VW T3 / Vanagon

Vanagon RV prepared for winter

2011-11-13T05:08:00.001-08:00

I don't use the vanagon during winter time, as I own a second car that's much more reliable. Because of that I needed to drive the RV (camper) to a parking place where it would be safe, where I wouldn't risk that something will get stolen.

Did I mention that someone stole my CB antenna, one of the mirrors and the plastic cap that ends the front bumper?

So I started the vanagon, drove it to the parking place, poured all the water stored in all tanks out (both the water in freshwater tank and all the potable water that I carry as well). And it finished my winter preparations.

I don't have any biodiesel left in my fuel tank, so I could start the engine in winter. I think that the glowplugs are broken and don't work, so it might be a little difficult (or even impossible, without firing a bonfire below the engine ;) ).

Long time, no post...

2011-10-11T15:10:00.000-07:00

Long time, no post...

It's not that I don't own the vanagon anymore, or that I don't use it. In fact, this year I spent 9 day summer holliday in the Volkswagen RV.

But there's nothing really exciting to write about. And since noone visits this blog, I'm not eager to write boring, dull posts. So I prefer not to write at all.

Water hose burst

2010-08-13T13:33:00.000-07:00

Couple days ago, in the middle of our camping holiday, one of water hoses in my vanagon burst and forced us to change our plans. To be more exact, it didn't happen in the middle of our trip, but at the beginning, on the third day of total 8 days we planned to spend in my RV/camper Vanagon.

I had trouble with engine cooling for a long time. I destroyed one engine because of that, when one hose burst and left me with no coolant at all and overheating engine. How was it possible? Well, the temperature gauge shows the temperature of coolant and not the engine. It doesn't indicate that the entire coolant is gone and engine is overheating...

Last year I boiled the water in the engine once or twice during our holiday. I expected the same thing to happen this year. So when we were climbing a steep road I watched the temperature gauge so that I would know when the coolant was too hot. Unfortunatelly, there is something really wrong with the entire cooling system so the temperature on the gauge rises slowly and the pointer didn't reach the right end of the indicator untill the engine started to whistle. That sound was caused by steam leaving the pressure valve on the tank. We stopped for a while so that the steam would stop blowing and drove again. Not more than one minute later we heard a loud explosion below the engine and saw a great cloud of steam behind.

When we took all the stuff out from the camper and lifted the engine cover, we saw that the first water hose that carries the hot water from the engine to the radiator bursted.

We had to call the assistance and get the Vanagon towed to the nearest town where we were going to stay on a campsite. I paid over $80 for the tow truck. On that afternoon Tomek sent me a spare hose (that he removed from his Syncro) and I installed it the next day.

One day later we had similar trouble, but this time the increased pressure did not burst any of the hoses but caused the new one to slip from the pipe it was connected to. I didn't tight the bolt enough and because of that I saved the water hose from being broken again.

No more trips on hill roads for my Vanagon, and maybe even no more trips at all. I must think about the future of this van as there seems to be a lot more expences to be made in near future...

The thermometer I soldered doesn't work

2010-07-19T08:56:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I bought a second soldering iron, as well as solder and rosin flux.

I spent two hours soldering all the parts onto the circuit board. The most time it took me to solder the connectors that are used for temperature sensors and power supply.

The set was high quality do it yourself, but required also a high level experience in soldering. Many parts needed to be soldered on both sides of circuit board. I thought it was enough to use much flux so than the solder would cover the metal legs of the parts on the both sides of the board. I was wrong.

Anyway, I had two hours of great time (I love doing such stuff), but in the end the termometer didn't work as it's supposed to. Something did work but also something didn't, as you can see on the photo below:

So I ordered another thermometer, electronic one as well, but this time a completed device, not a diy kit. ;)

Summer holiday plans

2010-07-13T11:20:00.000-07:00

We finally decided on our summer vacation plans, and I decided to share those plans with you today. :)

In two weeks, on July 26-31st, I am going to stay 100 km (60 miles) from my home on a strawbale building workshop. I am going to learn there how to build a loadbearing strawbale construction with green roof. I want to use that knowledge later to build my own garage from the straw bales and clay. I could rent a room there, but since I have a camper/RV I don't need to rent rooms or sleep in tents anymore. ;)

On August 7th we're going to our friends' wedding near Opole in Lower Silesia, and after the wedding we're going to explore that region a bit more than we did last year. We want to stay for a couple days in Wrocław, and return home on monday 16th or on tuesday 17th of August.

