Teething troubles part four

Mudflaps
Our motorhome (Cervantes) came with rear mudflaps, but no front ones.
The front wheels have a plastic inner wheel arch cover that fully encloses any exposed metalwork. There is some spray onto the door bottom and the plastic moulding behind the door, but looking at the front mudflaps available, they do not protrude outside the wheel arch so would probably be of no use in stopping the spray. Looking at other motorhomes with front mudflaps fitted, after rain there seems to be just as much spray as you get without front mudflaps, which sort of confirmed my thoughts.
The rear mudflaps were fine until one came adrift in Lincolnshire in June 2014. The constant backwards and forwards motion near the top of the mudflap and the brittle nature of them caused a crack to develop along that line. This crack eventually broke and the mudflap was left hanging by a 2cm piece attached at the inner side.
I noticed this in the nearside door mirror and stopped to remove it entirely with a craft knife.
It broke at exactly the wrong time because the weather on the way back to our house in Spain was atrocious, especially in Northern France. I monitored the underneath and found the spray from the rear wheels was going all along the underside of the floor to the rear, across some wiring and fittings, and generally covering everything with mud and road grime. It was definitely not helping prevent any ingress of water. Add to that the fact that the rear of the motorhome (and the bikes when we carried them) was getting filthy.
They had to be replaced.
Once home I set about sourcing some new ones, but various web searches turned up prices ranging from €70 to €100 per pair - for two squares of plastic????? - surely not!
I thought the only sensible course of action was to make my own, so I started by drilling out the 3 rivets that held on the complete offside one and what was left of the nearside one.
The underside of the floorpan had an L-shaped piece of aluminium welded to it, and another strip of aluminium clamped the mudflap to it.
I searched around for a suitable material to make the mudflaps from, and thought rubber doormats would be suitable.
Looking around our local Carrefour I found the ideal mat. Measuring 70cm x 40cm it was the ideal size to cut in half to make 2 mudflaps 40cm wide and 35cm high. The originals were 30cm x 30cm, so these gave more width coverage and were slightly longer. The best thing about them however was their manufacture. They had a smooth back whilst the front was a tangle of fine nylon strands fused to the base.
This front, I thought, would act in the same way as the spray-suppressant mudflaps found on HGVs.

This material really works to keep the spray down

I extended both strips of aluminium to cope with the extra width, and used stainless steel nuts, bolts and washers so I could remove them easily if needed.
I got a pair of round red reflectors from our local todo shop and bolted them onto the lower outside corners and that was job done.

Nearside mudflap firmly attached

Offside mudflap complete with reflector

They work a treat in even the heaviest of downpours and standing water, and all for the price of €9.99 for the mat and €7.50 for the fittings - bargain!!
They have been on now for nearly 12 months or 15,000kms and show no sign of breaking, cracking or splitting (and the one we got for the front door of the house is also going strong and looks like new).


Ramps
On level ground Cervantes is very nose-down and requires at least 2 if not 3 levels of the ramps under the front wheels to be level.
This is not usually a problem for most people - either their motorhome is already level, or they don't mind it sloping one way or the other.
However, we have a transverse drop-down bed, and if we are not level front to rear you can really feel the slope when you are in bed - it's like trying to stop yourself rolling down a hill.
We can manage not being level side to side as long as the offside (the head end of the bed) is level or is higher than the nearside (the foot end of the bed).
To make this happen we have to try to find an uphill slope to park on if we don't want to use the ramps. If the ground is level we can get the motorhome level with the ramps. If we park on a downhill slope it is impossible to get level because the ramps will not lift us high enough at the front.
Thus we never park/camp on a downhill slope, thereby it seems, missing out on a brilliant view out of the windscreen on many occasions. We have no window at the back, so it's front and side windows only. I have lost count of the number of times we have had our back to a wonderful view for the sake of being level.
I therefore decided to do something about it.
Our Fiamma ramps we bought when we first bought Cervantes had come to the end of their life, (not helped by the massive rocks we parked on on Mt Ventoux!). They had a maximum lift height of 10cm on the top step. We replaced them with Thule ones which have a maximum lift height of 11cm, and were the highest ones we could find without having enormous ones which we would struggle to carry in our 6m motorhome.
The solution I came up with was 2 sheets of 1.5cm board, one to go under each board.
The Thule ramps had circular holes in the base and I utilised these to secure the ramps to the boards. I had some spare steel strips 1cm thick (€4 for 1 metre from our local ferreteria) of just the right width and cut them to length before drilling a central hole in them.

