Keymaster's Road To Nowhere: DANGER! Contains Talbot Motorhome Misery

[Keymaster]

By popular* request I am starting a thread about the joys of the Talbot Motorhome ownership experience. No, I’m not going to bore you with holiday pics. We actually hardly use it as anything other than a driveway ornament/shed/spare room. It goes to Silverstone & a few races at the smaller circuits  & that’s about it. No, this is so I can put you off the dream of owning an old motorhome for life. It’s a constant battle of man vs maintenance.

 

Many years ago the Gatekeeper & I hired a campervan & drove it all around new Zealand. It was a great way to travel & and we promised ourselves we would definitely get something similar when we got back home. A mere 5 years later we bought this handsome devil from Danblez:

 

 

Dan even gave Vern a name.. erm, Vern. Vern was a van of much character, but little space. I couldn’t cope with the constant compromising so the answer was simple, buy a tent to stick on the side of him:

 

 

Except it wasn’t the answer at all. It made everything even more of a PITA. So after a particularly dramatic hissy fit from yours truly, Vern was on ebay & this had landed on our drive:

 

 

An ex hire company van, it came with 100k on the clock, a reassuring* massive service history file and all the usual grot spots:

 

 

 

And a dented sill:

 

 

All of this was not good for my OCD….

[Keymaster]

So it went to the see the Talbot doctor. A bloke in a shed near Congleton fixes Talbot Expresses for a living & does quite well out of it. Theres always an idiot ready to give him their hard earned cash to keep their dream alive:

 

As I said on the last post, this one had the usual issues you can expect to find on an Express. Grotty arches, a lack of metal around the windscreen & a scuttle full of wob. But the camper bit was in great order, so it got the full front end treatment:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Much better. My wallet empty but my OCD satisfied, this vans future was secured as a “keeperâ€.

[strangeangel]

[Tickman]

When I was looking for mine I saw one in particular that was very similar to yours in the way it was converted. The seller was going to put 12 months ticket on it when a sale was agreed, he either had a very dodgy tester on speed dial or I would have had to wait months to pick it up as it was very bad.

I look forward to seeing exactly how much of a bullet I dodged that day!

 

Good luck

[Jim Bell]

Yes have some!

 

 

Wonderful.

[Asimo]

Masking the windscreen is recommended in future.........

[Tickman]

Masking the windscreen is recommended in future.........

image.jpeg

I assume he has a 'spare' at the garage to just put in place as he will do this work on every one that comes in for work and it will be quicker.

[Keymaster]

I assume he has a 'spare' at the garage to just put in place as he will do this work on every one that comes in for work and it will be quicker.

That's exactly what happened, I think.

[Noel Tidybeard]

- eleventy shiter points for not keeping bloo for grill and bumper

[JayW]

That's a sexy bit of steel/alu/GRP/hardboard you've got there. I mourn the "blu bitz", something very 90's about it.

 

Pray tell, what quantity of moolah could one expect to be relieved of for a similar van?

[Keymaster]

 

 

That's a sexy bit of steel/alu/GRP/hardboard you've got there. I mourn the "blu bitz", something very 90's about it.

 

Pray tell, what quantity of moolah could one expect to be relieved of for a similar van?

Thanks. If you think it's 90's on the outside, wait til you see the inside

 

Well in terms of price, they really aren't cheap when you consider what they are. They seem to be depreciation proof at this end of the market, but there are seasonal variations. Summertime could see people paying £5-6k for a good older motorhome, dropping in the winter to maybe £3-4k. Rough ones half that. Rough and sans Mot, half again.

[omegod]

It's a shame you can't earn a few back quid hiring it to someone local, just saying like   

 

Looked a nice bus when I saw it  

[Keymaster]

It's a shame you can't earn a few back quid hiring it to someone local, just saying like

 

Looked a nice bus when I saw it

Cheers Jon. Not sure about hiring it out. Lending it to trusted acquaintances with their own insurance could be a different matter.

 

Didn't I have the fridge out & in pieces when you saw it? That's one of the future sorry saga posts I need to do on here

[spartacus]

I'm liking this. I've got a Talbot Express Autosleeper and obviously it's rusting in all the same places yours was.

Get a thread going about the fridge malarky too, I'm interested to see if it's the same as mine!

Any pictures of the inside?

[Timewaster]

This is one of those things I've always had a bit of a want for but with 3 kids they usually only have belted travel seating for 4.

Plus I'm pretty sure I'd never actually use it.