In the middle of September I'm going to stay on my lot in the camper as this is the time I want to be actually building my garage there. I believe this would take me about 2 weeks, and I would camp in my RV for total of more than 4 weeks this year. ;)

I will keep you updated if anything changes or if I have any interesting photos or news from the trips.

new electronic gadgets

2010-06-30T10:37:00.000-07:00

Month ago I ordered two cool electronic gadgets that will be installed in my RV/camper Vanagon. Both are electronic kits to be assembled at home in a DIY fashion. I like soldering such kits and that's why I ordered them in such form (I might purchase them already put together).

The first is a electronic thermomether, capable of measuring temperatures in two points, with two sensors. It has two-colored LED display, one color displays the first sensor's temperature, the second the other.

Why do I need such thermometer?

I always wanted to know the inside and outside temperature. To know how cold it is in the evening and how warm it is inside my camper. One of the sensors will be installed inside, probably will be attached to one of cabinets. The other I will attach to the radiator or the coolant hose to measure also the temperature of water reaching the radiator. I am not certain if my cooling system works properly, so I need something that will let me know if it fails. The original temperature gauge is not enough -- I destroyed one engine while looking only at this gauge.

The display looks the following:

The second gadget is a electronic water level gauge, that will measure the level inside the clear water tank. It is not difficult to check how much water it is holding (you need to open a cabinet, remove the plastic that covers the opening in the tank and cast a bit of light using flashlight). It is not difficult, but I prefer to use such a gauge.

The sensor and gauge looks the following:

Both kits are manufactured and sold by AVT, a leading polish supplier of such equipment, and can be bought here and here.

Plans for summer holiday

2010-06-22T10:19:00.000-07:00

June is almost gone, soon people will start going for their summer holiday. Maybe we should also make some plans for our vacation?

Since 2006 my friend Tomek and I want to go for a camping trip around Baltic Sea. But every year something stops us. Last year our son was born, this year his dauther was born, which makes it difficult for both our families.

The idea was great. We wanted to drive around the Baltic Sea during three or four weeks, with one small trick. We didn't want to visit Russia, so we would use a ferry from Estonia to Finland. Our trip would look similar to the following:

To be more specific: from Poland to Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. From Tallin (the capital of Estonia) to Helsinki (the capital of Finland). Then to Norway, to the North Cape, then via Sweden back to the Norway and the North Sea coast, to see the Preikestolen.

It would probably be my last trip there, so I would want to see as much as I could.

Of course we would sleep in our campers, to save money. As far as I know it is possible to camp everywhere in Scandinavia, not only on registered campsites. :)

It seems we won't go there this year. I plan to spend two weeks of my holiday building a small strawbale shack on my lot where I want to have my autonomous house in the future.

New tires

2010-04-25T20:54:00.000-07:00

Since I bought my camper in 2006, I never bought any tires. Last year I bought four wheels (winter tires and rims). Since then they spent 6 months in storage, and two of them were installed on the rear of my camper last fall, when I had to replace one broken summer tire.

Two weeks ago I ordered two new tires, Barum Vanis, that will be installed on that rear axis.

I need to replace them before the next weekend. May the third is one of polish national hollidays, so it will be a three-day weekend. It's too cold for any camper trip without internal heating source, but we're going to my parent's cottage. I don't want to drive there on winter tires.

Today we visited my parents-in-law in their summer home, because I wanted to tidy the camper a bit for the season. Last week I removed most of the garbage from inside and ordered all the equipment that I carry with me in the proper places. But I have much more to do.

Today:

I washed the dishes that weren't washed since our last camper trip in autumn,
I poured 10 liters / 2.5 gallons of water to the clean water tank,
I tidied a bit in the inside,
I wanted to clean the fridge, but it scared me off.

Things I still have to do:

install the gel batteries back (at the moment they're stored at home),
install back all the solar charging stuff,
install a panel for monitoring and measuring the performance of the solar system.

This panel will consist of four switches and three measuring devices -- a voltmeter and two ammeters:

Od Volkswagen Transporter T3

The red circles are the switches, the red and black rings are the sockets for banana plugs.

From left to right:

two sets of sockets, connected to the gel batteries directly,
green switch that will connect the gel batteries with the starter battery, to recharge the camping batteries when engine is working,
yellow switch that will turn on the lights on the panel,
voltmeter that will measure the battery voltage,
blue switch that will connect the solar panels to the solar charge controller,
ammeter (max 8A) that will measure the current from the solar panels to the charge controller,
red switch to turn all the camping electrical equipment on,
ammeter (max 20A) to measure the current used by the camping devices,
three sets of banana sockets, connected to the battery via the charge controller.

