I knew that the fuel tank had some corrosion but wasn’t 100% sure just how bad it was. The van was in my local garage last year to have the coolant pipes replaced and the mechanic told me there were large sheets of rust coming from the top of the tank during some preliminary work. Long story short the garage never ended up fitting the pipes, and threw the towel in after he realised everything was going to take him a lot longer than he had anticipated due to the expanding workload. However, I had ordered the new tank based on his analysis, which sat in my garage for a number of month up until now. So the engine upgrade is currently in full swing, which is the perfect time to get this sorted.
Here is a picture the rusty tank taken off at the Brickwerks Workshop (Just so there is nothing left to the imagination). On the cusp of failure i would imagine 🙂
Ouote “Kelham Hall is a beautiful stately home located in the Trent valley. The Hall provides a stunning backdrop for weddings, events and family days out. Open Daily with free admission and car parking.”
Just Arrived at Kelham Campsite
Only decided on this camp site a couple of days before we departed. We knew we wanted to keep it local, so didn’t want to travel too far from our home address. Getting away for some ‘us time’ was the priority as we hadn’t been away in Wolfy since January. It took us best part of an hour to get to Newark as our first port of call late morning. This wasn’t bad, and from a fuel point of view was neglagable. Newark was only a couple of miles from our camping destination. We had a wander around, a coffee at Prince Rupert, and after a little shopping moved on to the campsite.
Online reviews for Kelham seemed hit and miss, but we were pleasantly surprised with the location, and flexibility the site owners gave us for pitching up. Not needing electric we paid £20 per night which we thought was OK, with a cracking, quiet spot surrounded by trees…but next to the church (Our choice 🙂 ).
Kelham Church
Our first afternoon was outstanding on all accounts as far as the weather was concerned. Not amazingly warm, but as good as could be expected for April.
Just pitched up
We decided to go for a walk to get our bearings in the immediate area.
Back of Kelham Hall during a walk on Friday afternoon
I must confess, I don’t really do a great deal of research about the places i stay, but Kelham Hall is a really nice building. I have shamelessly copied the below from the website (which is poor on my behalf)…but the picture above i took…so that’s fine 😉
“Anyone who has marvelled at George Gilbert Scott’s design for London’s St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel will find something familiar and remarkable at Kelham Hall. A Key figure of mid-Victorian Gothic architecture, Scott had originally been commissioned by the Manners-Sutton family to add a conservatory to the house which had already been rebuilt in the early 1700s, and then extended between 1844 and 46. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately for Gilbert Scott, in 1857 a fire destroyed the older parts of the house and the architect was left with a blank canvas on which to express all the exuberance of his imagination. The result is a redbrick riot of Gothic styles, with towers, gables, arcades,exquisitely carved columns and fireplaces, and more than a score of different window designs. For 70 years Kelham Hall became home to an Anglican order of monks, gaining it’s impressive domed chapel, and today it remains a wonderful hidden treasure of English rural architecture and a magical setting for your perfect day.”
I totally appreciate the architecture in this building. Far more bravado than any modern building would ever consider! Friday evening consisted of a lot of chilling, and a nice meal cooked using our Cobb Cooker.
Saturday was quite relaxed in terms of getting out of the van. We are early risers, but it took us until 9am till we managed to get a shower. If I’m honest there doesn’t seem to be a great deal within walking distance as far as supplies are concerned, so make sure you get there with plenty of provisions if your stopping for a while. There is a pub in the village called the Fox Inn.
The Fox Inn
We dropped by for a half pint after a brisk walk. It wasn’t busy by any stretch of the imagination, and after an hour it didn’t show much signs of picking up. No reflection on the pub, and we didn’t try the food so can’t comment on that, but there is little else worth mentioning in the area.
Anyways, we left Kelham after a very pleasant two night stop. We would definitely go back here again for another night or two. We were very happy with the facilities the campsite offered. On that note I would suggest that the shower facilities ‘in’ the main building were probably better than the ones in the porter cabins next to the ‘Event Field’. They were heated which is always appreciated when the temperature is a little on the cool side. 🙂
As an overview for anybody that is considering this for camping …Its on a reasonably busy ‘B’ road so I would say if your prone to issues with noise make sure your nearer the river / Event Field (to the left of the below map). Motorhomes and Caravans will most likely suffer less from the acoustics side of things than tents and Campervans with Pop-Top type canvases like ours. All in all a cracking location if you just like being outdoors, and great for kids to play football, frizby and run around in the woods.
