A side note- Off Road Driving

My partner Rosie bought me an Off Road Driving Experience for my birthday back in June and I wanted to wait until the wet weather came so that it would be more fun!!

Rosie was able to come along for the (very bumpy) ride and she filmed most of my drive from the back seat. So without further ado here is the short film I made of the best bits!!

Cheers

Tom 

A change of colour

It had been a while since I had done anything to the van what with Rosie and I moving into our first home together. Where I live on the coast and spend most of my time in search of wind or swell and this takes it toll on polished alloys - they had just started to bubble and pit, so what I did was to put the steels back on for a while whilst I sprayed my alloys black. I know some people really don’t like black alloys, especially my mate Andy who seems to think they look like steels until closer inspection! But I really like them and the way they look on a red van.

The first thing I did was to clean them, then sand them first with 240 grit and then 400 grit to make sure all the laquer came off. Next I deflated the tyres as much as possible and then pushed back the sidewall of the tyre and then masked the wheel up. The next step was the primer, I used plastic kote grey super primer from B&Q, I sprayed 3 full coats on each wheel, making sure there were no runs, leaving 30 mins between each coat and then left for 24hrs to dry before flatting off with 400 grit very lightly.

After that it was time for colour, again I used plastic kote black super satin from B&Q, this time I applied 5 full coats to each wheel and again made sure I had no runs in the paint leaving 30 mins between each coat and then left again for 24hrs to go off. There was no need to flat the paint off but I did key the surface very slightly to allow the laquer something to adhere to. 

Here they are all finished and looking nice in 

my shed!! Now to put them back on!!

Alloys and Snow!

So after a really long search, I finally found some alloys that I liked, were the right size, load rated and not too pricey.  I went for old BMW M5 wheels, they are close to the weight limit but enough to say the least.

The first pic was taken on my mum and dads drive. 

The second pic was taken in front on my girlfriends flat in Southampton when we had all the snow last year!

Cheers

Tom

Naughty number plates, vans and fines!

Trawling through some pictures of Scarlet to document her conversion I found a couple that show the van off really well before all the work started.

The first two pictures were taken for my friend's uni project. The first is literally outside the window of my work and the other around the corner near the Swannery Lake. In Weymouth, on the big spring tides the harbour floods the storm drains which overflow onto the harbourside road causing a fair bit of surface water which is bad for your car! Not sure if you can see but at that time I was still naive enough to be driving around with German pressed plates on my van (yes stupid I know!). I got caught speeding in July 2010 (a couple of months after) and subsequently got done for my plates as well, lesson learned!! Just incase you don't know, I got a hefty amount of point and fine because I was not aware that you could only 60mph on a dual carriageway in a van!!

This final picture is of my work's car park. My boss (and mate's) van is the white one with the range rover alloys (maybe this pic will inspire him to get some new tyres, eh Andy!!), The blue California  is my friend Matt's and you can see Scarlet tucked away at the end. You can tell what most of the conversations at work are about!!

Cheers

Tom

Lights and Headlining

So I guess the next thing I did with Scarlet was to shed some light (literally!) in the rear of my van, first I purchased some of these from B&Q.

They are 12v LEDs which I wired into this. The LEDs came with their own junction box so they were really easy to wire in.  I decided that I wanted 5 in the front section and the same in the rear. So once I had spent some time drawing the plan out on a piece of paper it was time to drill the holes!!

Above is the rear section.

I had to drill 27mm holes so out came the spade bit, which i have to say was a bit brutal, so I put a piece of batten the other side to drill into and give some support.

Above is the front section.

As can be seen above this is the headlining in situ with its shiny new lighting. BUT I was not happy with it because I did not like the colour of the original headlining against the carpeted walls. Also because Scarlet had a factory fitted bulkhead, there was a gap between the cab headlining and rear headlining.

So to combat this, I got hold of some hardboard and made a piece to fill the gap which tucked neatly underneath the brace between the cab and the rear of the van. I then got hold of some more carpet from Mega Van Mats and covered the whole of the rear headlining to match the sides.

So here it is, the headlining is now complete! Apologies for the picture, not the best!!!

Cheers

Tom