It's gotta get worse before it gets better....

Todays post will be short.....
In between getting the kids school stuff ready for their return tomorrow and spending quality time with them (involving movie watching and wii playing) I decided to pop my head in Velma to see how we are getting on with the 'ole electrics.  Since then I have been breathing into a paper bag to stop hyperventilation!  This is why......

*gasps between sobs* she doesn't ....even have....her....STEERING WHEEL!!!!!!!!!!!

I now cling top the old sayings "things have to get worse before they can get better" and "it looks worse than it actually is".

Velma's looking Pretty!

So what has the ast week had in store for our Velma???  Well unfortunately not much movement on the electrical front, temp gauge not fixed, blowers not fixed and radio not fixed.  Also the clock that did work now doesn't work! One step forward ........ and all that! *tuts*  The man of the house is systematically working through these problems by taking the man approach.  Yes that's right taking the whole dash etc. completely apart.  I am assuming the next step is to put it all back together and discard the left over pieces that will no doubt remain.  I think I'll come back to this in a future post when hopefully things will be moved on a bit.

We have now purchased a fold up buddy seat to give us the sixth seat required ..(remember we removed 3 of the original 8).  The seat is from an old T2 so in fact is older than Velma but with a bit of "tarting" and repair job it should do the job just fine.  It's not installed yet but here it is....

originally as bought

After a frame respray and a clean up

The most exciting change this week is putting the decals on the bodywork - it took bloody ages to create the symmetry but we are so pleased with the results, she looks smig!!!!



On The Driveway To Recovery!

Velma has been in our lives now for over a week and what a week it's been!  The work has started and we are making some headway (we hope) in getting her on the road.  Meantime she has her only special spot on the front driveway where she can feel free to leak and puff as much as she likes to get it out of her system!

So what have we been doing?  I hear you all cry!!! Well, first job was to change that darn thermostat....

Job number 1 completed!!  The temperature sender thingymajig whatjamacallit (please be patient - I am a girl, with very limited girly type knowledge of engines) was also replaced.  Unfortunately we were still not out of the woods.  That water pipe (the one that spectacularly bust and let all the water out on the way home last week) still needed changing.  We ordered one in (which incidentally coincided with my steel (11th) wedding anniversary....happy anniversary darling - look what I got you!!!!) and so came the task of completely removing the old one, but it didn't want to budge! The screws holding it were knackered and there was no way to get them out.  We discovered a groovy little tool at Screwfix (yes I actually went inside the shop!!!!) - a screw extractor...it failed!  So in the end with a lot of brute force and a little pursuasion (with the use of a drill, big hammer and an angle grinder) the hubs and my dad together managed to get it off!  Bravo we cheered! Then the whole system was drained and flushed out to clear any pipe blockages. 

The new pipe went on today and Velma was filled up and tested.....she started up, she was revved, she was chugged and chugged.........and she didn't overheat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yay, woohoo, whopeeeeeeeee!! 

The clean looking black pipe on the left is the new water pipe

This is real progress but now we need to move onto the next job - electrics. The temperature guage still isn't working and the heater/blower is blowing the fuse everytime it's switched on and most importantly - the radio doesn't work - this is way up on my list of priorities!

On to more exciting matters...from a girly perspective....the interior has started to change.  The midle seats have now been removed and new flooring has been cut ready for securing.  The cupboards in the picture just give an idea of where we'll be fitting the kitchen/storage area.

How the interior used to look....

Start of the changes.

I've also got some curtain swatches and something exciting to for Velma's aging bodywork....watch this space to find out what! I can't wait to cheer her up with a splash of colour and a taste of Hawaii!!

Velma comes home

For some considerable time now we've wanted a camper van - and it had to be a VW!  Every time we passed one on the road, our gazes would follow it as it chugged off into the distance and we'd sigh at the dream that could be.  Since we've embraced the outdoor life and a complete love of camping we decided it was a natural next step to get ourselves a camper and live the dream.

Unfortunatly, economy in our household has improved about as well as the UK economy - infact its starting to look more like the Greek economy so how exactly do we buy one .... well of course we gamble our 2002 perfectly reliable, sensible, 6 seater family car on it!  So with a (very) small budget we began the search for our own VW.  We quickly realised that any ideas we had about a T2 split screen or even a bay were far out of our reach and narrowed down the search to a T25 and we wanted one with 6 seats - this was harder than we thought but then one day trawling ebay we found her.  She was brown and a little sad looking and she was still a bus - all 8 seats still installed - no cupboards - no kitchen - no surfboard shaped table but there was something about her.  We instantly saw the potential to do our own camper conversion and as long as she "went" what could go wrong?!

Velma - before the work started

The ad stated "VW Caravelle with large awning, tow bar and cycle rack", "Will carry 8 people in comfort", "Drives great", "Seats go down to a bed", "All tyres OK", "Seats could do with a clean".    Sounded perfect - mucky seats? so what, no problem - so we bid...and won.  And this is where the fun started.....She wasn't taxed so we asked the seller to tax it for us but they said they couldn't - being slightly suspicious we questioned how she ran and our response was the VW was driveable and roadworthy, nothing wrong with it.  Being the trusting people we are we went ahead and arranged insurance so we could tax it at the time of collection and then drive her home.  Collection day came and off we set - it was about an hour away and when we arrived we were forced to reflect upon the ad:

"VW Caravelle with large awning, tow bar and cycle rack" - Who knows whether the awning even stood up it was just dumped in the vehicle, was smelly with signs of mould, the bike rack was ancient and rusted and most importantly the tow bar had no electrics wired up.

 "All tyres OK" - OK, OK!!! 3 out of four were completely illeagal and the fourth was questionable.  One of them was so bad it was like a baby's bottom on the edges.

"Seats could do with a clean" - you're not kidding! Only one word can describe them "Minging!"

and finally, "drives great".... hubby did all the engine checking and it seemed not too bad - it was clear that the exhaust needed some work and there was a very small water leak, he was suspicious of this and wasn't convinced she'd make it home.  Maybe we should have walked away, I don't know, it was clear she'd already charmed us and we were probably looking through rose tinted specs, but after some negotiation, and bringing the sale price down (afterall we now had to buy new tyres) we bought her, taxed her and set off....
.......we made it 4 miles and she dumped her water - we weren't surprised how could we be?  We attempted roadside temporary repair, just to get her home but alas she only made it about another 6 miles and we resigned to the fact that we needed the fourth emergency service and called the men in yellow out. The hours we spent waiting for break-down actually turned into fun - we bonded with her, the kids climbed all over the smelly seats, I had a go in the drivers seat and we looked in all the nooks and crannies - we found a selection of tapes (yes! cassettes like off of the 80's) - although the tape player doesn't work and it was during this time we confirmed and christened our new addition, Velma Dub - or just Velma for short.

We finally arrived home late into the evening with our beloved bus on a AA recovery truck - she still had enough energy to be driven onto the drive, so with two very hungry and tired 5 year olds and two even hungrier and tired grown ups we said goodnight.

So today has been the first day of work and in one day we've cleaned and scrubbed and she now smells as fresh as a daisy.  The mechanical problem (which we are hoping is just a thermostat replacement - watch this space regarding this) will be worked on during the week.  We've removed the middle row of seats ready for conversion and even she looks happier.

Some might say we've bitten off more than we can chew but we'll not give up on her....Velma will ride again!

Nice and shiny after a good wash

After an attack with the vax uphostry cleaner - those seats are fit for a queen now!