Category Archives: Modifications

A Few Little Jobs Done…

03 Wednesday Apr 2024

Posted by in 5th Wheel, Caravan Electrics, Caravan Fault Finding, Caravan Servicing, Donkey Creek Farm, Electrical, Fifth Wheel Company, Maintenance, Modifications, Projects, Technical

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It seems such a long time since I posted anything.

Last time out with the Dreamseeker I noticed that the charging voltage when we were hooked up to the truck was only about 12.1 to 12.3 volts as measured in the Dreamseeker battery box.

I know that the VW Amarok puts out 14.6 to 14.8 volts, measured at the 13 pin socket AND indicated on the digital voltmeter I installed in the dash. So it was time to do a bit of investigating.

After measuring the resistance of the charging circuit and fridge circuit it was clear there was a bit of an issue. First stop was to disassemble the Dreamseeker’s 13 pin plug. All became clear…. The cable had been terminated in the socket with soldered ends and were suffering corrosion (solder very dull) and cable degradation….. the copper conductors when stripped of their insulation were black. All in all not good.

I wanted to replace the whole 12 core cable with a replacement but unfortunately I didn’t have a length in stock long enough. I usually keep a length suitable for replacing the cable and plug on a normal bumper tow caravan.

The simple solution for the time being would be to cut back as much as I could and install a new 13 pin plug with correctly crimped ferrules on the cable.

I cut off the old plug and stripped back the protective cover from the cable allowing enough to shorten the individual conductors to the correct length and inspect them for internal corrosion before crimping on the ferrules ready for termination.

The torque setting for these terminations are listed as a minimum of 5Nm to a max of 8Nm so I set my torque screwdriver to 6.5Nm. A happy medium I think.

The new plug was reassembled and I could get on with testing it. At the Amarok I measured 14.7 volts on the leisure battery circuit (same on the fridge circuit) and at the leisure battery I measured 13.9 volts and 9 amps charge, which considering the two 110Ah AGM leisure batteries are at the rear of the Dreamseeker I was happy with the loss.

Something I’m going to try…

While I was doing all this I started thinking (I’d also just seen the price of 13 core trailer cable per metre!) Why are we using this cable?

I have a length of woven kevlar cable sleeve (used in the aviation world) and I could thread my own cable…. upgrading the 1.5mm2 to 2.5 and the 2.5mm2 to 4mm and the “cable” would… (actually is…. as I have made one up now)… a lot more flexible than the existing product as it allowed the individual cables to move and slide past each other. I also used marine grade coated copper cable, so no corrosion of the strands.

4mm2 cable was a bit of a faff to terminate in the commonly available 13 pin plugs, but I believe the genuine ” German Jager manufactured plugs are acceptable for 4mm cable and they even have a crimp terminal version. So I’m going to do a bit more investigating as if I can get 4mm2 leisure battery and fridge circuits from end to end, that will reduce the voltage drop… which is always a step forward.

I’m also looking again at a high current circuit using Anderson connectors between the Truck and 5th Wheel. Currently I’m thinking of a 50 amp circuit with a 30 Amp DC to DC charger installed in the Dreamseeker…. ready for the battery upgrade. (along with a solar install, when I can find a suitable company to work with on that project)

Tourfest Northwest… as arranged by “The Caravan Addys”

Sue and I will be at Tourfest Northwest hosted at Donkey Creek Farm near Warton in May (24th to 28th) drop in and say “Hi”……” see you in a bit“

Rack’em Up…

14 Thursday Sep 2023

Posted by in 5th Wheel, Accessories, Bike Rack, Bikes, e-bikes, MiRider, Modifications, Projects, Sutton-on-Sea

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One of the huge advantages of having a 5th wheel caravan over a bumper pull caravan is the payload and space. It’s as good as a large motorhome… we have around 960Kg of payload available to use. One thing we wanted to do was move our two MiRider e-bikes into the ‘garage’ locker of the 5th wheel. Although I built a great rack for the VW Amarok towing a 5th wheel means I had to take that off. When I designed it I aways wanted it easily removable just in case I ever needed the full capacity of the pickup.

The garage space in the Dream Seeker is big enough to fit the two bikes without having to remove any wheels. On the pickup we already removed the seats and dropped the folding handlebars so this is the same with the garage space. I needed something that would allow me to ‘wheel’ the bikes in keeping the front wheels straight and at the same time retaining either one of the bikes in an up right position while the second bike is loaded.

