Wheel trims

Next on the scabby parts list was the wheel trims. They are the originals, which is great, and apart from the flaking paint finish were structurally in good condition. I could have just replaced them with some aftermarket ones but thought it would be nicer to keep the originals.

I hadn't come across this type before - they are actually held on by plastic rings on the wheel nuts, so removing them is a bit more involved thsan just prising them off. But the flip side is that I won't lose any! Basically, you remove 3/5 nuts; take the rings off; put them back; remove the other 2 bolts and the trim pops off.

They were very grubby on the backs which is to be expected, so I gave it all a good clean and thewn rubbed down with 400 grade wet & dry, followed by a good rinse and drying.

Here they are ready for paint. 

And painted. In hindsight, it would have been better to have spent a bit more time and got rid of all of the old paint, as some of it has bled through slightly (see 2nd from left). But they are 500% better, again just for the sake of £10 of paint (Simoniz Steel Wheels) and a couple of hours of work.

 

Blower

I've already mentioned that the blower wasn't working, so heating/demisting and aircon are almost non-functional. This is a really common fault on Hondas of that era and is apparently almost always the blower resistor/transistor module that has failed. The previous owner told me he'd not been able to find a replacement but had found that a used Land Rover one fitted. This worked for a while he said, but then failed again. Maybe it wasn't up to the job or maybe he was just unlucky to have another failure?

Anyway, I managed to get hold of a used one from Automatrix, which was lucky as they are pretty rare apparently. The old one was still dangling down from behind the glove box, so it was easy to disconnect the old and plug in the new. Gratifyingly, the blower started up straight away 😀. When I have a little more time, I'll remove the glove box and fix it back into it's proper place.

 

Descaling the roof!

Once the scabby bonnet was sorted, the next thing I kept looking at was the disgusting state of the roof, every time I opened the curtains in the morning.

I thought that it was a bad case of green algae, a bit like caravan roofs suffer from, and it was that but had then dried hard so it was almost akin to barnacles on the roof!

Detergent and hot water got some of it off but wasn't really touching the hard ingrained stuff, so I got the soft upholstery brush in my cordless drill, lathered up the roof really well with suds and attacked it with the drill. It was still hard going to be honest, but did slowly come off. The front wall provided a handy step up to work from!

Well, that's one side done and I'll finish the other half when I have a spare hour. There are some small scratches etc that have started to rust slightly so I'll have a go at those when I touch up the rest of the paintwork in Spring.
 

That looks better!

Every time I looked at the van that scabby bonnet kept staring back at me! I knew that would have to be one of the first jobs to do.

I decided that there was no way I'd be able to match the faded pearly white paint on such a big panel as the bonnet by using aerosols, and It's not worth having a spray shop do it, so I decided to take the safer option of painting the bonnet satin black. 4 bolts and the bonnet was off so I could deal with it in the comfort of my temporary spray booth in the (yet to be decorated!) spare bedroom.

When I started rubbing the rust and flaking paint back, it confirmed that the rust wasn't deep at all and came off fairly easily, although there was a lot of it. Every tiny little pock mark held a spot of rust underneath and I got them all off so they shouldn't come through the new finish.

Up into the "spray booth" and I put a coat of grey primer on, followed by 3 cans of satin black, which was probably about 10 light coats. Some of the parts I'd feathered back sunk a little bit but it looks OK unless you get very close.

With the bonnet refitted, I decided that a nice simple graphic was required to break it up a bit and show I wasn't just trying to create the "muscle car" look 😆, so I ordered this. Seemed to sum up where I'm at in my life quite nicely!

Obviously, beauty is in the eye of the beholder etc, but for the sake of less than £50 and a couple of hours I think that has really tidied the front end up a lot. I'll tackle the rust above the windscreen when the weather is warm enough to spray outside. The jury is out at the moment on whether to spray it white (any poor matching will be a lot less noticeable up there), or whether to spray in a 2" wide satin black band there, which would kind of work OK with the bonnet and window / roof trims.

 

The Power of the Internet!

Less than 24 hours after I first published this blog, the previous owner saw it and messaged me with his number. I was so shocked - I only really do these blogs for myself, mostly as a diary to look back on during long winter months!