 

I've a mate who runs a bodyshop and he just turned up a recentish Ducato coach built. He says he loves it, it's the best thing ever and even though he is looking at moving house he will not entertain selling it.

He will not lend it. He keeps it immaculate.

 

Him and his family have just left for some Greek Island on holiday. The van is in his secure yard.

 

A colleague retired and spent some inheritance on a motor home and was off around Europe.

On his last official day I called to his house, just to shake his hand, finalise paperwork, collect keys - that kind of thing.

I knew about his plans, and outside his house was a beige E reg Renault Trafic camper with mouldy looking curtains, pound land wheel trims and daisy stickers.

As he opened the door I just looked at him, you ARE kidding right?!

 

"F**K Me no!" He replied. "That POS belongs to some mad old woman who keeps parking it there"

Round the back of his gaff was a brand new Transit Coachbuilt that probably cost as much as most of our houses.

 

By all accounts he is having the time of his life.

[Keymaster]

 

 

I'm liking this. I've got a Talbot Express Autosleeper and obviously it's rusting in all the same places yours was.

Get a thread going about the fridge malarky too, I'm interested to see if it's the same as mine!

Any pictures of the inside?

Yes I'll be updating in a day or two, need to dig all the pics out and get them into some sort of chronological order.

[Keymaster]

This is one of those things I've always had a bit of a want for but with 3 kids they usually only have belted travel seating for 4.

Plus I'm pretty sure I'd never actually use it.

 

This one has 3 belts in the back, so 5 travelling seats in total. A few mates have travelled in the back but they are grown ups who understand the risk of travelling in what is just a wooden frame with thin aluminium skin. There is NO WAY I'd let kids travel back there, crash protection is nil.

 

It's great to have it but an extravagance given how little it gets used as a camper. But then again it doesn't really depreciate and only costs about £1.50 a day to keep taxed, insured & maintained... so less than a decent cup of coffee... and it has proved very useful as a spare room/office/shed space.

[Keymaster]

After the bodywork was done we just used it for a year or two & it was great, so much better than a van conversion as the compromises are minimal.

 

 

I promised no holiday shots, but here it is in action. Impressive eh?

 

But the more time I spent in it, the more the niggles started with my OCD! I made a couple of internal electrical improvements. 

 

Radio Power: It was running off the van battery & risking running it flat. How stupid is that, you would have thought the coachbuilder would have realised what a bad idea that was, but either they didnt, or more likely they did but offered a solution that was absurdly expensive. A quick google revealed this diagram, which I shamelessly claimed as my own:

 

 

Basically I wanted the option to run the radio off the Leisure Battery or the Van Battery. Why? Well the LB might not always be there or working, so a good idea to keep the VB on standby. I just needed to figure out the best place to mount the switch & then run the wiring to the LB which lives under the drivers seat. After some trial & error I opted to use the space where the cigarette lighter socket was, along with a couple of switch blanks & made up a small panel & test fitted:

 

 

Location wise, I was happy, but that panel was shit even by my hamfisted standards, so I got an ashtray from a breaker, dremelled the front off & drilled a pair of holes - one for a switch for the 12v sockets mounted above & and the other for switchable radio power. In real life, even without the vaseline lens I used for the photo, It looks pretty good - even if I do say so myself:

 

 

 

 

Mood lighting: There wasnt any. I hate using the "big light" at home, and the old labcraft tube lights had the same effect. Basically, the ambiance in the van was not romantic* enough, so I fitted some LED strips behind the pelmets. As Doc Brown would declare... "it couldn't be simpler!"

 

 

This

 

Plus some of these

 

And a couple of these 

 

Delivers this

 

 

Success! I am an electrical genius!... ok, ok I admit that sometimes they wires need a wiggle to make the strip lights work, but thats just character isnt it?

 

[The Moog]

with blinds down it looks like someone has nicked the pictures from their frames in an opulently fabriced whetherspoons   

[Keymaster]

with blinds down it looks like someone has nicked the pictures from their frames in an opulently fabriced whetherspoons  

 

Well its a happy coincidence that you mentioned the blinds. They cost me a fortune... well about £200.

 

We muddled along for a bit using the old ones and some blue velvet curtains, but the curtains had to go for the LED upgradings. But its fair to say the originals were already destroyed when we got it - some had the blackout roller but no flyscreen, others no flyscreen but the blackout roller, one had all the rollers but they wouldn't auto-retract, another would auto-retract but the frame to hold them in place was MIA.

 

The little kitchen one was a right bastard to fit as I couldnt get the extractor hood/electrical control panel off so access for removing the old one & fitting the frame for the new one was almost impossible.... lots of cups of tea, chin stroking & good old fashioned perseverance paid off in the end.

