Photos

Another set of pictures of Tabitha

Thoughts on wiring.

I'm not convinced by the current state of electrics in Tabitha, so here are my thoughts on that.

Now

Effectively, the inlet goes to a single circuit breaker (picture of our fusebox), then to mains adaptors. I'd like to introduce more circuits, and fuses. I'd also like to reduce our reliance on the 230v circuit, by removing the lighting from it completely, and using it only for charging and the fridge.

Future

I'm looking at getting a Mains Distribution Box (e.g. this one), and a 12v distribution panel (depending on availability on eBay, either combined with a charger or just the Zig Marque 1.)

Solar Panels appear to be cheap and plentiful on eBay, which would increase our self-reliance.

Relays

Here's my circuit diagram for the fridge and split relays. I have 2 30A fuses for the battery circuits (F1 and F2) and 1 20A fuse for the fridge (F3). These may be too big, although I've been advised not to go smaller than 20A for the batteries.

Another weekend

Peta and I have spent a lot of time on Tabitha again this weekend. We're trying to get the cab roof clean, so that we can rustproof it and insulate it. It's a really tedious chore, and it gets tiring really quickly, so we rarely get more than half an hour or so done at a time.

When not scraping roofs, I've been concentrating on the electrics. I finally realised that no matter where the two mystery wires that disappear under the van go (I think they reappear in the front of the cab as part of the 12v circuit), it doesn't hide the fact that there is in fact no split charge relay. This means that if something on the 12 volt circuit is left on, then first the leisure battery drains, then the starter battery - and then you can't start your van. So that's one mystery solved.

I have a rough sketch of what I want to do (mostly from the Electrickery link on split charge and fridge power), so I just need a visit to Maplins to get to work on that. Once I've got the circuitry covered there, I plan to revamp the 12v circuitry entirely, installing a distribution panel, getting the powered water pump up and running, and replace the van's reliance on 230v. A solar panel would increase our self-reliance too (although total self-reliance will require a lot more work to refit the entire bathroom water system and drainage).

The 230v circuit isn't much better than the 12v circuit really, although I'm not sure I'm so keen on tackling it just yet. I'm only halfway through replacing the inlet from a female socket to a male one - female inlets are smaller, oddly, so I need to increase the size of the hole to fit the larger male inlet. I need to do a lot more research to determine how best to rewire - although it has to be possible to improve on the following:

• 230v inlet comes in to a fuse
• from fuse, to 2 way adaptor
• 2 way adaptor goes to fridge and 4 way adaptor
• 4 way adaptor serves teasmade, interior light and 12v battery charger

Tabitha Photos

Tabitha's first picture collection is now online!

Will

One step at a time

Well, Tabitha's not so much travelling at the moment as sitting in our parking lot rusting relaxing. Least, we hope she's not rusting - have noticed some rust underneath, but haven't had a chance, and am not really sure how, to assess just how bad it is.

Tabitha's relaxing because we can't get her started. I drove her home no problems, but we suspect that lots of sitting in traffic, at night, with little chance to get some good volts up (gotta love London driving) meant that her battery dropped below the point where it could start the diesel engine. Charging her off our poor little Fiesta did no good, so our next step was to buy a mains to outdoor wassitthingy adaptor so we could charge the battery from the household mains (one of our sockets has an excellent in-build circuit-breaker, just in case there was any dodgy wiring).

It arrived this week, and we were looking forward to getting her going today.

We plugged the adaptor in the mains socket. We got the lead out of the van. We noticed the socket in Tabitha was female, so connected the male end of the lead. We took the other lead inside... the adaptor also ends in a female socket. Bugger. I don't know how the previous owner used the mains on Tabitha, but while I don't know much about eletronics, I do know that you can't plug a female into a female...

Shush girls ;)

So we're back at square one. Advice from the Bedford CF messageboard suggests that Tabitha should really be an outie, so we're going to buy another socket and give Tabitha's electrics some gender reassignment.

Inside the girl, today's task was to paint the ceiling of the cab. She originally had some vile blue plastic stuff stuck to her there, but it was ripped, and being somewhat curious, I ripped it further to see what was underneath. Rust, and lots of it, we first thought. It was only after buying a truckload of rust paint, and peeling off the blue plastic today, that we discovered that the 'rust' was actually some kind of yellow-brown dried foam stuff. Insulation maybe? No idea, but it's coming off now, albeit with a lot of paint stripper, acetone, and elbow grease. We won't be painting her today.

Will also started changing the cupboard and drawer knobs inside. A couple were missing, so I thought it would be nice to replace the whole lot with some nicer ones. A pretty minor task, but it's these small touches that I believe will make travelling in Tabitha a much nicer experience.

So, of the long long long list of things that we want to do to her, we've barely scratched the surface, but it feels good to be working on her together, and there's no rush.

Peta

About Tabitha

Tabitha is our 1981 Bedford CF250 campervan. We bought her for travels in the UK and in Europe.

We'd like to document her travels, and our travails, as we fit her out ready to go on hopefully what will be many an adventure.

We'll be learning a lot about how she works, be it car maintenance, electrics or plumbing, and hopefully improving our DIY skills too!

We are registered on the Bedford CF messageboard as willmate and Silke.