Anyway, I had a lovely conversation with Ifan, who also lives on Anglesey and had traded the van in just before Xmas. The headlines of our conversation were that he had owned the van for 7 years and said it was the best vehicle he'd ever owned and was dead reliable! He'd mainly used it for moving his 2 large dogs around, which explained the strange smells! He also said that he often carried a bowl of water around for the dogs which might explain where the water has come from. I felt quite bad that I had been so disparaging about the condition of the van and apologised to him.

Ifan told me that while he's owned it it had had a new radiator; 2 new rear calipers; 2 new front coil springs and a new fuse box. He gave me the secret to how to open the tailgate and also told me that the reason for the ABS light being on (it has come back on again) is that there is rust on the ABS ring on the rear brakes - wire brushing it apparently cures it. He also confirmed that the blower resistor had failed before and he couldn't get the correct part so had used a Land Rover part that had the same connector but that failed again shortly afterwards. I've managed to get a second hand one from the specialists Automatrix, which is on its way to me as we speak.

And finally he told me that neither of the screen washers are working so I need to have a bit of a look around there. I assume it's a fuse or loose wire if both of the pumps have stopped working.

He has a spare key and some history that he's going to dig out and send me. I feel so lucky to have made contact with him - it's taken a lot of the worry away from me.

What's the Plan?

My over-riding initial thoughts are that I don't want to spend too much money until I've established how viable it is to keep as my everyday car. Having said that, I've bitten the bullet and sold my much newer Peugeot, as I don't want to have to insure two cars and also have limited parking in the street, so I am fairly committed to trying to make it work. I do feel like I have a fairly decent fighting fund to pay for any small bits that need doing though before it becomes a money pit.

I also don't want to go to town on fitting it out as a camper. My plan is, for the first year at least, to use as little new stuff as possible until I have a better feel for what will work and what will be a waste of money. I'm not trying to recreate a fully fledged motorhome; more a posh tent ☺.

So the initial list on the vehicle itself is:

Deep clean interior and dehumidify. I've already made a start on the mats and they came up really well. I think I'll probably hire a "Rug Doctor" machine to do the main parts though.

 

Fit new heater blower resistor, which is the likely cause the blower isn't working

Fit new roof aerial - most likely cause of the wet seat as directly above 

Paint the bonnet. I don't think I'll be able to match the paint on such a big panel, so I'm thinking that I might do it satin black and with some sort of white graphic on it. The satin black should fit well in the context of the black band running around the windscreen and up over the roofline of the van. Something like this, but with a graphic on it:

Hopefully, it will look a bit better than that!

Rub down above windscreen and repaint. Not such an issue there about blending in the colour.

Respray the wheel trims with silver wheel paint. If I keep it long term, I'll look out for some Honda alloys off a Civic or Accord. They are fairly cheap; less than £200.

Repaint the rear bumper and add a rubber bumper protector strip.

Fix rear tailgate release. Add an extra release so I can operate it from inside when camping. 

Repaint towbar.

Sort out inoperative fog lamp.

Fix sliding door hinge (replace rollers). Repaint damaged cover panel.

Then it needs a thorough service. Initially, oil and filters. Then a bit later I'll do the pollen filter and replace the auto transmission fluid.

Most of this is TLC and time rather than lots of money. That lot should get it fairly presentable and mechanically "stable". I won't be surprised if there are a couple of other mechanicals to deal with in that phase as well though. 

In terms of using it to camp, the inside is super-versatile and goes a long way to helping me.

Firstly, a nice surprise that I discovered was that the front driver and passenger seats swivel to face the rear. That creates a much more open cabin space when camping. The two rear rows of seats can be configured in loads of different ways, e.g.

These two seats folded down will be the basis
 of my bed, with a topper on. I'll remove the other
rear seat and the small "jockey seat" that you can
see folded up here. I'll make a storage unit with a 
padded top to fit in the missing gap to support the 
mattress.

In "day mode" you can effectively turn the second
row seat around like this.

Or you can fold row 2 seat down to make a table
between row 1 and row 3.

And for general use, that row 3 seat also
folds up out of the way to give a huge space.