Why five sets of banana sockets? The main part, with three sets, will be used in most cases. I will connect here, for example, the 12/230V inverter, and other external devices.
The second part will be connected to the gel batteries directly, to allow me to use electricity when the solar charge controller will disconnect the three main sets (when the voltage in the batteries will drop below certain level). Here I will also connect my gel battery charger, that will be used on campsites with electricity.

Today I will try to install the tires, I have them in my camper already:

Camper home again

2010-04-15T08:22:00.000-07:00

Yesterday after work I drove with Tomek to mr. Zbyszek, who repaired my camper for the last month. I left it to him to have the gearbox repaired, hoped that he would find some time to fix some other things.

When I left my camper, Zbyszek told me that he would fix it in his free time. And because of that he didn't have time to fix anything else, but the gearbox. In the gearbox he replaced only one syncronizer, the one responsible for synchronization of the second gear, and the gear oil. Nothing else required fixing.

I am not worried that he didn't fix all the other things I thought he might. Except the engine that uses some motor oil all the other things are not very important. And for the engine we have a solution. Tomek wants to replace his engine in his Syncro, so I would get his original 1.6 turbocharged diesel. We will probably replace the engines in the autumn, as doing it now might get us stuck in the garage during summer holiday.

I paid 700 PLN (less than $250). And I am not afraid to use the second gear anymore.

Driving back home I went to a nearby town, to buy biodiesel for 3.55 PLN / liter. The petrodiesel costs 4.17 PLN / liter where I live, so I saved 0.60 PLN for each liter of fuel (equivallent to $0.21 per liter, or $0.80 per US gallon).

Camper left for repairs

2010-03-14T10:57:00.000-07:00

On wednesday I drove my beloved Vanagon to one of local repair shops.

The guy who owns the garage repaired my camper in july 2008. He fixed some oil leaks. He's one of the well known mechanics that work near Warsaw. He owned five Vanagons, including one that he built for 2 or 3 years -- a doka (doppelkabine) syncro with 2.5 liter petrol engine.

I asked him to fix the broken gearbox, as well as some minor repairs (like glow plugs indicator light, engine pressure indicator light or the pressure gauge).

He promised to finish the work before the april 15th. I hope he can make it.

Camper insurance renewed

2010-01-07T10:46:00.000-08:00

At the end of 2009 I had to pay insurance premium to renew (prolong?) my mandatory liability insurance. I paid 345 PLN, equivallent to $120 or €84.

How much do you pay for similar insurance?

Camper vs Frost

2009-12-25T05:08:00.000-08:00

As it was expected, the temperature on sunday was around -15°C (5°F). I wanted to try if my camper would start and if it would, let it run idle for a while, as I drove it last time about one month ago.

My camper has glow plugs indicator light broken, so I have to use another way to determine when the glow plugs are turned off. I turn on a light above the driver's door, and when I turn the glow plugs on, the light dims a bit. When it becomes bright again, I know that it's the time to use the starter.

On sunday, I went to my camper, and tried to start it. I used the glow plugs twice, as Tomek advised. Then i turned the key a bit further to start the starter. And it did work well, though rather slow. The engine didn't start. I repeated the same procedure again, this time pushing the acceleration pedal to the metal, again with no effect.

I was a bit worried. I expected the car wouldn't start, but I expected a failure of the battery and starter, not the engine itself. So I thought that it was probably caused by fuel that froze in the the fuel filter. I didn't have winter fuel in my fuel tank. I came back home and thought up that later I would use my portable wood gas stove to warm the engine and hot water brought from home to warm the fuel filter. But eventually I didn't have to do neither.

The weather forecast for this Christmas was rather warm. It was supposed to be around 0°C (32°F) yesterday and more than 10°C (50°F) today. So yesterday I went to get my camper from the parking space to home and it did start almost instantaneously.

And today I bought full tank of winter diesel fuel, that should be resistant to freezing. ;)

First frosts this winter

2009-12-18T09:34:00.000-08:00

It's not weird that in december temperature in Poland drops below zero centigrade (32°F), but every year we have the same set of events that clearly proves the winter has arrived. It's cold (today it was -12°C = 10°F), 5 cm (2 in) snow fell on the ground, and we have a lot of traffic jams in most of Polish towns and cities.

