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Cobblers's VW T25 Syncro Doka


cobblers

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1 hour ago, cobblers said:

I remember we all went out somewhere together and I was sat in the back of this van while we drove along the motorway, I had the table out in front of me and a bottle of beer in my hand, the air conditioning was on and it just felt pleasurable and I think from that point on I just associate them with good times.

I really like these for similar reasons.  I was 14 and coming back from a martial arts conference.  My Uncle (who had taken me down there) was nowhere to be seen so instead I crammed into the back of a T25 with a bunch of new-age hippies the 50 miles from Broadstairs to Gravesend.  I've never been somewhere that smelled so interesting and with quite that much reggae before or since...

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On 04/08/2022 at 10:13, Dyslexic Viking said:

The picture looks like a Swedish registration certificate? And I don't think this one has been in the US as Sweden has a lot of imports of older American cars, so a previous owner probably took the battery from an imported car from the US that's my theory. And the dust can be gravel roads? As Sweden has many of these.

And I tried using my Norwegian phone number to send a text to the Swedish registration office that you have posted here, but it didn't work. So maybe some of our Swedish members can help?

Nibbler

Rightnider

Yep, i agree with Dyslexic Viking. We import shitloads of American crap while we happily export European cars to countries with better taste than us.

We have lots and lots of gravel roads. Think roughly 50%. 

Yes, it is a Swedish registration certificate. The date 2006-03-29 is the date when the certificate was issued. So it has nothing to do with an export date.

Byggservice i Ånn is still going strong, building stuff. AB stands for Limited company. Submits 2 phone numbers.

I did a search on Trafikverket (Swedish road department) and came up empty. There is no new vehicle registered as DOM201. 

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Hmmmmm. 

Starting to think this one will be too much for me. I don't have the time to do the work myself, and paying someone else to do all the work will prove too expensive. Nothing on these is particularly horrific to do, I could do it myself but I need to be realistic with where I spend my time. All the panels it needs are available new and good quality so they'll fit well - (all arches, front and rear panels, rear corners, lower middle panel opposite sliding door)

If anyone is interested in it for what I paid, send me a PM, it's by far the cheapest a Syncro T25 will ever be. If I was purely money oriented I would break it, take all the engine/4wd bits and put them on a pallet out of the way, sell the very good bits off this shell and keep an eye out for a more solid westy with a knackered engine/drivetrain and convert it to a Syncro. But I don't really want to break such an original saveable van. 

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13 minutes ago, worldofceri said:

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Sunrise pic to complement the earlier evening shot.

Spent a very pleasant night overlooking a brooding North Sea, apart from being a bit too close to the main carriageway and accidentally taking a child’s sleeping bag.

How do you accidentally take a child's sleeping bag, you must of seen them sleeping in it ?

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7 hours ago, camryv6 said:

How do you accidentally take a child's sleeping bag, you must of seen them sleeping in it ?

Haha! I have many times. I guess I always assumed it was full-size, but it turns out it’s only really suitable for persons up to about 5’ tall.  As my lad’s 14 and catching me up fast, I guess I should get him a new one.

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4 minutes ago, worldofceri said:

Haha! I have many times. I guess I always assumed it was full-size, but it turns out it’s only really suitable for persons up to about 5’ tall.  As my lad’s 14 and catching me up fast, I guess I should get him a new one.

You should have said, I "mis bought" a decent 3.5 season one off the internet for wild camping without paying attention to the packed size and it's too huge to carry anywhere.   You're welcome to it - (used once in the talbot) "Vango Nitestar 350" here if you're ever passing.

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  • cobblers changed the title to Cobblers's VW T25 Syncro Doka

This is finally living indoors at my new unit, I was never happy to leave it out in the rain all the time. I'll use it all year round but just being sat in perpetual drizzle was a niggle in my mind.

I've got a pallet full of nice new bits to go on it - a new engine for a start! Considering trying a replacement EFI kit for it, I'm very busy with my normal work but I can't help but see a gap in the UK market for someone properly dealing with the engine electronics of these WBXs - There's an off the shelf EFI kit available from the states but with the state of the pound etc, it's expensive and I'm wondering if I could work on an alternative or just build proper test jigs and repair the ECUs and throttle bodies etc.

