Camper home again

Yesterday after work I drove with Tomek to mr. Zbyszek, who repaired my camper for the last month. I left it to him to have the gearbox repaired, hoped that he would find some time to fix some other things.

When I left my camper, Zbyszek told me that he would fix it in his free time. And because of that he didn't have time to fix anything else, but the gearbox. In the gearbox he replaced only one syncronizer, the one responsible for synchronization of the second gear, and the gear oil. Nothing else required fixing.

I am not worried that he didn't fix all the other things I thought he might. Except the engine that uses some motor oil all the other things are not very important. And for the engine we have a solution. Tomek wants to replace his engine in his Syncro, so I would get his original 1.6 turbocharged diesel. We will probably replace the engines in the autumn, as doing it now might get us stuck in the garage during summer holiday.

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Camper left for repairs

On wednesday I drove my beloved Vanagon to one of local repair shops.

The guy who owns the garage repaired my camper in july 2008. He fixed some oil leaks. He's one of the well known mechanics that work near Warsaw. He owned five Vanagons, including one that he built for 2 or 3 years -- a doka (doppelkabine) syncro with 2.5 liter petrol engine.

I asked him to fix the broken gearbox, as well as some minor repairs (like glow plugs indicator light, engine pressure indicator light or the pressure gauge).

He promised to finish the work before the april 15th. I hope he can make it.

New alternator installed in august

In august, just couple days after we came back from the first part of our camping holidays, I had to replace the alternator. The summary of this camping trip is still waiting to be translated, along with first part of more detailed description. I also didn't write about this alternator change, this text also is waiting to be translated... I am sure at some moment I will be update this blog with those posts.

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Heater core replaced

I spent over an hour to find out how this small radiator installed inside the automobile, used for heating the interior is called. ;)

Yesterday it took me almost 8 hours to replace the heater core in my camper, with a bit of help from Tomek, the guy I mentioned here a lot. The old heater core needed to be replaced, because I believed it was leaking cooling liquid. Because of that, the fan blew some steam to the inside of the camper when the heating was turned on, and the liquid dripped to the interior, as shown on this photo...

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The camper is going to be repaired

Not today, but soon, I hope. Not that something is terribly wrong with the camper and I need it now. Nothing's changed since the summer holiday (and how could anything change if I didn't drive the camper since coming home from the holiday?), it leaks a bit of oil, and the gearbox makes weird noises when I use 2nd and 3rd gears.

I will drive the camper to the guy who will fix it next week, I spoke with him on monday and he asked me to phone him again the next friday (as he has a lot of work to do). I will ask him to fix the gearbox, and some less important stuff (the oil leaks, the small thing that was supposed to be connected to the injection pump but isn't, the glow plugs and oil pressure indicator lights and the fan on the radiator).

Front suspension repair

For some time I heard weird noises when driving on potholes (very common on polish roads and streets) from below the seat. Knocking or pounding that is. So I was aware that the front suspension would need some investments, especially since on one of previous vehicle inspections the guy told me couple of parts will soon need to be replaced.

Last week I drove the camper to one of local workshops to have the wheels changed. But since I was already there, I thought that I'll ask for inspecion of the front suspension. I was told that couple of parts need to be replaced. I left the camper there. On monday I got a phone call and the guy from the workshop told me some other parts need to be changed because they can't set the front wheels in the proper position (angles and stuff -- sorry, I don't know the jargon behind it and I left the repair manual in the camper).

I paid total of 2,000 PLN ($552) for the work and for the parts. I am not able to list here all the parts that were replaced (for the same reason as stated above), but along those parts one kingpin and two wheel bearings were changed. The old kingpin had almost no thread in one place and visible wear on one of the working surfaces.

I also paid for the vehicle inspection. With that inspection comes a funny story. They called me today in the morning to tell me that the camper is ready, but there's a small trouble with the inspection. I was told that they can't find the chassis number in the camper. I went online and checked on a discussion forum that the number was supposed to be on one of the horizontal bars of the frame of the van. To see it you need to get under the camper and look forward on the bar that goes from right to left just after the right front wheel. When I got to the workshop the camper was still on the lift so I went below, took a light and easily found the number just where it was supposed to be.

New camping battery? Not right now...

I thought I need to buy new camping battery. The one I have installed in my camping solar system works poorly. It discharges itself very fast... I thought it was couple of years old and it reached it's lifetime. I wanted to buy a new battery.