I’ve just gotten round to making a few subtle upgrades to my BLOG. This comes in the form of buttons for Facebook, Twitter & Google, along with the ability to share via email, or ‘Like’ for WordPress Bloggers. This way you can share or show your appreciation for anything past, present or future.
Why now? This site was set up a couple of years ago, and although I have spend a number of hours adding content and tweaking its appearance, I must confess to having been a little relaxed in its general upkeep. That said I am not after my BLOG being forced upon the will of people unnecessarily, but I have noticed these feature appearing more and more on other BLOGs, and find them quite useful. I see no reason why others should not feel the same about my webpage. Anyways, its there now, (for better or for worse) and can be found at the bottom of most pages .
I have also decided to add the ‘Calendar’ widget to the left hand menu bar, which will highlight in red the dates new posts were added. Its only one month blocks, but could be a useful feature when things get busy. I’ll re assess this in time 🙂
The off side caliper had been intermittently sticking on a few separate occasions throughout the course of 2016. I had taken my van into my local garage for them to investigate the problem. Diagnosed as sticking on the caliper carrier was one suggestion, and after new wheel bearings and disk brakes the issues seemed to be resolved for a good few months. May 2017 I collected my van from storage and by the time I had got home the smell of hot components made me realize the issue had returned. The only possible option now was to replace the calipers themselves. Not cheap at near on £250 for the pair including new hoses.
There were two different types of caliper fitted to the Atlantic. Mine had come out of the factory with the ‘Late ATE’ variety. They do not make these calipers anymore so the only option was a refurbished pair. Brickwerks was the chosen supplier. I was pleasantly surprised at just how well these had been reconditioned. They actually looked new. Clearly all new moving components and they had been plated.
As good as they looked, I knew that a good couple of coats of Smoothrite Red would assist against the elements, and give a brief flick of red through the wheel apertures. I had used Hammerite on my previous vehicle calipers. It was capable of withstanding pretty high temperatures, and didn’t discolor.
Wolfgang was purchased back in October 2014. Since that time we have used the van for all of our main holidays, and hope that this will be the case for many years to come. All part and parcel of owning a 25 year old classic is the never ending list of things to do to keep it in working order. I have chipped away at cosmetics, creature comforts and the run of the mill stuff to keep him roadworthy. Although changes have been made to drastically improve the handling with suspension improvements and maintenance, there has always been an issue with it’s lack of ability to climb hills.
During a service in 2016 by Brickwerks I asked if they could check the engines compression. Unsurprisingly it has been diagnosed as being on the poor side of what should be expected. This twinned with the fact the fuel pump had proven difficulty to adjust left me feeling that there was only one possible route to give me the reliability I need for any confidence in future trips. An engine change.
last year we made the decision that 2017 would be the year we would commit to a month long trip in Europe. Both Mandy and I explored the avenue of taking time off unpaid to realize our dream so we didn’t have to exhaust all of our annual leave in one fell swoop. This was swiftly agreed by both our employees. Happy days 🙂 .
Shortly afterwards I started asking questions on forums and social media about the best route to go down with my van and its engine. I will not lie, the van had already cost me more than anticipated from time of purchase, largely due to being neglected by the previous owners. So the cost of an engine change was something I hadn’t factored in at this stage in my ownership, which meant I had to be realistic with the budget i felt i could manage.
There are a multitude of different engines that would fit my van, with many of the more modern alternatives providing much better performance and economy. As tempting as it was, I knew that choosing one of these engines would make for a more involved installation, and as a result more costly. Also, a more powerful conversion would require changes to the gearbox to enable it to cope with the extra power, and this was really not an option I could entertain with my budget.
All of this taken into account, I decided to plumb for the slightly larger capacity 1.9td (AAZ) engine as a replacement for my current 1.6td (JX). The extra capacity should give a little more grunt up hills, which will be much appreciated. The almost identical engine configuration would mean that many of the parts involved to fit into my van will already be available from my old engine. That said, getting a good second hand AAZ with low mileage would prove difficult as these engines were produced in the 90s. Many would have high, or questionable mileage and history. Not really a chance I wanted to take from a reliability stand point.
