The Dispatch | Expert | Scudo Hub

I put a block of wood under the spring holder cup and then jack under that.  It works ok.  The axle stands go under the two jacking points under the sills.  For the front I just pick the biggest chunk of steel frame, put the block of wood between the steel and the jack and up it goes.  But I do have a 3 ton trolley jack for this, so less hassle.

Honestly the height inside is a big chunk of the reason.  So I have my eye on a slightly damaged ex post office Expert mk2, so i'm not really selling up, more of an upgrade type affair, assuming it's still available after I've sold it.  Same engine, same pretty much everything, but the roof in the back is somewhat higher and I think the van is slightly longer.  I think in these vans it would amount to a LWB, medium roof, not that a LWB Expert is as long as probably a SWB transit, but I think the load length in the LWB MK2 is maybe a foot longer than my current one.  It would be nice to be able to stretch out when sleeping.  Right now my head is pretty much against the back doors and my feet in the back of the passenger seat.  When i sit on the bed I have to lean forward or my head hit's the roof.  It's one of the reasons I did minimal insulation on the roof.

In terms of everything it's a solid van and if I had the skill set of JohnDragonMan or some of the rest of you, plus the workshop and tools, I would have taken it off the road and dropped the gearbox and fixed it.  But I don't have the kit for it, nor the knowledge/experience.  I can do most basic mechanical tasks, but i'm happy to admit when it's beyond my level (timing belts, engine issues, etc). I should have sold it last year, but I left it too late and (tbh) after shelling out the best part of a grand to get it through MOT I wanted to get a years use out of it.  But it's time for it to become someone else's project.

Next one will be upgraded beyond my current spec.  A new project, with new higher specs.  I want something that is Arctic capable for a start, so i can go hit Norway.  The current one would need a lot of changes to make it to that spec.  Which is another reason to sell it and get a new blank canvas.

I have one working light on the numberplate.  I did wonder about blanking the top brake light.  Right now it has a red lens on it, but it could be replaced with a white plastic cover or taped or painted.  The other brake lights work.

So I would fix everything, but I do have to get rid of this van, as much as it pains me.  Just waiting to get another MOT, then this van will go on the usual selling sites.

Thanks.  I ordered some and hopefully that will fix that issue.  No idea where the original ones went.  These ones will receive a touch of thread lock.

And without doing anything, it has started working again, all the time.

So i'm convinced it's a grounding issue.  I'm going to grab one of those prebuilt battery leads they sell at Halfords and make a new chassis ground point somewhere near the battery and connect it to it.  Then at least one decent ground will exist for the vehicle.

I've been trying to work out in my mind what could have caused this.  Last night I pulled in at Tesco and the second I pulled on the handbrake, the fan fired up and just ran until i switched the engine off.  When i restarted it after shopping it fired up for a bit until I took the handbrake off.  This all started when i went looking for that alarm box I found under the steering column.  The clock on the instrument panel is running slow, where as before I did everything it was fine.  There was a wire in the back of the radio held in by a screw.  Since the radio lost it's code and doesn't work I just took that wire and taped it.

I'm wondering if the alarm box removal, that wire or the fact i didn't reconnect the radio has caused this issue.  If the control is on the ground current and the ground was dodgy and one of those components was creating an alternative ground in the circuit, would that account for why my blower has glitched and the clock runs slow?  No idea, but i'm going to try plugging the radio in, then maybe try plugging the alarm back in.  See if it makes any difference.

After that i'll have another go at removing the dash and see if I can work out what isn't working and maybe bypass the power to the fan if needs be and run it from somewhere else.

Thanks Reg.

So I did the one with the grinding/grating noise.  Pads were soaked black in god knows what, but best guess is brake fluid. After much faffing and swearing I got the new one on, but their was one spring i couldn't get my head around.  I think I put it back on correctly.  It was on one side of the adjuster.  I don't think the self adjuster works.  I cleaned it up as best I could and it spins, but i don't know if it actually works.  Still need to swap the other side and then tackle adjusting the hand brake cable as it's now loose (was on enough to stop wheels moving at 3 clicks before I replaced the shoes and now at 5 clicks it barely holds, but the foot brake now works really well).

