Old timer hymer

[bangernomics]

Todays fuel stop shite fest. Old J5 is returning just over 10km/L I’ll do the mental arithmetic later, no horrid explosions yet. 27/28mpg.

Stayed here last night after leaving home at 4.30pm. Forgive the weird format but I’m emailing myself when I find a good spot that is quiet and near to a clean and tidy beach.

Pordic aire.

Pebbly dog friendly. June-sept no pooch in day, early morning and eve ok. Poor access for large vehicles.

Use Waze to drive to : https://waze.com/ul/hgbwh2cq0d

[lesapandre]

Nothing like a road trip in an old vehicle. Bravo. Do let us know how it goes there - very interesting. France has such great camping facilities too. 👍🇨🇵

[bangernomics]

Just spent the day on the most glorious white sand beach, popped over to this place

Port near Lannion excellent crepes from the crepe van. Pebbly beach, easy access and turning points. Swanky restaurants but reasonably priced.
Trédrez-Locquémeau. https://waze.com/ul/hgbtmnqp61

Just a car park near the sea. Free with a loo and water and a very tired Labrador.

[stuboy]

bless the poor worn out doggy

[bangernomics]

Up early today and decided we would do the hour and a half home and take a day tomorrow greenhouse building, so never one to turn an old vehicle bodging session down I’ve started two things at once of course.

Outside shower has become urgent due to sea loving dogs plus sand. Mostly in but for one leaking connection. That’ll teach me for buying a cheap one.



No going back now



No wonder these things burn so well.



Y tho almost



Mastic roll stuff



Many stainless screws



Ahh dribbling connector.

And part two.



Shite bodgy dashboard that we inherited



It was already out for the shower love.



Shit this is a mess now.



Yep bad from that side too.







Cubby hole thingy



Chopped down so I get an aperture that fits the quality* apple play/android capable stereo. Basically we need a sat nav and this was cheaper!



Roughing it up to the right size.



That’s melted into place. Next step is some sort of neat surround and some retro surface mount speakers so we can hear it.

A gentle sanding and some polish will make it look more even. Hopefully.

[bangernomics]

Shite radio landed this afternoon so I set to with the soldering iron. I forgot what a pain adding every wire when it has never had a radio before.



Sooo many wires.



It lives







Now need to bodge something as a surround. Hmm brown dashboard.



The basic concept.



I sliced the bottom cubby again and added a high tech bead of black silicone. I’ll take a pic in the light tomorrow for those that are remotely interested.

Also added the reverse camera and the back light internals dissolved when I took it apart. I just soldered a bulb in place until I can find one.

[artdjones]

I've been working on various wiring issues on a Peugeot J5 Bürstner coach-built lately.(Shudders slightly).

[bangernomics]

The standard stuff is great it’s the 30 years of horrors that’s the problem. Once you get the bodged stuff replaced and the earths sorted they’re pretty good.

[bangernomics]

The camera end. Not sure how long it will last but at least the wiring is in place for when it fails and is replaced by a better one.



Quality finish needs to be addressed. Two bits of black painted mdf should do it.



The cave of shame

[artdjones]

8 hours ago, bangernomics said:

The standard stuff is great it’s the 30 years of horrors that’s the problem. Once you get the bodged stuff replaced and the earths sorted they’re pretty good.

It's an earth I had a lot of trouble with. A high level marker light that was supposed to earth out through the aluminium cladding. But for some reason the cladding on that side didn't want to be an earth path, so I had to run a wire to the nearest wired earth. Routing it through without destroying half the back end interior was difficult, especially as someone had fitted a safe in front of the wiring connections, a safe to which no-one had the combination.

[bangernomics]

Many many condolences on that one. Thankfully hymer put two wires to the markers as using an ally skin as an Earth is asking for holes to be burnt in it.

[Zelandeth]

15 minutes ago, bangernomics said:

Many many condolences on that one. Thankfully hymer put two wires to the markers as using an ally skin as an Earth is asking for holes to be burnt in it.

Yeah...wiring is always fun on these things.

You see those marker lights over the cab?

You want to take a guess where AutoTrail took the power feed for them from?