I wanted to take my bus for a ride to visit my lot on sunday, but I am not sure if I will do it. I am not sure if I want to leave my apartment on the forecasted -15°C (5°F), and if I do, I am not sure if my camper will start.

I added anti-freeze liquid to my windscreen washer fluid, so I hope it didn't freeze yet. The pump leaks somewhere, so after I turn it off washer fluid remaining in the lines and nozzles flows back to the tank. Because of that I am not afraid of freezing in the lines or nozzles.

New alternator installed in august

2009-11-22T10:28:00.000-08:00

In august, just couple days after we came back from the first part of our camping holidays, I had to replace the alternator. The summary of this camping trip is still waiting to be translated, along with first part of more detailed description. I also didn't write about this alternator change, this text also is waiting to be translated... I am sure at some moment I will be update this blog with those posts.

Today I finally got the photos Tomek took when I changed that alternator. The first photo shows me holding the old one, with the new one installed. I was happy the work was done, but it wasn't. In a nutshell, I bought a 90 A alternator instead of a smaller 65 A one, and while it did fit in place, the pulley for the V-belt did not. We had to drive back to the store, leave the more powerful alternator and get the proper one. At that moment shown on the photo I didn't yet know the new alternator won't fit the V-belt.

From Volkswagen Transporter T3

The second photo shows the new alternator installed. How weird does it look, all so clean, right? The red wire lying on the left hand side of the photo was used to diagnose what was the problem.

And this is what the fried (burnt) charge controller looked like. :)

Things I hate on polish camping sites

2009-11-04T12:58:00.000-08:00

This text was posted on the polish version of this blog on August 29th.

Since I remember, almost every holiday I spent with my parents consisted of a camping journey. Because of that, I visited many campsites, both in Poland and abroad, in Germany, Denmark, Austria, Czech Republic and Slovakia. Polish campgrounds, compared to the ones I saw abroad, don't look well. And since I visited this year another five polish campsites, I want to pour here all my feelings about them.

This is the full and complete list of all the things and occasions I dislike about polish campsites.

First and the most important thing is the filth and mess one can find on almost every polish campsite. Or maybe only on those I visited? I didn't test every single site in Poland, so I might be wrong...

It is well known that if you want to take a shower in any bathroom in hotel, you should wear something on your feet (otherwise you risk getting mycosis). There is nothing more gross than a toilet floor covered with water. Or some other liquid, since you can't tell the color of this liquid because of the dirt on the floor. You never know where you put your boot or foot...

Honest, I understand it's difficult to wash a floor or wall that wasn't painted in 10 years (at least). I only expect that spending a lot of money on a campsite will relieve me from the necessity of having my own chemical toilet and shower...

Secondly, I hate all the weird stories about showers. I don't mean the filth, but stuff like:

shower that you have to pay for, using a coin (7 PLN / $2.44 / €1,71 for 5 minutes, or 5 PLN for 7 minutes -- I can't recall) (campsite in Masurian Lake District),
shower that you have to pay for to the owner of the site -- 10 PLN /$3,49 / €2,44, you need to finish when the owner asks you to -- by the way, she said she needs to charge for showers because the site itself is very cheap! (Vistula Spit),
showers that are open only within specific hours (like 7 AM - 10:20 AM and 6 PM - 10:20 PM) (Table Mountains),
showers open 24 hrs a day, but with hot water available only within specific hours (Karkonosze),
insufficient numer of hooks to hang your clothes (two sets of clothes) and a towel, two hooks is not enough, especially in very tight space, and you end with all your clothes wet,
no room to put your shampoo bottle,
cheap faucets and shower nozzles -- not to mention the inability to controll the water temperature and flow.

The third most annoying thing is very expensive electricity you can get on polish campsites. I hate expensive stuff, but the prices for connecting your camper to the grid are outrageous. I used the electricity on all the three sites I visited during this trip, paying 10 PLN for a day. For this amount of money one can buy 20 kWh of electricity on free market -- enough to supply to a 1 000 Watt heater for 20 hours.

I won't buy electricity on my next camping trips, it's a waste of money. This time I left my solar panels at home, but even without them, I should have sufficient power from the gel batteries. I would only have to run my fridge on gas, which is even less expensive. :)

I also hate the difficulties with connecting any camper to the grid. And I don't mean that I had to buy a long wire and a special connector that allowed me to plug to the standard socket with the plug I have installed on my camper.