I'll make a small unit to contain my camp stove etc that I can temporarily fit in the back (probably in the space vacated by the removed row 3 seat and using those fixings to attach it securely).

And then I'll make a storage box with a padded lid that can fit behind row 3 seat, but then move around to fill in the gap alongside the seat when I make up the bed.

I'll probably get hold of a cheap cool box for now, and also I'm just getting some rechargeable LED strip lights that attach magnetically to the roof area. If it all works well, these will be areas to upgrade in future, possibly with a leisure battery and solar panel to power it all.

 

 

 

What Have I Got Then?

Anyone that is afflicted similarly to me will recognise the slightly sick feeling when you aren't sure whether what you've just bought will turn out to be a disaster and a money pit. That was the kind of feeling I was having on day 1.

I'd done a vehicle check and there were no red flags apart from the fact it was an import. When I came to insure it, my current insurer didn't insure imports so I had to take out a new policy with a different company. But the premium was comparable to what I have paid previously for my cars.

What did I find from a more leisurely inspection?

When I opened the door, it was a lot more smelly than I remembered it! Full of rubbish; filthy carpets. One of the seats on the middle row was very damp and it looked like water had been dripping onto it from an aerial in the roof.

The tailgate had moved from being "temperamental" to "stubbornly defiant" and wouldn't open.

The engine started readily from cold and still sounded good. I put a litre of oil in to bring it back up to level.

Bodily, the roof is covered in green algae and it all needs a good clean and then longer term cutting back and polishing.

The bonnet needs rubbing back and repainting but the rust is definitely just on the surface. Above the windscreen is similar; slightly deeper but not penetrating as far as I can see.

The driver and passenger door windows both have nice deep wind shields on them - great for a camper as you can open the windows for ventilation without rain coming in.

The rear bumper is slightly pushed out from the corner bodywork, although it doesn't look like it's had any significant impact. Maybe it can be resecured or possibly some zip ties underneath to add extra fixing? It's not terrible as it is though. The paint on the bumper is poor and needs respraying. There's a towbar fitted that needs rubbing down and hammeriting.

The rollers in the sliding side door hinge have collapsed making the door difficult to open and causing it to scrape on this cover panel. 

The wheel trims are really tatty, but the tyres seem to have plenty of life in them.

I put the battery on charge for the day. The next morning it was still showing 12.3V so looks like it's holding charge and it was showing high 13V with the engine running so looks like charging ok.

The ABS light was illuminated on the dash. Having researched this a bit, it can often be caused when there has been a low voltage or change of battery and there is a reset routine to try. A couple of days later when I went out for the first drive after charging the battery fully I noticed that the light had gone out of it's own accord.

That same drive confirmed a creaking from the front end when turning through bigger angles - I think this will probably be one of the tie rod ends or bottom ball joints that has partially seized. It's not a huge or expensive job to replace them and I might do them all just as a precaution.

I spent the afternoon clearing all of the crap out; hoovering and washing down all of the plastics. Then I got some upholstery cleaner onto the two bad seats with a rotary brush in my drill followed by a wet vacuuming, which improved them a lot. I stripped all of the mats out for a proper cleaning. They are very good quality, original mats and look like they'll clean up nicely. 

I wouldn't say it was a deep clean, but made it bearable to be inside at least!

New Project = New Blog!

Not content with being in the middle of a house renovation; and just picking up on the outstanding Moto Guzzi v50 project, I have displayed classic "Noel behaviour" and embarked on another new project! Well, it would be bad to be idle once the others draw to a close wouldn't it?

In fairness, after 7 months hard graft on the house, we are in probably the last 4 months through to spring before the inside is substantially finished. It's definitely habitable now; just requiring decoration and some fairly light DIY really. And the Moto Guzzi is all refinished, except the lacquer and detailing on the paintwork, and then it's largely a case of reassembly and commissioning. Hopefully she'll be on the road April/May time.

So thoughts have started to turn to what I will do more of once the house is finished, and one of those things is to get out and about exploring a bit more. I like doing that on the bikes, although the lightweight camping is starting to be less enjoyable as my bones get older! Definitely that's still a thing I want to do for things like bike meets and Manx GP etc, but I fancied a bit more comfort for "general travelling".

