Tag Archives: Maintenance

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.

“Put your lights on mate…..”

28 Saturday Aug 2021

Posted by in Accessories, Amarok, Caravan Electrics, Caravan Road Lights, General, Maintenance, Modifications, Projects, Technical

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How many of you have driven behind a vehicle in less than ideal conditions… going dark, raining or foggy… and uttered those immortal words “Put you lights on mate” in the vein hope it will do some good only to approach a bit closer to find that the lights are on and are less effective as a couple of Ikea tea lights in jam jars. That is the feeling I get with a lot of caravans. In my opinion a lot for rear lights are less than ideal. In this day and age some of the drivers out there need all the help they can get as they even struggle to notice a big white box in front of them in bright sunshine let alone in inclement weather or in the dark.

Our caravan like a lot of other Swift caravans looks great from the rear with nice big lights and reflectors. Reflectors are good if the following driver has turned his headlights on and not been too busy texting and simply relying on the DRL’s to light the way. The big reversing lights will surly let the driver and anyone else behind know you are reversing… but about as useless as the aforementioned Ikea tea light in a jam jar when reversing at an angle into a pitch at night. The rear fog light however deserves a special mention… the single rear fog light…. can you see it… the tiny Lego brick sized rear fog light… the red thing in the middle down low… difficult to spot on a stationary caravan in daylight let alone from a distance on a road in fog. Mind you when that bit of wire in the bulb warms up it will blind you… honestly it will…. eventually… when you get so close because you didn’t see it from ten metres away.

Its time for a change. An upgrade if you will… to allow me to shine a beacon of light towards all that follow. But… and here’s a the big thing… I have to keep it looking nice. Everyone likes a nice rear don’t they.

OK, I searched for all the replacement options. Swift don’t make it easy. The two panels that the lights are mounted in don’t come out, well not easily and I was cautioned about even attempting to remove them. Changing to smart round LED lights was out. Then it struck me… the reversing lights could become fog lights and I would install new reversing lights. I’d towed a trailer a while ago that had football stadium sized reversing lights and wow what a difference it made. One of the first things I did with the Amarok when we got it was to install LED work lights under the rear bumper as reversing lights and that was a huge improvement so I ordered another set from the same company as I’d fitted to the Amarok.

A bit more searching I found the exact lenses for the existing lights in red to turn the reversing lights into fog lights.. it was actually cheaper to order a pair of complete lights than it was to order two replacement red lenses… I’ll never work that one out.

Ok how was I going to wire this lot up. I made a couple of brackets that fitted under the caravan allowing me to mount the reversing lights up close just inboard of the rear steady jacks. This would offer a modicum of protection from road debris thrown up by the tyres. These could be wired to run off the old fog light which would now become a junction box and the reverse lights would become the fog lights, so simply switching the reverse light and fog light cables over at the road light fuse box in the front of the caravan would have everything working correctly.

I also angled the reversing lights out slightly. I wanted the centre of their light pool to be along an extended side line of the caravan so that looking through my mirrors down each side of the caravan would be the centre of the lit area. This hopefully would provide the best angle of illumination when reversing and performing a reversing turn onto a pitch.

“Hang on lads… I’ve got an idea”

Cue the music… no, no doors were blown off during this mod. Right what if the new rear fog lights could be my brake lights when they weren’t being used as fog lights?

A simple diode blocking bridge using two diodes could do this quite easily. Routing through my electronics spares I found a bag of 10 Amp diodes which would easily cope with the task.

For a quick solution I used two strips of terminal block and built a quick blocking bridge. What happens now is applying the brakes powers up the brake light circuit and the fog lights. The diode in the fog light circuit stops me back feeding current to the tow vehicle fog light circuit.

Turning on the fog lights powers up the fog lights and the diode in the bridge stops it powering the brake lights in either the caravan or back feeding to the tow vehicle. Really simple and when testing I didn’t have any canbus or other errors thrown up by the VW Amarok’s management system. The existing (and original) brake and tail lights work as normal.

I’ll have a look at coming up with a better solution than using two lengths of terminal strip and probably build something in a small electrical project box so it can be mounted securely.

As far as I can tell the changes I’ve made all fall in line with the lighting regs for trailers. While I’m 99% sure, there is always the possibility that I could be corrected and shown the error of my ways and point out I have missed something in my reading of the regs. I’ll let you know.

The next thing…

I’m trying to find some good quality bright LED replacement bulbs for all the rear road lights. I have some, but I suspect they are not correctly marked. If anyone has any recommendations for replacement 25W and 5/25W bulbs that they deem are good options to look at, especially if they are correctly marked, please let me know in the comments. If you are a company that sells LED replacement bulbs and think they are the good enough to pass the Caravan Chronicles testing department (we don’t actually have a testing department… its just me) then challenge me to break them!

Safe travels everyone… and “PUT YOUR LIGHTS ON MATE”

Well that took some cleaning…

21 Saturday Aug 2021

Posted by in Amarok, Cleaning, General, Maintenance, Tips

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Our first visit to the caravan storage site in quite a while to check on the caravan was undertaken with some apprehension. It had been over twelve months since we had checked on it and we expected that we were going to be in for a shock.