I only mean that every time (2/3 campsites) I want to connect the electricity I need to ask someone to open the locker with sockets. Same thing when I want to leave and need to disconnect. I have to wait until that someone is available, those people just don't get that they work to make it easier for us, not the opposite!

Often there's simply not enough sockets for the campers to plug into. Nowadays people like to carry their laptops along to their camping trips, and the campsites built 20 or more years ago are simply not prepared for that demand. Once on a campsite in Bieszczady, we paid for electricity, but couldn't use it...

The fifth thing that annoys me: poor shape of the grass on the sites. We visited during the second part of our summer holiday three campsites, but only one had nice green grass that was not destroyed -- probably because it was rather abandoned. Nobody likes the look and the smell of yellow grass that started to rot after being covered by a tent for two weeks, right?

6th thing -- I hate searching for the campsites. At home, on the internet, and en-route, from the front seat of my camper. Polish campsites don't have their websites very often, so it's almost impossible to find information and location of those sites on the internet. Search results are full of crappy sites -- when searching for "kempingi Poznań" you'll get a lot of web catalogues that have a category named "campsites in Poznań", but don't have any entries in those categories... One can get a bit more information from the PFCC -- Polish Federation of Camping and Caravaning, but it's website is old and the database needs to be updated. During last trip we visited four campsites that were recommended by PFCC: one of those sites was completely closed, all of the remaining 3 sites had some flaws.

When I find an interesting campsite on the web, I must also find it in real world. That's not easy, since the owners don't post GPS coordinates or routes to their sites on their web pages.

Seventh thing that does annoy me is the idea of not keeping books of all the money that is paid for the campsite. During all my camping trips only on three times I received an invoice (including "climate fee" -- that goes directly to the municipality) without asking. When I asked for the invoice this year (in Karkonosze, at the site with variable hot water temperature), I caused some chaos. I found out the girl I spoke to didn't know how to fill the invoice, the seal that was supposed to be stamped on the invoice was also broken. By the way, the invoice I got had number 19/2009 -- does it mean it was the 19th invoice prepared during this year? Was the campsite visited only by 18 families?

Maybe some of you don't need such documents, but I prefer that all campsite's owners would earn their money officially and legally. I believe that someone who doesn't pay his taxes is more likely to con his customers.

I also can't stand a large part of the people that visit the campsites. I understand we all are there to regenerate ourselves, but obviously we all have different ideas how this regeneration should look like. On the campsites I am less than ever tolerant to:

loud music, not only from 10PM to 6AM,
smell of cigarette smoke.

If not for the hot showers and slightly more safe environment than simple parking lot, I wouldn't need campsites at all!

Gel batteries removed

2009-10-25T12:03:00.000-07:00

When I bought the gel batteries couple months ago, I was lectured on how to work with them to extend their lifespan. I was told that gel batteries don't like to be exposed to temperatures below 5°C (41°F). This is important at the moment, when the temperature is going to drop below that threshold for a long time.

Because of that, I took the gel batteries from the camper to the basement in the building I live in. I had to disconnect all the wires that were bolted to those batteries, but that was not difficult.

I am supposed to charge them once a month. I brought the charger along, but I am not sure if I can find any electrical socket in my basement...

I must figure two things out:

there is no lighter socket in the dashboard I have, and the extra sockets I use were connected to those batteries,
I carry one small solar panel installed in my camper's window, but at this moment it does not charge anything -- maybe I can use it to charge the starter battery?

Heater core replaced

2009-10-11T21:32:00.000-07:00

I spent over an hour to find out how this small radiator installed inside the automobile, used for heating the interior is called. ;)

Yesterday it took me almost 8 hours to replace the heater core in my camper, with a bit of help from Tomek, the guy I mentioned here a lot. The old heater core needed to be replaced, because I believed it was leaking cooling liquid. Because of that, the fan blew some steam to the inside of the camper when the heating was turned on, and the liquid dripped to the interior, as shown on this photo...
There was another reason to replace the heater core, I mean the broken Bowden cable that was attached to the valve that supplied hot liquid to the heater core. Because the cable was broken, I could easily turn the heating on (pulling the cable), but turning it off (by pushing the cable) was very difficult. It doesn't matter in winter, when the heating is permanently turned on, but in autumn when you want to use it only in the morning, and not in the afternoon, it does.

