he pointed me in the right direction. Although that said he was also unclear as how this would affect 5th wheel caravans as he thought it might only apply to commercial vehicles. I did mention that the VW Amarok as most of the heavier pickups are actually listed and taxed as commercial vehicles. That brought some “Hmmm’s and Ahhh’s” into the conversation….. including “in that case you will need the ‘angles of death’ stickers in Europe….. Angles Morts”

These lights show red to the rear and orange to the front. As they are located at the widest part of the trailer…. on this side that has to include the awning frame they indicate the edge of the trailer to the rear…. and from the front the amber side also indicated the edge of the trailer to oncoming traffic.

A really handy thing for me is when driving even during the day I have my side lights on. The amber light I can see in my side mirrors and it clearly marks the end of the trailer…. in inclement weather this has become a bit of a game changer as I now can clearly see even in a lot of road spray where the back of the trailer is.

when following lorries I always notice how bright these tiny LED rear lights on rubber stalks are that stick out from the side of the trailer…. I tend to notice these before I sometimes see the rear light cluster….. these are the same… they are CE marked along with the UK / Euro markings so must be compliant with regs but they are brighter that the 5th wheels rear red side lights….. and the more rear lights I have hopefully will reduce the chance of someone getting to intimate with the rear of the trailer!

Personal note….

Thanks to everyone asking how I’m progressing….. the chemo is going well and I seem to be quite lucky as I have very few side effects to the point that really the couple I have is a mild inconvenience.

I have settled down in to a routine of having a stoma and bag…. bit of a shock to me when I had it done as it wasn’t mentioned in the pre-op that this might be an outcome….. but there again it might have been…. I was on that much medication I was convinced that I’d had a conversation for about an hour with a man stood at the end of my bed dressed in 1040’s clothes complete with trilby hat and chain smoking staring up the ward never taking his eyes of someone I could not see because of the curtains around my bed. He told me he was tasked with keeping an eye on this person as he was suspected as being a spy for the Germans.

What the hell were they medicating me with!!

Only a few days away from the big TourFest North West at Donkey Creek Farm… if you are going please drop by and say high. Sue and I would love to see you. Henry might be a bit noisy though!

A Few More Jobs Ticked Off The List…

01 Wednesday May 2024

Posted by in 5th Wheel, Blog updates, Donkey Creek Farm, Events, General, Mini Break, Projects, The Old Oaks

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Like any project, ticking the small stuff off a list is the way to move forward even if it seems like sometimes you have ground to a halt. A bit lacking on photos…. I’m temporarily unsure of their location… pilot speak for I’ve lost them! I’ll correct that in due course.

I built a new aluminium frame for the water pump and moved the pump from the original mounting position which caused a lot of noise when running, especially in the bathroom…. as we have a direct tank flush not a holding tank, this was particularly annoying if the loo was flushed at night. So now the water pump is mounted on its isolation feet on an isolated aluminium frame bolted directly to the sub-floor in one of the lockers. I also changed the piping from the pump from solid to flexible connections further reducing noise transmission through the pipes. My next step… some time this week is to install a larger one litre accumulator tank between the pump and plumbing to reduce the cycle times of the pump. Thankfully the plumbing system installed in the 5th wheel is rated for a greater pressure than most caravans and motorhomes… that’s what gives us a great shower!! so I’ll be able to match the accumulator pressure with the pump pressure to get the best out of them.

The other little upgrade was to move the grey water and fresh water dump outlets closer to the side of the caravan. They used to be set back about eight inches and required a kneeling mat and one arm dexterity to plug in the flexible waste pipes when on a fully serviced pitch. Now it’s a simple matter of bending over and I can easily access both outlets for connecting pipes…. saving the knees a bit of hard labour at my age is key. Also if dumping at a motorhome service point I can easily see if I’m in the correct position for a clean dump and not going to splash all over the place. As the Hanks say… “Let ‘er rip”

Thanks to my local nut and bolt supplier… Francis Kirk and Sons I’ve been going there for bits and pieces since 1976… I have now got a full set of stainless steel fittings… an odd collection of UNF and UNC sizes…. ready to replace all the nuts and bolts on the pull out sun canopy, replacing the original components that were showing signs of rust and starting to bind up. I also managed to get a set of tap and dies to run through all the threads before changing everything over.

We managed to get some of the picture frames mounted inside the caravan and that makes a huge difference…. along with upgrading the occasional side lights to LED dimmable units…. feels more like home with each little improvement.

Not long to wait now….

Looking forward to Tourfest North West in a three weeks time, 24th May – 27th May at Donkey Creek Farm and meeting up with some of the bloggers and vloggers I’ve followed over the years. Thankfully no one will recognise Sue and I so we can sneak off if it gets too rowdy . I believe it is now fully booked so if you wanted to go you will just have to wait until the next one.

A few days after that we are off to The Old Oaks at Glastonbury…. it’s been a few years since we were there so it will be nice to go back and see all the changes and improvements they have made. Hopefully we can get back out on our bikes again as well.