This post was written 7 days ago, by Rick Hurst.

Mon, 04 Mar 2013

One day we might buy some badass alloy wheels for Rocky, but that really is at the bottom of the list. In the meantime steelies will be just fine - I was given these spares (along with old tyres of varying quality) by someone who was going to take them to the tip. In a week or two i'll take them down to the local tyre place and get them to fit my summer tyres. I'm just giving them a coat of black hammerite - I reckon with some new shiny hubcaps they'll look passable. From a distance ;)

Tags: vw T25 /

This post was written 10 days ago, by Rick Hurst.

Fri, 01 Mar 2013

Before we set off on our cross-country trip just before christmas, I started looking into winter tyres for Rocky. Unlike other Northern European countries, winter tyres are not compulsory in the UK, and many people don't think they are worth the expense and hassle, as we don't get much snow here. Instead, we dump tonnes of salt on the roads at the slightest hint of frost, which explains why old UK vehicles suffer from so much rust compared to other countries!

Winter tyres aren't just for snow - the main difference to summer tyres is that they have a softer rubber compound which helps them grip in cold temperatures, when summer tyres harden up and become next to useless. They also have a more complex tread pattern. I can't help feeling that UK drivers are a laughing stock across Northern Europe, with our entire road network grinding to a halt at the slightest hint of snow and ice!

With the possibility of snow in Derbyshire I thought it was worth looking into, and I was lucky enough to find a set the right size on gumtree at a fraction of the cost of buying a new set. Funnily enough when I went to pick them up, the couple who I bought them from told me their son had taken them off a T3 he had bought in Austria - he had them fitted just for the one trip, as they were compulsory for the Austrian leg of the journey.

After picking up the tyres, I got a local tyre place to fit them to my existing wheels, and thanks to a very generous person on the club 80 - 90 forum, I now also have a spare set of wheels sitting in my shed ready for my summer tyres to be fitted to. I can then swap them over myself in the spring when (please!) the temperature rises. Winter tyres work fine in the summer, but being softer rubber will wear faster, are noisier (not that you'll hear them above the engine in Rocky), and decrease fuel consumption, so it's worth swapping back when they aren't required.

Predictably I haven't actually needed to drive in the snow yet, and I also haven't driven Rocky in the snow with summer tyres, so i'm not qualified to comment on the difference, but i've heard from many people that the difference is massive. I've been told many a time that a two wheel drive vehicle with winter tyres is better in the snow than a four wheel drive with summer (or the compromise "all season" tyres), but this is just anecdotal.

If you have any doubt though, take a look at this video, showing the difference. If you can't watch the video, or haven't got time, it shows that the winter tyres are drastically better in the snow, and also better in general at temperatures below 7 degrees celcius.

Tags: vw t25 /

This post was written 17 days ago, by Rick Hurst.

Fri, 22 Feb 2013

One website that keeps popping up on my radar is Campervanculture.com. It's mainly about T25/ T3/ Vanagon Syncros, but campervan owners (or aspiring campervan owners) of all persuasions will appreciate the stories and particularly the wonderful videos - someone give these guys their own TV show! I've particularly been enjoying the tales of wild camping - something we haven't yet done in Rocky, but I did plenty of in my old panel van, as a single hippy in the late 90's. As Jed and family show, it's perfectly possible to find great places to wild camp, both in UK and Europe.

I'm also looking forward to reading about the planned Africa trip at the end of 2013.

Campervan culture Facebook page
campervanculture.com website

Tags: vw T25 / travel blogs /

This post was written 21 days ago, by Jo Hurst.

Mon, 18 Feb 2013

(First guest post by Jo!)

I've never been camping in February before, but with the sun shining and an electric heater promising to blow warm air onto our cold tootsies in the evening, I could hardly say no. Plus, last year all we had to keep us from the elements was a pop up tent, and I've been camping in April in Devon on a warm day and been absolutely frozen at night. This time though we had our T25 - Rocky.

