Another Sherpa Autosleeper story!

[jaycey001]

Hello

 

This is my first post and I was inspired to share my Sherpa Auto sleeper story after reading "scooters" post.

 

It all started after a trip to southwold where I became obsessed with the idea of owning a campervan... free holidays and the opportunity to travel the world!! Great idea.. So as soon as i got home I sold my trust Volvo 850 and started scouring eBay. low and behold a 1984 freight rover Sherpa, it had a 2ltr engine and an automatic transmision, seemed perfect after some phone calls to the owner me and my other half were on the train to Bedford at 7pm to collect my new toy:-)

 

It was taxed on the way down via internet and the cash was handed over. Full service history and full mot and only 55k on the clock...... what could go wrong!

 

The owner left us and the van at the train station and we were off, climbing aboard it seemed huge, it fired up straight away and we were off (very slowly but not as slow as we would be going

 

After filling up with petrol we headed off out of Bedford, it was on a B road that it was decided 45mph was as fast as seemed safe, all was going well until a loud bang and we lost all gears on a blind corner. The feeling of dread swept over us and no breakdown cover to come to the rescue. After some fiddling with the gear selector 1st was found and we slowly started off again unable to go over 20mph. on approaching a lit village I jumped out and had a look under the van. I couldn’t see anything wrong so we continued in to the night, and the thought of a bloody expensive repair bill!. By now it was past 12am and we had over 100miles to go back to Lincoln, we decided that following the fen roads would be the most sensible rout due to our limited speed and continued at the mercy of the sat nav... Some 4 hours in to the noisy journey it appeared the head lights were slowly smouldering, not much we could do so we pushed on... (I must add it was at this point that my girlfriend completely stopped talking to me

 

It was on the fen roads that we became completely lost and to top it off when we did find a sign post to Lincoln the road was closed along with all the other roads back to town, all the diversions led to the same place... where we started off !! And we were running out of petrol... I had the distinct feeling my g/f was planning murder at this point, on a number of occasions we had to turn round, but without reverse she had to push!! Not a happy bunny lol!!

 

Eventually we made it to Boston and back up to Lincoln.. It was later discovered the main engine support had disintegrated pulling the transmission down and knocking all the selectors out of place... I must admit although the worst drive of my life the engine did keep on going and it did get us home.... eventually! It has only caused problems one other time when the condenser packed up only 5miles away from my destination (after 130miles...typical.)

Since then I have had numerous amounts of work done on it and it runs lovely, I must say I am rather attached to it and yesterday it passed its MOT with only a few advisers...

 

We are driving down to southwold this week (260miles round trip) I shall let you all know how it goes!

Fingers crossed

 

thanks for reading

 

James.

[dollywobbler]

If she's still with you after that, she's worth hanging on to! Great tale.

[Tayne]

.

[whitevanman]

If she's still with you after that, she's worth hanging on to! Great tale.

 

which? the Sherpa? or the Girlfriend?

[ashmicro]

What a story!

 

Welcome to Autoshite

[michiel]

Hi & welcome from me too, great story to start with!

[scooters]

welcome indeed - as you have sold the 850 I am assuming the Sherpa is your main form of transport - brave indeed!!

 

do you have power steering in the pilot?

[Cavcraft]

Welcome to the site, please post a picture or two.

 

+1.

 

Sounds like you'll fit in very well round here, welcome aboard!

[seth]

100+miles in first gear = shite dedication of a Roy Castle magnitude.

 

[jaycey001]

Hi

 

Power steering?? I Wish! i must admit i do break out in a sweat when parking.. its Hard work!!

 

Luckaly my other half has a volvo v70 which is OUR main car (notice the emphasis on our lol!!) she still wont drive it and generaly clenches the seats whenever we are in it... i think she is emotionly scar'd!

 

it does seem to get used more than the volvo though, supprisingly more economical to run..esspecialy on a low loader lol!

 

Thanks for the comments,

a great active site..

 

James.

[jaycey001]

just uploaded a few pics on to Flickr. never used it before so hope the link works:

 

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/53912304@N ... 986270785/

 

as you can see it was half brown and half blue when i picked it up.. after alot of work the new paint job looks good and only cost about £30 supprisingly there was very little body rust and only the bottoms of the doors need welding.

 

cheers again.

 

James

[dollywobbler]

Oooh, careful. You've lost a few Autoshite points for painting it an attractive colour!

 

This

 

To this