..'76 Baywindow...briefly EJ20T now going superfly Tdi

Obviously got a lady with good taste there rolf, will did mention a red top vauxhall motor, might be cheaper and easier to find than a cossie, gonna be a classy daily, keep us informed.

..So i braved the weather today...


So after spending ages working out how i was going to run my rad mount ( which was always bugging me) i came across what i originally wanted to do ( and was told it wouldn't work) on an australian web site.. the guy has been running his set up for the last couple of years without any trouble.
So last sundays heater set up which consisted of cutting up a mk1 golf matrix was a waste of time.... oh well i'll change it again and it can go in the back
Got the grinder out...
...cut out the fresh air box which wasnt being used

Rads new home....which will be plywood boxed..


So now it's basically a T2.25

Painfully slow progress ( well if you can even call it that)..last week i wasted a day building a wooden box to fit over the rad... and this week i destroyed it..

With all the venting system gone it looks all too flimsy up front so thought it might be a good idea to box in the rad with some metal

It's been a while since i last updated...so here's a bit more of the slackers thread....





Then i found my proper camera so you could see how bad it really is

looks goood

Well finally after all this time ive got somewhere....... was MOT'd last saturday and have spent the last couple of days trying to get the interior 'habitable' for the kids, got a few hours left to do tomorrow installing stereo and tv before it gets it's first real bedding in session...... south of France

ferry leaves Dover at 18:30 lets see if it makes it ........burble burble waaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrr tissssssssssssshhhhhhhhh

It was a real close call to getting the van MOT'd and ready for the holiday and cretain things like the stereo and the kids telly still wernt rigged up but never the less on thursday the 19th we set off for dover.... albeit an hour later than originaly planned...

All was going well if not juicy , i guess i now realise the true extent of running the original gearbox and constantly being on boost . Untill we got within spitting distance of the dartford bridge where there had been a breakdown in the fast lane and it was coned off down to one lane...at rush hour !!! this is the time i find out the fan isnt coming on and cooling the beast down ......pants..

Luckily was get through the toll and steam our way down ( although not as fast as the fuel tank needle ) and get to the docks with ten minutes to spare, but the customs guy has other ideas and wants to tell me storys of the buses had had many years back and we get to see the ferry set off into the sun set.....wicked..

An hour and a half later with a belly full of burger king were on board and heading for frech soil........

On arrival the go go tank is deep in the red and we have to find supplies at this point it's half eleven at night and as we travel the water temp is slowly rising All becomes clear when im filling up and my bare foot gets a river of hot coolant leak down from under the van, i can only assume i caught the pipe or the heat had loosened a couple of jubalee clip...... so under i go with only a street light for guildance, then the fun bit...unloading all the bedding and luggage so i can top up the water :chair: all seems ok and away we go

The rest of the way down to Disney is un adventfull and we have a nice kip in the van....all five of us

Disney is Disney although it's open till eleven pm and the kids want all of it, not bad going for a five a three and a nearly two year old...

I finally get to pull out of the car park at a quarter to twelve and head south.......... at three am id had enough and pull over into an aire de what ever, change the van around and get me head down...........
Wake up around nine to a light breeze through the van, look over and the driver door curtain is blowing in the wind climb over to find all the bags on the drivers seat are gone and the doors wide open . get out the van to find all the luggage bags neatly piled up with my mobile phone on top...... i wake the wife to ask if she had got out in the night and then see the door lock has been mashed up... we'd been done

After a mass inspection it seems they had taken the wifes second hand bag which contained most of the paper work and what ever woman put in those bags... and a what looks like a laptop bag but is infact a picnic..... bonus!!!! untill we started with breakfast and the kids didnt have bowls for their cereal :bounce: ......

So on we go clocking up the km's.............. as we pull up for yet more go go juice there's plooms of white smoke coming from the back ..turns out there a leak on the turbo return pipe and its dripping staight down onto the exaust, got some very nervous looks from the others at the pumps couldnt work out where it was coming from so just carried on.....

Had a few worries with over heating sitting at the peages, but nothing major and apart from the fuel bill it was all good fun. Didnt even notice hills untill i started overtaking things, and there's something to be said for beemer drivers getting the ump by being pasedt by an old baywindow

I was making the route up as we travelled and it was pure fluke we ended up going over the millau (sp) viaduct .....