I wanted something that could be installed and removed easily and could also be used in my workshop to store the bikes if required.

After a bit of mooching around the workshop I initially thought of using an old bike rack we had for the rear of our Land Rover Freelander…. a day spent disassembling and reassembling resulted in a heavy and awkward contraption that didn’t really do anything I wanted except hold the bikes.

Mk II

OK, time for coffee and a rethink. Day two. A flat sheet with rails seemed like a good start…. with a small end wall to stop the bikes going in to far…. extend the rails up the wall to hold the front wheels upright would work. I needed to leave a gap for part of the steel chassis of the 5th wheel…. a plan was forming… more coffee.

I’d worked out that if the bikes were 250mm apart, with the pedals folded and the handlebars folded they would pass each other with ease. I off set this slightly so the edge of the plywood would lie flat right next to the rear chassis cross member and left a gap so the short rear chassis rail would pass through the middle. The front wall was tapered either side so I could install the rack through the door vertically and then twist it 90 degrees to lie flat on the floor. To hold it in place I fabricated 4 aluminium plates that would drop onto the existing bolts in the rear chassis crossmember. These bolts were just long enough to allow me to drop a plate on and a second nut. This way I didn’t have to touch the original bolts… they were still to the factory torque.

I thought about clear coating the stand…. then thought about a brush on wax shaded to match the Dream Seeker’s woodwork…. In the end I use some old exterior white hard coat gloss… several coats in fact. One less old paint tin in the workshop! I think that it looks OK and installed in the garage looks bright and clean… for the moment!

I added a ratchet strap, secured at both ends and cut short enough to allow me to hold the bikes down but not get in the way when loading or unloading.

To stop the two bikes pulling together a simple length of oak with a round cut out in each end holds the bikes 250mm apart.

Fitting into the Dream Seeker was easy enough and I installed the fixing plates once I was sure everything fitted in OK.

The bikes fit in perfectly and are held securely. For security I have taken measures that secure the bikes directly to the chassis in two locations and with the bikes in the garage make it damn difficult to even get access to try and defeat them. Obviously I’m to going to show this.

Bikes installed…. and still a bit of space to fit locate the two seats and bike helmets. So off to Sutton-on-Sea soon to test them out!

P.S. While I was at it I also installed two 240 volt sockets in the garage so we can plug the chargers in if needed. Although my preference for safety is to charge the bikes outside the Dream Seeker. I installed the sockets near the opposite door so they will reach the bikes while they are under our awning…. or allow us to power an electric griddle plate under the awning. Always thinking.

A Great Upgrade…

29 Tuesday Aug 2023

Posted by in 5th Wheel, Accessories, Gadgets, Modifications, Product Review, Vehicle Wiring Projects

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One of the upgrades I wanted to do to the Dream Seeker was to install a good rear view camera. Looking round for options it seemed that you could easily spend a lot of money and end up with something that didn’t achieve what you wanted in terms of reliability and quality.

I did a little research and found that there were options from several manufacturers on Amazon that would fit the bill that seemed to match my basic requirements of being reliable, good vision day and night and durable with the option to upgrade or add to the system in the future.

I chose a wireless AMTIFO kit, 1080P 7 inch LCD display with a range quoted as up to 320 feet with a 150 degree rear camera. I’m not doing unboxing or installation, although installation was really easy and all the hardware you needed comes in the box. The system also records onto an SD card (not included) and the screen can accept up to 4 cameras.

Quick note: I bought this from Amazon, I paid just under £110 for the screen and one camera. This is not a sponsored post and the link to it is here https://amzn.to/44pOB0x if you want to see it and you can also see my review on Amazon… I’m SP

Fitting on the Dream Seeker was quite easy… except I realised just how tall it was!… and it was wired to come on when the vehicle supplied power to the trailer. This means as long as the engine is running the camera is active. I may opt to change this in the future if I add more cameras and a screen in the caravan.

I set the angle of the camera slightly different to convention. Most people set them so they can see the rear bumper, I set it so the bottom of the screen is about two feet from the bumper. My thoughts are if an object is at the bottom of the screen I’m still two feet away and that is close enough! The secondary advantage this gives me is that the top of the screen is effectively seeing further behind… about a cars length in fact. Due to the height of the camera and the angle of view on the motorway for example I can actually see both lanes either side of me and this helps when judging when to pull in after an overtake as I know if I can’t see the vehicle I have overtaken I must be at least one cars length in front of it. Mind you I don’t do much overtaking!