 

Why it's obvious isn't it?  The tail lights of course!  Ground too, on a separate wire, which takes a totally different route.  Not following the main loom.  Both of which had been disconnected by the previous-to-previous owner.  In addition to this lot I had to figure out as it had just been hacked off and stuffed into a locker.

Photographed here when I was experimentally feeding things to see what did what.

Of course the wiring colours didn't match the wiring diagram either because my van is about five years later than the diagram.

[bangernomics]

That sounds like great fun, I would’ve added new wiring at that point. Wait until you find the sockets wired with twin and earth.

[Zelandeth]

2 hours ago, bangernomics said:

That sounds like great fun, I would’ve added new wiring at that point. Wait until you find the sockets wired with twin and earth.

Thankfully I found the tails and managed to put two and two together.  The wiring route would have involved having to remove large chunks of the ceiling however so I was keen to avoid going down that road.  Especially as the feed to each side was totally independent.  Because of course stringing a whole 10W of load on a single conductor would be too much...

[bangernomics]

Sounds like the bodies were put together before the chassis landed.

[Zelandeth]

2 hours ago, bangernomics said:

Sounds like the bodies were put together before the chassis landed.

Given you could have the same van on a bunch of different chassis (VW, Merc, Talbot/Pug/Fiat, not sure if they offered Ford), wouldn't have surprised me in the slightest.

[bangernomics]

After our protracted break the greenhouse got completed and we headed to the west cost. Ended up in quiberon in an aire overlooking the sea. A bit car ark like but the surroundings were outstanding.

Quiberon aire. Great for cycling, windy at the front, 100m to coast, good surfing locations and a cyclists dream location with gentle to steady climbs into the main town that is packed with tourists heaven. €9.55 a 24hr period.

https://goo.gl/maps/qs7NqRMtQVhygrQ9A




Then we headed off to an area a little lower down and caught a ferry over to a little island called Ile aux moines. €6 return, walked around the island, about 17km and it’s full of oyster farms where they prep and serve them to you for pennies. Well worth a visit.


Stayed in this little campsite/aire at €12.60 per 24hrs which had every facility inc free wifi all inclusive. Little snack bar for frites and booze for those that do.

Aire Islands
https://goo.gl/maps/vSpbz2NLPzd4q6w76

20 minutes walk to the ferry. Bread vending machine at the bottom of the hill selling croissant pain au chocolat.



12 oysters and some salmon pate and fresh bread and butter, wine for Betty and an apple juice for me. €20!

Tonight we are in a free aire here.

No facilities but perfect for beach/coast access.

Parking camping cars
https://goo.gl/maps/jWjuah3Je7Fc79AG7

Near the plage des kaolins which is nice enough if you like white sand and clear water.

Plage des Kaolins
https://goo.gl/maps/awH6ruGW9BXFTBQ38
Sorry I didn’t take a picture.

Birthday tomorrow so best get to sleep.

Oh forgot to update, the old camper is doing a good job up to now. Fuelling up has shown 10.7km per litre or 28.7 mpg. Very happy with that.

Almost forgot the Ile aux moins main forms of transport were these scooters. Most had the keys left in.

[bangernomics]

Yesterday was spent in a free aire. Ok it was a carpark with camping car use allowed.

There’s a chain of them all along the seafront that are parking only with no facilities so you are limited by how much water you can carry.

The parking was here. Parking Camping-cars
https://goo.gl/maps/tngbGAn3nMzVQkYE6

Basic aire with no facilities, you’ll need parking ramps. About 300m to the most beautiful even slope beaches into the sea. Bring your wetsuit shoes as it’s a bit pebbly at the top end but even in May you can get in for a swim.

To illustrate the overview.



Don’t think I took my phone so no pics but Betty did so we have this one from the family Whatsapp group.




Sandwich on the beach and some fizzy pop was my chosen birthday lunch. We also popped into the main town which also had an Aire but pooches were not allowed on that beach. So we stayed long enough for a pic and a quick look and went back to the prior one above.



Finger in pic oops!



This place was called the drunken mussel.

After dinner in the main town I decided I fancied a sleep in my own bed, we had been beaten by the lack of water so we called it a day and drove the 120k home, crawling up some of the TDF most savage sections at probably about the same speed.

Importantly the fans and wiring did their job cutting in and out perfectly keeping the temps just on 90 degrees.