December 2010 - the Big Winter Trip

Early December, and Daisy has her biggest trip to date, 547 miles in 2 1/2 days.

Leaving Lichfield, with my sons friend "Hutch" it was a little trip down to Lympstone to see Tom get his "Green Beret". Why we choose the coldest weekend of the year for this trip I will never know, the window screen just about keeping ice free and the van temp about -1!, the warmth of the MOD canteen and a hot coffee had rarly been so welcome! After the presentation, I left "Hutch" with Tom and headed back up the M5 to bed down in a Travelodge, sorry but there was no way I was sleeping in van at -12!     

Friday dawned, along with the frost we now had fog, the planned route to Glastonbury a slow drive with very poor driving. Glastonbury was fog bound and after a quick coffee I was back on the A363 / A36. 

Hopping on the 303, a coffee stop at Stonehenge, and group of Japanise tourist taking as many pictures of Daisy as the stones!  

Lymington reached, time for a night out with the Action For Charity "crew", a great night, but not such a great morning after! 

Saturday morning and the fog and frost had given way to rain, and so at least I didnt after to clear the ice from the windows, M27, M3, A34, M40, M42, A38 and home. Daisy never missed a beat and apart from a few wagons we held up we didnt have any problems, altough the fingers and toes took some warming up!

Classic Car Show

November, sorry for the lack of updates, life has been getting in the way!

November sees the Classic Car Show held at the NEC and my plan was to pop along in Rascal the MG Midget, but the size of our party increased so Daisy was called to action.

It was a great day out with some lovely cars, a good auto-jumble and a few trade stands, plus Wheeler Dealers "live" stage, which was entertaining!   

The highlight though was the wonderful "Wall of Death" http://www.wall-of-death.co.uk/index01.html if you get chance to see these they are great!

http://www.necclassicmotorshow.com/

Still off road............................

Up Date -

Well, after browsing the interweb and in particular the Just Kampers Forum, I happened across a "thread" that at first appeared to be reporting the same faults as us, namley the misfire, backfire and general lack of power.

The answer, it appeared was that the fuel tanks can rust allowing mositure into the fuel, the answer - a trip to Halfords and a bottle of Wynns Dryfuel. This seamed too easy and at £5.49 a bottle too good to be true........ it is! We added the bottle on Monday night, started her on Wednesday and no change.

So back to square one and a check of the timing etc...................    

Still, this means that Daisy`s Big Brother Rascal, is getting a good run at the moment!

http://www.justkampers.com/

Opps.............

So, after such excellent service, Daisy has ground to a halt. We had noticed a small misfire and lack of "power" returning from a day trip to the Peaks, not too worried I took Daisy to Worcester where I was attending a work type meeting. We took an early start to avoid the worst of the traffic and had a steady run down. The return saw the "miss" getting a little worse, Friday night the "miss" became a "backfire" and the result was a tow home!

At the suggestion of the Recovery Man, we changed the distributor cap and again were mobile, but still "missing". So, Points, Plugs, Leads now all changed, and Daisy was running smooth at "tic over" and seamed quite happy, until we came to a small hill, still missing. A flat road, 40 -50mph no issue, but under load we still had the "miss".

A few days of this, and then the "backfire" was back, and so were we.... to the drawing board.     

Race the Sun

September and the annual run up to the Lakes, Penrith, to give my help on the Race the Sun event.
Organised by my friends at http://www.actionforcharity.co.uk/ raising funds for http://www.action.org.uk/.
2010 was the eighth running of the event which will rise around £120,000.00. Daisy coped with the near on 400 mile round trip and also the Toppers@Daisy event on the Saturday night! She also made friends with a T4 and got herself a date for http://www.vanfest.org/.

Daisy makes friends and gets a"date" for Vanfest!

"Its a long way to the water" - last year it was at the gate!

Home for the next 8 hours or so, quite calm now..... 

You cant tell, but Daisy is holding her nose! 

Ok, its sign time, we do love signage

August Bank Hoilday - Derbyshire

Oh dear, damn stones

Not a big problem to solve but needed two as the "old" a little weathered!

Bank Top Farm

In a field

With a great view!

Wales 20th August 2010

So our first real Camper trip, a long weekend in Wales, Shell Island our base. Dispite a rather long journey there, we had forgotton about V Festival, which saw us driving through Barmouth in the driving rain, the weekend proved to be fine if a little windy. With plenty of "rock pooling" and some kite flying and some rather good camping food and drink, a great time was had by all.
We covered just over 320 miles in 2 1/2 days, stopping for an ice cream at Snowdon on the way home!
The only "van" drama - a cracked indicator lens the result of a wayward stone.  

Top of the Hill - Good View 

The suns out 

My and our Camper

No not V Fest - Shell Island

Beau takes a rest

Snowdon

I have brought a Taxi!

So this is week 3 and some repairs! Time to fix the exhaust "tail pipe", and it was to be a "fix" as a new unit is going to be required, I guess before the MOT in February. So a new bracket and some Gum Gum exhaust paste and all was again well!


It looks as though a "non standard pipe as been used as the fittings are not quite right which means it was never going to be a long term repair.

 

Still a gleaming new unit (picture from Machine 7) is around £100.00, so not the end of the world, you can spend a lot more on various options but am going to stick with the standard, although I may push the boat out and get a Stainless end pipe!