Since we have to pay some deposit when I purchase new battery (it's refunded when I leave the old battery in the shop), I took the old battery from the camper and wanted to buy a new one. In one of our local shops the new 12 V 45 Ah battery was sold for 150 PLN (less than $60). But one small detail grabbed my attention and saved me the money.

A small plastic envelope is glued to the battery. Inside that envelope is a piece of paper with warranty and user manual. And the warranty has the purchase date written on that paper. When I read that date I was very surprised. I found out that the battery was purchased last year, on august 10th! So the battery is not old, it might only be broken. Or... just needs to be charged fully and will start working.

So instead taking the battery to the shop, I carried it to my apartment along with rectifier.

From Volkswagen Transporter T3

The battery was almost completely discharged. I am afraid the lead plates inside the battery are covered with sulphur and the battery will not work properly. But if it's broken, I'll try to get a refund or new battery from the manufacturer as the warranty is valid for another year.



The photo shows the rectifier does work. I hope it'll charge the battery within a day or two...

Small repairs

On saturday I spent a couple of hours with my camper, making some small repairs.

The most important thing was to fill the oil in the engine as it's level was below minimum. I had oil in 4 liter can so it was a bit difficult to pour it into the inlet. I used a flexible hose I got with a tank of screen washer fluid (brand new, so I didn't introduce any washer fluid into the oil tank). I poured 0.5 liter of oil.

The next thing was to replace the bulb in the left front light. The left headlamp worked only with high beam (driving beam) but not with low beam (passing beam). But it was not the light that was broken. It was caused by an old fuse, as it's wire broke.

I also found out why the two rear registration plate lamps didn't work. The cause was as simple as two broken bulbs.

I enjoy working with my camper when it's such easy... ;)

New engine coolant and new wheel covers

On tuesday I drove my T3 to Tomek. We were going to change the cooling liquid, 'cause the cooling system was filled with distilled water. In Poland we have cold winters with temperature drops down to -30°C (-22°F), far below the freezing point. So having water inside an engine is a bad idea.

The VW T3 has in it's engine 16 liters of cooland, so Tomek bought 3 5-liter coolant tanks.

From Volkswagen Transporter T3

We had some trouble in finding a good place to flush the old liquid from the system. Finally we disconnected two hoses that go from the engine to the radiator.



What was weird, after draining all the liquid, we could only pour inside less than 10 liters of the new coolant. It seems that some water was left somewhere in the system. I have to add some additive that will protect it from freezing, though some kind of device Tomek has shown that the coolant is enough for -22°C.

I also have two new wheel covers, with beautiful chrome layer!



Tomek found out that two of my wheel covers aren't painted with gray paint, but are covered with chrome and some dust. With chrome-cleaning paste and a cloth he managed to restore them to the beauty you can see above.

Before:



In the middle of cleaning.



After.



At the moment I have to buy the other two wheel covers. :)

New pump and faucet

So I have new water pump and faucet. Nothing very difficult, just some $50 spent, two pair of wires cut and new devices soldered.

There'll be only one photograph. These are the pumps: old versus new. The red is obviously the old one. ;)

From Volkswagen Tr...

The new faucet looks exactly the same as the old one. But works differently.

The old one had to be turned clockwise to start the pump. At first the turning caused the valve to be opened, further turning started the pump.
The new one needs to be turned counter-clockwise. Like ordinary faucet or any other valve. :) Turning the valve starts the pump and after some further turning the valve is opened.
Small diferences, but mean a lot...

See for yourself. :)

Holidays in Kolobrzeg - photo summary

I posted here some info on our summer holidays near Kołobrzeg. Now it's a good time to summarize the entire trip. I always liked photos and made some, so I'll post selected photos as a good summary.

From Volkswagen Tr...

You can see here the camper's cupboards filled with food and clothes. We hardly managed to put everything inside. :)


I like this closet, 'cause it allows the clothes to hang almost freely. And it is really huge (compared to space in my VW T3). I think I'll add a mirror on the inside of the door.


Bikes attached to bike mount. If you'd like to buy such bike mount, contact me, I have one spare. :)


This 12V->230V electricity inverter is an important part of my camper's electrical equipment. But on this photo it was used by my dad to charge his cellphone from his camper's battery.


The bed is large.


The first evening.


The first evening (cont).


Mig-21's we saw on our way to Borne Sulinowo, on an airfield close to Nadarzyce.


In the Borne Sulinowo. These buildings were part of russian military base.