It's being used quite well as an actual commercial vehicle moving stuff at the moment too, there's a 690KG pallet of flooring going on it on monday, but for now it's a useful workbench.

This is the view when sat on the bog, it's a strange old thing!

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I would say there is deffo some money to be made in selling EFI kits, the problem I think is not in the initial development but user support.

You could probably work out a suitable speeduino layout and get the ECUs made and shipped with a basic tune that would start the engine without too much effort and there would be some decent margin in a P&P kit for £500 or whatever it might go for.

But I reckon 2 out of 3 buyers will just be a bit clueless and require hours of counselling of how to set up a crank trigger and what is needed to tune it etc. 

Maybe you could team up with a rolling road to offer a drive in/out service? All sounds like it would take quite a lot of time out of your already successful day job tho.

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12 hours ago, Dave_Q said:

I would say there is deffo some money to be made in selling EFI kits, the problem I think is not in the initial development but user support.

You could probably work out a suitable speeduino layout and get the ECUs made and shipped with a basic tune that would start the engine without too much effort and there would be some decent margin in a P&P kit for £500 or whatever it might go for.

But I reckon 2 out of 3 buyers will just be a bit clueless and require hours of counselling of how to set up a crank trigger and what is needed to tune it etc. 

Maybe you could team up with a rolling road to offer a drive in/out service? All sounds like it would take quite a lot of time out of your already successful day job tho.

The american drop in kit is $2000 running a microsquirt. It was feasible til about 3 weeks ago....

Now I've got a bit of space, I dragged my tools down and decided to do a job I've been putting off since I got the van - replace the heater fan! It's never really worked.

I feel totally spoiled working inside, I'm usually in the rain or at the side of the road or whatever. Being able to just wheel a roll cab next to the van 🤩🤩

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Dash out, not a bad job really. 

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Some fanny had very badly replaced all the dash lighting bulbs with SUPER BRIGHT GREEN LEDS and it looked wank. I like technology, but I really like dimly glowing incandescent bulbs that I can turn down til they almost go out. Look at this rubbish:

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It'll all be getting put back to how it should be.

Heater box out, it's a dusty old beast!

 

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The heater box is plastic welded together, you have to chisel the welds apart to get at the motor. The problem is clear:

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I've got a full new foam kit to go in there as well, so that random crumbly bits of dust and shit don't fire out of the vents into my eyes and so that I can actually close the blowers off without having to listen to a strange flappy whistling noise. 

Don't have much in the way of cleaning stuff or other consumables here, so I stuck it in the van to take back to work and I'll strip and clean it all properly, fit the new fan and fetch it back for refitting.

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  • 1 month later...

The VW T25 Doka folds away for easy and convenient storage

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measuring up to try and find space to fit another (small) vehicle in there. It might fit but it would make working on any of them uncomfortable without pushing one outside. As the mrs says, my eyes are bigger than my belly

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  • 1 month later...

Finally fixed the high idle on the T25 (throttle body was fucked) and as ever it's being used. Another load of wood, hopefully this will see us the winter.

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Went away between xmas/new year in the big camper to Northumberland. we were away 6 days, and for the first time we had hookup. It's just as well because the solar is doing sweet FA this time of year .

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Rather than rewire the whole van to account for this, I just wired a Victron 20A charger in which quite comfortably keeps the batteries charged while we hammer them for showers, cooking, etc

Drove it over the sea to Lindisfarne.

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An good trip overall, but 6 days is a long time for two of us with two dogs (one on medicine which means he needs 9000 wees a night) in that van. I have absolutely no fucking idea how people do months in a little VW or something without murdering each other.

Yesterday I went "green laning" in the T6 and then popped for a quick night out camping:

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The farmer is happy for me to go wherever I want on the whole farm, but this time he warned me "it's bloody boggy down the bottom so stay on the track if you go that way or you'll be there for a long longer than you're planning" and stone me, he wasn't kidding - it was 6 inches deep in clag. I don't think the syncro with diff locks and mud tyres would have got through it without serious drama, so I kept up the top for once. Not glamorous, but quiet and the pub isn't far away.