 

 

Also: what about those seat covers? Things dont get more late 80's/early 90's than that. I think they look great, but the covers on the front seats are well worn unfortunately.  

[Keymaster]

 

See that carpet on that pic up there? Nice isnt it? It came with a bright white (!) carpet fitted by the PO. It looked good for about a week, but as you can imagine it was less than practical & soon became a mottled off white/grey/brown with use & extremely impractical to keep clean. So, I went to B&M bought 4 metres of their vinyl & set about fitting it. Decided on a white/silver tile effect to keep the interior feeling bright, but much easier to keep clean.

 

I forgot to take any pics as I went along but removed & used the old carpet as the template to get the basic shape, then used a builders knife to fit it as accurately as possible around the fixtures & fittings. After test fitting I stuck it down with high temp carpet adhesive, starting at the back of the van & working forward. I made sure to glue it down by pushing out from the centre to work out any trapped air & creases. I then put a bead of white kitchen & bathroom sealant around the edges & finally fitted a latex backed coir mat on the doorstep to finish. All in it cost about £40 and took 3 hours.

 

 

 

More recently we had our landing and stairs carpet replaced so I used the leftovers for the cab area.

 

This fella

 

Did this after I accidentally locked him in

 

New on. Bit of a fiddly job to get the finish right but got there in the end.

 

 

[nacho man]

Max and Paddy was a brill show.

 

I can remember watching it with a Japanese female student friend (FIT), who didn't get it one bit while I was LOL CRYING OUT LOUD MAN.

 

[beko1987]

Damnit I want a camper van now!

[Keymaster]

I mentioned on the first post that we don't really use it for much other than as accommodation for trips to Silverstone etc during the racing season. The issue with temporary campsites is this: electricity. Hookups are either not available or extortionately priced. The campsites for f1 wanted £120 extra for hookup one year. That's about the same price as buying a solar panel kit...

 

So that's what I did & its as straightforward as connect red to red, black to black.

 

The kit came with the panel, charge controller and solar wire, so the only critical extras needed were sikaflex 512, crimp terminals for the battery end of the wires & an inline fuse for the positive wire. To keep it tidy I also made use of some trunking, insulation tape, cable ties & cable clips that were already in my toolbox.

 

The scariest bit of the project was drilling a hole in the roof. I got a weatherproof junction box to protect this, but its overkill if I'm honest. A grommet & plenty of sika is all thats really needed.

 

All in it took about 3 hours to fit, with a lot of tea consumed in the process.

 

Extra bits:

 

 

Panel & junction box bonded to the roof (gave it a good scrub first & then cleaned the surface with alcohol to ensure a strong bond)

 

PWM control panel was fitted in overhead cupboard closest to leisure battery & the wiring from panel trunked. Wires to battery clipped down:

 

Wires to battery ran in trunking from overhead cupboard down to bench & through to the leisure battery that currently lives under drivers seat. I have future-proofed here, so if I get a bigger battery/fit a bank of batteries then the fuses & connectors will fit through the big hole I drilled!

 

 

 

Jobs a goodun, well sort of. After about 12 months the panel started charging only when it felt like, so I got another one sent under warranty that I haven't quite got round to fitting yet...

 

UPDATE JUNE 17 - REPLACEMENT NOW FITTED

 

 

Check it works

 

Remove old wires, clean up the mating surface for the conduate, drill wider hole, fit grommet & run new wires into the van:

 

 

Make sure the box of tricks is sealed up

 

I ended up mounting it on the other side of the roof to the first panel as I couldnt remove the old one. Sika is strong stuff! Ill probably get it off with some cheesewire or similar eventually, but its not doing any harm staying up there.

[Keymaster]

So far so good then, mostly just cosmetic changes to make using the camper more comfortable for us. The last addition along those lines was a reversing camera. I'd bumped a few things at low speed reversing in this van (much to the gatekeepers annoyance, as its technically her van as v5 is registered to her).

 

Bumped things included a mountain bike, our double gates, chodweavers LT motorhome and most notably the gatekeeper herself (!)

 

Opticians have told me that my depth perception is not optimal, so probably not a surprise when you consider visibility is quite poor on this van and I'm not great at judging distances.

 

I opted for a hardwired kit as the wireless ones are reputed to have patchy reliability & it was relatively easy to do as being a camper there are plenty of wires already running along the vans chassis so I just followed the route set out by them.

