I had thought it was the safety dump valve.  This is thermostatically controlled so that if it drops below 4C it will release all the water out of the boiler to protect it.   I thought an internal seal in this was leaky.

At the same time as I was doing this I decided to redo the plumbing to get rid of what I consider bodge parts.  These consist of the connectors on the boiler, the kitchen tap and the dump valve.   Because these three items are not speed fit parts they require a little bit of clear hose with jubilee clips, then an adapter with more jubilee clips then the quick fit straight connectors.  They look horrible and jubilee clipped pipe does leak especially on the hot side.

I found out you could get replacement taps for the SMEV sink, Replacement dump valves with speedfit connectors and replacement adapters for the boiler.  I bought all these and some parts from Magnums.

I fitted these all in and everything seemed fine.  What I found out while fitting this was that it wasn’t the dump valve it was the cold water entry to the boiler that was leaking and the water was running down the pipe to the dump valve.  I couldn’t see this from inside the van as it was hidden.

Anyway to cut a long story short,  The entry point still leaked…   I have just got round to spending some time on it and ended up stripping it all down again.  When I looked inside the connector on the boiler side I saw that the O ring was split and crushed.   I took one out of the old fittings and connected it all up…..

I now have the boiler filled again and no leak.  However I have switched the boiler on to get it hot and do a pressure test on it.  Fingers crossed this is all sorted now and I have a dry van…

It is times like this that I am glad I have a selfbuild.  Otherwise I would have been booking into a dealer and paying a fortune to hang around all day..

I did my dash to my pitch and stopped the engine.  Others who stopped short of their pitch to put mats down or get the ramps out found themselves stuck and not on their plot… A wait for the tractor was then required.

I have now been off hookup for 2 days.   The meter is showing I have used 74 Ah out of the battery.  This is less than half of what I would normally use so the solar panels are doing their work really well.

In this weather I wouldn’t expect solar panels to make me self sufficient but they are stay extenders or can increase time between having to drag the genny out.

Yesterday morning I was 42 AH down.  By 6pm I was 24AH down.   This morning I was 76AH down but I have been on the computer a lot so basically the solar panels have maintained the charge level but not really put anything back into the battery.  I expect by tomorrow morning I will be much further down.   Without the solar panels I would have been starting the generator today or running it all day tomorrow.

With the computer off I am getting 2-3Amps going into the batteries so without the computer I would be keeping my batteries up to full charge over a daily cycle….

I think once the new smaller fridge is installed and the new Ivy Bridge laptop is purchased things will improve dramatically…  Having said that, there has been no clear sun today as it is horizon to horizon cloud cover..

Tomorrow morning I have to be off site at 8am so have to trundle across the grass to get out and it is predicting more rain.  The grass is waterlogged so I hope I don’t get stuck.  That is my first worry.

My second worry is that I am getting my oil sump replaced tomorrow.  Now the garage I am getting it done at couldn’t get an OEM part from their regular suppliers so would have had to go to FIAT main dealers and it would have been £250.  Add the labour, oil and oil filter then the vat and it was going to be an expensive job.  I found one on ebay brand new for 77 Euros.  I ordered this and a new gasket.   Tomorrow I find out if I have the right part.  I am a little nervous about this as there were many parts and suppliers all of which marked or labled them differently.  I am reasonably confident I got the right one but I won’t know until they take the old one off and try to fit it….

My back passenger side tyre is almost flat again.  I had the compressor out today to pump it up ready for tomorrow and the damn thing is broken…  So I will have to drive slowly and carefully to the garage to get it pumped up.

Luckily it is not totally flat just very low.  So I should be ok.

My gas ran out this morning,  I should have topped off the Gaslow before I came here but it had been topped up 3 days before so thought I would be alright.  It was 05:30 this morning and it was dry but I decided not to change it over till 08:00 so I didn’t disturb my neighbours.  I put my fan heater on and went without my early morning coffee.   No good dead goes unpunished.  At 07:50 just as I was getting dressed to change the cylinder it started chucking it down.  It finally eased off at 09:00.   I then went out to find that the adapter I use on the Gaslow cyclinder wasn’t as tight as the regulator thread.  When I tried to undo the regulator the adapapter was unscrewing.  A quick dig in my tool box for my pipe pliers and panic set it.  They werent’ there….  Damn no gas and no way to change over…

I then thought back to the last time I used them and it was when I was trying to fit the new taps in the kitchen sink.  I searched the cupboard and they weren’t there (or were they?).   Anyway after trying everything I went back into the cupboard and found them hiding under the paper plates…..  Big relief and 5 minutes later I had my cuppa.

Wednesday I leave this campsite and go off hookup for 10 days.  This will be the first time I have been off hookup with all 3 solar panels installed so we will see how that works out.  I am guessing I will need to fire up the genny at some point with the weather being so bad…

Thursday it is the drive down to Peterborough for the show.  I am looking forward to seeing everyone again.  It looks like the club (motorhomefun.co.uk) has 100 vans  turning up so the parties should be great…

Here is a picture of the site from yesterday. (Click on it for full size)

I was up nice and early this morning and before I got out of bed I cracked the blinds to have a look at the weather.  What a beautiful view I have outside my window.

I need to get a better camera though as it looked great,  The picture really doesn’t do it justice…

I love this one.  It was so curious and nosey.  Came to me all on its own.

I went to sit outside again and Bobby saw me from the other end of the field and came galloping across.  He came right up the fence whinnied at me then ran back to the other side of the field.

He has done this a couple of time along with doing laps of the field.  Great entertainment.  I’ve never been a huge fan of horses but Bobby has grown on me…

None stop barking at each other.  Now one of the dogs is being taken for a walk and has crapped right next to my van.  Runny one and owner has cleaned up as best as you can on grass but I am left with a shitty skid mark right next to my van.  I am having to move the van back 2 meters…..

