azzurro's holiday homy

[azzurro]

in prep for the south island trip i pulled finger and attached all this junk to the roof

doggo approves subject to test drive

mrs reckons "its ok, i guess"

fuck yeah, its ok

[azzurro]

Our South Island trip was 100% AWESOME, as is the South Island generally, which is great because our mission was partly holiday, partly visiting family and friends, and part reconnaissance for a future move to Dunedin. Definitely keen, wont be happening tomorrow but the brain cogs are certainly churning on it.

The map below is from the googs, but it only allows 10 destinations per 'trip', and so doesnt show all our diversions, side trips and backtracking.

By my reckoning (odo before and after) we drove closer to 4500km, which at 13-14l/100km wasnt exactly cheap motoring, but the cheap accommodation more than made up the difference!.

Some pics from the trip that feature van

 

1st stop, 1.5hours from home, Raglan

Stop 2, Raetahi, was a good test! Our coldest night was -6^C in St Arnaud

But worth it!

Somewhere down south. We paid, promise!

Tekapo

Orari Gorge

Kidd Bush Reserve, Lake Hawea. Lucky we only have a small camper van

Kaikoura

This was a bonus extra nightin the South thanks to the ferry cancelled due to the weather. Whatamango near picton which is a bird santuary, saw lots of odd birds, heard a couple more too,

Was only pissed cause I drove away from great waves at Mangamanu to make the cancelled sailing, and got the text once we got to Blenheim.

And picked up a 'small pop top camper' at the port in Wellington to tow north for @Otodat, van handled it fine, just chugged even more gas (got up to 18l/100km!)

Anyways, van was a champ, no dramas at all, except for the (factory) interior lights not working now. Would have been a pain if there wasnt extra lighting already, but there was, so meh

 i do have some plans for a few tweaks to the interior,  but its making whats pretty good already even better.

 

[Otodat]

Hey thanks again for dragging that back, sorry bout your mileage 

[azzurro]

its all good man, i said i would do it, and your donation more than covered the difference

[azzurro]

Ive been using this as a daily for the last few months and being auto petrol plus all the junk on it Im getting a bit over satiating its thirst for the dino juice.

I needed a more economical solution, and after being on my watch list for a month i noticed that this van was just down the road, so went and had a look.

 

Less kms, less $ to run (i made a spreadsheet), more displacement, more gears, more clutch pedals, more airbags, more diesel, MOAR TURBOS!!!

So of course i bought it, gonna chop up the silver one for a manual diesel  + T conversion on the white one...

Lol

such minty.

This is the cleanest one yet, v4.0 2006 E25.2  Caravan, ZD30DDTi, Manual. Love the boost. And gears. And diesel clatter.

Roll of Honour of previous Holiday Homys:

V1.0 1996 E24 Homy TD27, Manual, BHG

V2.0 1998 E24 Caravan TD27, Manual, Rust

v3.0 2002 E25.1 Caravan, KA24DE, Auto, FOR SALE

Bought a boost gauge off @ul9601 before i even collected it
 

HOT Double Van Action

Now with most of the good bits swapped over,

Looking forwards to fitting this one out.

I wish the chrome west coast style mirrors on the old one fitted , but the nose cone is just different enough that they dont quite swap straight over.

May make the effort as the new ones  fold at high speed and have less visibility.

Old one is for sale here:

https://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=1954458950

YOU BUY NOW!!

ASK ABOUT YOUR OS SPECIAL DISCOUNT!!!

[cletus]

I had a 2 litre auto one for work for a while. 

that was a hungus turd

Replaced it with a BA wagon and everyone was all HOMG FALCON GUZZLER USE ALL THE FUELS 

 

Falcon used less fuel due to not WOT all day just to get anywhere. 

 

Also weirdly the van used to send me to sleep quite often.  Have not ever had it happen since. 

 

TLDR

GLWS

 

[ul9601]

Sweet looking boost gauge - I think you need to buy another one and build redundancy into it 

 

[azzurro]

Not fitted the boot gauge yet, but ive made and fitted curtains, insulated and boarded the floor, and made the bed. 

Guy I bought the van off gave me a coupe of sheet of ply that used to be in the back and a few more offcuts as well, as well as the ply i  took off interior ladder rack thing

I also had some 32mm ply offcuts from an art week project i helped me ol' mate with, and most of the soft materials (curtains and insulation and foam, mattress) i already had, so this has been built for 'free' so far but i did have to buy more screws. Nice to use some hoarded shit up and make some room.

 

Blank canvas with so much room for activities. Internal roof racks are from the PO - Guy had it set up for carrying a ladder 

Also covered over the brown chip board lining where it would be seen with check vinyl.

Underfloor insulation - not sure how much difference this will make but cant hurt.

6x9s in too, same position as old van

These 5mm odd sized MDF sheets were $5 at M10. Should be enough to stop my patella twisting off in one of the floor channels and stop the insulation rpping as well as providing some sound deadening and insulation too.

Especially with a layer of fatigue foam on top, then the factory vinyl floor and some more foam under the last of the check vinyl.

Much cosier too. Our last vans had house carpet on the rear floors, i think this will be a bit easier to keep clean and no less warm, especially with the fancy head liner, and we can always throw down a rug, or put in some underlay 

Made the bed, design was kinda dictated by the wood i had, but it tuned out really good.