The caravan was very dirty on the outside but it was the inside we most feared. Opening the door….. it didn’t smell musty…. we couldn’t see any mould… and nothing felt damp. In fact inside was in really good shape. Leaving all the cupboard doors open, the bed partly raised and the roof vents cracked open a touch seemed to have worked. OK, now a list of jobs that needed doing. The leisure battery is now 10 years old and given us good service. It needs replacing… more on that later. The tyres also need replacing and the outside needs a good clean and polish.

I removed the leisure battery which was showing as dead… less then 10 volts, put it in the back of the Amarok and we headed back home to come up with a plan of action. A couple of days later we returned with cleaning supplies…

We hitched up the caravan and pulled it forward out of it’s parking spot and set to work. Over the years I’ve tried all the different products for washing the caravan (and cars) ranging from mid priced to the “how bloody much” brands, but in all honesty I have found Morrisons own Wash and Wax Shampoo (It’s bright green) to be really good and it has given me really good results on our 15 year old Freelander, the Amarok and the caravan. A long handled brush for the sides and some small detail brushes for the awning rails and tight places made easy work of the sides. It was all hosed down using one of those pump up pressure washer thingy’s

To rinse I used Car Plan’s Demon Shine (the pink stuff…. also stocked in Morrisons) diluted down in the yellow pump up spray do-hicky. Which works quite effectively. The two products – Morrisons Wash and Wax shampoo and the Demon Shine seem to work together really well and I certainly found that using the two as a shampoo and then as a diluted rinse leave a good water shedding layer on the Amarok that lasts quite a while.

One thing we don’t have at our storage compound is running water. So I have three 25 litre containers that I fill up at home and throw into the back of the Amarok. To save lifting them up to fill buckets…. I fitted a hosepipe connector to one of the lids and all I need to do now is tip the container and open the tap. As there is no venting the sides collapsed inwards a little so tipping it back onto its side from time to time to let air back in means that when the tap is shut nothing can slosh out a vent while travelling.

On this trip we only cleaned and polished the sides… the roof would have to wait for a return visit. Putting the caravan back in it’s spot lead to the next task…. jack it up and remove the wheels. The caravan was fitted with Hankook 185×80 R14 and inspecting them closely revealed no cracks, bulges or damage of any kind. These tyres were now 10 years old it was defiantly time to replace them. We got 8 years use and just over a year standing out of them and I consider that a win. Realistically they should have been replaced at 5 years…. 7 max at a push, so getting 8 out of them with close inspections each trip I’ll consider we got our money’s worth out of them. After much searching on line and checking out the discount with National Tyre via the Caravan and Motorhome Club I called in to my local National Tyre could fit replacements and beat the price even that C & M Club discount gave us with National Tyres on line. As the Hankook’s had given us really good service and long life I replaced them with another set of Hankook’s. National Tyres also fitted new valve stems, valves and balanced the wheels. I know there is a lot of debate about balancing caravan wheels…. well the engineering bit of my brain thinks that anything rotating should be in balance, so I’m going to balance my wheels. We picked the newly re-shod wheels up the following day and returned to the compound to fit them. As it was raining, cleaning the roof was put off until we had better weather.

OK…. I know… you are all saying “Why did he clean the sides before the roof….. that’s bass acwards” OK here is my thinking…. the roof is going to take a few hours to do properly and when you have done that you then have no choice but to do the sides straight away as they are going to be really filthy with all the run off. It’s going to be a really long day to do everything. By doing the sides first, we could get a good layer of wax protection on them and as said earlier, the combination of products give a really good beading coat. So when it comes to washing the roof a simple rinse down would restore the sides back to their pristine finish we had a few days earlier.

As I worked round the roof scrubbing and rinsing, Sue followed me with a squirt bottle and microfibre cloths… using the Car Plan Demon Shine neat finished off the sides and gave another layer of buffed waxy finish.

A few other jobs were completed too. All the window and door rubbers were given a good coating of Sonax Silicon… this stops the windows sticking to the rubber and keeps the rubber seals soft and supple. Some of the aluminium awning rail needed cleaning. Rather than use a metal polish (Solvol-Autosol is my normal preference as a metal polish) I used a simple rubbing compound so as not to polish the aluminium too much but brighten it’s brushed finish. And finally waterproof silicone grease for the moving and interlocking parts of the 13 pin plug.

What next?…

I mentioned earlier that our leisure battery had died… well after some tender loving care in the workshop… It’s alive! Well it’s OK for light duty. So the next project is to go lithium. I have planned out a course of action and the first step is to install on the Amarok a 50 Amp feed to the rear of the vehicle and terminate in an Anderson connector. This will allow me to use the full capability of the Amarok’s large alternator to charge Lithium batteries in the caravan via a dedicated DC to DC charger. Next stage will be installing a solar regulator and panels followed up by an inverter and changing the on board charger for a dedicated lithium charger. I also want to remove the inbuilt charger to save weight and make room as I won’t be installing any lithium batteries in the existing battery box.

I’m still in the process of doing my due diligence on equipment for this so watch this space. I’ll go through my thought processes in a later post.