Second day of our trip, road somewhere between Borne Sulinowo and Kołobrzeg. It's a result of asking GPS software to find the shortest route. As you can see, the road was very narrow. I was glad we didn't have to pass any other cars... :)


That's me, removing the back cover of my fridge.


Faucet.


The back of the fridge. You can see how precise the removal of cupboard's back was. You can also see my camping battery and solar charger.

repairs on the campsite (2)

When I wrote the last post, I thought I'll have every important appliance in the camper working. But things changed since the day before yesterday.

Fridge

The absorption fridge works only on gas. It doesn't work on 12 nor 230 volt electricity. I have no idea why. I removed the back cover of the fridge cupboard only to see that the power is delivered where it should be. The 12 volt heater conducts current, but doesn't work. I don't know why, I have no equipment to see what's wrong. I tried to see if the 230 volt heater works, but only got electrocuted. For the lack of tools I tried to check that using standard lightbulb.

Pump and faucet

Both worked yesterday. When I wanted to put the faucet together, I thought it'd check the last time if everything works. I forgot to put inside the part that closes the water flow, so the water fountain made everything wet. Including the switch that had to be cleaned when the faucet didn't work. I thought it just needed to dry and will work. I was mistaken. The next day the switch worked great, but the pump did not. So not every important appliance does work...
The photo shows me tightening the screws that hold the couch's hinge.

We're leaving tomorrow. I had enough of cold sea (today the water temperature was 11'C - 52'F), messy bathrooms and stupid rules on this campsite. More details on the latter - in one of future updates.

What was wrong and what was done?

I promised yesterday to write more information on what was wrong with my camper and what was done to correct it.

First of all, I need to remind you, that the camper had trouble with starting the engine and oil leaks. I drove it to Tomek (my mechanic, friend and my best man), he was supposed to change the oil and battery (the old one was in very poor shape) and to figure out why the oil leaks. He was not going to fix it unless it was relatively easy. I was prepared to drive to my summer holiday with oil leaks. Tomek with some help from Przemek (aka Igor) tried to fix the leaks but were unsuccessfull.

Tomek then moved the camper to another mechanic. A guy who repaired many volkswagen T3s in his life. But later told me that this guy won't be able to repair my van fast enough, 'cause he has to get the parts to fix gearbox lever (I complained about difficulty with switching gears here). Those parts were supposed to arrive just after he wanted to go for vacation. Tomek, feeling guilt about this, promised me to loan me his camper.

On wednesday Tomek phoned me and told me that the mechanic will fix my camper before the end of this week.

Yesterday he called me to inform me that the van is ready to be picked up.

All the trouble was caused by those idiots who switched engines and gearboxes between my T3s:

• oil pressure gauge had to be replaced,
• valve cover was sealed not with a seal but with silicon,
• the gearbox lever was connected improperly.

So now I have to think what needs to be done now, prior to leaving for my holiday on wednesday...

T3 back at home!

I just got my VW T3 from repair shop. It seems I'll be able to drive it to holiday next week. Since it's a very fresh news, I'll post the entire story tomorrow. Subscribe to my RSS feed if you don't want to miss it. :)

Fixing the oil leak

As I mentioned the last time I wrote here, the camper needed to have its oil changed and oil leak fixed.

On the june 26th I wanted to drive it to Warsaw to leave it to Tomek for this repair. I woke up an hour earlier than I usually do and found out that the camper simply refused to drive. It refused to start the engine. The starter was dead. Later the same day my wife pulled the camper with our lanos and this way we started the engine. Tomek thought that an old car battery was broken and didn't give enough current to the starter. He advised me to pull the camper, drive around for a while and recharge the battery and to try starting the engine after that.

Of course it didn't work. We replaced the battery with a one that we removed from lanos (one of those batteries has negative terminal on the left side while the other has that terminal on the right side which made it difficult to switch them between cars) and it didn't work either. The next morning Ania pulled me and the camper again and I drove safely to Warsaw.

I left the camper on friday, june 27th and don't have it back yet. I am a bit worried that Tomek will be able to prepare it for my summer camping trips. I hope he does. If this will be the second summer in a row when I can't drive my T3, I will sell this damn van!

Tomek went to Germany to get his own camper. His is built on some Mercedes 208 or something like that. Slow, large but equipped with some very cool stuff (like solar panels on the roof). He left my camper with one of our colleagues, I hope this guy will fix my camper.

If not, I'm prepared to drive for summer vacation with oil leaks. As you can see, I am desperate...