Mounting The Screen…

In the box comes a couple of options for mounting the screen… fixed dash mount or sucker on the windscreen mount. I sat in the truck for ages moving the screen about… then thinking of moving the Sat Nav somewhere else so I could locate the rear view screen in its place. Then I had one of those “Doh” moments…. why not put it where the rear view mirror is as the mirror is really just full of caravan nose cap when towing. I know they do make mirrors with screens in them but I looked at a couple of these at the caravan show and they seemed really small… a honking seven inch screen on you mirror is much better IMHO. I’ve also discovered that located there its still natural to glance at it as you would normally look at your mirror and its also unaffected by sunlight reflections.

I came up with a simple solution that used a tiny elasticated cord and a pad…. it kept the screen off the mirror and gave enough room to angle the two small aerials downwards behind the screen. I installed a power feed via the roof lining and can simply unplug the screen and remove to stow safely when not towing.

Mounting it on the mirror also has a secondary advantage… I can angle the mirror so that Sue in the passenger seat can also see the screen… just incase!

I had never towed with a rear view camera before and after fitting I really can’t understand why caravan manufacturers aren’t fitting these as standard.

How’s It Working Out?

Picture is clear and bright, no drop out or freezing, there are options to change screen layout, number of cameras displayed etc. etc. Even my unconventional screen mounting with the two aerials pointing down doesn’t seem to affect things. The screen recording works great…. I can see this being a great help especially if you have side cameras to compliment your dash cam system in your vehicle.

Adding To The System…

I said that you can add to the system… up to 4 cameras. Well after using it for a few weeks now I will be adding a left and right side rear facing camera so I can see down the full length of the trailer, but first I think I will be adding a rear view camera on the pickup bed to make hitching up a lot easier.

Would I recommend a rear view camera?…. most definitely. Would I recommend this rear view camera?… well based on my experiences so far, yes. For the money… £110 is not a lot to invest in something like this.

Getting A Slide On…

04 Friday Aug 2023

Posted by in 5th Wheel, Accessories, Amarok, Maintenance, Modifications, Projects, Tow Vehicle, VW Amarok

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After our trip out to Donkey Creek Farm I started procrastinating about the slide out bed we used to have in the Amarok. Did I need it… was it worth it….. should I put it back in? Well my body kind of made the decision for me after loading and unloading some heavy boxes from the bed reaching over the opened tailgate it kind of said “We ain’t doin’ that again big boy“.

I had to set about working out how to install the base of the slider in and around the Reese 5th wheel hitch and where it could be mounted. It also needed to be raised up 35mm so it would pass over the 5th wheel hitch cross rails and still allow me to pull the pins so the hitch could be lifted out if required.

I got lucky…. with only having to cut out the rear cross bar the slide bed would fit and the original mounting holes lined up with the holes I drilled in the truck bed when I first installed it. Next step was to fabricate some spacers to raise it to the correct height.

I just happened to have a couple of blocks of high density poly in black so cut 4 100mm long by 35mm wide slats to fit under the frame and drilled 10mm holes through them for the mounting bolts. A quick trip to Francis Kirk – my local engineering fastening company. (I’ve been going there since 1976 for all my fastenings) got me four M10 grade 8 bolts of the correct length… I even splashed out on coated ones and nylock nuts.

A test fit of the sliding frame allowed me to see where I needed to cut so it would clear the hitch. A bit of quick work with a four inch grinder and cutting wheel and it slid in without any problems. I needed to remove the original locking pin system and a couple of coats of black rust preventative paint on cut areas that I’d smoothed off with a fine grinding disc soon had the sliding tray ready to be fitted again.

I did a couple of other mods that allowed the ray to slide out further. Previously it only came out about an inch past the tail gate, now it comes out about 10 inches which will have a great advantage… more on that later.

It was now time to refit the decking and do some trimming as required so it would fit around the hitch.

I cut the sheet so that the section in the truck would remain in one piece and if I needed to the hitch could be lifted out and the cut section replaced giving me a full size sliding bed once again. I do like having options!

The trimming was actually quite easy. The board is Phenol faced marine ply and quite easy to trim. I gave all the edges, especially the new cut edges several coats of clear brush on wax and let it soak into the ply. I’ve found that this is usually better than any polyurathane edge sealant when it is in an area that is prone to dinks and abrasion. The wax penetrates quite a lot and soaks into the layers protecting them from water.

