A Week with the T2 Camper

After a few practice sessions we got used to the gearbox and the extraordinarily heavy  steering. The version we have has lowered suspension (annoying, rubbing) and  wide  alloy wheels which is a mixed blessing. We got more used to the brakes and they actually do work fairly well once bedded in a bit - we suspect the previous owners had not really used the van and the brakes had become weaker than usual if that is possible.
The EMPI exhaust is loud if you floor it -  pedestrians take notice at about 50 metres. The EMPI gear stick is not quite as good as the VW at aligning the gears instead offering a simple bias spring arrangement and a gate for reverse hence some of our previous gear change problems. There is no real adjustment there, just doing up the gear lever fixing bolts when they work loose.

The luggage capacity of the van is quite large - we took about two Peugeot 307 SW worth of stuff with us and could have fitted in more camping gear if we had needed it.

We set off with the prospect of dire weather forecasts so we decided to give up on camping en-route. We spent some time finding any hotels in the West Country with a vacancy on Friday night. In the end we found the four star Southgate Mercure in Exeter where we booked two rooms. We already had a booking for a holiday chalet near Bude for a week and a Travelodge near Tiverton on the way home , made before we  bought the van.

We experienced fog and rain and slow traffic  on the way to Exeter , first the Bournemouth Air Show, then queues on the A30 where we diverted north to avoid Bournemouth. Once on the A30 south to Exeter we had a good brake test when a truck pulled out in front of us and then stopped in the way.  We started seeing other VW vans coming the other way and were waving a lot.

As usual, second gear became harder to find as the transmission warmed up. Never vanishing , just the gearchange becomes more sloppy and harder to align , but eventually the waggling the stick resulted in a second gear. In hillier areas, the inability to easily hit second became more annoying.

When I parked up in the Mercure car park , I parked badly and when I went to start the van again to move it, nothing. I spent a while working through possible problems - but I noticed the headlamps dimmed totally when turning the key and there was a click from the solenoid, but no engine turn over. Off load the battery was 12.6 volts : charged but low capacity ?  I tried rocking the van in gear but still nothing.  I sort of remembered a problem like this immediately after we bought the van which cleared itself. We also noted the starter motor seemed to be having more trouble turning over the engine after a  pub stop near Salisbury on the way down. Fortunately we were round the back of the Hotel so we did not mess up the wedding reception going on - Shirley thought the Wedding car Porsche 911 was the van with me driving around to celebrate the van running again.
Even 2 hours after stopping still no life, but an easy start the next morning.
Next morning we drove to a nearby Halfords using the Nokia's satnav function and bought a new Type 065 (bigger) battery which turned out to be 50% higher in designed capacity.  We simply plonked the battery in the back between the driver's and passenger's seats and continued our journey.

The A30 was blocked at Okehampton and we queued for about an hour before turning north to Bude. No overheating problems and because of the traffic jam isolating the region, we met hardly any traffic on the road to the Atlantic Highway down the north Cornish coast.

We arrived at Bude a little early and parked up at Summerleaze Beach, where we went for a walk around. Noticing the darkening sky we retreated to the van  and hid from the rain.

British Summer Time



At the peak of the rain, the gutter was overflowing and water started trickling down the inside of the sliding door. Only a few drops and it might not have been fully closed when we got in . We certainly were not opening it again to shut it properly.



From Japanese Zen Garden to reversing up a narrow Hollow lane.

We went down to St Mawgan to visit a Japanese garden near the airport. The garden is in the village down narrow roads and steep bends.
On  the way back we took a wrong turning south and to correct we ended up turning north going down a very narrow road without passing places between rock walls . We met somebody coming up, and as we were closer to a widening of the road we reversed back up the hill - fairly easy using the rock wall as a guide in the passenger side wing mirror.