Getting camper prepared for summer trips

Since it's already summer on the northern hemisphere, it's time to get camper ready for any summer trips. Since it was broken last year, we missed our opportunity to go somewhere with camper and had to use my daewoo lanos and sleep in a tent instead. My Vanagon camper is at this moment operational, but not yet prepared.

First of all, we need to change the engine oil. The engine is at it's break-in (it was put together not more than 500 km / 300 miles ago), so the oil needs to be changed.

Second important thing (I'd say it's the most important on the to-do list) is to find out why the engine leaks oil. I have to determine at what rate the oil is being lost. I can go somewhere with leaking engine, but I have to be sure when to pour some extra oil in the engine. I also need to know that this leak won't become greater after some time... We guess that oil leaks from the turbine.

Those are the two most important things. But there are some other things that need to be done or should be done. Or even could be done.

The less important things are:

• install some new speakers in the camper's doors,
• put together the rest of extra wiring for leisure electric devices,
• get a new camping battery, preferably a gel type battery,
• check if the camping 230V electrical wiring works fine (I bought today on the internet an interface that can be used to connect the camping plug to standard socket that can be found on polish campsites).

We plan on going to Kołobrzeg somewhere around july 24th. On 25th-27th there's Sunrise Festival - a well known polish house and trance music festival. We plan to go see Armin van Buuren and Markus Schulz on 25th. After that we'll probably stay there for a couple more days, to sit on the beach and sunbathe (we could even go swimming!), or go somewhere else and stick around there. We'll probably take our bikes along (good thing I have an original bike rack for Vanagons (actually I have two of them -- interested in getting one?)) or do something else for fun.

On this weekend I plan to visit my parents in their summer retreat, and work a little on the camper. On thursday I am going to meet Tomek and take a look into the engine. We'll see what we'll come up with.

I have to complain...

I am not satisfied with today at all. So I'm going to complain here, maybe I'll feel a bit better. ;)

Somewhere around the 12 PM we went to Jeruzal, where I own a piece of land I want to build a house on. Nothing worth mentioning. We visited my future brother-in-law and then to my future parents-in-law. As last time -- to eat and to work on my camper.

I planned for today the following:

• install the CB-radio speaker,
• install the lighter plug sockets (the one I mentioned in april),
• check the tire pressure,
• check why the camping water pump doesn't work.
  

During this trip my gearbox lever broke. Before I finally found out how this mechanism works I wasted more than 20 minutes. I thought that the lever disconnected itself from the horizontal rod that changes the gears in the gearbox. I lowered the box that holds the spare wheel, didn't see a thing, went back inside the camper and finally was enlightened! It is held by some spherical hinge: a ring with spherical inner surface is fitted to the floor, two halves of a sphere (and a spring between them) are attached to the lever.The upper sphere half had to be pushed against the spring to touch the lower half, then both of them had to be pushed inside the ring.

When I arrived at my destination, I started to work on the speaker. The amount of work is difficult to describe. First I had to find a hole to put the cable through. Then find a good spot to attach the speaker itself, using three bolts. I drilled 3 holes, screwed on one bolt, the second broke. I decided to use 2 bolts instead of 3, enlarged the third hole and broke another bolt while trying to screw it on! So I had to make another 2 holes, this time big enough. I broke only one drill... The cable was put through the hole next to gearbox lever.

The speaker does work very nice, especially when I turn up the microphone gain knob.

The lighter plug sockets were attached almost immediately. I cut the plug, removed the cables from solar charge controller, connected the cables with the ones from the socket, attached again to the controller. I had in mind connecting a long cable that'll be later used to power additional stuff in the back of the camper, but left it alone for today.

The work with the pump was even easier, 'cause it wasn't broken. When I turned the faucet knob, the water flushed from below the faucet. So I thought that I have to find this leak and seal it with something. I decided to remove the entire sink / stove plate from the drawer, to take a look from below. I removed 8 bolts that held the sink / stove. I couldn't lift it. So I removed two nuts that attached the gas valves to the metal plate, bolted to the drawer, and eventually the metal plate itself. Nothing changed. I tried to disconnect the metal pipe that fed gas to the valves, but unsuccesfully. Then I took a good look inside and found out that the faucet itself prevented the sink / stove from being moved! So I tried to disconnect the metal element that secured the water hose on the faucet. When I removed it I still couldn't remove the hose.
And then I saw where the water came from. The faucet's arm was made a hollow pipe and one of the holes was closed with some plug. This plug was missing. I made a temporary plug out of pencil rubber.
I didn't have to waste an hour to see where this water comes from...