 

 

The screen lives in a clip on mirror, and as we don't have a reverse light I fitted a switch on the dashboard. Useful benefit over being activated by the reverse light is you are permanently able to see clearly what's behind you while on the road.

 

 

When it came to choosing a place to mount the camera I considered going high, but realised running wires would become a pig as would need to run inside the van and to do that invisibly would require removal of many fixtures and fittings. Secondly, a previous owner must have fitted a camera and then removed it, as there were holes in the bumper that matched the camera type I had bought. A happy coincidence and one to take full advantage of!

 

[Keymaster]

Mechanically, other than one notable FTP it's been a reliable old thing needing only the annual service.

 

We had one MOT fail on unbalanced brakes which is common on motorhomes that spend a lot of time just standing.

 

The main FTP scene was this:

 

 

It was running really rough from the start of that journey, popping on the overrun and severely down on power. Lack of power is a problem in these even when all is well as even then you've only got 79 horses to pull 3tn of breezeblock shaped metal and wood along the road. It died on the M6 south near junction 20.

 

The issue was a common one for Express mk1's as it turned out - water in the fuel tank. What happens is rainwater drops off the overhead cab right onto and then through the lock of the petrol cap which usefully sticks out from the front wing AND faces up for good measure. Over time enough gets in to cause issues and rot the tank from inside out. They fitted a flush cap to the mk2 so less of a problem on them.

 

So to fix, the tank was removed, cleaned, treated, an inline filter added to the fuel line for easy inspection of the fuel condition/colour and a new petrol cap fitted as the dust flap was MIA on the old one. I tend to keep a bit of tape over the lock on the new cap too to be sure.

 

Other than that from a mechanical perspective I've been battling a porous rocker cover that likes to drip oil out of a seam and onto the exhaust manifold. A temporary* liquid gasket bodge held the escaping oil back for a time, but I've now got a new cover to fit.

 

There was also a comedy incident where after 4 hours of travelling in constant driving rain the alarm siren decided to fire, only ceasing to blare out if we indicated left. Thankfully that was a one off incident I have put down to very wet electrics. I did make a point of insulating every exposed connection I could find afterwards though!

[DeeJay]

Damnit I want a camper van now!

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.4217679,-2.8252835,3a,29y,118.67h,83.73t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1ssxRrCddMa-9aqXkZVa4ulw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

 

This is still sitting on a drive in Huyton.

Been there at least 5 years.

[Keymaster]

Generally speaking, the interior facilities have worked well. However last summer we had an issue with the fridge.

 

It's a 3 way Electrolux 212 which means it will run on 240v when on hookup, 12v on the road using a feed from the alternator and gas if hookup is unavailable.

 

Running on gas can be a problem with these if youre not parked on the level but this particular fridge seems a bit more forgiving than others. To ignite, turn the gas on, flick a switch for the piezco ignition and eventually you'll hear a "whoomph" as it fires up.

 

We went through an awful lot of sour milk in Silverstone 2016 because it wouldn't "whoomph". The piezco was merrily ticking away and gas could be smelt, but I couldn't see the ignition flash in the window at the bottom of the fridge. Conclusion: the ignition wire has fallen out of the gas chamber.

 

Back home & out it comes:

 

 

 

It sort of looks like I know what I'm doing on those pics doesn't it? I didn't! But I did track the wire from the switch down the back of the fridge and there it was, flapping about, connected to nothing. Poked it into a suitable looking hole and...

 

 

GREAT SUCCESS!

 

Made sure the wire was securely fixed back in place and then wrestled it all back into the kitchen unit.

 

4 years after we bought it & so far it's been relatively plain sailing... things were about to change. Next chapter: DAMP & P.O. BODGES.

[3VOM]

If this is a 2l petrol then there is some rearranging that people do with the fuel pipes and filters IIRC as the mechanical pump isn't great (plus they suffer from crap in the tank as you have discovered). Also, there is a tweak of filling the gearbox slightly higher than originally marked because there is something to do with a baffle in the box and top gear getting under lubricated. Owners club (TalbotOC.com) will have details.

[Keymaster]

 

 

If this is a 2l petrol then there is some rearranging that people do with the fuel pipes and filters IIRC as the mechanical pump isn't great (plus they suffer from crap in the tank as you have discovered). Also, there is a tweak of filling the gearbox slightly higher than originally marked because there is something to do with a baffle in the box and top gear getting under lubricated. Owners club (TalbotOC.com) will have details.

Yep, I'm running a facet solid state electric pump on this. It already had a Chinese copy fitted when we got it, but that shat itself during the FTP.