The other change is going to be the rear lights on the caravan. The reversing lights are not very useful when reversing on to a pitch in the dark so I’m going to install two LED wide beam lights just out board of the rear steadies. That leaves me with the existing reversing lights. A quick search on the internet led me to replacement Hella lenses for the existing reversing lights that would allow me to convert them into fog lights with a simple lens change and a wiring change at the fuse block. Swop the reversing light cable with the fog light cable and use the old fog light as a connection point for the new reversing lights… after removing the bulb of course!

An Easy Fix…

23 Thursday May 2019

Posted by in Caravan Servicing, General, Maintenance, Projects

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You know how sometimes those little jobs come along that you put off as you think that it’s going to be a bit of a pain to do…. well this was one of them.

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On all three of the front windows the plastic insert trim for the rubber window surround was slowly pulling out of the corners. The worst was the front lower corners on the big central window. I’d ordered 15 metres of replacement from Leisureshopdirect.com (the part I ordered can be found here) for about 99p per metre. It was one of those jobs I’d been putting off for a while as I thought it was going to be a bit of a nightmare to do.

However on a recent jolly to Riverside Touring Park at Betws-y-Coed, one afternoon sat looking at it I decided I’d sat looking at it far too long and that it just had to be attacked head on.

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Tackling it from outside, releasing the window hardware on one side – marking where the screw holes were on the rubber in pencil first, was easy enough. Two cross head screws held in each window latch and window strut to the frame of the caravan. The join in the old strip was in the centre at the top and getting a small flat blade screwdriver under the edge was easy and the the strip simply pulled out across the top and down one side.

I started by checking the width. When you order there are two widths available and two colour options. I’d previously checked the existing strip and measured it to be about 23mm wide. On the web site it was listed as 23 mm or 25mm and available in grey air white.The replacement was however around 50% thicker making it a lot stiffer to insert.

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However it soon worked out that this additional thickness was to my advantage. I could now push the strip into the recess on the caravan side and simply run a small cross head screwdriver round the outer ‘flange’ (I had to get “flange” in there somewhere… silent nod in the direction of Miranda Hart) and flip it over the edge of the strip. The first corner was a bit tricky but my technique was improving all the time.

Once I’d completed the first section from the top down to the middle of the bottom of the frame, I re-attached the window hardware and removed the opposite side…

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This was all going terribly well! It didn’t take too long to remove the hardware from the other side of the window, pull out the old strip and continue around the frame fitting the new strip in.

I wasn’t sure what caused the original material to pull out of the corners but I guessed there might have been some stretching when it was originally installed and maybe  repeated heating and cooling over the last 8 years caused it to return to it’s original dimensions. With the new strip, I did try to ensure I’d not pulled it tight and used the handle of a large screwdriver to try and massage the strip into the corners as much as possible.

All that remained was to re-install the window hardware on this side and check for fit and finish. Everything seemed OK and Granville was summoned with his cloth…

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A light squirt of silicone designed for rubber window seals and a quick polish with a microfibre cloth finished the job off nicely.

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All totalled the main centre window took about 30 minutes to complete start to finish.  Next trip out up to Barnard Castle in a couple of weeks time…. I’ll get the other two smaller windows done.

Finally, before anyone asks, yes I did choose to do this on the warmest day in North Wales so far this year!

Testing the Bosch Fontus…

24 Wednesday Apr 2019

Posted by in Accessories, Cleaning, Maintenance, Reviews

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As many of you know I don’t really do reviews… I occasionally buy things and put my thoughts on the product in a post. Companies do contact me and ask if I’d review their ‘Do-Hicky Mark 4’ on the blog and most of the time I decline. Why? Well a lot of them stipulate that they want to see anything I write before it’s posted, we’ll sorry no. If I think it’s crap, I want to be able to say so. There are a couple of companies that I deal with that say “We are thinking of importing/manufacturing/marketing the ‘Functionvardle Mark 9’ we would like to send one for your feedback and not for reviewing on your blog.” They do get an honest feedback and I never mention the company or the product in my blog…. Even if the “Functionvardle Mark 9” makes it to market.

This was slightly different. The PR department simply said “We’d like to send you a Bosch Fontus for review” No requests for editorial control, previews before publishing, promises of ‘it’s yours to keep’ if we like the review. What made me say “Yes” to this particular  request?

Well, for a while I’d been procrastinating on coming up with a contrivance of my own that did a similar job. I’d bought one of those bright yellow overgrown pump up spray things when they were on offer for rinsing down the caravan after cleaning… we have no water or electricity at the storage site we use. I’d already got three of those 25 litre water containers that I’d throw in the trailer along with the buckets, brushes, ladders… everything for a cleaning mission down at the caravan storage yard… and I thought it wasn’t beyond the realms of reality (and my awesomeness) to throw a 12 volt pump…. some hose…. a couple of hose connectors….  length of cable…. fuse & fuse holder……  suction pipe… board or box to hold it all…      you see where this is going? By the time I’d assembled all the bits found I’d got half of them wrong and moved the goal posts half a dozen times.  Apathy set in and I resigned myself to keep pumping the big yellow spray thing. The nice Lady from Bosch PR hit me in a weak moment and I thought “Hmmmmm.”