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It was bloody freezing, and this van doesn't have a diesel heater fitted yet. It does have a massive lithium battery and an inverter (that I use when using the van for work) and I brought the cheapo oven along to cook some dinner if the pub was closed.

So this was my heater for the night - and it worked bloody well!

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Just to prove it, here is a sleeping whippet on the bed that hasn't dug herself under the covers which means it's got to be above 37c

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I was just nodding off when there was a big jolt and the whole van shifted - I absolutely shat myself, I thought we were either rolling down the hill or someone had driven into us! Turns out that the (single) levelling ramp had sank into the sodden ground, then the whole van slid sideways about a foot as it toppled over  

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  • 4 weeks later...

Went at the rear brakes on the T6 today. In my eyes it's a brand new van, 2016 is 2.5 years ago, 1990 is 8 years ago etc etc.

It's not a new van:

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Passed an MOT not 1000 miles ago!

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New ATE disks and pads all round. Cost 2x what euro carp tarts "brembo" etc would be but I don't trust any of it nowadays, they just put aliexpress shit in a nice box.

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That done, I had a bit of time on the t25. because it's lifted I run upper ball joint spacers - they sort the geometry out a bit. Mine had the cheapo ones on, but then I noticed that some fanny had been grinding away at one to make it fit some cheapo ball joint and it was very sketchy.

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paid good money for some "proper" ones which are a lot better, but the bolt holes didn't line up right so I had to get a file out, which is a pissed really. These are a lot thicker and made of steel, hopefully they won't snap off and kill me411393411_2023-02-0415_13_34.thumb.jpg.818201f6257ca371d4f1db546f4ccc55.jpg

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They do seem a lot more sturdy than the old ones. 

It's fucked my alignment and now I have plenty of positive camber, so I'll do my best with a spirit level for now and take it up to my usual place to get them to fine tune it

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  • 1 month later...

Well this has been stashed away from road salt for a bit and I had taken the steering rack halfway off to replace it, but it got pressed into emergency action today!

 I couldn't get to work because the major roads were blocked by stuck trucks etc, so I gave up and went to the new workshop for a bit, had a massive bacon/sausage sandwich from the butchers, built up a sink, ran a few airlines etc.
Then, on the way home I have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHAT I WAS THINKING, and took the scenic route.. Its a green lane I've done hundreds of times, near Hassop/rowland. In a van with some fancy tyres on, really.
I started off and was just trying to get to the bit to turn round.. It was going so well 

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Obviously, the incredibly predictable happened and as soon as I got over to the north side of the hill, the 4-8" snow was whipped into deep drifts:

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The snow was well past knee deep at this point, the van was totally beached. What a plonker.

I walked home - usually about half an hour or so from here (hence why I was being a bit too adventurous) but the snow drifts were past waist deep! I had to crawl/roly poly over them, it took nearly 90 minutes!

Dug out my wifes car and we went back to the workshop to pick up the t25 and my recovery ropes and a shovel. And when I got there I realised I'd halfway removed the steering rack a few weeks ago so I had to quickly bodge that back on!

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I'd got right there and ready and reversed bumper to bumper with the T6, but a bloke with a disco 3 who was also stuck about 20 meters away and had winched himself out came along and insisted on winching the t6 out, which was nice of him  -  otherwise I'd have had to put my wife in the T6 and she's never driven a van, or in the snow, or anything bigger than a clio, and not backwards while being yanked on a rope!

So he winched me out, but it took 40 feet or so before the t6 wheels really touched the ground!

The extra few inches of clearance and the rear diff lock made such a difference in the t25 though, but realistically if I was driving that instead, I'd have just got stuck about 30 meters further along and I'd have been up to the doorhandles!

Anyway, a job well done, I'm knackered, but we got to see some lovely sights and I've got a story to tell about how I'm a fupping idiot.

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