It's too darn hot!

Sitting here in Yate with the humidity up around our armpits, it's as well that all of the hard work is done for the weekend. Dave and Pete at Cannons Forge were most helpful and friendly, tea and somewhere peaceful to sit were offered and accepted and within an hour, despite my stupid measurement error, we were on our way again with a superlative rock and roll bed fitted into janis. We have the latest model of Dave's manufacture with a two inch layer of memory foam as the top level. To say it's comfortable is understating the case somewhat. This bed is more comfortable than our bed at home! The bed installation has also had the pleasant result of even less noise from the rear of the vehicle, our return journey from Worksop was definitely quieter than the outgoing one.

With all the good news, there always seems to be a but.............. The lamp behind the gear/temp gauge has now gone out. A simple job but tedious when I eventually get around to doing it.

The end of the beginning approaches.

We went out on Monday to do some shopping and for a drive in the newly sound proofed janis and it was good fun. She handles well, is very high off the ground and, now, is reasonably quiet. There is a lot more that can be done to improve the noise levels but that will have to wait for a while.

On Friday, we are off to Cannons Forge to have the bed fitted and spend a little time with my brother-in-law. Whilst there, he and I will be taking a close look at the cruise control kit and deciding how we tackle the fitting of it.

All is safely stashed away.

Quite a successful day, I have now managed to remove all of the rubbish from the floor of janis and we took it and all the rest of the detritus to the recycling centre this afternoon. I have also swept the floor and removed almost all of my tools in readiness for our trip to Cannons Forge next week when we get our three seater R&R bed fitted. Whilst driving around, it was good to be able to hear each other talking, the sound proofing is working well.

Spreading the load.

I have begun to watch other blogs this week. I am not the only person building a motor home from scratch and it's good to see how others tackle the problems involved. Currently, I am watching two VW T4 builders who both started at much the same time as I did. It was interesting to note that they are, pretty much, at the same point in their respective builds as I am. We are all doing the work in different ways due to the vehicle and the state of what was already in place, but it's quite surprising just how closely we are tracking each other with work achieved.

If you want to take a look at these two blogs, just go to my complete profile (bottom right) and check out the two links.

Let there be light...

...and an extractor fan.

My new slo blow fuses arrived yesterday and, lo and behold, they made it all work again. They also seem to be stable so I suspect my point is proven, the original fuses just couldn't take the surge. I still intend installing the new fuse box, however, as I want more control of the lighting than I have at present.

Final extractions.

Well, the double seat is now out of janis and I have even managed to remove one of the four remaining bolts. It's not easy because of age and the solidity of the original build but, none the less, it is beginning to work for me. I have already got through two of the five plasma cutting discs I bought on Saturday but, as I am cutting through welds and not just metal, I'm not so surprised. Number two will be a problem again but three and four should be easier as they aren't welded. Once they are removed, I no longer have a need to keep her outside the house and I will be able to drive her again so that's something to look forward to. In addition, within the next three weeks, I hope to be driving up to Cannons Forge to have the R&R bed fitted.

Mission Statement 2

I have just re read the first few posts on this blog and, believe it or not, I haven't achieved any of the goals set out there as yet. What I have done, of course, is to do the jobs that needed to be done and made janis much more usable than when I bought her. So here is the new and revised mission statement.

1) Finish the removal of the old passenger seating and clean up the floor.

2) fill the various holes in the interior with various suitable substances.

3) Fit a completely new auxiliary fuse box and wire into the switches on the new switch panel and get the lights and extractor fan all working properly.

4) Take a couple of days off and drive up to have the new R&R bed fitted.

These are all in the pipeline and will happen within the next few weeks, at that point, I will set out Mission Statement 3 and we shall proceed onwards.

"Out, damned..................seat."

Shakespeare............nearly.