Everything was given a spray and rubdown with Boeshield as a protective against the elements and looks as good as the day I installed it.

Next little job is to find two waterproof boxes to mount on the sliding bed either side of the hitch for my recovery kit and straps. This is why I wanted to make the slide tray come out further than it originally dis so I would have better / easier access to the two “fingers” either side of the hitch.

I need some low profile narrow boxes 200mm wide, 200mm high and about 600mm long with a hinge lid. I did start looking around at what is out there but I suspect that they might need to be fabricated out of aluminium diamond tread plate.

A couple of bonus things…. there is enough space under the 5th wheel hitch to allow me to store two of the “Really Useful Box” company’s boxes under the hitch which will be fairly secure when the slide tray is stowed.

The second is there is now enough room under the sliding bed to be able to store some kit and it pulls out far enough for me to sit the Cadac on for a bit of tail gate BBQ’ing.

Lighting Up The Scene…

25 Saturday Mar 2023

Posted by in Accessories, Car Trailer, Caravan Electrics, Caravan Road Lights, Electrical, Gadgets, Maintenance, Modifications, Projects, Technical, Tow Vehicle, Towing, Vehicle Wiring Projects

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A while ago I upgraded the lights on our caravan by changing the functions round and added two new LED reversing lights which I can’t understand why I hadn’t done this years ago. In daylight they are bright… and at night they are really bright… retina burning bright according to reports. Reversing into a dark pitch is a lot easier and safety wise having an additional set of tail and brake lights with two large bright rear fog lights instead of the single factory 21 watt light mounted almost as low as you can get on the rear of the caravan is a vast improvement in my mind. You can read about my changes here… “Put Yer Lights On Mate…“

Following that article I had lots of people contact me letting me know they liked what I had done and considering upgrading themselves. Not a clue if anyone did, but that’s how these things go. I did have another email from a gentleman which was a bit different. Now I’ve edited it a bit as it was originally two emails and included a company name and some specific details which I’m sure they would not wish me to publish to the world…. here’s the gist of it though:

“Hi Simon, been reading your blog for a while and I read your post about upgrading your caravan lights. I was wondering if you might be able to help with something we would like to do with our trailers or could put us in touch with someone who can? We have around eight trailers that are used on various locations separately or as a group and are towed by a variety of vehicles, mostly our own but occasionally by contractors. Most of our trailers have additional side lighting powered off the trailers own batteries which are charged from the vehicle or while on site from generators. A lot of our set up and tear down is done at night and we have had issues at dark locations where the vehicles reversing lights don’t really help. Is there any way we could get the side work lighting to come on when the vehicle reverses but could be controlled from the vehicle without any additional switches or alterations to the vehicles but could be turned on and off as reversing on a public road with them on might not be legal”

From an exchange of emails, I do know what the company does and some of the sorts of places it works. They don’t always have access to mains power when setting up or tearing down and would like something that can easily be installed in a trailer without too much alteration to the electrical services. Nothing could be installed in any of the tow vehicles as the vehicles were not always their own and I first suggested a cheap(ish) remote switch that could be used by the driver to turn them on and off as required. I was told this was not an option as the remote switches would likely get lost/damaged or need batteries or be with the wrong crew, some sites they could not use any radio equipment.

Time to put my thinking cat on…

Polo…. always a great thinking cat, sadly no longer with us.

I had a bit of an idea forming. Something I’d seen on a Class A American RV (Prevost I think) was a set of spotlights set in the side panel of the RV pointing backwards and located near the front wheel. These lit up down the side of the RV and the ground to the side when reversing…. I’d thought about adding a couple of simple cheap LED lights to the underside of the caravan between the wheel and front of the caravan angled outwards by about 60 degrees mounted under the floor… so when I reversed they lit up the caravan wheel and the ground it was going over so I could see it clearly at night in my mirrors. I had pondered how to switch this on and off using the Amarok but not add any more wiring between the caravan and vehicle. So I’d already come up with a solution.

Here is what I came up with…

It’s a simple two relay set up. The two triggers for this to work are the vehicle reversing lights and the rear fog lights. The top relay in the box is activated by the vehicle being in reverse with the reversing lights on. The lower relay is activated by turning the vehicles rear fog lights on. Only when these two conditions are met, is there a circuit across the two relays switches made thus activating the work lights on the trailer.

Quite simply when reversing to turn on the work light simply turn on the rear fog lights and the work lights will come on.