Then fifty or so K from our destination we get stuck in traffic...heavy traffic, and the bus dont like it..... they had coned off a section under a bridge and we had to go off up the ramp , over a roundabout down a bit , then back on the motorway. well the bus got up the ramp and the clutch went.. Now i dont know if the copper pipe got too hot or i had clipped it somewhere along the route but hydraulic fluid was squirting everywhere.... this one situation i hadn't prepared for......

Now i have AA cover but i hadnt taken out euro cover and my insurance is only for recovery so i had to bite the bullit...........

I waited for all the traffic to clear, hauled it into second and kept turning it over till she was running which was intersting being as we were at the mouth of the roundabout .. knocked it out of gear and grinded the hell out of it till she finally accepted fourth, and away we went...

Ten K down the road were back out of juice and my eldest is complaing out a bad smell which isw giving her head ache. we pull up into the petrol station and as get get near the pump i knock it out of gear and go for the handbrake............ which has been on the whole way!!! i have to jump out and flinstone it as we pass by the pump ..

So there i am hungry ,thirsty, tired ( it's half ten by then ) covered in crap filling up the van that has plooms of oil smoke coming out the back, it's hot still, the kids have had enough and are playing up and the wife has the look of thunderous rage upon her face...... all's good then

All bar a few minor inccidents ( taking roundabouts in fourth and not giving way )we make it onto site ....


Next day we contact the uk to get numbers for recovery and everything is aok..... we take a nice stroll down to the nearest supermarket, which ends up being the best part of two miles away and in 35 degree plus heat its all fun and games... as we have the tv in the back of the van we decided to get a cheap dvd player so the kids have something to watch through out the week ( ok for me to watch films on at night over a bottle or two of the local vino ), get it back set it up and ask the missus for the dvd's........ 'oh .they were in the missing bag' ..give me strength...

The couriers were very sympathetic and leant us a bunch of films so all turned out ok...... called the recovery and a guy was there within two hours to get the bus ( although i had to take the exhaust off just so he could get it on) and we had to leave all the stuff which we wouldnt be able to carry to get back.....

Some other things happened during the week but im my fingers are hurting now and i bet your getting bored so i'll cut to the home coming...

I call the recovery people on friday to find out how were getting home, they say they'll call back later with flight details as it seems the best way.. i hear nothing so call back and they say theyre still waiting conformation and will call back....

Saturday 7:35 am i get a call asking will we be making the 8:00am flight......er' no ive just woken up with no knowledge of this , were not packed and the airport is over 30 k away.......... i ask is there a taxi waiting then? to get a 'no... cant you drive there?'....

Anyway all is made good, if not complicated... we get flights the next day to paris orly where we have to get a coach across paris to fly out of paris charles de gaule to heathrow...... remember thats with three young kids and a wife that doesnt like motion unless she's in control ...

Oh and to top it off i had to get one of the guy's from work to come over and drill our locks out as we had left both our sets of keys in the bus



Would i do it again?................





Hell yeah!!!!!!! roll on next year ...... although if i cant get the gearbox ratio's sorted the bus is going up for swaps on a t4 tdi like i promised the wife ....

Hey respect to you for takeing the van in the first place lest you know what needs sortin.

mate that sounds disasterous!

You want to do it again?

The south of France for it's maiden voyage is a bit crazy
Funny story definitely one you won't forget! Hopefully it will all be sorted for the next trip

Quality story dude! Road trips like that whilst a pain in the arse can be some of the best you have

Hell yeah Lupton!!, how many times have you jetted off for two weeks lashed up in the sun ,got back and within two weeks can't remember a thing about it?....

For the last five years weve battled with dodgy vehicles ( mainly this one) and even though things have got near disasterous weve always had a cracking time and can look back and laugh...and there's always a story to tell!!! ok, i am hoping next year isnt so stressfull

cheers guys

Just need to get the b***h back before we run out of summer....

mk1rolf wrote:

Hell yeah Lupton!!, how many times have you jetted off for two weeks lashed up in the sun ,got back and within two weeks can't remember a thing about it?....

For the last five years weve battled with dodgy vehicles ( mainly this one) and even though things have got near disasterous weve always had a cracking time and can look back and laugh...and there's always a story to tell!!! ok, i am hoping next year isnt so stressfull

cheers guys

Just need to get the b***h back before we run out of summer....

Last summer...

I would just loose my rag with all that!

Ive just got used to it dude.......