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OK why “Fontus” and not “Rechargeable Battery Powered Portable Water Reservoir and Spray“? Fontus, I had to Google it – In ancient Roman religion, Fontus or Fons (plural Fontes, “Font” or “Source”) was a god of wells and springs. So that answers that question. Now you know why I don’t work in product marketing! The box arrived and I was surprised at the heft of the box. The actual unit itself weighs in at just under 10 Kgs…. and has a water reservoir capacity of 15 litres.

So what is it… well basically it’s a Rechargeable Battery Powered Portable Water Reservoir and Spray Unit. You fill it up with water, insert the rechargeable battery, connect the included hose and spray head, push the ON button and squeeze the trigger. Is it a jet wash? No, it runs at a max of around 1.5 MPa that’s 15 Bar or 217 PSI to you or me or if you are really old 14.8 Atmospheres. So it’s not a jet washer.

Now here is the thing that has me fascinated. On the top there is a three position power switch. While testing (read playing around) I could tell it changed the power… but also it seemed to change the amount of water without affecting the spray pattern or distance it should spray the jet of water I could do the same width ‘fan’ of water on each of the three power settings but with three volumes of water. (OK I know the physics behind it… no need to comment.)

When washing the car when it comes to rinsing off I normally have my hosepipe rose set on ‘rain’ so its a constant rain shower and proceed to go round the whole vehicle rinsing off the shampoo (yes I shampoo my vehicles… get over it) Now with the Fontus I used the horizontal fan setting not he trigger and could literal have a line of water that I just moved down the body panel pushing the shampoo suds down as it went. I was amazed I could do the whole of the VW Amarok.. Which isn’t small… on less than 15 litres on the lowest power setting. That is some serious water saving there.

The battery duration is unknown at the moment. It comes complete with a 18 volt 2.5 Ah battery and charger, that are as far as I know the same Bosch fitting as used on many of their power tools. SO if you already have Bosch power tools it’s Billy Bonus time… another charger and battery for your tools and spare batteries for your Fontus. (Curse my early lifestyle choices for going with Makita and DeWalt.) I believe there are also 4.0Ah and 6.0Ah batteries available in the range.

Toy or Tool?

After first thinking what a great idea…. I had a look at the price… an eye watering mahhosive amount… list price. However as everyone knows “Google is you friend” a quick Google later and John Lewis & Partners have it down to £209* (*at the time of writing) Now that is not a small amount so the question is… expensive toy or tool? Well, After my initial “testing [read playing about again] I’d been jet washing in the front garden over Easter… around five hours worth of jet washing in fact and the front door and windows were to say the least showing the dried on signs of mud splattering. Now Sue is understanding, but waiting for the window cleaner to deal with it was not an excuse I was going to get away with! Not wanting to drag the hosepipe round to the front of the house again, I had a “Ha.. I have just the tool for that” moment and having already recharged the battery and topped off the water tank I wheeled the Bosch Fontus out of the garage and round to the front of the house. A quick light spray to wet each window and door, wipe down with a soapy sponge and rinse off with the Fontus. Done in ten minutes. It’s also completed several other little tasks around the home now too.

Would I take it with me on a caravan trip?…. If we were taking the bikes, yes. I have used a dog wash station in the past (I know I wasn’t supposed to) and as long as I don’t use a chemical on the bikes, just rely on pure water and the included brush I should be OK washing the bikes on the grass. I wouldn’t use the brush on a vehicle’s bodywork (but I’m a bit OCD about things like that) nor would I wash the vehicle or caravan for that matter, on a pitch.

 A few Q and A’s…

  • Can it be carried full of water? – Yep, I also tried it on its back, the filler cap seems to have an air admittance valve that stops water from leaking out. I wouldn’t do it for long periods though on it’s back… just the ten minute trip to the caravan storage yard. Upright shouldn’t be a problem I would have thought.
  • Can you spray anything else? – Nope… fresh water only.
  • Can you see how much water is in the tank? – Yes the tank has a site gauge in each side.
  • Can you store it full of water? – I did for  few days, however it cautions you not to do so in the instructions.
  • How big is the filler cap?–  It’s about the same size as an Aquarol filler cap and has a removable mesh filter trap… I could get a Hoselock fitting on the end of my hosepipe to fit through the opening and wedge in the filter when filling it. It’s also easy to poor water in from a container.
  • How heavy is it full? – 9.8 Kgs empty and 24.8 Kg’s full… so about two bags of sugar heavier than your airline baggage allowance.
  • How long does the battery last? – well I certainly got through 30 litres of water (2 tanks) on the low power setting (which was all I needed for rinsing off) and looking at the battery indicator maybe I could have made inroads to a third tank. I don’t know if the battery indicator is liner or not.
  • How long does it take the battery to recharge? – From battery empty indicator to full with the supplied AL1830 CV charger 60 minutes… or about 1 cup of tea, two digestives and a quick catchup with your neighbour.
  • Is it easy to move? – When full it trundles around just like one of the wheeled over head locker type pieces of luggage. If you can drive one of those… you can handle this.
  • Will 15 litres be enough to rinse a caravan? – Yes I could do it with 15 litres. But it’s easy just to have a container with a bit more water.
  • What fittings connect the hose, can I use a garden hose? – The fittings are a twist lock type.. not seen them before but I did like the fit and function of them. They seem quite suitable for the task. Why would you want to use a garden hose… just wheel it to where you need it.
  • What else can it be used for? – Washing off salt water from wet suits, boat trailer, outboard engines, muddy dogs, muddy bikes, wellies, washing windows, washing the beach off anything….  making sure your BBQ is properly extinguished (as I write this I keep getting the smell of burning moorland wafting in through the open windows into the office).