Cables 1, 2 & 3 connect to the road lights. Cables 4 & 5 are for the switched load. The cost was around £15 for the components for each unit and that included Bosch relays & sockets, the die-cast box and fuse holder. I guess putting it in a plastic case and using cheaper eBay sourced relays could halve that cost.

I did also think that as an upgrade or option the relay operated by the reversing lights could be a timer relay. Set it to say 15 seconds, then when reversing you turn on the work lights and they will remain on of 15 seconds after reversing as long as the rear fog lights are on. This would give you time to reverse, pull forward and reverse again. Each time you select reverse the timer would reset and as soon as you disengaged reverse the timer would start its countdown again.

High level work lights could be a boon to reversing into dark pitches or storage sites. Image take from the internet, copyright not mine.

It was as simple as I could get it using existing signals from the vehicle that already pass through to the trailer. I guess it could be used to turn anything on using any combination of lights operating from the vehicle.

The wiring between the road lights and work lights is kept separate as I wasn’t 100% sure how the trailers power system worked and how it was connected to the road lights (if at all) The two relays were installed in a die cast box with a grommet for the 5 cables. All the trailers were fitted with one of these and apparently they have all been working fine for several months.

Why did I opt for reversing lights and fog lights?

I wanted something that would not be used generally through the day so reversing on a public road during daylight or even at night the work lights would not illuminate. Running during the day with lights on and your fog lights will not operate the working lights… and if you are running in weather that requires headlights and rear fog light… then I guess having the working lights come on while you reverse in those inclement weather conditions just makes you more visible to everyone around. So apart from that I don’t think that you will cause a danger on the road with this set-up.

So…. I think I might just have to install one of these on my caravan…. just in case!

Low level scene lights down the side of the trailer can be just as effective as high level work lights. Image taken from the internet, copyright not mine.

Its a fairly simple DIY job to build a box and install it without too much messing about with the original wiring. Now someone asked me about getting the orange side marker lights to flash in time with the indicators…. and remain as side markers when the indicators weren’t being used. Is this something I need to put my thinking cat on for? Let me know in the comments.

Keeping Electrons Contained…

16 Thursday Feb 2023

Posted by in Caravan Electrics, Electrical, Modifications, Technical, Vehicle Wiring Projects

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One thing about being retired… you have way too much time to think about things. One thing that has been wandering round my grey cells for the last few months relates to an email I had September last year and it was from someone who was fitting out a van and had a few electrical issues, which I managed to help him remotely sort out the problems.

Something that struck me was an off the cuff remark about being able to separate the vehicle side electrical system and the habitation electrical system but still have them work together.

So here is my thoughts and a bit of a sketch (you all know I like sketches) on a possible but workable solution…

Taking a bit of inspiration from the world of aviation and how systems are split into individual bus systems and master bus system that can be combined and isolated as safety procedures require, I thought about how the current wiring on conversions could be improved.

Installing two fuses, one on each pole between the vehicle and habitation, would limit the maximum current between the two systems… the habitation system and the vehicle system. I’ve called these the “Habitation System Isolation Fuses”

In my sketch, the DC to DC charger is a 50 Amp unit, so I have sized the fuses at 50 Amps… (I’d actually install Tyco W23 thermal switch circuit breakers… more about that later) Fusing the positive (live) is normal, but adding a fuse in the Negative / Neutral line is not normally considered. However I have a sound rational for doing this.

Looking at the right hand side – the Habitation Side, we can see that there are two LiPo batteries located some distance apart and connected by a battery bank interlink cable. The feed from the battery bank goes from one battery via an isolation switch and 200Amp fuse to power the habitation equipment and the return is via shunt to monitor the battery bank to the opposite battery. The interlink Positive cable is fused at each end with a 200 Amp rated fuse. All that is pretty normal.

However there is the possibility that the battery interlink cable could be routed through bulkheads or the cable from the battery bank via the battery isolation switch could be routed through vehicle bodywork bulkheads to a distribution point. If this cable was to chafe, there is the potential for a direct short or intermittent / low resistance short to the vehicle ground. As this battery bank is fused at 200 Amps, you could end up warming up a bit of vehicle cabling to the point of PVC fumes filling the van or a full blown fire. Remember you can stick weld steel with 150 Amps!

