Hop Farm Festival

Took some time out to make it to hop farm, took the van but slept in a tent as it was stripped out

Magic Numbers

Sea Sick Steve 

 Mumford and Sons were legendary 

Stripped

Pretty much straight forward, some sealant left on from previous life took me an age to get off. 

 Some bit of metal welded on to the wheel arch took it out with the hacksaw and slapped on some primer

Wheels of steel (now superfluous)

The van needed 4 new tyres so i though after all we'd been through i'd treat it to some alloys

Riding high so will need lowering at some point.

Houston we have a problem

It's been very hectic so this is a retrospective blog, basically the van had been a pain in the ass!

Ever since I bought the van if I drove for more than 70 miles the engine light would come on, then it would go into engine management mode (not fun limping on the motorways). so I took it back to the place i bought it from, told them it was “not fit for purpose” and after some hostility towards me demand they fix it under my customer rights (didn't have a warranty). The garage (car base biz) is 100 miles away so a complete nuisance.

I’d drive it all the way up there, they would ”fix it” some times having the van for weeks, I’d go and collect it and about 30 miles from home the bloody light would come on, during 7 month of assertiveness with them they reluctantly changed on 4 separate occasions

1)   The cooling matrix.

2)   The water pump

3)   Turbo bearings

4)   New turbo

So for me that was 8 x 100 mile journeys so you can appreciate that when the light came on after the new turbo I nearly had a nervous breakdown!!!

Van went to VW Bournemouth who found they had indeed put a new turbo on but plumbed it in wrong! All fixed I could get on with the conversion work which I was reluctant to carry out before this, as I thought I was going to have to get shot of the van, this takes me up to July 2010 1 month before my planned 3 month trip round europe!

Windows

Took a trip down to vansport in feb for some windows, made a weekend of it, forgot the electric hookup so camping was somewhat character building.

Here's some pics with the windows in

So here's my T5, it's a 2.5 130 32, with 45k on the clock so it should last a while, greens not everyones cup of tea, girlfriends choice, but i must admit the colour's grown on me over time.

This was its first ever trip, bought it from carbace, drove it strait to bristol, picked up some mates and went camping in the Gower.