Anything Else?

Only two things… do they make a 12 volt ‘in car’ charger for that battery? That would be really cool and…. nope I got nothing else. That will be one thing then.

Final thoughts…

If I already had a couple of Bosh power tools that used the same battery pattern and was thinking about an additional battery and charger… then the price makes it a good deal. An extra tool that gives you an extra battery and charger into your Bosch ensemble of kit.

The hose is not as pliable as I’d have personally liked, but then again looking at it it’s not going to get damaged easily.

It is a bit of a ‘luxury’ bit of kit… but then again once you start using it… I’ll stop there, Sue might be reading this.

Do I want one? Well  I don’t really want to give this one back.

Overland Vehicle Electrics and Other Stuff…

17 Wednesday Apr 2019

Posted by in Caravan Electrics, Electrical, Help Guides, Maintenance, Modifications, Uncategorized

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I seem to have had an increase over the last few weeks of emails from people involved in building, modifying or upgrading Overland Expedition type vehicles. I think some of my posts must have been quoted or referenced in related forums. A lot of questions are related to roughly the same group of topics so I thought I’d produce three drawings to help answer the bulk of the questions. If you read down the comments on some posts I have answered a lot of specifics that might help.  I’ve merged a lot of the questions into a paraphrased ones…

Question 1

“How can I get my LED light bar and spotlights to come on when I use my main beam switch but I want to disable them when on the highway?”

Auto Switch Driving Lights

Link to A3 PDF – Auto Switch Driving Lights

The questions were from a number of 4 x 4 Off Road enthusiasts and Overland vehicle people. Simplest way I could come up with was using a couple of diodes (details on the drawing) Three switches… one for LED Light Bar, One for Driving Lights and one that allows you to sync the LED Light Bar and Driving Lights to the operation of the main beam in the vehicle. Flash the main beam and with the Sink Switch ON… all the lights will flash. Note… this may be illegal in some countries, so having the option to turn off the facility when on the roads ‘should’ keep you within the law…. don’t quote me on it!!!

Question 2

“Whats the best layout for connecting a solar controller / inverter / isolation switch to my battery bank?”

Overlander Wiring Diagram - 01

Link to A3 PDF – Overlander Wiring Diagram – 01

The best schematic I could come up with that is flexible for most situations. I’ve put a few notes on the drawing. The various components I’ve drawn generically…. all can be found at your preferred supplier.

Question 3

“What’s the basic layout of the vehicle fridge and leisure battery charing circuit?

Basic 13 Pin Power Loom 1

Link to A3 PDF – Basic 13 Pin Power Loom 1

This I think has come from a few on-line discussions relating to poor performance of the fridge and leisure battery charing in older 4 x 4 vehicles. I was receiving for a while a number of questions related to upgrading older installations. I also receive a number of emails asking how to add the facility of fridge and leisure battery charging to older vehicles and upgrade the 7 pin tow socket or old military lights socket.

You can download the PDF’s and are free to use for personal use. If you post them on other forums I’d appreciate a link back to this page and/or an acknowledgement.

I’d appreciate any feed back in the comments below.

A Quick Fault Finding Tip…

12 Friday Oct 2018

Posted by in Caravan Electrical Fault Finding, Caravan Electrics, Caravan Fault Finding, Caravan Servicing, Electrical, Technical, Tips

≈ 18 Comments

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Sometimes things you take for granted and have in your toolbox of fault-finding tricks are a dark art to others.

I was talking someone through a bit of fault-finding on their vehicle and asked if they had measured the current in the circuit. “No” came back the answer. I asked what type of fuse and rating it was and asked the person to just put their voltmeter across the fuse and tell me the voltage across the fuse. “Ah… that’s about 3.2 amps then” I said.

“How do you know that?”

Simple really – all fuses have a resistance and if you know that you can work out the current from the voltage drop. Even simpler really – there are tables for various fuses that have it all worked out for you. I have a selection collected over the years stuffed into the lid of my tool box, along with a lot of other junk paperwork!

I created a volt drop table based on PEC (Pacific Engineering Corporation) fuses that are supplied as OEM fuses in most Japanese, Korean and European vehicles however it is pretty accurate for almost all other makes of the same type of fuse. I printed mine out, laminated them and added them to the collection in the top of my toolbox.

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It’s quite easy to use. Just set your multimeter to read DC mV and read the voltage displayed. Now select the fuse type, in this case an ATO fuse – the most common used in vehicles, caravans and motorhomes and from the chart look down the left column until you see the voltage measurement that matches the one on your multimeter… lets say 0.011 volts (11mV)

The fuse is a red 10 Amp fuse so follow the 0.011 volt line across until you get to the 10 Amp fuse column and read the current figure… in this case 1.3547 or 1.3 Amps. It’s as easy as that, no need to break the circuit to put your multimeter in as an Ammeter.