The first year the bus got as far as stansted before the engine let go, we got toweed back and went the next morning in the mk1 cab... me, the eight month pregnant missus and a toddler. we had to spend two nights sleeping in the car and the started motor would stick if the car was warm, which meant a push start at every petrol garage..... One night around 2am the wife was in the driving seat and on the fourth push attempt at starting i found out she hadn't even turned the ignition on ...... plus side i did get to drive through andorra with the roof down listening to JK



Oh something else i forgot, i think i may have fused the split charger as everything that went in the fridge had to be binned as it never got cold...that didn't go down to well either

think top gear would have been proud of your road trip
epic!!!! lol

test run to the south of france !!! that takes me 2 days to get there towing me caravan,
never stop in aires, you get gassed whilst your asleep , met a few people that have been done

bret that is awesome, me and carmel just read through it all,

i thought you would have learnt from last time! lol!

hows the cab coming along now anyway?

I do love a road trip .....

I'd heard a few stories about stopping in aires, but always turned a blind eye...untill it happens to you..although we were bloody lucky

remy... i said to lynds i wont start back on it just yet and spend some time at home..... so in going over next weekend to sort the garage out and make a list..... can't work out if i want nice gt road car or nasty racer....

.....Finally she's home and as usual it came with it's own dilema.

I wasn't there when the guy delivered and he had to drop it in the road as the steering lock wouldn't come off ( i just thought this was an excuse) my dad called and said he couldn't do it , so after work i go over and the key won't go all the way down into the barrel...looks like someone's buggered that up then, so i had to loosen the steering colomn and play around till the lock come off and i could get her on the drive..

Roll on the weekend.......

Man what an epic of disastrous proportions!!!
Hats off to you for attempting such an adventurous maiden voyage though.
I did a very similar thing in July this year for my honeymoon spending 3 weeks driving down through france into spain then up into the pyrenees and across to the west coast before catching the ferry back from Bilbao. I was expecting a very similar story to yours but we covered 2350 miles and it was all plain sailing. Oh I forgot to mention we have a T4 TDi, my advice, get one and do it again, all will be forgiven. The most dramatic thing that occurred in our van was when we were approaching a toll having just covered 500 miles in one hit and suddenly an ear piercing buzzer started going off. I switched the ignition off but it continued, the engine management light hadn't come on so I was puzzled. We continued through the toll trying to hear the woman over the terrible din. I was now picturing the scene of pulling over and calling the AA (I had taken euro cover) when I remembered the LPG leak detector I had fitted under the passengers seat. Reached down and switched that off and job done!!! Foot to the floor and off we went again!!! Turns out the extreme heat had falsely triggered it and it just happens to sound exactly like the warning buzzer in a T4.

I have some incredible memories now and the pictures of the van sitting high up in the snow capped pyrenees in the early evening sun are magnificent. I would have much rather done it in my previous aircooled van for nostalgia but for a stress-free voyage I think it has to be a modern diesel all the way.

Stop the clock, we're back in the game.....




Bears built 2ltr box with longer range 3rd and 4th....

Got most of it back together today and once some of the other 'issues' are sorted should hopefully be making it for Stanford hall ( well ive got to have a target day )

That box will make it nice

I do hope so, it cost enough... the box is now twice the price that i paid for the van ..



come to think about it, it was your email that got me in this mess...

mk1rolf wrote:

I do hope so, it cost enough... the box is now twice the price that i paid for the van ..



come to think about it, it was your email that got me in this mess...

Maybe i should apologise then

Well at least until you get driving it about and launching hard then you will be thanking me

I spent countless weekends bleeding and re-bleeding the clutch only for it to not be quite right. In the end i had to admit defeat ( well for now anyway) and bodged up this just to get things moving..



It looks crap and you need arnies entire strength to push it down, but it's going to have to do for now..

What else.... erm can't remember if i said i'd remade the exhaust manifold or not?.. well i have and ive moved the turbo higher cos i wasn't happy with how low the oil return (which was leaking) was to the pan ...




And the big update was that it made a trip ( Hunstanton and back) without the assistance of a recovery truck... but Joshie beat me ... i wont lie it wasnt without grief though as the manifold cracked and parted just below the turbo , so we all came back deaf and fumed out, wasn't a happy bus on the way home. That's now all sorted and support bracing added off the engine for the turbo..

Well saturday marked another year and the heap went in for another MOT.. she failed on two bits of welding, which i quickly plated up and got back in for that glorious piece of green paper....

..and here she is altogether...








couple of under body shots






So now all we've got to do is to see if it makes it down to the south of France again... roll on sunday