After much pondering and research I chose the only option I felt comfortable with, which was going to be a re-manufactured unit. This is different to a recon engine where the parts a just inspected and replaced if necessary. Re-manufactured is a total strip down and ground up rebuild with all new parts. So with all of this as my criteria for the future power plant, I contacted a company that had an extensive history with re-manufacturing VW diesel engines (AW Engineering Darwen). I was told that an AAZ would cost £2100. However if I had a unit to exchange it would only be £1500. I’m all for saving money if there is a route to doing that, and the £600 discount on an engine with an exchange sounded very apealing. I wasn’t in a position to part with my current engine as we had plans to use it right up until i had the conversion, so the only possible option would be to source another unit.
So i spent a couple of weeks on ebay , pre loved and gum tree in search of something that looked like it would tick the box. I eventually found an ABL in Birmingham from a VW T4 Van for the sum of £180 which was promptly collected.
ABL Engine in trailer shortly after collectingABL Engine in trailer shortly after collecting
Not knowing the history of the engine I wasn’t sure if it would be an acceptable exchange unit. Basically it had to be salvageable by the engineering company. It was a gamble, but It did come complete with Turbo and fuel pump so I could always sell these on to recoup some of the cash .
ABL Turbo and inlet manifoldABL Fuel Pump
I spent the next day or so removing everything to get the engine in a state where i could make an assessment. It wasn’t looking good…
Looking bad for the ABLBuggered Bore and Piston
Big scores in the bore and a pretty badly melted piston pointed towards an injector fault on one cylinder. I sent AW an email with the above photos and they said it would still be worth sending it to see if they could do something with it. I was a little apprehensive as I thought the bore was too damaged, but took the plunge on getting a courier to collect and deliver the engine for £40. So this was £180 engine + £40 delivery = £220 of my hard earned cash. Fortunately it proved not to be a waste of time. I received an email from AW to say that they had managed to turn the engine around, which meant and I would get my discount off a replacement engine 🙂 .
So all of this was July 2016! I wasn’t really in a position to buy the engine back then, let alone have it installed. I knew that this would all take place in 2017 before our Euro trip. So I got an agreement with the engine re-manufacturers that it would be some time in the future before i would be buying the engine. That didn’t stop me looking for other parts. I saw a turbo, brand new on Facebook for £200 which was less than half price so snapped that up.
New Turbo
Also, I managed to get a second hand sump that I would clean and use as a replacement for the dirty one on the van, and a fuel pump i would have reconditioned.
Sump, Fuel Pump, Turbo and Turbo Bracket
So this is pretty much where things stayed until February 2017. We hadn’t spent any time planning the Euro trip because the finances for the engine transplant and all that went with it started to unsettle me. A decision had to be made, and after a little financial juggling we were back on track. Brickwerks were going to be my chosen engine installer, and a date of April 10th was arranged for the drop off. I knew they had the credentials to do an excellent job as they had done all of the work previously on my van. I also got in touch with AW and ordered my engine which arrived about a week later. I had a few other parts that i should have had fitted by a my local garage last year, but for one reason and another this didn’t happen. So my intention was to have everything sorted in one go. So the parts had started to pile up..
Fuel Tank, Engine, Sump, PAS pipes, Coolant Pipes, Turbo
The fuel pump was sent away to Diesel Bob for a check and possible recon. This turned out to be quite expensive at just shy of £400 including postage and VAT. You can see by this picture, its just like new and a work of art so maybe it’s justified? 😉
JX Fuel Pump
I also managed to source a brand new AAZ rocker cover…result!
So the install date for the engine is approaching, and we are well on the way to planning our Euro Trip with places like Troyes, Anncey & Dijon (France), Lauterbrunnen (Switzerland), and Venice, Garda & Verona (Italy).
Mandy and I always make the effort to get away on our Birthday weekend which fall in February and November respectively. This used to be in the form of a B&B, or hotel in a nice location away from home. However, since we brought the camper its pretty much been an excuse to go away in the van.