We started with removing the dashboard from the camper. As I removed the dashboard from the red multivan, I knew exactly how to do it -- especially that I have great VW T3 factory repair manual, that shows all the required steps as well. The steps are:

remove the glove compartment (in my case, only a shelf, not a locked compartment) unscrewing 4 bolts,
unscrew 4 bolts that hold the dashboard to the body, located in pairs next to the front doors,
remove 5 bolts below the windscreen,
remove the plastic panels that cover the steering wheel column (2 bolts),
remove the speedometer cover,
pull the connectors from the speedometer, lights switch and hazard lights switch,
remove the speedometer (4 screws),
drill through the 2 sheer bolts that hold the steering column,
remove the levers from the heating control panel, as well as the knob that turns the fan on,
disconnect the air ducts,
remove the steering wheel (one nut) and the turning signals / wipers levers,
take the dashboard off.

The heater core is located in the middle of the space below the dashboard, so at this point most of the work is already done. You only need to:

remove the 4 bolts that connect the heater core to the chassis,
remove the water hoses, making sure the interior is not flooded with cooling liquid,
disconnect the Bowden cable from the valve located below the floor, under the camper.

Initially I wanted to replace that valve as well, but finally didn't. I don't think the valve itself is leaking, so I didn't touch it at all (besides removing the Bowden cable). If I wanted to remove the valve, I would probably lose a lot more cooling liquid (as the valve is located below the radiator and engine as well) than I did.

When the dashboard was removed, I thought of replacing the radio antenna. The one I had installed was broken and didn't work properly. So we went to Media Markt and bought a new (and cheap) car antenna, and installed it within 5 minutes. ;)

On the photo below you can see the new heating core. The only difference between this one and the old one is that this one has four levers to control the heating and ventillation. And the fan does work in all the three positions of the switch, the last one worked only in the third position (fastest).

Od Volkswagen Transporter T3

We lifted the camper on a cool lift, taking advantage of it I changed the right rear wheel to the one with winter tire. The left one was already with winter tire, as I changed it about 2 weeks ago after the summer tire was damaged.

The new dashboard is taken from the multivan. As it is brown, its color fits to the upholstery. ;)

Holiday 2009/2 -- summary

2009-10-02T09:56:00.000-07:00

This is the summary of the second part of our camping holiday we had this year, at the end of august. I know I still have to write about the first part of the holiday, and I promise to do it in the near future.

Our first destination was Poznań, from there we wanted to go south.
We travelled the total distance of over 1,300 km (800 miles). In a nutshell, the holiday was the following:

we travel via highway to Poznań, avoiding the points where we would have to pay for using the highway,
we spend the afternoon of the first day in Poznań, with the idea to sleep on a campsite there, but finally going to Stęszew (and spending the night there), as the campsite in Poznań was closed,
we drive back to Poznań, listen to a trance concert, sleeping in the camper parked there,
the next day we visit a couple of places in Poznań and go to the Stęszew again, spending another night on a campsite in that town,
the following day we drive to Nowogrodziec, where we meet our friend and sleep at his place,
from there we drive to Karpacz (with a small detour to visit Turów and Czech Republic), spend two nights at a campsite,
then we climb the Śnieżka mountain and drive to Kudowa-Zdrój (again via Czech Republic),
we spend the night there, the following morning we go sightseeing there and return home.

We wanted to visit one other place -- Korbielów and climb the Pilsko mountain. We were there on our first camper holiday, in september 2006. But after climbing Śnieżka we were afraid that we won't complete the challenge. So we went home one day earlier.

We had not so many unpleasant surprises, I boiled the water in the cooling system only three times, and had to change the gas tank as the one I had ran out.

The picture below shows the scheme of the trip we made. More details in the following updates.

The camper is going to be repaired

2009-09-20T11:57:00.000-07:00

Not today, but soon, I hope. Not that something is terribly wrong with the camper and I need it now. Nothing's changed since the summer holiday (and how could anything change if I didn't drive the camper since coming home from the holiday?), it leaks a bit of oil, and the gearbox makes weird noises when I use 2nd and 3rd gears.

I will drive the camper to the guy who will fix it next week, I spoke with him on monday and he asked me to phone him again the next friday (as he has a lot of work to do). I will ask him to fix the gearbox, and some less important stuff (the oil leaks, the small thing that was supposed to be connected to the injection pump but isn't, the glow plugs and oil pressure indicator lights and the fan on the radiator).

Solar power 1

2009-08-13T00:57:00.000-07:00

This is an english translation of an article that was posted originally on the polish version of this blog on june 22nd.

With a bit of help from my father-in-law I managed to work on my solar power system couple days ago. Today I finally managed to write a post about it with some photos and schemes. I want to describe the current status of the solar power system, and to write a bit about the future of the system.

