Quick moan update...

Decided to ring VW Commercial in an effort to frighten myself and they quoted me a fairly reasonable £56.89 for the parts so I thought about it a bit and decided that it was no more expensive than any other option and a whole lot less stressful than driving about with no drivers mirror for a few days.

Before I went I checked everything over and it transpired that one of the parts had survived the impact which helped lift the mood somewhat - less cost = happier me! True to form though when it comes to pROJECT mAYHEM it turned out that I needed a third part which was more expensive than the part that had survived by about a fiver - I am so lucky sometimes!! Thought about it for all of about 3 seconds and then came to the conclusion that the stress of paying an extra fiver is bugger all when compared to driving about with no mirror so pROJECT mAYHEM has a nice new mirror now which I will remember to fold in religiously.

Quick moan...

Went out to the van this morning only to discover that that the drivers side mirror housing and mirror were laying in the road. Who ever hit it (in a van almost certainly) was travelling at a fair pace to say the least as it has smashed the thing to bits. Now I have got to source the replacement trim and mirror from somewhere and the options are to either get a replacement unit including the stalk from a breakers or to buy all of the separate parts off eBay. Will check over in more detail what I need but I think it is all of the trim and the mirror that is required which is not going to be cheap or quick so the more obvious choice is a breakers.

Needless to say this has really brightened up my day but it might teach me to remember to fold the mirror in at nights!

We haz carpet!!

On the second day of the twelve days of pROJECT mAYHEM my true love gave to me lots of lovely carpet to bedeck the beast with!

This could have potentially happened yesterday but I was following up a post from the VWT4 forum about templates for the side panels posted by a company in Sheffield (I refuse to mention their name as they are simply useless tossers). Searched out the company and drove over there in the pouring bloody rain only to find out that their definition of what a template is radically differs to what the rest of the world defines as a template. In a nutshell their version of a template is for me to buy some of their pre-made panels, an "idea" which simply got the big old fuck off and the end of any chance they had of seeing any money out of me. Don't get me wrong - the T4\T5 scene is competitive and there are a lot of people out there doing their own thing and making a living off it but I really dislike getting dragged across Sheffield on a wild goose chase. If you have templates then say you have templates but don't get me to lose a precious day fucking about please. All you have earned is a firm recommendation that you are a bunch of useless fools.

Today was the exact opposite - drove up to Leeds to see Mega Van Mats and you could not wish for better service - just a guy and his other half(?) operating out of Pudsey at the back of an industrial estate but the service was, beyond all doubt, exceptional. Talked through what I wanted to do and gave me a load of tips on how to do it and was just a pleasure to deal with. The only complaint (not that it warrants such a word) was that he didn't have the colour of mat that I wanted but he told me this over the phone prior to me setting off so it was no big shock - I just ended up with a slightly lighter blue than originally intended - big deal!! In summary A**** - fantastic guy - highly recommended - would deal with again!

Anyway now I have the task of starting the carpeting and things start to ramp up in intensity - no more creating stuff in the shed in preparation any more. Tomorrow the bass bin\amp enclosure gets clad and once I have figured out how to do that the serious work of all the steel work that will remain on show gets under way followed by final fitting of the panels prior to getting those in.

Eek and double eek!!

pROJECT mAYHEM Update XVI

Just over four hours left at work now and then the fun begins - well it will begin tomorrow really when I start the first of my 12 days off and go and buy the carpet, glue and other random stuff that is required to get pROJECT mAYHEM to the next stage. I have already spent what seems like a small fortune on nuts, bolts, screw rivets and other assorted stuff off eBay but I am rather syked for this stage as I will be able see what I have done for a change. Hopefully by the end of the week I will be able to post up some pics of a fully carpeted out van with panels in place and all the rest and the start of the kicking sound system in place as well. Getting the sound system in is probably going to prove fun as I am not only replacing but also rewiring all of the speakers and on top of that there are the three RCA cables will have got to be ran to the two amps. All in all it is likely to be an interesting few days given the route of choice for the cables is likely to be over the drivers door (and maybe the passengers door for the other side) to the dash and doors. Still the prospect of no more distortion when the bass gets phat is something that has to be considered a good thing!

