Transporter

There isn't much to say about this job as it is very easy. Prep wise I did take the time to touch up and repaint some areas of the roof that had paint damage that the rail base plates would cover up. As you can see on the right I had one of the soft ally fasteners round off on me . My work around was to carefully cut a slot into it with a junior hacksaw blade then use a large flat bladed screwdriver to remove it. Pretty standard stuff but it is nice to get the chance to illustrate it actually working.

Cruising Intro My first car, an Audi A4 1.8t SE B6, and a year spent living in the states had got me rather used to having cruise control. When trying to maintain speed on long drives with rolling hills or variable speed limits, make it almost invaluable and at a few quid short of £100 it seemed almost rude not to get cruise control for my T5. Comatibility To fit cruise control you need to get the correct kit for your year of van (T5 and T5.1 are slightly different), LH/RH drive and whether you have a MFD or not.  Other limitations are that you must have electric windows which means your J519 BCM Body control ECU will be of the correct spec. A quick check for this is to either check the part number is compatable (eg. my BCM '7H0 937 049 T' is compatible) or simply check the 'F plug' socket has pins in it. Finally it is rarely mentioned but you need to have a rear wiper and washer as most of the control modules are for vehicles with a rear wiper. If not ...

Intro Having previously owned a B7 Audi A4 S-line SE last edition, I had become used to a rather plush interior and I was having some problems with my T5 from the drivers seat. T5's are better appreciated from the outside than in. Much to my dismay this seems to be the case even for some modded vans I was finding on the internet. A wise man once said: " I'd rather live in a cave with a view of a palace than live in a palace with a view of a cave. " In fact it was Karl Pilkington and he is an idiot. The point he missed is that my T5 cave was clearly designed for a cave man and you still have to look at the inside of it whilst everyone else enjoyed the far prettier exterior. It's like a VW Dime bar only the crunchy inside is a mix of plastic and rubber that would do little for your teeth. So just like a Dime bar then. I'd like to stress that the interior isn't bad at all. It is perfectly functional and solid, it's just far from attracti...

Hunting Dubs Time wasn't much of a healer. The memory of the oil making 4-motion was with me as I searched the internet for a suitable replacement.  "It had been a bargain and what if it had been a simple fix"? I might have thrown away a genuine bargain and I was now struggling to find a van with similar speck and at a similar price without astronomical miles on it. Time however was on my side (healing properties omitted though they were) and one particular example did crop up on auction. Sat at a starting bid of £12,500  and no bids there was a silver 2.5 130ps LWB with electric pack,  barn doors and a few bits added to make it into a light day van. Some pimping Landrover alloys, coil overs, a rear spoiler and fancy headlamps also gave it a pretty gnarly look. The mileage was at 85k, not bad at all for a van, so after messaging the seller to see if they were happy with a bit of a wait I stuck a minimum bid on it. Which I won. I paid a holding deposit...

Picking Picking the right van was a far more difficult task than it aught to have been, but then I am a picky bugger. Having recently sold my Audi A4 Avant B7 Sline SE 2.0 Tdi 180ps (to give it is's short name) I had gotten used to a rather plush drive. I also had to shift the urge to not buy one of those big bi-turbo S6's or similar, so suffice to say my research was far reaching. My needs were simple. I wanted a reasonably interesting vehicle that could transport a couple of guys, bikes and kit to a race and back . A car and trailer were an option, but an undesirable one, if I ever wanted to take up motorcycle racing seriously. That left a van. There are lots of these about but they are generally agricultural at best which is great if you are using it for work but this would also need to be my primary caging device and as mentioned before I had turned into a bit of a tart so this was going to be tricky. So a premium van was in order; realistically leaving me the Merc...