Next comes the brake pads on the front.

I hope to sell this van before the MOT in May, but might just put it through on a mock MOT and see if it comes back with anything major.

Don't know what the tax on my van is currently, think about £170 every 6 months.  I never had the money to drop the £310 or whatever it is for a year.  Insurance was £300.  I would love to know how John got his for under £100.  Cheapest I could ever get was the one I got from Lexham and have been using them for the last three years.

I heard it was going up a lot this year due to the Labour wankers wanting older vehicles off the road.  I'm selling my van this year and looking for a SWB Transit in a Euro 5 variant.  Can't afford a Euro 6, but a Euro 5 will knock something off the road tax and also let me go a few more places abroad if I want to.

You know i've looked into picking up a second hand electric van for the last three years.  Kind of settled on something like the Nissan e-NV200, especially if i can find the high roof version the gas board use (very rare).  If I had more money, then i'd be looking for PHEV (with the battery and a small engine to charge it) given the fact you can always find a petrol station, but not always a charging station. Or Ford do a MHEV Transit that i've seen in L2 H3 config, which would suit me.    Right now I don't have the cash for any purchases of that level, but have seen second hand 40kWh e-NV200's for £5000-6000 and they would likely be what i'd look for assuming they worked out a better deal than a standard diesel. 

I did read about a guy that wandered France for a month in an e-NV200 and spent only 60 euros on charging for the entire trip by using mostly free charging points.  Apparently some supermarkets have enough solar panels to offer free charging for EV's if you buy something.

So the saga continues.  Sorry I didn't reply, i've been offline for a bit.

So I cleaned up the switch.  So when the blower works, so does the switch, but it doesn't appear to be the issue.  I found a weird thing with the blower.  If I've been driving in it for say 20 mins and then reverse into a space and then put the handbrake on, the blower starts running.  So to confirm it.  At my house, I put it in reverse, disengaged the clutch a little, then put the handbrake on and took it out of gear, in that order.  The blower then sprung to life.  It doesn't work if you only do one or the other.  Also if I disable the VSR between the vehicle battery and leisure battery, the reverse/handbrake thing doesn't work.

So I have no fkin clue what is causing it.  I am thinking electrical issue.  Could a bad earth or connection be the issue?  Either way it looks like I need to remove the dash.  But with the VSR thing I'm wondering the leisure battery side is causing the issue.  I did put a completely new earth in for the LB side (bolt through a steel panel with paint removed to allow good contact, then wired into a busbar).  But I do, do something weird with the solar controller.  I have two outputs on the controller, so I send one to the leisure battery (70% of the power) and I put the second on the other side of the VSR so I can back charge the vehicle battery (30%).  I wonder if that is an issue.

It's acting weird.  So it hasn't failed apparently, at least I don't think the issue is the blower, per se, as it suddenly burst into life yesterday at full power.  At other times it seems to run at different levels, almost like as I rev it and the amps increase, so does the fan motor speed.  This week I am going to try and check the wiring on both the switch and the blower unit.  I have this nagging feeling that the issue is electrical.  Maybe a bad earth or something else like that.  I( also wondered if the battery was the issue, but fans really shouldn't be pulling that sort of amperage.  I don't use the air con, I think the last time I depressed that switch was the day i bought the van, just to test it worked, but I've not used it ever since.

I need a dry day to do it and i'm very tempted to overhaul both sides. The pistons weren't great on the passenger side when I took it apart, but it still passed MOT last year without any issue.  I do have the shoes and the bits you need to do an overhaul, so maybe I will do that.  But might do the front pads first as they are super easy.  I think the bit that worries the most is the handbrake cable.  I think if you overhaul you have to readjust it, or I at least think I read that somewhere.