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I have a couple of these cheap handy plug-in ammeter’s…  although they do have limitations and only work up to 20 Amps.

Although the table is based on PEC ATO/ATC and MINI fuses (download info below) it is pretty close with most manufacturers fuses and as a general reference for fault-finding will be good enough to 0.1 amp.

If you need to know the actual current through a circuit, you need to use an ammeter and not rely on tables but for general work they are close enough.

These tables also come in handy if you are trying to find out why a battery is draining. Without turning anything on it is easy to run through a fusebox checking to see if any circuits have a current drain on them without having to constantly pull fuses and insert an ammeter, which sometimes can upset or reset the circuit you are working on.

One thing to remember with this test if you’re tracing a fault, is you are only measuring the volt drop across the fuse to determine current. You really need to know how much current you should be drawing. For example, If I was testing the 12 volt fridge circuit fuse and I only got a voltage drop across the fuse that calculates to 6 Amps then I’d know there was an issue somewhere along the circuit as I’d be expecting around 10 Amps or more.

A word from our Safety Officer…

"Oscar" our senior safety cat.

Oscar would like to remind you that working on a live circuit has risks and never attempt to undertake volt drop measurements on mains circuits. Most cheap multimeters do not have the internal protection or fused test leads. Be safe. Be like Oscar.

You can down load the table in PDF format (4 pages) and either print them out or save them to your device from the following link: Fuse Voltage Drop Table

Unfortunately due to a lot of my drawings and text being used elsewhere without credit back to CaravanChronicles.com  I’ve had to start putting watermarks on a lot of things. I hope this doesn’t make the table too difficult to read.

P.S. Someone told me that everything on the internet can be improved by cats and my “likes” would go through the roof!

Catch Me If You Can… Part 2

28 Thursday Jun 2018

Posted by in Accessories, Amarok, General, Help Guides, Maintenance, Modifications, Technical, Uncategorized, VW Amarok

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You might want to read Catch Me If You Can… (pt 1) first

After a quick four-day break at the Caravan & Motorhome Club’s site at Wirral Country Park (excellent by the way… already trying to work out when we can go back!!) and a bit of work getting in the way it was time to get going again not he catch can… really it should be called the “Air Oil Separator” Install.

Last time, I’d decided if IKB would have been shaking his head… then it wasn’t right. I decided to make a new bracket out of 1.8mm aluminium sheet and go into full on origami mode. (ps.. after the last post someone emailed me asking what IKB was…. Mr Brunel  was not pleased).

I wanted to make a bracket that passed under the air con pipe and bonnet cable release fitting so that it cleared everything and gave good access at the same time. As a test I did a trial bend if some 1mm thick steel I had just to get the shape…

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Once I’d got the angles and size sorted it was time to move on to the aluminium sheet. My press brake… well I call it a press brake, in reality its a cheap basic hand folding machine but it works very well as long as you know its limits and don’t get daft trying to fold big stuff. It was all about the angles…

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The first two were easy and I could form the lip with two folds, the second was less than 90 degrees so I just about got away with enough clearance. However folding the return that would lip over the front cross brace which was also less than 90 degrees also meant that I’d have a problem fitting it in the folder.

IMG_1453However, a little lateral thinking and taking the blade off the folding machine, inserting my workpiece and re-installing the blade meant I could fold in the opposite direction (downward)… result!

IMG_1454A quick trim and rounding off the edges gave me a rough folded bracket. A quick file of the edges and work-over with some fine emery removed all the tool marks… quickly followed up with a coat of etch prime to protect it.

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I now had to work out how to mount the plastic housing the bonnet release cables were located in. On the rear of the fitting were two plastic tabs that locked into two square holes punched into the vehicles cross member.

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So a few minutes spent with a dremmel and a couple of suitable sized swiss files later…

IMG_1457… and the piece was ready for a final rub over with scotch bright a second coat of etch primer and two coats of black.

The Installation…

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All went a bit easy actually… which is flipping’ unusual for me. I released the bonnet (or ‘hood’ for my American friends) cable fitting and simply clipped it back in to the two new holes I’d made.

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The Provent was installed next…

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… again without any issues. Next was to sort out the plumbing.

I’d done a bit of research and asking around and the guys at ASH… AutoSiliconHose.com had come highly recommended. So a road trip over the Pennines to Mirfield (just east of Brighouse in West Yorkshire) was scheduled.

I had a basic list of what I thought I’d need and the chap behind the counter hooked me up with everything… including the alloy couplers he cut to size while I waited. Great service from ASH and I can definitely recommend them.

Back home with my shopping, it was time to start on the plumbing.

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For securing pipes, I personally prefer spring clips… the type you install with special pillars, however the silicon hose OD was slightly too large for may normal stock of clamps so I had to opt for using the wire type. I’ll order some of the correct size and replace the wire clamps as soon as they arrive.