Not particularly planned, we booked an electric hook up site on Friday night and spent Saturday morning stressing and dashing around the house trying to work out what we needed to put in the camper (lots of bedding) and what we already had in there (not a lot). We took way too long, and got on the road at lunchtime, but being the first camping trip of the year, we were out of practice, out of petrol and quickly out of patience with each other. We'll get this packing lark down to a fine art eventually. From house to van in half an hour would be good. A a flippin' miracle, but good.

We opted for a forestry commission site in the Forest of Dean and despite not having a bike rack, we rammed in 3 bikes in as well, angled to still leave elbow room for putting the handbrake on. I'm still getting used to the freedom of camping with space to pack. After years of tent camping and fitting everything into the tiny boot of a VW beetle, it's a novelty to be able to take board games, pillows, fairy lights and still have room for a nine year old in the back. The site was fine, no tents in site (unsurprisingly) but plenty of motorhomes scattered around and still space to choose from. We parked, threw up the pop up tent that was once our camping bedroom and plonked the bikes inside. We then set about doing the most important thing we do in our campervan - make a cup of tea.

We did a bit of cycling in the woods, played some baseball with a newly purchased foam bat and ball, but pretty much tucked ourselves into the van with the heater on. I'm not that hardy, I like being warm and well caffeinated. With the heater on, the thermal covers on the windows and a film on the laptop, we were totally cosy and warm. The hot water bottles remained unused, it was an unusually still night too which probably helped keep the cold out, and overall, we drove home to Bristol with a gorgeous sunset shining into the van and three very relaxed campers bopping along to some cool tunes. Roll on Spring!

Tags: vw T25 / trips /

This post was written 24 days ago, by Rick Hurst.

Fri, 15 Feb 2013

I found this travel blog about a couple from Freemantle, US travelling the world in their Vanagon (T3/T25 to us europeans):-

At the end of 2011 we quit our jobs and set off in our 1984 Volkswagen Vanagon, "Nacho". Our plan? To circumnavigate the globe, slowly, while discovering culture, food, recreation, and emergency roadside Volkswagen maintenance. We are Brad and Sheena. Just wingin' it.

It's addictive reading - I read the whole thing in one evening, spanning back to the preparation of their westfalia camper - some amazing pictures of the custom interior they did:-


There's also plenty of mechanical posts - one story that made me laugh/cringe was the story of how after leaving their bus outside a garage in Susacon, Columbia, they came back to find the transmission removed and a confused mechanic with a pair of vice grips ready to dismantle anything else he could get his hands on. They had only asked to borrow a Jack!

Drive Nacho Drive

Follow them on twitter: @drivenachodrive

Tags: vw T25 / travel blogs /

This post was written 28 days ago, by Rick Hurst.

Mon, 11 Feb 2013

Much as i'd like to be on an epic year-long road trip, or even just a weekend away, life often gets in the way. The British winter isn't helping, and i'm counting down the wet, cold, dark, miserable days until we can head off on our next camping trip in Rocky. Owning a camper doesn't have to be all about sleeping in one though - with a cooker, seating and even heating available it can become your private portable dining room in any weather.

At the start of December last year, desperate to use the van, even though we couldn't get away for the night, we headed off to Cwmcarn forest in Wales, to give the van a run after having the coolant changed and bled. The first thing to note is that camper vans are classed as cars on the Severn Bridge toll - not sure if self-converted "stealth" camper vans would get away with that, unless they look sufficiently campervan-like? If you can get it through as a car it is virtually half the price of a van.

The Cwmcarn forest drive is a private road so you can park up anywhere convenient for a few hours and explore, before shutting yourself in the van, sticking some music on and having lunch or coffee in comfort. I'm not sure how busy it gets at other times of the year, but we hardly saw anyone except the odd mountain biker riding the trails, or the mountain bike truck and trailer whizzing past occasionally.

Tags: vw t25 / campervan / trips /

This post was written 1 month ago, by Rick Hurst.