Spent quite a while attempting to remove the remaining seats in the rear of janis but the bolts seem to be turning and not rising. I assumed that they must have had retaining nuts on the underside but when we checked, no sign. I have now resorted to brute force and chopped out the rear single seat with my rotary cutter. I'm not yet worried about the small amount left sticking up from the floor as the main reason for all this is to keep janis legal for insurance purposes and to easily lose the spare metalwork. We are only insured for five seats and with the new bed we will have eight unless I remove the old ones first. Sadly, the cutting disc has worn down too much to finish the job off so I will have to buy another disc and sort out the rest tonight if I can. This weekend is liable to be non productive as it will be our first with Samuel under the new rules. In the past, we have only had him for one day but from now on, we will be seeing him on both Saturday and Sunday every other weekend.

"When I nod my head son.........

.....hit it!"

Yesterday, I tried, unsuccessfully, to remove the final two original passenger seats from the main body of janis. The side retaining bolts unscrewed very well but the floor ones appear to have nuts on the underside and I will have to get underneath to check this and, if I'm correct, hold the nuts with a spanner whilst someone else unscrews the bolts. It's a bit of a rush because our builder is doing some work in the house at the moment and he has offered to take all the rubbish to the recycling centre for us.

All done bar the.....

.....insulation.

Well, the second set of speakers are installed and working well. I was even able to leave the original tweeters in circuit for that extra quality. I have also finished the sound insulation on the firewall inside the old tool box under the co drivers seat. I have finished the final silicon sealing on the reversing radar and all that is left now is for the sound insulation to be put on the wheel arches. From then on, I am relying on outside people to finish the main habitation areas.

My next DIY job will be to install the GPS mouse and seal it in. Then it's just a matter of cutting the horrible black sealant out of the holes in the roof and finishing the holes off with body filler. Inside the cab, I will be doing the same with the holes in the plastic except that the filler there will be grey Milliput ( Modelers moulding resin ).

In addition, I was able to see what the problem is with the electrics coming off the PMR auxiliary circuits. They do all work, they just keep blowing fuses! I must investigate further.

"Why a duck?"

Groucho again.

This is more a part two to yesterday than anything else.

I have the radio aerial fitted and sealed and I now know how I will be fitting the GPS mouse. The co drivers seat is back in and herself has tried it and declared it comfortable. I have again swept the floor of bits of wire and plastic so that it's vaguely clean. I still have to mount and connect the second pair of Pioneer speakers in the main body of janis and the wiring loom for the parking radar needs cleaning up although the top end is now finished.

The roof has to be tidied up and all the gutters cleaned out. The Met left filler and muck in them and then sprayed them!

The final bits of sound proofing on the firewall need to be fitted and the old toolbox and it's cover insulated and fitted.

"Busy doing nothing, working the whole day through."

Bing Crosby, Sir Cedric Hardwick and William Bendix.

The whole of Saturday was just one of those day when you wish you had stayed in bed. I got up early and left Ceri sorting out the electrics. I started to work on the AC side and ran the mains cable

through the bus to the point where I intended to cut the hole for the inlet plug. I marked and cut the hole only to find that I should have gone about two inches lower in order to miss a fixing point for the inner wall. Great, the only way to use my large hole was to chop out part of the bracket. This was fine, but it had to be done from the inside and that meant either removing the whole panel which is riveted in place or by cutting through the plastic wall and cutting the bracket as well. I took option two and it has made less mess than the alternative and, of course, is much smaller. So the mains is in, secure, watertight and working.Next, I had to fit the switches for the auxiliary lighting and extractor fan. It was at this point I discovered that I had mounted the new panel with the holes over a piece of one inch three ply. Cut holes through and wrecked my fabric covering. So, on to plan B and I now have a nice blanking plate with three switches mounted. There is still a problem, however, in that the switches now appear not to do anything. Was it me?

My final problem was that the second CD changer bought on eBay is, in fact, worse than the 90p wonder from the previous week. At least the first one was complete and, indeed, did work very briefly. The second one could never have worked as it had been dismantled and re-assembled wrongly with parts missing. If I am lucky, I may get one good one out of the pair of them.