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It was really simple now to just assemble the bits, cutting the silicon pipe to length as required. I used a pair of plastic conduit cutters to easily slice through the pipe.

Before I made the final connections to the crank case breather port or the turbo inlet port I blew the pipes clear using a high pressure air line.

All that was left to do was install the drain hose, one way valve and drain tap. I used normal 20mm oil line for the drain, inserting the one way valve about three inches below the outlet of the Provent catch can. The remainder of the hose was dropped down to chassis level and the drain tap added and secured with a couple of zip ties.

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The Finale…

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I secured the pipes in a couple of places with zip ties, now I know the route I can make a small stand-off bracket with two rubber lines “P” clips to mount on the engine to hold the pipes, although they are self-supporting because of the short length.

In the photographs above it looks like the piping is tight across the engine, I did do a pull and push test and there is plenty of movement at the 90 degree bends to allow the torque twist of the engine without pulling or pushing on the pipes at the catch can end.

The current mileage is 11,750 or there abouts, so I’ll check the drain and filter in 100 miles and each 100 miles after that so I can get an idea of how the setup is going. I’m not sure how long the filter is designed to last, but Ill put it on the schedule to replace ever main service. The other thing that is an unknown is how much oil I’ll get. I have been watching some YouTube videos made by Berrima Diesel in Australia (if you watch any of the Australian 4 x 4 or off-road channels you will recognise the name). I only found out about their catch can experience when one of the guys from one of the 4 x 4 adventure channels got in touch… even if you don’t think you need a catch can but drive a big diesel their videos are well worth watching.

Ok… I was saying I don’t know how much oil to expect… but it did surprise me that Berrima Diesels posted a video showing a new 4 x 4 with about 6000Km on the clock had produced about 300ml’s of oil using the same Provent catch can. It’s also worth taking look at what the have to say about the current oil specified in diesel engines.

The other thing I noticed was when I left the engine ticking over for about ten minutes. Bearing in mind I had just come back from West Yorkshire via the M62 and M60 and started the pipe install as soon as I got back so the engine was still hot, the difference in temperature between the short length of pipe exiting the crankcase vent and the inlet pipe of the turbo. The pipe exiting the crankcase vent port was almost at the temperature I could not keep my fingers on it, while the inlet pipe I’d connected too was still cool. I’ll have to get my thermomiterbob laser do-hicky out and get some readings… but anything that helps cool gasses going into the turbo has to be of benefit right?

That’s it for now, I know it’s not caravanning related that much… unless you want to get the best out of your diesel while towing. I promise the next one will be caravan related, honest!

As in part one I’d also like to give a shout out to Charles at HumbleMechanic.com for all the information and videos he produces about VW vehicles. Charles has been an absolute gold mine of information for all things VW and if you drive any of VW’s vehicles please be sure to drop in on his YouTube channel and take a look. 

Catch Me If You Can…

17 Sunday Jun 2018

Posted by in Accessories, Amarok, Maintenance, Modifications, Technical, Towing, Uncategorized

≈ 7 Comments

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I’m installing a “Catch Can” can on our VW Amarok and this little posting is all about it, but first a bit of history on why I’m installing one.

If you look at modern high performance diesel engines one of the things that they do to reduce emissions is have a number of systems to reduce the harmful emissions. EGR or Exhaust Gas Re-circulation wich is feeding part of the engines exhaust back into the intake but probably the most widely known is the DPF… or Diesel Particulate Filter which captures fine soot particles from exiting the exhaust. The DPF needs to be cleaned regularly, through a process called regeneration. Either active, passive or forced, the accumulated soot is burnt off at high temperature (around 600°c) to leave only a residue of ash, effectively renewing or regenerating the filter, ready to take on more pollution from the engine. To regenerate, the vehicle electronics adjust the timing of the engine to increase the exhaust gas temperatures or commonly it can be achieved by passive regeneration usually on the motorway when exhaust gasses are generally hotter.

In city driving or short trips the regeneration my not take place fully, leading to blocking of the filter. This can lead to higher fuel consumption and a visit to the mechanic for cleaning or replacement.

Forced Regeneration

If the DPF become blocked you will get an engine warning light and/or a DPF warning light to let you know that a regeneration or cleaning is required. If the vehicle continues to be driven and the engine load is not enough for the automatic process to be initiated you will get a second stage DPF warning. When your vehicle displays second stage DPF warning lights it will usually go in to ‘limp mode’ and should be taken to the dealer to ascertain the extent of the problem.

A forced regeneration involves the garage using a computer program to run the car, initiating a regeneration of the DPF.  This will also usually require changing the engine oil & oil filter.

Why does my Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF) block

Problems arise around town with stop start driving where the regeneration process might not complete or the engine never get hot enough for a long period. A warning light will illuminate or a message indicating the DPF is full displays on the dash. If you continue to drive in the same manner, the soot build up will increase until other warning lights illuminate and the vehicle will go into ‘limp’ mode, where driving speed is restricted.