By inserting a fuse in the Neutral /Negative line – the Habitation System Isolation Fuses, you have effectively fused any potential short to ground from the habitation side battery pack to 50 Amps which if a direct short will blow the fuse before any of the 200 Amp fuses have started to even warm up! Note… if your DC to DC charger is only 30 Amps then these two fuses would be rated at 30 Amps.

Could This Be Improved?

Well yes, everything can be improved. Upgrading the Vehicle Charging Isolation Switch to a double pole would mean when you are parked up, turn the switch off and the habitation electrical system is completely isolated from the vehicle electrical system… down side is some solar chargers have a trickle facility for the vehicle battery (normally connects to the vehicle side of an isolation switch to work and relies on negative continuity between the two systems)… and one day you will forget to turn it on when you are going to do a days driving.

Load sensing on the Neutral / Negative at the Habitation System Isolation Fuse would show if you had a drain from the live side of the habitation system to vehicle ground.

Prerequisite …

The big prerequisite to doing this is of course you haven’t been a cheapskate and only used one wire to supply equipment on the habitation side and used the vehicle body as the Negative / Neutral path.

Short story… someone contacts me, can’t get a device working properly. Tracing the power side, no issues, tracing the return path… some resistance. Turns out the body panel is bonded on to the vehicle and there is no electrical continuity between the body panel and vehicle neutral… so in order for the 5 watt interior light to work, the vehicle manufacturer installed a 75mm long flat beaded strap between the body panel and the section of chassis it is glued to. I recon this strap was good for about 2 or 3 amps… so when the fridge was running and the 5 amp accessory powered up the combined negative wires that were screwed to this body panel slowly heated up the bit of flat braided bonding strap installed by the manufacturer.

Morel of the story…. if you are supplying electrons to something…. also install a route for them to go home! Don’t rely on others to have done it for you. They don’t know what you were planning to do when they designed the thing!. (OK Physics majors will now be sitting upright, drawing their keyboards close and about to compose a long winded essay on why I’m wrong… Yep I got it… I know electrons, negatively charged, move the other way).

Not using the body as a conductor has been known about for a long time by the Professional Audio Boys… you know the ones on You Tube… stereo bass kicks in and the girls….. hair…. that’s a better word… jiggles about with the sound pressure driven by speakers that consume enough energy that even Doc Emmitt Brown would raise his eyebrows at ( I wonder if that where he got Jigga Watts from?)

Tyco W23 Circuit Breakers

On aircraft anything that is powered by electricity goes through circuit breakers and nearly all fall into two types… W23 / W31 or W58.

W58 are pop out breakers that you push in to reset, but W23 and W31 are switch breakers. W31 look like a toggle switch while W23 have a button that can be pulled out to turn it off. I like W23 style breakers….

They are made for 240 volts AC, 50 volts DC and have been around for 40+ years. I’ve flown planes built in the 60’s that still use the original CB’s in them. Now they are mostly made in Mexico or China but are all to a very well established spec and testing standard. You can get them in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7.5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40 and 50 Amp ratings so you can best match them to your system. The spec sheet even tells you what to torque the cable screws to when installing. Personally I’d replace all fuses with these things…… oh yesssss…. I do like a good CB panel… pat on the back if you guess the aircraft type.

Conclusion…

Well I’m not an expert in 12 volt systems and although I have designed and worked on aircraft electrical systems, that really means nothing in this context. These are my thoughts on something that may or may not be needed but it’s how I’d probably go about doing things.

P.S.

If anyone from INEOS is reading…. I love the new Grenadier and especially the aircraft style panels…. quite happy to do some tow testing for you…. hello…. anyone there?

Adapting Our Bike Rack for e-Bikes

31 Tuesday May 2022

Posted by in Accessories, Amarok, Bike Carrier, Bike Rack, e-bikes, MiRider, Modifications, VW Amarok

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Getting to that certain age brings on some restrictions…. My left knee is a bit suspect and Sue’s hip is not as ‘hop’ as it was anymore, This meant of we haven’t been using our bikes as much and as Sue has now officially retired and Henry has settled in to caravanning we are getting out and about more in the caravan.

We had been mulling over e-bikes for a while and after being influenced by John & Mandy who used to live in the next “village” to us, watching Neil and Emma from Urban Vanlife and having a long conversation with a gentleman who was also staying at Wirral Country Park who had bought two MiRider One bikes for himself and his wife lead us to paying a visit to the MiRider factory in Wigan.

We had a try… and liked them almost immediately. One big question for me was would they mount OK on our existing rack above the bed of the Amarok. The guys there were great and allowed me to fit one of their test bikes and take some photos. It only needed a few tweaks here and there to accept the MiRider bikes without any issues.

