Poking about and tidy up

This is a little catch all with a load of initial work I have done to the van.


First up the van needed a good clean. This took both of us a fragmented weekend to get the van into a pretty clean state inside and out.
Whilst we were at it we were also functioning everything we could find on the van to ensure it worked and was in adequate condition.
We were pleased to find that the stove, grill, fridge, both sinks, hot water, webasto air top, all 12v lighting, fold out bed, cupboards and cubby holes all work as advertised.
Once cleaned most things looked okay being usable at the worst.
The fold out (spare) bed, resplendent in blue leatherette, is actually fairly well made and is a close fit. We found some more buttons and some spare blue material so may well repair it for the time being with a recover in the long term.
Externally the van has plenty of rust spots and took a really good scrubbing to get even half presentable. At some point someone has painted a fence near the van so it has a fine coating of brown spots on the left side. The back looks like someone has been grinding near it with a rough rusty dust coating on it which doesn't wash off. A bit of time with some T-cut should sort that out.
There was also the question of the door open light being on. At first a clearly not fully shut sliding door was blamed but after some adjusting (its better but not great) this wouldn't go away. Operating the switch also had no effect.
Later I removed the rear step to clean out some old horse feed and straw and spotted that the rear door sensor was on the piss. This was due to the chassis around it rotting away. Not a simple fix but at least I now know it is a problem which I shall sort out another day.


A quick fix was a pair of Bosch Aero windscreen wiper blades which hooked on no trouble at all.
The previously mentioned sliding door rigging came with a full clean out and lubrication of all of its mechanisms. As I had wipes, WD40 and white grease to hand, I went and lubricated all of the other doors whilst I was there.
A cursory check of the engine bay showed a clean air filter with a MFD of 10/2018 which is quite recent and the oil level was good hinting at a fairly recent service. There was a big black grease splodge under the brake booster (Looks like wax oil) and on the turbo. The turbo cleaned up nicely with a rag and wd40 so I will monitor this for a leak. All other levels were good which was encouraging.
With more work planned for next weekend and eBay taking a flogging we packed up. The van is a half hay bail lighter now and we are up €2.77 and £2.45 respectively so it's not a complete money pit.
It's starting to look shiny, I clearly didn't wash the roof.

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