Friday the 13th, no nothing bad happened, but a family meal arranged for the 6 of us, so Daisy was brought into duty and carried us without hitch to town. Saturday and a call from dear Niece Rach, who was at the "Bloodstock" music festival with partner Mark. The wet weather had left them feeling a little damp, so off we went to collect them. Whilst drying out and being fed, we discused some of the bands performing and turns out Twisted Sister where playing on the Sunday night, this had me looking through the old tickets to find I last saw them BEFORE either Rach or Mark where born - and lead singer looked old then!

Returned to Festival central, off they skipped, I returned home and cleaned out the mud!

Sunday, and the longest journey yet, 115 mile round trip for dinner in Northampton. We chose the A5 route rather than the M6 / M1 option, she did us proud, although we had forgotten that there are some "good" hills on the A5!.

Arriving, it wasn't just the four of us going out but, Father in Law, Nephew 1 and Nephew 2 with Girlfriend.

8, I guess I was over doing it a bit but, no problems and the short journey there and back was not an issue. (although I did promise myself a call to the insurance to see how many people I can actually take!)

Week 2

Week Two, and Daisy is in the care of Jonny and all at VWJava for a "service".

A call on Thursday confirmed she would be ready to collect on Friday, and also gave an insight into what may lay ahead!

The distributor had to be replaced, luckily a used one was available, the one in it had signs of much wear and a little "diy" to keep in it use! We had thought that the "carbs" needed looking at and this proved the case.

There was no "jet" so as a consequence little fuel getting in to the right place at the right time, it was a wonder to the the Java boys she was running at all!

Duly collected and returned home, running quite "sweetly". Sunday was due to be our first "big run" out - to Tatton Park, but due to some issues this wasn't to be, so an evening run to the Peak District.

Where better than the "Peaks" to test Daisy on some "hills"! A steady cruse along the A51, skillfully avoiding the Triathletes!, having to keep an eye on the speedo as not to exceed the 50mph limit, nice. This was Beau`s first camper trip and she seamed a little unsure at all the space behind but she soon settled down in the front.

Carssington Water, a cup of tea, and a walk, so out we got, mugs, kettle, tea bags, milk.... err water.... ok no tea then. Walking round the back I noted that the exhaust appeared at a slightly more downward angle than it ought, "its ok", Sally took a little more convincing, but I had soon "adjusted" to a more level angle.

The ride back was again steady, the "hills" not giving us any issue (sorry if it was you behind!) and a quick photo stop for the "sunset" saw the exhaust beginning to drop again. Never mind, onwards. Upon reaching Yoxall we got flashed from behind, opps, I pulled over and found the pipe now on the floor! - tip here - NEVER grab a running or recently run exhaust pipe - there hot! - with the smell of burning flesh in the air the short journey home was made in a quick time and date with the gumgum paste and a new bracket made for Monday night!

Pictures - Beau gets to grips with Daisy / the Sunset / the Exhaust

Camper T2 - Week 1

So, the end of the first week of our our camper van adventure, and several trips taking all and sundry "round the block" have seen my gear change skills improve somewhat!

Daisy is in the care of Jonny Java http://www.vwjava.webeden.co.uk/ at the moment, a service and once over. I guess I should have done this myself, but we decided an "expert" view my help make some decisions for us and his once over point us in the right direction as far as the urgency or not of some of the jobs we "think" we need to do!

We are hoping to have her back on Saturday so that we can make the trip up to Tatton park for the NWVW show, http://www.vwnw.co.uk/ fingers crossed for fine weather!

Hello Daisy!

26th July 2010, and the arrival of our VW Type 2 Camper - "Daisy", 1974, 1600cc, 50,000 miles and hopefully more to come. After much searching and many miles we returned to Stoke and the first van we looked at, price agreed, insurance sorted and away we go. Paperwork done and it was time throw myself in to the world of the camper. After an rocky start I manged to get from 2nd to 3rd, before "griding" to holt at some lights.



Cruising was fine, a steady 50 - 60mph, duel carriage way, no problem.... until more lights, turning red, ok Sally in front, and no-one behind, "oh damn someone behind, first, come on first, ok try second, no, lights back on red", me sweating and rolling back and cannot get a gear and now stalled!, and its not going to start! Pumping the gas pedal, something I now know you should never do!, the battery was giving up the fight. The car behind had pulled up and guided me back to the safety of the gutter, turns out Skott is wanting a camper - our first Camper friend!

Sally had returned and was now on her her way home to ring back the insurance details so we could get recovery, Skott and I passed the time, convinced that the whole episode was "driver" error rather than the un-mentioned fact we could have brought a "pup". Light was fading and Skott needed to get home and get the tea on, but his company helped pass the time, which was now heading past my normal bedtime! Alone the thoughts turned to the "dark side" had we brought a bad van? The orange lights of the Davis of Stafford recovery man Pete brought me back, bracing myself for the knowing looks of "the mechanic" I jumped out.

Now if fate had dealt a bad hand in passing me driving skills, she now turned the tables. Pete knows all about "vans" and is currently building one, and if his mobile phone pictures are anything to go by, a nice one. The next hour or more was a pure delight as he passed on tips and manage to convince me that Daisy was actually a "good" van, just a few bits to sort! I am sure that in that time I picked up more information than I could of in the next 12 months, so a big thanks to Pete!

Next day, and just had Pete had said Machine 7 turned out to a great help and source of parts, lets just hope I don't need to visit their website too often!

Links -
http://www.staffs-vw.co.uk/
http://www.machine7.com/