Two days later we went back to pick our new bikes up. In the realities of todays internet, full disclosure – we paid full price for these two bikes, no discount, no “freebie’s” etc. so what I will say about them when it comes to a review will be honest comments.

The bikes fitted onto the racks easily, however I did want to move them forward as the existing setup was for two full size cross bikes which required some rear overhang. Moving to the MiRider e-bikes gave me the opportunity to move the bike mounts forward.

You can see the rear overhang in the photo above and the available space at the front. Sliding the rails forward and relocating the wheel mounts allowed the bikes to easily position forward of the rear tail gate.

The thing that now had me thinking was the weight distribution. The rear wheel is obviously heavier than the front, as it contains the electric motor and the battery is held in the frame forward of the pedal crank so weight across the two wheels is pretty much even. However, the overhang of the mounting rails meant the front wheel was well forward of the main cross bar.

This really could do with a support. So after putting my thinking cat on…. nope Henry wasn’t;t very helpful… In the best Baldrick fashion I came up with a cunning plan. The front of the pickup bed frame is quite strong and the strength was increased by the aluminium box that the Roll-N-Lok cover fits into.

I cut two pieces of 1.5mm steel sheet and bent them so as to fit under the lip of the Roll-N-Lok cover resting on the frame of the pickup bed and bent them to form a support under the bike mount rails. I made a couple of stop blocks out of recycled plastic to hold the supports to the mount rails.

The design means I can still remove the cover for the Roll-N-Lok to service it and I don’t need to use any tools to remove the brackets if I want to remove the whole thing from the pickup bed… just the 4 Thule key locks to release the whole bike rack from he mounting pads.

I gave the two brackets three coats of spray-on truck bed liner and let them harden for a couple of days before installing. Hopefully this should be enough.

All in, I think it looks OK and the functionality of everything still works. The bikes are secure with no flexing in the mount. We still have room for a narrow roof box or mesh cargo tray between the two bikes if we need more room. I always have the option of moving the bikes to one side and mounting a standard Thule roof box if we really get pushed for space.

Another little thing we can do is plug the bikes in to charge while travelling. I’m not sure how handy this will be, but its there just in case.

I hope this gives you some ideas for e-bike mounting options of your own. For us, it’s next stop Bridlington for a few days to do a bit of testing.

Just a quick one…

08 Sunday May 2022

Posted by in Accessories, Caravan Electrics, Electrical, Modifications, Off Grid, Projects, Technical

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Lithium Upgrade for a caravan

I’ve had quite a few people email me asking for more information about the Victron system for a caravan that I was planning mentioned in the previous post. As this seems to have generated a number of questions, rather than give detailed answers to each one I thought I’d post the drawings. For the moment it’s on hold but here are the drawings.

While Victron would seem the obvious choice, there are a number of recent new products from Sterling Power that have rekindled my interest in the project…. watch this space.

Finishing Off A Few Jobs…

09 Thursday Sep 2021

Posted by in Accessories, Caravan Electrics, Caravan Restoration, Caravan Servicing, Caravan Window Repair, Gadgets, General, Modifications, Technical

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I’d got a few little jobs still outstanding from our big clean a week or so ago. The big one was to repair the front window. When we were cleaning the caravan I noticed that the bottom edge of the central window was starting to separate. After some lengthy procrastination I’d have preferred to replace it but given the hefty price tag and the “It will be January next year at the earliest before we can get you one” type answers from suppliers and removing the window and shipping to off to a company for repair would cost almost the same as a replacement.

It can’t be beyond a diy task to repair. I did a bit of searching for information relating to repairs and one name kept popping up as the manufacturer of the product used to bond the two sheets together…Bondrite Adhesives Ltd.

After reading through Bondrite Adhesives Ltd website a couple of times to work out exactly with adhesive I’d need I ordered their WC112 acrylic adhesive. The 50ml size was £12.10 plus shipping and VAT bringing the total to £20.52. It arrived within 24 hours of ordering, was really well packaged and came with a detailed technical sheet and guidance notes.

I’m not going to do a blow by blow account of how to repair a delaminated window… as I don’t know if this is even going to work, but my first step was to support the window as flat as I could. The standard recommendation is to remove the window lay it on a flat surface and go from there. I didn’t want to remove the window as all I had to repair was the lower edge.