Thu, 07 Feb 2013

This guy left his design job in New York in August 2011 and bought a VW Vanagon Syncro (basically a 4x4 T25). Since then, he has done 50000 miles driving around the west, surfing and camping.

A restless transplant

Tags: vw t25 / travel /

This post was written 1 month ago, by Rick Hurst.

Wed, 06 Feb 2013

Fanastic tumblr blog of van pictures, including plenty of T25's - I could look at this all day!

#VANLIFE

Tags: vw t25 / campervan /

This post was written 1 month ago, by Rick Hurst.

Mon, 28 Jan 2013

I found some pictures of my old VW T25 camper, "The strawberry van" - a 1983 1.9 water-cooled panel van. I bought it off some clown. No seriously, I bought it off a professional clown who bought it for carting his equipment to gigs. He'd decided to use a landrover he had bought instead, as it was apparently better for towing his large trailer.

As far as camper conversions go, this was basic - I built a fold-down bed along one side, from the frame of an IKEA futon and using the futon mattress, and had a foam mattress from a caravan across the back, making two single beds. I also had a cooker from a caravan on the floor, crudely anchored to the back of the passenger seat uisng bungee straps. The curtains were also held up by bungee straps and made from an IKEA duvet cover. The only bodywork modification I made was to fit a sunroof halfway down the van roof for ventilation and light in the back.

These photos were taken in 1997 on my "spanish adventure" - where I spent six months travelling in my T25, alone and with friends, around Spain and hanging around for several months in a beautiful valley know as "el morreon" just outside Orgiva, in Andalucia. El Morreon is a collection of dwellings based around a river bed, which is mostly dry in summer, and to reach the valley requires a bit of mild off-roading, including fording the river. Full-time travellers often over-winter there, when the river bed is impassable in a motor-vehicle.

I've lost the full record of where I travelled, but I started by sailing with friends on the ferry from Portsmouth to Bilbao, then we spent some time in Santander before splitting off, travelling along the north coast, into the Picos de Europa national park, visiting Gijón, Oviedo, León, Valladolid, Salamanca, Avila, Madrid, Toledo and Granada, amongst many other smaller places that I have no idea of the names. If only geo-tagged digital photography existed then - i'd love to look up where some of my pictures were taken. I also travelled up and down the south coast, making petrol and food money by busking outside (and sometimes inside) bars in tourist traps along the costa del sol. Most of the time it was wild camping, with the occasional stop at a proper campsite to use showers and washing machines etc. I travelled back to the UK through france and the channel tunnel.

The engine on my old van was in a bad way, and it only just got me back to the UK, where unfortunately I had to let it go, as an engine rebuild or replacement was then beyond my reach. I'm not 100% sure what was up with the engine, but there was a problem with one of the pistons which meant it was using a massive amount of oil - I had to top it up with a litre or so at every petrol stop. To say it was a bit smoky would be an understatement - the back of the van was covered in oil and it would stall whenever the revs got low, and wouldn't restart until the engine had cooled down. I'm not quite sure how I got it back to the UK - I drove through most of france in a single day - stopping using the handbrake at traffic lights so I could keep the revs up and avoid stalling. Once across the channel, I also spent several hours at a petrol station in Kent, where the van was refusing to start, and I though I might have to arrange a tow back to East Anglia, but eventually got it started again, and completed my trip stopping only to pick up some hitch-hikers!

Tags: vw t25 / spain / campervan / ikea hacks / trips /

This post was written 2 months ago, by Rick Hurst.

Sun, 20 Jan 2013

Last night I dreamt that I went to see a guy who was selling an engine, which might be a good replacement for the "naturally asthmatic" 1.6 diesel engine I currently have.

After looking over the engine, I asked the owner about it's history:

"It actually came out of a lawnmower" he said, "but it's probably more powerful than the one you've got in there at the moment".

"Yes." I sighed, "You're probably right."

And with that I wandered off with my new engine cradled in my arms...

(I think I may be a bit pre-occupied by Rocky's lack of hill-climbing power!)

Tags: vw t25 /