Transporter

Fresh air is great but on those few days in summer it is even nicer if it is freshly chilled. Better still; in misty Lincolnshire, is the ability to clear your windscreen with dry air thanks to air conditioning. Reserach Some forum diving made it clear that a retro fit is a massive pain in the bum and rarely taken on by individuals. Those that have either pay someone to do it or haven't writen a great deal about the experience. The best forum post I found on the subject was by an Aussy chap called Phil on the T5 forum but this was for a 1.9 so I had to be careful not to get sucked in too  much. It looked like the parts were expensive and that was the easy bit. Wiring isn't straight forward and usually mixed into the loom of the donor vehicle if buying from a scrap yard. Nobody seems to make a retro fit loom either so I was looking at a full loom change or some hardcore loom building. This should be an interesting modification! Shopping I bought the front end a

Transforming the transporter's looks. The front end of the T5 Transporter isn't a great thing to look at. It's not bad but it's not great either. The T5.1 sportline facelift looks pretty great which is probably why so many people face lift the T5's. It's a simple bolt of job but does cost a bit to do and that's before you even get to painting the thing. Another look to go for would be to convert the front end to a Caravelle style bumper either from a  Caravelle or Shuttle bus. The bonus of this approach is that I could find one already painted thus cutting costs a fair bit. The reason I did not to do either of these was that I wanted to do something a bit different. I had found a number of forum entries that inspired me to go and try some custom mods. Something I had not done before. A brief forey with the splitter on the right (it did not end well) got me started but it wasn't till quite a bit later till I got really stuck in. T

Changing the coilovers had already done loads for the vans handling but it was now time to go full comfort and loose the 20"s Decisions, Decisions. I wanted to go for some  "19 RS4 style wheels  like the ones on the left. I spent an absolute age shopping around to find the exact style I wanted before I had the cash spare to go and order some. There are loads listed as "weight rated" but none mention to what weight they are rated too.  A few enquirys later proved that NONE  of them were weight rated to the weight of a T5 transporter despite being listed for them. Very naughty! As such I had to broaden my search a bit to find a suitable wheel. Decision Made. In the end I picked up a set of genuine VW 18" 6 spoke sport line wheels in matt black from  Tamar wheels . I rang them on  01752343280 / 07793590038 direct which saves them some eBay fees and you gain a nice set of colour matched wheel bolts for free. I took the wheels to ZR tyres  wh

It's August bank holiday Saturday, the RD250 race bike is ready for the dyno, strapped in the back and I am half way to the dyno when *BANG*. I loose drive and a low grinding noise tells me all is not well as I coste to a stop. Fuck stick. Some roadside deliberating got me thinking clutch but the padal felt fine and there wasn't any noise till I applied drive. A bit of forum bashing (it was a bank holiday so I had a while to wait) later and drive shaft kept coming up again and again. Once the AA guy rocked up he was convinced the duel mass flywheel had gone, hitched me up and towed me home.  The van sat nicely on 100,200 miles and a duel mass flywheel being rated for 100,000 did make it the prime suspect. A blown clutch was one thing but the duel mass was going to make things expensive. A bit of internet shopping had me looking around the £500 mark for the parts. The job shouldn't be out of my abilities and tooling wise I shouldn't be far off so I had a lo

The lighting in the back of the T5 isn't great, even for a van, so as a camper it looks dull.  Time to fix that. I have looked high and low for suitable lighting for the back of my T5 and either found ideas too complicated, expensive, space consuming of simply ugly. At some point I was alerted to the idea that kitchen cabinate down lights are generally small enough and run on 12 volt direct currents with an inverter to connect to the houses mains. They can also be picked up for sensible money from your local DIY shop. I went to B&Q and got a set of 12 LED down lights for £20 (the box was open) and at some point later got a hole saw and some time to get this job done. I have taken the time to photograph as much as possible for you to do the same should you wish to do something similar. When planning this, I was particularly keen to keep clutter to a minimum and keep an OEM looking. As such I decided to make these new lights slave off of the sliding door light fitti