An example of Liverpool’s beauty
Come mid October we were struggling to decide on a location for my birthday. I saw a post on Facebook by somebody saying they had spent a night at Liverpool Marina in their camper, so we decided to investigated the option by looking at the Marina website ,and sending an email for prices and availability. The response was £15 per overnight stay in the outer car parks, which included access to shower facilities. The price was fine as a room in a hotel or B&B in the center of Liverpool would have been upwards or £80. However, information on the camping location was sketchy, so Mandy and I were understandably apprehensive. We decided to commit to the weekend in the hope that it would work out for the ok. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Saturday 12th started well for me. I got presents and cards 🙂 . The weather on the other hand was dull and rainy 🙁 . We set off from Derby mid morning, and arrived at Liverpool just as the rain stopped and the sun came out. The post code we used in the Sat-Nav positioned us in a car park with a few campervans. Initially we thought it was the right location and were a little dissapointed at the lack of boats. There was water, but no boats. It soon became apparent we were in the wrong place as the Marina Yacht Club was nowhere to be seen. A short drive lead us to the right location where we found a nice spot on the edge of the car park to set the van up.
This gave us great views of the boats in the Marina.
Pitched Up and ready to hit the city
We popped into the Yatch Club to make our presence known, collected a swipe card to enable access the shower (£10 deposit), and paid for two nights parking (£30). We soon got our bearings and headed towards Albert Dock. This was a 15 minute walk along the River Mersey past the Liverpool Exhibition Center, BT Convention Center and the Echo Arena.
Mersey at low tide
We had been to Liverpool in the past. The first time was a coach trip to the cavern club for an evening, and a couple of times after that where we parked up at the main shopping complex ‘Liverpool One’. On all occasions we only saw a very limited portion of what the city had to offer. It’s not surprising that our impression of Liverpool was a little muted. That said, the regeneration and new developments seen on the brief walk from Marina to the Albert Docks was certainly giving me a reason to question my opinion. Over the course of the afternoon, my view of Liverpool changed dramatically for the better.
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The quays, wharf’s, docks, architecture, museums and colorful history makes Liverpool one of the most interesting City’s to visit. I really couldn’t believe that we had missed such a lot previously. Saturday afternoon gave us a great overview of the docks and its location in relation to the other areas we were more familiar with. A coffee at Nero, a meal at one of our favorite restaurants Zizzis, in combination with plenty of fresh air and walking made the day pretty much perfect. Suffice to say we both slept extremely well that night.
Sunday was Armistice day. This always fell on my birthday weekend so we were used to being cought up in the excitement of the parades. This year was different. We had a leisurely start to the day because we didn’t feel the need to rush being so local to the city center. We had a shower, a cuppa & breakfast, then set off on a brisk walk up the now familiar ‘Kings Parade’ to the Albert Docks. We were so distracted by the shops and attractions at the docks, by the time we realized it was almost midday and we had missed the parade 🙁 …but I found this on youtube 🙂
On the Saturday I had seen some small ferries giving guided tours of the docklands and river. I decided that this would be a great way to pass some time and learn a little about the history of the area. Unfortunately no ferries were running on Sunday because of armistice day. So we settled for an open top bus tour.
The temperature in the afternoon dropped so this was a chilly experience, but it was a great way to see far more of the sights than we would have been able to on foot. One fact I learnt was “Liverpool has more grade 1 & 2 listed buildings outside of London than anywhere else in England” .
Anyways, we stayed a second night at the Marina before heading home the following day. In summary a really great city break on a real budget. Highly recommended for anybody that has a campervan / motorhome 🙂
My Birthday weekend in November was the second time we used the van. This was less than a month after the first. We played it safe and went to the tried and tested campsite ‘Eriba Glade’ in Warwickshire. We were still finding our feet with our new van. There was a lot to get our heads round, but it was all good fun 🙂
My love affair with the T3 campervan was cemented in September 2014 during a romantic stroll along the the seafront at Woolacombe on a warm summers evening with my wife Mandy. A late T3 Syncro Westy caught my eye, and after a brief chat with the ownerthe cogs in my head started turning. Days later my mind was made up and the wheels were in motion to to raise the funds to buy a campervan.