Improvising I used two stands with a cross beam clamped between them to hold the window horizontal. This should take any flexing stress caused by the window stays out of the equation…. Hopefully!

To hold the gap between he two sheets I used three long needles from syringes… this allowed me just enough wiggle room to slide some blotting paper with a bit of isopropanol alcohol to clean out any contaminates. I’d already tested this to make sure it was safe and it does evaporate very quickly.

You are advised to lay down a 5mm bead of glue… as this was going to be difficult between the two sheets of partially bonded plastic I opted to use a wide bore syringe needle on the glue bottle which allowed me to squeeze glue into the gap… it was a bit fiddly but I managed to achieve what I thought would be the right amount. Sliding the three previous inserted needles out to allow the sheets to come together I used some fairly light clamps to hold the pieces together while they cured. Bondrite do caution about NOT using an excessive clamping force as it can lead to crazing of the sheets.

The data sheet advice is that handling strength is achieved after about 3 hours at 20 deg C. I covered up the glued area with microfibre cloths to protect it from the sun and had a sit down with an iced coffee and a sammich.

Next Job…

If you read my previous post “Put Your Lights On Mate…” then you might have picked up on my request at the end for any recommendations for a UK supplier of good quality replacement LED bulbs. Well Peter Farnham posted in the comments section and recommended Classic Car LEDS Ltd ( https://www.classiccarleds.co.uk ). A couple of days later I dropped them an email with a few questions and Duncan replied back with some details. A few more exchanges of emails ended up with me ordering replacement LED bulbs for the new fog lights, indicator lights and stop/tail lights. This is not a sponsored post and I paid the required number of beer tokens for these.

Not much to say on changing the bulbs over… what was noticeable was though they did have a bit heft to them… they seem really really well made. No flexing, solid and just had that feel about them that made me go “Mmmm” while nodding slowly…. almost in a Joey Tribbiani moment.

I did try to do before and after photos to compare the light output…. even tried a short video with one side changed over and the other side on conventional filament bulbs… all failed…. not as easy as it looks in strong sunlight even though the caravan rear was in shade. However the photo above is one side converted over. This is showing the indicator, tail light and fog light lit. The indicators are really bright. Having the LEDS the same colour as the lens works well. The tail light is a strong red and bright while the fog light looks washed out and white… it’s down to the fact that it is so bright its over exposed…. the exposure is correct for the indicator and tail light but the fog light is amazingly bright.. and red.

On the VW Amarok I haven’t had any canbus warnings… I even plugged in my reader to check… all good and no strobing or hyper flash.

To say I’m chuffed with these LED bulbs is a bit of an understatement… if you suffer from rear light envy as you follow one of those gloriously illuminated trucks down the motorway, drop Duncan an email at sales@classiccarleds.co.uk and tell him I sent you. Sort out your rear lights and never again have someone with four megawatts of light bars and spots flashing you and shouting “Put Your Lights On Mate” as they simulate a starship going into warp drive passing you.

Another small job next…

I’d had this gadget for a while and I can’t remember where I got it from. I think it was from a caravan shop at a dealer near York that we visited a while ago.

Simply it’s a security head bolt with a hardened shroud that replaces the normal jockey wheel clamp handle. When it’s installed it is flush with the A frame cover and pretty difficult to get to. It comes with a short handle and socket that fits the security bolt head. I did try with a couple of sockets but the shroud makes it almost impossible to even knock a socket on with a hammer. So if anyone want’s to nick the caravan they now also have to contend with the hassle of getting round my jockey wheel clamp. As I always leave the caravan nose high in storage you can’t even pick it up and drop it on to a tow ball. Hey if it makes them try elsewhere… it works for me.

Thinking about the next step…

This is going to be a big one. I’ve been planning this for a few weeks now and it involves two or three drawings… some detailed planning and I’ve been checking equipment specs in detail. The last stage was to sit and stare at the space available in the caravan and work out Tetris style how it is all physically going to fit in and how much of the existing kit will be removed. More to come soon!

Back to the window…

OK I bet you have been wondering how I got on. Well after nearly five hours of curing time I disassembled my contraption holding the window open and it seems to have worked OK. I can see that it has bonded all along the bottom edge. I could have put a bit more glue in at one spot and needs a light clean up all along the bottom edge to remove what has oozed out. I’ll leave that for at least another 48 hours before attempting to gently sand it off.

All in all I’m pleased with the result and hope to see that it will stand up to the test of time.