And of course I forgot to check tire pressure.

Photos will be posted later.

Yesterday we (me and my camper) had a very busy day.

First of all we went to visit my piece of ground, I had couple of things to do. The most important was to plant the christmas tree we had in a pot on our balcony since christmas. It had to wait so long because I wanted to carry it with my VW T3, not with my Daewoo Lanos...


Then we went to my future parents-in-law home to eat some lunch. But as I arrived there with my Bus I thought that I might do something with it.

I started with the right mirror. Since I bought the bus I wanted it to have spherical mirrors. I just didn't want to wait to get them from my second, red Transporter. (The VW T3 multivan I want to sell). Since I already had the mirror glass itself, I decided to change the glass only.

It wasn't difficult, it just needed a little work with the help of screwdriver and glue.

From Volkswagen Tr...

We removed the front frame that holds the glass to the back of the mirror. The glass was replaced with the spherical one. The notch in the back part of mirror casing was filled with glue, the front frame was attached and the entire mirror was left in the sun to dry the glue. Of course with proper weight to hold it all together.



Then it was time for the CB radio. My future father-in-law wanted to sell his CB and I needed a new one. I didn't want to spend the money he wanted to get, but somehow we managed to deal. I paid for it PLN 300 ($135) and promised to mow his lawn twice. ;) I wanted to buy a CB with PA (loudspeaker) function. The speaker itself I already purchased, I just need to get it from the near post office. ;)



I also looked into the engine compartment and saw that one of the vee-belts is broken. I wonder if it is used for any important feature... Now the T3 has only one vee-belt. ;)



I found some oil spots under the camper. I made two photographs to find out where it's leaking from. I suspect it's leaking through the turbocharger...

I got my camper back!

Yesterday I got my camper back. When I called the mechanic in the morning, he told me he was repairing it till 2 AM the previous night and had to do some stuff. After work I went to his shop and got the van.

I was told that the metal part that holds spare wheel below the car is not compatible with five speed gearbox. For now I have to carry the wheel inside or replace that part. I don't know it's name, but in polish it's called basket.

The new gearbox caused me a lot of trouble. The first gear is far left and back, second is in a place that you just have to push the lever forward, third: pull the lever, fourth: push right and then forward, etc. To use the reverse gear you have to pull the lever to the far left and then push it to front.

There is one thing that may be broken. On low revs and on idle the red light that indicates insufficient oil pressure ligths. The mechanic told me that he checked the pressure with some external gauge and it was in the proper range, so this is probably caused by some failure of the indicator or pressure gauge.

We'll see how it will work. Tomek told me that I have to expect some small failures to be noticed. :)

Zobaczymy co będzie dalej. Tomek mówi, że teraz "będą wychodzić pierdoły"... ;)

The last days of april

I was hoping to go on some camper trip on our long may weekend, that starts the day after tomorrow. In Poland we have national holidays on 1st and 3rd of may, so this year with one day of leave absence we get four days of free time. I thought we'd go to Slovakia or some nice place in Poland.

My camper is not fixed yet. I wrote 'bout it in march. Last time I wrote that I was told to have it back by the end of last week, as you can guess it wasn't ready then.

I visited the repair shop where the camper is repaired today. I tried to call the owner couple times today, but his cellphone was off. When I finally reached him, I just left work and went to see him in his workplace (three tram stops from where I work). We spoke for a minute or two, he told me that some small adjustments need to be made:

• clutch adjustment,
  
• gearbox lever adjustment,
  
• fixing glow plugs that don't work on their own (whatever it might mean).

When I was going to see him I thought that I won't leave Warsaw until the camper is ready. I live in Żyrardów, 45 km from Warsaw and go from home to work by train. When I leave Warsaw, I don't want to return there until the next day. But when I spoke to him my enthusiasm weakened. So I decided to visit him tomorrow to pick the camper. He told me that it'll be ready by the end of today... I hope so.

We won't go anywhere far with the camper, even if I'll get it tomorrow. Why? I am affraid that something will go wrong soon after I pick it up. If it was repaired for almost a year (to be honest most of the time it spent waiting for it's turn...), surely something will be wrong. I just hope I am wrong about this...

Here's a photo, made yesterday by Tomek, who sent it to me via MMS.

From Volkswagen Tr...