Crankcase Ventilation

In all piston engines a certain amount of ‘blow by’ happens, this is some of the hot gasses treated in the cylinder combustion leaking past the piston rings.. or ‘blowing by’ and entering the crank case in the sump area. This pressure needs to be released and twenty years ago the engine oil filler cap used to have e vent in it. However in modern emission controlled vehicles this is not acceptable and the excess pressure is vented into the air intake of the engine where it passes through the engine cycle and exits through the exhaust. These hot gasses passing through the sump on their way out pickup fine mist of oil from the sump which is carried through to the intake of the engine and this creates three problems. The first is a sticky residue build up on the intake valves that hardens with temperature  – especially on direct injected engines. Secondly the intake pathway gets coated in oil from the engine. If you have a turbo charged engine with an intercooler, this can become an issue as it reduces the heat exchanging effects of the intercooler. Thirdly, when the oil is burnt in the engine it creates a heavy soot that increases the build up in the DPF.

When towing, you generally use more power for accelerating and maintaining speed which is great in one respect for the DPF. The downside though is the piston blow by is more and therefore the crank case pressure is increased.. picking up more of that fine oil mist from the sump.

Now the diesel engine tuning guys and the 4 x 4 guys in Australia have known about this for a number of years and they have a solution to the problem.

Cleaning up the crank cases gasses – “Catch Can’ or Air Oil Separator?

There is a difference. a ‘Catch Can’ is usually just that. A can that the gasses are fed into with an outlet that is fed back into the turbo inlet. Some do have some form of baffle but a lot don’t. More expensive ones may have a gauze wad inside for the oil droplets to form on. A lot don’t have a drain, you have to remove the bottom of the can to empty it. If you look on auction sites you can find nice looking anodised aluminium ones for £20 or £30 but for that sort of money all you are really paying for is the nice looking anodised aluminium. Not for an efficient effective unit.

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 On the other hand, a true Air Oil separator will have multiple traps in the form of differing size materials making up membranes for droplets to form on. A number of them are designed to swirl the gasses around first before exiting through the centre after passing through the filter membranes.

I wanted to get as much oil out of the gasses before they enter the engine inlet. So I opted for an Air Oil separator with replaceable membrane filter rather than a cheap ‘catch can’.   Seems like a simple device really, but there are a few more things to take into consideration…

I’ve opted to use the Mann-Hummel ProVent 200 on our VW Amarok. It’s been used all over the world with hundreds of installations on Toyota’s,  VW’s,  Mitsubishi’s, Land Rover’s and not just on 4 x 4’s.

My hope is that I’ll reduce the emissions through the engine while prolonging the life of the DPF,  keeping the inlet clean and oil free and importantly preventing that soot and carbon buildup in the inlet ports and valves while maintaining the efficiency of the intercooler.

Getting Started

I did look at the kits available for the VW Amarok and all were sourced in Australia. However I could buy all the individual components in the UK a lot cheaper than importing a kit. Bit’s ordered, the first decision was where to locate the unit…

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In the Amarok’s engine bay there is only two real places viable for the location of the ProVent. The first is on the back wall next to the engine ECU which seems to be the place of choice for most of the kits I’d found, and the second is in the front right hand corner in front of the battery.

Installing it on the rear firewall next to the ECU would mean partially covering up the Air Con gassing ports and I just knew that would be asking for trouble in the future…

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So the location that in my mind seemed the most logical would be to mount it in front of the battery, manufacturing a suitable bracket to hang it off the front top cross-piece where there seemed plenty of room and easy access.

This would also allow the two pipes… one from the crank case pressure release port (left below) and the return to one of the turbo inlet ports (right below) could take a short route from the ProVent across the front of the engine and would give me a couple of suitable points to mount supports for the pipes.

I needed to manufacture a bracket that mounted to the top cross rail and went over the air-con hose and bonnet release cable just below it. As luck would have it in my scrap metal bin I had the chassis from on old bit of electrical kit that was made out of aluminium and looked like it would do the job.

Cutting a section off, filing down the edges and drilling mounting holes didn’t take too long and that was followed up by a coat of etch primer and a couple of coats of high temperature gloss black (I only used that as I had a spare can from a previous job!)

Fitting was fairly easy…. and no, they will not be the final bolts!

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Marking and drilling three holes, followed by a couple of coats of metal protector to stop the edges of the holes rusting soon had the bracket in place. If you are wondering why the shape… well it came like that when I cut it off the scrap chassis, but quite by chance it allowed access to the hole which is access to the headlight adjuster screw.

Mounting the ProVent was now simple enough…

It was at this point I stopped. I didn’t like the way it covered the air-con pipe. There was little chance of it rubbing, the pipe already had a big rubber ring on it to stop chafing against the front cross beam or the bonnet release cable. I also now could not get to the bonnet release cable. The mount covered the point where there was a lubrication and connection block for it. It just wasn’t good engineering design.  IKB would be shaking his head and wafting his cigar around in dissatisfaction..

Back to the bat cave. Time for a rethink and to hone my skills in sheet metal origami.

I would like to thank Charles at HumbleMechanic.com for all the information and videos he produces about VW vehicles. Charles has been an absolute gold mine of information for all things VW and if you drive any of VW’s vehicles please be sure to drop in on his YouTube channel and take a look. 

That’s it for the moment… off to Wirral Country Park Caravan & Motorhome Club site for 4 days R & R.

Be right back after the break…..