Christmas Presents

Merry Christmas everyone!

This year I had pretty much nothing but Van goodies on the Christmas list and I was very lucky. My wife bought me a charger for my leisure battery. My brother and sister in law bought me a mains hook up cable with 2 x 240v sockets on it. My mum bought me a 12v to 240v converter so we can plug 240v appliances into the battery if we wish to.



My mother and father in law bought me a 28 litre Campingaz cooler which is switchable from a cooler to a food warmer - capable of heating up to 65 degrees which will be very handy!





Alpha Batteries also agreed to swap my (unused) acid leisure battery for a gel based one which means it can be charged without needing venting and can also be installed on its side - which I'm hoping will help with the next phase where I come to install the battery and all these accessories into the van. It's due to turn up early in the New Year as it was delayed getting here due to the snow. Pics of the new battery when it turns up.

Venting the Battery

After reading about charging my battery it became clear you definitely need to properly vent them when charging them, as they give off poisonous gasses. So I emailed Alpha Batteries who sold me the battery, with some questions about venting. They came back with a reply almost straight away. I'm posting them here to help anyone else as clueless as me. My questions are in italics, their answers in bold.

Where are the vent holes for this battery? I see no vent holes, unless the two half cm sized holes up near the top, one on each side, could be them?
The two small 0.5cm holes in the top of the battery are the vents.

The battery came with no pipe to connect up to any vent holes. Do I need to buy one? Fashion one myself?
You need to connect a pipe up to them to vent them. When fitted inside a van, these should be vented to the outside.

In what sort of environment can I safely charge this battery without special venting? Can I leave it in my kitchen or will that poison us? Does it need to be charged outside?
The battery should not be charged indoors, unless perhaps with a window open.
Best place to charge it is a garage or shed.

Alpha Batteries are sending me a spare bit of piping free of charge just as part of their after sales care. Good service I'd say. They got the battery to me next day and have just said that the pipes will be with me tomorrow. I would recommend them.

Leisure Battery - Phase One Complete

I've just got the parts for Phase One of my Leisure Battery installation.

I picked up a 113AH Platinum Leisure Plus battery from Alpha Batteries.


To connect to the top terminals I bought some of these quick release terminals which are very secure once fitted, safe and will allow multiple sockets to the attached to them. Then to enable my 12v appliances to be plugged I bought these water proof 12v double sockets. They have an inline fuse built in and simply attach to the battery via the terminals. All that gives me a standalone leisure battery which I can plug two appliances into safely.

In order to make sure the battery can be recharged I bought this ring smart charger which enables me to charge the leisure battery by connecting it up to the battery with jumper leads (and with something more permanent later) and then simply plugging it into the mains.

At the moment I'll recharge the battery at home and take it away when needed to power some camping utilities. Although as it stands I don't have that many to charge! So I need to think about picking up a 12v to 240v inverter soon enough so my wife can run her hair dryer!

More Deambering

Finally managed to get the side repeaters changed over to new smoked versions from T5s R Us this lunchtime. I don't know about others but this was a right pain for me. I broke one (old) credit card trying to prise the old repeaters out and to be honest don't think that will ever work.

How they used to look:


So in the end my pal Marshy and me spent our lunchtime unscrewing the underside of the front wheel arches and prying the old repeaters out from the inside. It was a very messy and time consuming job!

Once out it was a simple case of swapping in the new repeaters and then pushing them into place, click. Easy.

How they look now:

Pimp My Ride

Just had two new windows added to the rear barn doors of the van and those new windows, plus the two side windows limo-tinted. The job was done by Gareth of AutoGlaze and I'm really pleased with the job he's done. He was a very friendly and helpful chap and really did a great job.


Before:


During:


After:



The side windows were already privacy glass so adding full limo tint to them has really darkened them up. I also notice that I have gained a load of visibility out the back when reversing - I can still rely on my parking sensors for precise parking but at least I can swing the van around a bit more easily now. Gonna have to take a trip to the local scrap yard and find a rear view mirror now!

Rear windows added to the barn doors, complete with rear filament cost me £163 due to a misunderstanding in quotes - they let me have two windows done for the price of one, so it should have cost twice that amount! The limo tinting was £115 all in for four windows. Total cost today £278.

As if my black van didn't look enough like a pimp mobile before I added limo tints...

Wind Deflectors

I bought a pair of Wind Deflectors from T5s R US and they are a 30 second job to install. Basically wind the window down, slide the deflector in place (you have to slightly flex it to get it into place which is why it stays in place), wind the window back up and Robert is your mother's brother.

Before:





After:





As you can see they are really low profile and hardly noticable. They provide about three quarters of an inch overlap so you can open the window and not get weather inside.

De-ambering

One of the usual style modifications that seem to get made to the T5 is to swap out the amber indicator bulbs for clear ones. To that end I've bought myself a pair of chrome replacement bulbs from T5s R Us for the front indicators and a pair of dark smoked repeaters for the sides. For anyone wondering how easy these are to replace, the front ones are dead easy: just pop the bonnet up and you can reach in and unscrew the drivers side one. The passenger side one requires a little plastic blanking plate to be removed first but this is a 30 second job and it's only screwed in with a screw which you can open with the driving key. Simples.

Gratuitous before shots:





And the same pics of how it looks 2 minutes later. Note that the side repeaters are still amber at this time.