Uncle Butters

Late last night I became Uncle Butters - for those of you who might be interested in such things it was a baby girl weighing in at 6lb 9oz - no name as yet.

*UPDATE* The name chosen for the baby is Esmay apparently - nice name and not especially common either as far as I know which is always good.

More general ramblings...

Got the storage finished for pROJECT mAYHEM the other day - all the tops have been cut to shape and the backs have been pretty much sorted as well so all I have to do now is figure out the housing for the gas rings but for now it is job done. To celebrate I am now teasing myself by looking at dials - I need a voltmeter for the leisure battery and have found one that matches the "indigo" dials used by VW. The problem is that they also do lots of other dials as well for monitoring the turbo boost, oil temperature and the like and while I have no need for extra dials they are very sexy and shiny and just plain tempting. Therefore I have to try and resist the urge to buy four dials instead of one when I get round to it - something that I am not sure is is going to be hugely successful to be honest - I can only assume that this is a similar thing to what women go through when they look at shoes or chocolate.

While I was doing the pROJECT mAYHEM stuff I had the Albanian Rat Hound keeping me company. He didn't contribute much to be honest other than generally looking depressed about stuff and it finally reached the stage where he couldn't be bothered to run away every time the router or circular saw got fired up and instead just sat there instead getting showered with sawdust. It has to be said that the Albanian Rat Hound is getting a lot of opportunity to be generally depressed at the minute - I am looking after him for a week (or at least till the weekend when he gets shipped off to Batty's house for a couple of days) which has coincided with me having to work days. This is rather unfortunate as it means that I have to get up just after 6AM to walk him round the park and then leave just before 7AM to go to work for 12 hours before returning again - a far from ideal situation it has to be said from both our perspectives. As if that was not enough I remembered to shut my bedroom door today so there will be no chance for him to sleep on my bed - something he got a chance to do yesterday and thought he had got away with only to be betrayed by the still warm dog sized crater on the duvet! One suspects that there is no analogy sufficient for the levels of depression and long faced gloom I am going to have to endure when I get home tonight - you just have to love dogs really...

General Rambling

The weekend was lost in a drunken blast with the family in Nottingham on the Friday night and then Sheffield on the Saturday night - much beer and wine was drunk and much curry was eaten. In short chaos abounded as it always should in these situations!

This week. Been working nights again which is always grinds you down but at least it allows you a few free hours in the afternoon so I have been making progress on the other storage unit which is almost there now. Just got to cut out the top and then plan where the two ring burner is going, figure out how to box it in and a few other odds and sods and that should be completed.

The next stage of the grand plan once the storage units were completed was to make a start on the electrics but after having a rethink the next thing on the to-do list now is to get the ribs carpeted and maybe get the insulation cut out, carpet the panels and fit those too.

There are a couple of reasons for this change of plan - the first being cost. Having to get the steering rack sorted out ate a large chuck out of my already well chewed budget and though the cost was not as bad as I had actually expected it to be, it didn't help and of the things left to do getting the carpeting sorted is the cheapest. The second is that I feel the need to do something tangible so that I can look at it and think that I have taken a step forward. While it is all well and good making storage units and the like, until they get fitted (which is looking like being a while away as yet) it feels like I haven't got anything to show for the hours I have spent working away in the lock up. Getting the carpeting sorted also allows me to finalise where the storage units and the sub woofer\amp housing will be located which in turn allows me to take up the floor and trim that as necessary, fit the T-Nuts for the storage to bolt to and run in the cables for the invertor and then carpet the floor as well. All in all doing it this way ultimately reduces the number of jobs that are relying on other things to be done so it is a win-win situation as far as I can see.