According to our plans, we're going on the first part of our summer holiday on july 6th, the next monday. I don't have much time to finish the work with supplying all the electrical devices with electricity from the solar panels.

From Volkswagen Transporter T3

The first thing I did was to put two gel batteries in one of the cupboards of the camper. I wanted to fit them under the driver's seat, but there's no enough space there. I connected the batteries (parallely) to the solar charge controller, unfortunatelly using cable with cross-section much smaller than suggested by the controller's manual. The controller can be seen on the right hand side of the photo -- it's the black plastic thing hanging on the white wire.

On the second solar panel my father in law soldered two connectors -- male and female, one will be used to supply power to the charge controller and the second to connect the two panels together (parallely).

Here you can see the cable from the panel connected to the one from charge controller.

The solar panels aren't attached to the roof yet. In order to use them, I'll have to manually put them in sunny place...

...and connect together. This was the best I could do. Until they're permanently fixed to the roof, I won't connect them permanently to the charge controller.

To be honest, I have two independent solar power systems. Two sets of batteries, two charge controllers, two sets of solar panels. The scheme of all this looks the following:

On the left hand side of the drawing you can see the new solar power system: two solar panels, 40 W each, and two gel batteries, 38 Ah capacity each. On the right hand side, the old solar power system, the old solar panel (10 W), old charge controller and old battery. At the moment, all the appliances (shown as an icon of electrical bulb) are connected to the old battery, using quadruple cigarette lighter socket.

"reg.ład." is a short for regulator ładowania -- solar charge controller.

I want to add a couple of extra parts to the system and make it look the following:

The most important part of this system is the set of two gel batteries, charged with the two solar panels. To this solar charge controller I will connect all the camping appliances: radio, lights, fridge, water pump. The older part of the system will work as emergency energy source, will be connected manually to the rest of the system.

Directly to the batteries I will also connect:

inverter, shown as 12-230, that will supply 230V AC power to my laptop computer and TV tuner,

gel battery charger, shown as 230-12, that will charge the batteries whenever I will have the 230V power supplied to the camper from external source,

additional battery charge controller, SLA40, that will start charging the gel batteries when the alternator makes enough electricity.

Most of the appliances must be connected via charge controller, that will disconnect them when the voltage in the battery drops below safe level. The inverter has this security measure built-in, so it might be connected to the batteries directly.

I already have the inverter, the 230V charger and new wire to connect it all (4mm² cross-section area - 12 gauge!).

First night in camper this season

2009-06-17T14:38:00.000-07:00

At first I wanted to give this post a title "First night in camper this summer", but ten I realized we still have spring in Poland -- the summer will start in next week. The weather shows also we don't have summer yet.

On the last (long) weekend we planned to spend a night in the camper, on my piece of land. The idea was to go there on the friday afternoon and stay there till sunday evening. On thursday I finished connecting solar panels and gel batteries (I'll write it in detail in a couple of days, at the moment you can only check the photos in the gallery) to have more electricity.

The weather on friday was nice. It rained a bit in the evening, just for a couple of minutes, and the sunset was almost cloud-free.

From Volkswagen Transporter T3

We didn't have any specific plans for that evening, so after we ate supper (shown on the photo), we went to sleep.

The night was chilly, but we were prepared. As we expected a temperature drop to 12°C (54°F), we prepared warm clothes for night.

At 4 AM it started to rain. It didn't stop until 11 AM. After we woke up we decided to take all the stuff back and leave -- we did so soon after eating breakfast.

It wasn't the best time to start the season. But hey, every other weekend from now on has to be better, right?

Preparing solar panels

2009-06-10T07:19:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned here already, I plan to power all my camping electric needs with solar power. That's why I bought two 40 W solar panels with solar charge controller in february. Since we plan to spend three days living in camper during this weekend (starting on friday), I need to put everything together. Even if it all will be only temporary.

On monday I bought two gel batteries, 38 Ah capacity each. They look just like ordinary car batteries, only the connectors are different. Even the weight is similar -- those weigh 13 kg (29 lbs) each.

From Volkswagen Transporter T3

Today I spent about an hour soldering the cables together. The most important task was to solder the cable to the second solar battery (the first is already in the camper). I am not good at soldering, you can easily tell after a look at the photo below.