I've pondered getting another motorhome, but don't have the space to store one, so I'd be paying storage and having the inconvenience of that. 

A couple of times while I've had odd days free visiting family in Australia I've hired a "Spaceship" campervan, based on converted Toyota Previa / Ultima people carriers. That was good fun - kind of like having a metal tent. More comfortable and more storage, plus no great effort to set up and take down as you move around the country.

So I started thinking that I could build something like that, and it would be small enough to use as my daily driver, but flexible enough to kit out if I fancied going off travelling for a spell.

Of course, once you start researching this kind of thing, you realise that a million people before you have done the same thing and most of them have YouTube channels all about it! So I embarged on absorbing an orgy of information to establish what might work for me. Just in case I decided to do something like that, once I've finished the house.....

Of course, me being an impetuous and impatient type, just before Xmas a possible vehicle popped up on Facebook Marketplace, at a dealers not 10 miles from home. Bearing in mind I don't exactly live in a densely populated metropolis, it's quite rare to see that kind of thing nearby. So obviously I went and had a bit of a browse, but I did do it when the dealer was closed - just a fact finding mission.

What I found was a very sad looking and down at heel Honda Stepwagon (actually designated a "Stepwgn" for some strange Japanese cultural (?) reason) - a Japanese Domestic Market import 8 seater MPV. The paintwork was quite scrappy, with quite a lot of surface rust and some nasty scratches by the sliding rear passenger door; the rear bumper was a bit misaligned after a small knock; wheel trims pretty gash etc, but they only wanted £1,000 for it and it had 9 months MOT. I couldn't really see much of the inside as it had tinted side and rear windows, but I could see bits of dash (e.g. cubby boxes etc) hanging off and a quite grubby looking beige interior.

I went away to do some research and have a think. I'd hardly been aware of the Stepwagon but a couple of things became apparent to me quite quickly:

1. they don't seem to suffer from the same rust issues that the Mazda Bongo have (although it is a 22 year old car so inevitably that is going to be an issue at some point.)
2. the engine is the Honda 2.0 VTEC "K20" engine, which has a very good reputation for reliability, as do Honda's in general.
3. it's a super versatile interior which should allow good adaptability to make a simple camper.
4. the boxy shape means that it has generous headroom throughout.

In terms of the specific vehicle, the MOT history showed that it had a good record of passes with just a couple of very minor fail items over the last 5 or 6 years.

I decided I'd have a think over Xmas and maybe go and have a proper look in the New Year if it was still there.

A couple of days later, on Xmas Eve, a road diversion happened to take me past the garage again, so inevitably I popped in for another look, but this time the keys were made available to me and a starter pack produced to hear it running.

It sounded good, no undue smoke or rattles; no mayonnaise on the oil filler, but the oil level was quite low, which didn't suggest careful maintenance. Moving to the interior, that definitely didn't suggest a well cared for vehicle. It smelt pretty musty and unpleasant and looked like it had been used as a waste skip! The carpets, upholstery and plastics were filthy. The heater blower didn't work. The ABS light was on. The sliding side door had to be "assisted" to open without scraping the bodywork (more than it already had!) The rear tailgate grudgingly opened after some fiddling. Apart from a bit of relatively light rust around the rear wheel arches the rust on the bonnet and roof line looked quite superficial.

I took it for a test drive and it went like a train with that VTEC engine! An emergency stop showed that the brakes were strong and pulled up straight. I won't say I was smitten, but it did appear to have the basis (with a fair bit of elbow grease) of a nice little camper for not a lot of money. 

I got back and the dealer asked if I wanted to make him an offer. I was reluctant as it was being sold as a Trade sale without a warranty. Eventually, I made what I thought was a silly offer of £700 and he accepted it! 

Now this may prove to be a right bag of nails, but at that price, I figured I could put a week and a couple of hundred pounds into tidying it up initially, seeing how reliable it might be etc and then at worst sell it on for at least double that. At best, it's the sort of vehicle I love owning and it will become my family pet!

She was delivered to the Shearer Home for Lost Causes on  6 January. Let the fun begin!