Glad I am moving on tomorrow.  I come here for peace and quite…..

1. Top Strut Bearing Passenger Side
2. New Radiator
3. Anti Roll Bar Bushes
4. Welding on two sides
5. Handbrake passenger side none functional
6. Headlights adjusting.

By 1pm only the Radiator had been fitted.  I was starting to worry that the job wouldn’t get done in time.  I am only here for 2 more days and after postponing for them on monday I was short of time.

In the afternoon things seemed to pick up a little.  At 13:15 they started work again pulling the top strut out.  At 14:30  after a lot of hamering on the floor with a little metal disk the boss came over and a little huddle ensued.  After a few minutes the boss walked back to the office holding the new top strut bearing.   About half an hour later he came out to do something else and I asked him if there was a problem.  he said that his usual supplier sends the thing as a single unit.  The new supplier sends the bearing and if you want the other bit you have to order it.  I have no idea what the other bit is so don’t ask…  He told me it was coming from Grimsby and should be here this afternoon.

At this point they started on the welding……   This should have been a straight forward job but I had insulated the van really well using two part polyurethane foam.  This had filled up the sills.

Unfortunately this catches fire when exposed to a mig welder so they spend half an hour gouging out all my nice insulation.   They didn’t sweep up after so when they started welding the sparks dropping in masses of showers set fire the the foam on the floor right under the welding kit…..

Anyway,  I was expecting the young lads to down tools promptly at 5pm.  The new part arrived at 4 with only half the welding done.   The three young lads looked at their watches I think and decided to gang up on the job.  The work progressed very quickly from this point on.  The anti rollbar bushes were fitted by one lad while another was re-assembling the top strut while the third finished off the welding.

Whilst the lad was doing the anti roll bar bushes he looked up at the sump and poked it with his finger and a chunk of coagulated oil fell off.   He called me across to look at it.  The bottom of the sump is seeping.  It doesn’t look like it will give way in a week or so but does need doing.  I went to the office to get a price…   They can’t get OEM parts so it is a dealer spare at £250….

They had it all done by ten past five…  It got it’s MOT certificate and I got my almost £500 bill.

Still on my list of things to do.

1. New rear leaf spring £4-500 fitted
2. New Sump £350 fitted
3. New Tyres all Round £300
4. Gearbox ??????
5. Wheel arches wire brushing and undersealing (bad but not fatal corrosion)

I have now spent more on repairs to this van than I did buying it in the first place.  Boy did I buy a lemon.   This is the first time in my life I have bought a bad one…  Lessons learnt.

They got onto the subject of pensions and what followed was brilliant.  About half of them took the labour type view of cuts are bad, cuts to pensioners are evil.  The other half were either not bothered or were prepared to do their bit for the cuts.  Each of them made good if at times slightly drunken points  It went back and forth for about half an hour with each of them remembering little snippets they heard on the news.  It slowly came to a close with them all wondering what the fuss was about…  None of them were affected or if they were it was a couple of quid a week and they had good pensions.   They decided the raising of the pension age was good and bad.  Good in that it probably made in more affordable but bad because they were hogging all the jobs..

I was really proud that a bunch of people who didn’t have anything in common other than their choice of drinking hole debated it out sensibly and without any rancour.  They ended up concluding that politicians over egg everything and they then got back to their beers and taking the mickey out of each other….

About 20 minutes later an older gentleman came in.  He was well dressed in an old fashioned kind of way with tweed 3 piece and a very posh home counties accent and manner that wouldn’t have been out of place in a stately home.   He waited at the bar for all of 2 minutes before complaining loudly about the lack of service.   The landlady (and owner) came across with a phone to her ear apologised and said she would be a few minutes.  “Well I hope it is important” was his response.

All the locals and myself went slightly quiet and waited for the next bit.   The landlady came across and asked what she could get him.  He asked if they had an Australian or New Zealand  Chardonnay or Pinot Blanc.  She went to have a look.  She said no we have an Argentinian Chardonnay.  He responded “I don’t want no bloody Argy plonk after what they are up to”.   Over the next few minutes all the countries were ruled out.  Cuba because they are communists,  Californians because they were Yanks…  Germans because of the war,  France was ruled out because they were French and it went on.  In the end he decided on Coffee.  He said yes please I will have a large Americano.  Bear in mind this is a little old fashioned pub…  She said “We do filter coffee nothing else”.   Anyway after some debate about cream or milk.  He asked for cream but separate.  Out came the coffe with a biscotti and 2 little plastic thingies of cream.  Well that was the last straw for this guy.  “How Naff”,  “it’s like being in McDonalds”   By this point the landlady was steaming and we were all laughing our socks off at this “Character”.

Anyway over the course of the next half hour he was loud and gave us opinions on a variety of subjects insulting pretty much every country on the planet.  Turns out he was a travel agent and could do us tickets to the places but didn’t understand why anyone would want to go there.   He got another coffee and took it outside to drink.  He came back in about 20 minutes later with his iPhone and charger and asked the landlady if she could possibly be a darling and hook him up.   He was told no in no uncertain terms to which he walked out.

By this time I was slightly tipsy as I had had a few more beers while watching this all unfold.  I started to walk back to the van and stopped in at a another pub on the way and had another bottle.  As I came out I noticed a traditional Turkish restaurant and thought I would see if they did lamb shank dishes.   Great news they did.  So I had this and on the third attempt a decent Turkish coffee.  What a lovely place, Fantastic food and great staff.

Bobby was having a nose at me the other day.

And it was so nice this morning I cooked my breakfast outside and ate it overlooking a beautiful view and enjoyed the sun.

The last picture was rushed as I wanted to get on with eating it