A bit about the cables I used here. The solar charge controller's manual recommends using a cable that has area of cross section of 4 mm² (AWG 12), but I only had 2x0,75 mm² cable for loudspeakers. So I used two pairs of this cable, removed the isolation from the ends and twisted the wires together. When I buy the proper cable, I'll connect it to the small parts of the cables I soldered now.

To the end of the cable from the solar panel I soldered a male connector used in RC toys and airsoft replicas. The connector is supposed to withstand the current of even 30 A, a lot more than I plan to put through it. 30 A with 12 V voltage is over 3 kW, and my solar panels give only 90 W (2x40 W and a small 10 W panel).

The female connector I soldered to the cable from the solar charge controller. I bought this cable yesterday, not the one I would like to have, but I had simply no choice. When I buy the proper cable, I'll simply replace it.

The same cable will be used to connect the charge controller to the batteries. I connected two pairs of wires to the controller as the batteries will be connected paralelly.

I left two things to do tomorrow in the camper:

solder the connectors to the cables attached to the solar panel I have in camper,
find a place for the batteries,
connect the controller with the batteries.

I wonder if the soldering iron will work with the 12/230 V AC/DC converter I have in the camper and the battery that's used there now.

I am buying a third vanagon

2009-05-26T11:41:00.000-07:00

If everything goes right, soon I will have three Vanagons. This one will make my dreams come true. :)

From the very first time I started to like vans, I always preferred the ones that had two rows of seats and open cargo space. In Volkswgagen Transporter language -- the Dokas. About a year ago I wrote here, that if I was to buy VW T3 then, it'd be a doka. And we are buying one now. :)

It was found, as usual, by Tomek. Together we'll have four Volkswagens. The frequency of new purchases increases in time, the last one was bought about a month ago while the second -- about two years ago.

From Volkswagen Transporter T3

As you can see, it has aircooled ("fan") gasoline engine. And it's supposed to have the longest four-speed gearbox there is. It will be used by my wife's company, and I plan to use it to install wood gas generator on it. The camper is not suitable, 'cause it has diesel engine and no space to install the generator.

Some things need to be fixed, but I didn't expect anything less.

The second biodiesel purchase

2009-05-23T13:44:00.000-07:00

So I bought biodiesel again, in the same place, for the same price as last time. But today petrodiesel was 0.70 PLN more expensive per liter ($0.22 per liter, $0.83 per gallon).

The fuel efficiency was 7.6 liter per 100 km (31 MPG), slightly better than the long-term average. Biodiesel, keep up the good work!

Spring cleaning of the camper

2009-05-13T11:24:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday I did some cleanup in the camper with Ania. To be honest, it was very peculiar cleanup.

The idea was to prepare the camper to make some photos of the camping equipment. For 3 years I never had a chance to make good photos of the fridge, sink, stove, cupboards, etc. If I made any photo, there was some unnecessary stuff on it as well. So that had to be done.

First of all, we removed all the stuff that’s driving there with us:

two foldable chairs,
a shovel,
a foldable shovel,
a scepter (in parts),
25 liters of peat,
two water bottles of 5-l capacity,
aluminum fuel canister, with 20 l of petrodiesel,
five airsoft replicas,
helmet and protective eyewear for airsoft games,
engine oil,
machete,
chainsaw,
fuel and oil for the saw,
blankets and sleeping bags,
and some other stuff.

My airsoft replicas were moved to the camper couple of months ago, when we had to make some extra space in our apartment for our son’s cupboard. I go to the airsoft games with the camper, so the replicas may be stored there – I won’t have to carry them on me from our apartment to the camper and back every Sunday.

I also carry in the camper a lot of gardening tools, for a purpose, so I don’t have to take them with me every time I work on my piece of ground.
All the stuff mentioned above doesn’t have its place in the cupboards or the "trunk" (the two stashes below the bed). There’s no space left...

In the large stash I have:

toolbox,
two small boxes with some electrical equipment (wires, bulbs, connectors),
air compressor,
towing cable,
starter cable,
some spare parts, like fuel filter and old indicator lights,
wires of different length,
lift,
bottle of windscreen washer fluid.

The small stash holds:

working clothes,
fuel tank (10 l of biodiesel),
5 liters of distilled water,
cooling liquid,
fire extinguisher,
second towing cable,
emergency triangle.

As you can see, all the stuff mentioned before has to be placed elsewhere. Mostly on the mattress of the bed or on the floor of the camper.

We threw all the unnecessary stuff out, washed the dishes along with the sink and stove, found some interesting stuff below the driver’s and passenger’s seats, made some photos and put everything back to the camper. But this time – in some order.