Monty the Red Campervan

[mike202]

thanks guys.



Well we went to Harewood House for the VW Festival, just for an overnight stay, and got there Saturday about 1.00pm. The family camping section was packed and we found a few square metres to park on under a tree.

Went around the cars and buses on display and I spoke to three or four early bay owners. A guy from Sunderland and another local guy with a nice blue tintop Danbury ( I think) that he had restored really well. Unfortunately I forgot my camera so no pics :roll:
Also bumped into Lee (DubBgood2me) and got to see his hard looking green bus before he sold it this week.

Nice to chat to the EB owners, although there weren't that many on display. There was loads of nice old Beetles and plenty of modern VW's. It is a nice setting though in the grounds of Harewood House.

We decided to move to General camping later on in the afternoon, and there was more space here. On Sunday we had a quick look around but had to leave early after lunch. I did take a few pics.

Our pitch on the edge of the camping area


saw this crazy combo


Saw a couple of cool Samba's




and a talking car!


Must be the first show I forgot to take any pics of earlybays :lol: :roll:

 

[geordie]

Mike

Nice pics fella

Geordie

 

[DubBGood2Me]

Good to finally meet you Mike and put a face to a name.

Saw your van later on Saturday. Looking sweet. I do like my low buses but stocks rock too.

 

[mike202]

thanks, looking forward to seeing your double crew cab thread.

 

[mike202]

Minor catastrophe- the water tank in the sink unit has leaked water onto the flooring layers. :x

On the last camping trip I noticed a small trickle of water coming from under the sink unit. I didn't realise how bad it was, and left it for a couple of weeks or so. Yesterday I thought I would take out the sink unit again to investigate. Oh dear! smell of mould and damp, so out comes all the furniture (third time now!) and remove the floor to find green and black mould on the laminate sub floor and the paint lifting in some areas from the metal floor under that. In the 'key holes' the water was a few mm deep. :roll:

I painted the floor a couple of years ago and fortunately there were just a few areas that I needed to scrape up and re-paint. I thoroughly washed the two piece flooring and again the damage doesn't look too bad. Luckily the weather was warm.

I checked the Campmobile water tank and found that there was a leak from the drain pipe where it enters the tank, a constant drip, drip. I suppose it wouldn't actually take that much water to do this, but I won't be using the water tank again. I suppose after 45 years it's understandable.

Bit annoying as I was intending going away this weekend, but will now have to make sure the van is ready for Busfest next week.

On the positive side it was an opportunity to replace the ply panel where the ward robe is and remove the fibre glass insulation. I didn't do this one panel earlier this year when I replaced all the other ply panels. Also re-fixed the curtain on it's board next to the wardrobe.

 

[Myvanway]

Dito^^^^^^^^^
Pain in the arse as id already had the interior out twice, same as.. split outlet on tank (Which is now fixed) crazy how much water they hold!!
This time round I also took the opportunity to replace the ply floor and vinyl and spruce up a bit!


I don't fill the tank any more just use bottles.... pain in the arse taking westy interiors out!!! :lol:

 

[mike202]

I don't fill the tank any more just use bottles.... pain in the arse taking westy interiors out!!! :lol:

You said it :lol:

 

[geordie]

Nightmere Mike

fitted my tank a few weeks ago and was a bit hesitate then, after reading your post I'm not so sure about using it.

best wishes with all that work.

geordie

 

[mike202]

Thanks, I'm almost ready to put everything back in now.

Thing is the tank has been fine for four years. At least I hadn't noticed any leaks before. It's not really too much hassle to use a water container/ bottled water. I mean you don't really need the massive capacity of the Campmobile tank unless you are going into the desert for a week!

If you are concerned about using your tank I would just check it thoroughly for leaks, out of the bus. I haven't really looked at any fixes for the leaks I had yet. However, I can't really see me bothering too much as the problem is any leak is pretty much invisible for a long time, and I don't want this to happen again! :evil:

 

[Bluesnailman]

sorry to learn about the leak, ironic that we should suffer such things in an air cooled vehicle......

i did successfully fix a leak in a tank using a blow torch. But don't drop it afterwards, as they can break into lots of small pieces!

 

[aogrady]

Hi.

Bad luck with the tank. Will be interesting to see if the fibreglass has held any moisture behind the panel, people say it does, but westfalia used it, I found it behind my panels

Cheers

Alistair

 

[mike202]

sorry to learn about the leak, ironic that we should suffer such things in an air cooled vehicle......

i did successfully fix a leak in a tank using a blow torch. But don't drop it afterwards, as they can break into lots of small pieces!

yea good idea, I already used heat to fix the holes made by PO when the amp mount was screwed straight through the seat stand into the water tank. :roll:

 

[mike202]

Hi.

Bad luck with the tank. Will be interesting to see if the fibreglass has held any moisture behind the panel, people say it does, but westfalia used it, I found it behind my panels

Cheers

Alistair

Alistair, the panels are mint behind the insulation I swapped out the fibre glass behind the other panels as well and they were all perfect. The only reason I got rid of it was because it was disintegrating and shedding fibres. The Dacron polyester replacement should not hold onto moisture either though. I wouldn't use anything that would absorb any damp in a campervan :shock:

:mrgreen:

 

[aogrady]

Interesting, though I just used regular fibreglass type stuff, bagged and taped up, and found out about the moisture issue's afterwards.

I plan to take it all out again and either leave the voids empty or use celotex type stuff, or sheepwool matting, I have a massive bag of that!

Cheers

Alistair

 

[mike202]

Got all the floor back in after thorough drying out and some re-painting of the cargo floor. I also got a new threshold strip from NLA VW. It's just like the OG one. After an oil change and adjusting the four drum brakes Monty was all ready for another trip. I also got one of these as another precaution. It's fitted underneath the tank before the engine.

Fuel cutoff solenoid


Busfest 2015.

Great to meet some earlybayers again and see some cool veedubs. Boy, it was cold in the evening this year though! Had to keep coming back to the van on Fri/Sat to warm up with the heater on full. :lol:

Putting the EB lineup on Saturday in the field wasn't so good this year, as has been said by others. Although there were still quite a few people looking around the vans it wasn't anything like previous years, when the lineup was in the centre outside the hangars.









one day my engine bay will look as good as Pete's (Toffo24)



some other shots




we went on from here to south Wales

 

[mike202]

After Busfest we went on to Bracelands campsite in the Forest of Dean, for a couple of nights.





Symonds Yat



We then drove west to St Davids in Pembrokeshire. The smallest city in Britain, it even has a cathedral.



Stayed at a lovely campsite called Caerfai Bay with fantastic views over the sea, although you do get the breeze to go with the views. We had good weather, and it had warmed up after the weekend. At times it felt like looking out onto the Med. 8) (probably after a couple of San Miguels :lol: )






Altogether 900 + miles round trip. Hardly used any oil and no problems.

 

[gninnam]

Sounds like the van is living up to your expectations and looking V nice in the photo's 8)
I hope one day to be in the same situation.

 

[markevo30]

Great photos Mike. That last campsite looks ace.

 

[mike202]

Sounds like the van is living up to your expectations and looking V nice in the photo's 8)
I hope one day to be in the same situation.

Thanks Andy, yes it is running well at the moment, I think petrol tank out is next project as there is a faint smell of petrol after filling up in the van. Don't think this has ever been done before.
You are getting there with yours.

 

[mike202]

Great photos Mike. That last campsite looks ace.

Mark, nice to meet you at Busfest. The campsite was really nice, but it helped that it was half empty as you get better views :lol: 8)