The sides are fixed, (but with only 4 screws per side) and very solid being made from 22mm ply, and the middle (17mm ply + 32mmply x 70mm cross members) is in two halves,

So, they can be rotated and sat on the floor to do van stuff, 

OR put in place to make the bed platform and do caravan stuff.

These are fixed to the fixed sides with 4 screws in the middle seam  to stop them levering out when i sit on the end of the bed - the whole thing stiffens up the whole van like a cross brace

And im pooped, so test lie down completed successfully!

Now to the sink. And boost gauge.

[azzurro]

Still got the old one, hopefully a dude will be buying it this week, hopefully.

 

Showing off a few features in the new van,

Rear Air con, makes the rear area like a fridge in about 3 minutes flat, looked into pulling it out but its got hard lines in the B pillar and it works really well, so, it can stay.

There is room in the maaasive roof box thing for storage cubbies and stuff (whole thing could have been designed about 6 inches closer to the roof) so i may do something with that, as its fibreglass its pretty strong and easy to mess with.

 

The holes above the head area from these sweet looking but probably a bit shit Pioneer TS -TRX60, one 6.5" driver, and one passive cone and a tweeter.

They sounded a bit poo before i pulled them and the old head unit out, but they are also missing the back half of their boxes that would have made them into a trapezoidal sub box style shape, and sealed them up and made the passive driver work. Ill see how they fit behind the seats in the Ute and might try remake a box from ply. 

Love the text

TS-TRX60 MAX INPUT150W

OPTIMUM BASS PERFORMANCE

SPECIALLY DESIGNED FOR PICKUP TRUCKS

Heater in the rear as well, this thing appears to run off a coolant loop that threads though the sills, have not tried it out in anger yet but fan blows and its warm.

Thats also the spot for the sink, so it needed a lot of pondering time to make it all fit and work

Hmmmmm...

[azzurro]

Meanwhile i also bought a dish, some nylon plumbing fittings, vinyl hose and an electric tap + pump.

With all that and a pile of left over materials, and a basic idea of form i came up with this

A small storage shelf, and everything mocked up. I couldnt find any stainless bowls in my (very low) price range  that looked likley so ended up with this bluey enamel baking tray.

What a flipping mission to drill through the enamel for a plughole with a holesaw - blunted two of my cheap shitty set - ended up wazzing it with the jigsaw, and ended up dropping it and chipping the edge. 

I was looking out for some cheap (retro) formica for the bench top on trademe, but In keeping with the low budget build, i remembered i had this left ally sheet over from the big 'sign of the times' trailer, with a bonus factory smooth edge and fold.

All pooped up and screwed on. Needs a going over with a scotch pad on a grinder to polish it up a bit but pretty happy with how it tuned out.

And in, plus the inverter (laptop charger) 

20l Water tank and pump ready to be plumbed up (need 2m of 10mm ID vinyl hose) , plug waste exits via the old ash tray hole. With the coolant lines and ducting it was a hell of a fishing exercise to get the 20mmID pipe out of teh factory hole on the inside of the sill.

Its just hanging there like all the old vans as we only use the sink for teeth brushing, hand wash and the mrs to do her contacts, but there is a lot of room under the floor for a waste tank to be installed, or pop a bucket under if required.

And added a bit of an electrical board to better keep track of my addons, should make it easy to install solar in the future too.

This battery is a bit dead too (pretty new looking base model Bosch, but wont hold a charge above 12.5v ) , so when the old van sells ill splash out on a fancy new one 

Still no boost gauge installed.

[azzurro]

Sold the old van, woooo! 

New one was a relatively cheap upgrade, but will take me longer to pay off based on fuel cost savings. I like driving it a lot better anyways.

TInted the windows, and made a window blank/insulation panels for the rear side windows beside the mattress.

5 layers including the last of the foil backed stuff on the sheet side.

Got a few dog hairs in the glue  >:|

Fiat shelf and and new tints in the background

looking cosy baby

one for the shag, pile, port, hole thread

Tested in the most gruelling environments as proven by the following two photos:

the background of this family facebook photo from my Aunties 60th

and this picture of a road sign and another silver van project

 

TO DOs

- new mattress, oh god my back

- cheap water pump is shitty, need a self priming one

- ventilation - this van is way warmer but also stuffier than the old one with the fancy interior, roof liner and side panels - want to find a slider window for the window behind the drivers side ideally

- wheel alignment + get them to wind up the front torsion bar about 10-15mm (more on drivers side) as the tyres rub on big bumps and has quite a soft spring rate (i did this on the old van and it handled much better) 

- boost gauge

 

[Styles]

On 10/03/2019 at 21:53, azzurro said:

 

Heater in the rear as well, this thing appears to run off a coolant loop that threads though the sills, have not tried it out in anger ye but fan blows and its warm.

 

Ye gods, the parts diagrams for that stuff..... all pretty easy given that I have used your rego to get the exact illustrations, but man, they're messy. practically impossible when someone's like "I've got an 06 Caravan, and I need the left hand rear most heater pipe that connects to the hose that's got a bit of an angle on it, and that one connects to another pipe that has a couple of bends, but it's on the drivers side, but the left pie......."   BTW if you need any genuine part numbers, just let me know.

 

 

 

[azzurro]

Lol yep. I was thinking about yanking the heater and the rear air con out but pulled the cover, had a look, noped and put the cover right back on again. 

Quite keen on a front end suspension diagram + rear suspension leaf bushes. Mainly to cross reference with navara ones which are much easier to find.

[nvmyvl]

Just chuck a foot valve on the suction side of the pump.. that way you wont loose prime