The base of the ramp has rectangular sections with holes in them

Metal strips cut to the size of the rectangles to screw through the hole in the ramp

Using a cushioning strip cut to size from a rubber mat, I could then screw the ramp down onto the board to raise us by another 1.5cm or an extra 13.64%
I cut the board to 97cm x 34cm so that the  tyre would be completely on it before it touched the 56cm x 20cm ramp, so there was no danger of the ramp and board slipping about.
Another consideration was storing them in the motorhome, so they were cut to just fit in the locker below the lounge seat at 97cm

A perfect fit under the bench seat

We are payload rich and storage space poor, so have to consider each purchase for the motorhome in terms of "will it fit where there is space to put it"
I had some spare room in the rear ski locker, so made another board, cut to 106cm x 40cm, to just fit into the locker. With the two boards used together we now have an extra 3cm of lift, 27.27% more than before.

A snug fit in the ski locker

Hopefully we can now enjoy the views of the magnificent hills, valleys, forests, mountains and rivers out of our windscreen instead of a view of the toilet block!

Ramp boards in use at Velez Blanco on 15/02/2015

At last - a great view without falling out of bed!

LED lights
Our motorhome came with LED lights throughout, except for the 3 lights over the sink and cooker which were halogen lights, and these seemed to be the lights we used the most!
The LED lights consume 0.63W each, whilst the halogen lights consume 10.0W each, so the difference is enormous. One hours use of the halogen bulb is the same as over 10 hours use of an LED bulb. We are always concious when running off the leisure batteries of power usage. We have two 90Ah leisure batteries and a 90W solar panel and have never run low on power, but it makes sense to do everything you can to minimise the power use. We are lucky enough to live in a part of Spain that has 300 days of full sun every year, so the solar panel is working most of the time.
Searching the internet brought up tales of LED bulbs lasting a week, of not working due to reversed polarity, of cheap Chinese junk at give-away prices, and of remote buying and being stuck with what you have bought whether you like it (and it works!) or not.
We decided on this occasion to take the easier and more reliable (but possibly not the cheapest) route of going to one of our nearby motorhome accessory shops.

LED in place for 10x longer use

Caravanas Cruz in Elche has sold us many things in the past, all working and for a reasonable price. We headed there and were delighted to find G4 LED bulbs to replace the halogen ones for €5.75 each.
We fitted them in the car park to make sure they worked, and have had not a moments trouble with them in the subsequent 6 months - support your local accessory shop I say!!
We can now cook with impunity all night if we like!


Polish!
We live 10 mins from the Mediterranean sea and are surrounded by marinas, boatyards, ships chandlers, harbours and boats of every size and shape.
Our Burstner motorhome is built of painted aluminium panels combined with plastic mouldings and trim, so the ideal polish would be a marine gel polish which is also suitable for metal.
I must have been in every boat and accessory shop in a 20km strip of the coastline, and have I seen any polish for sale - have I heck!
I could get it online from the UK, but the postage was almost as much as the polish. I was running out of options and was just about to bite the bullet and order some when I spotted on a motorhome forum a post about a polish called Starbrite, sold by a company in Boroughbridge, North Yorkshire. I clicked the link to their website and ordered it for £20 and postage of £6.50 - fantastic price.

This stuff is absolutely brilliant

It arrived when it should and was a dream to use - very easy application. I got some stepladders inside the motorhome and stuck my head through the midi Heiki rooflight to do most of the roof. For the unreachable bits I used a cloth on a stick!
After the 2 full days of hard work water now beads off Cervantes, and all the sand blown over from the Sahara and deposited on the roof by "dirty rain" is now just rinsed away, whereas before, if the sand was left for just one day, the sun would bake it on and it would be very difficult to remove. Flies on the front after a long motorway journey are so easy to just wipe off now.
There is a garage near us with a commercial vehicle wash consisting of a pressure washer and a 2 metre high gantry along one side. This means washing the roof is a doddle, and with €1 of water lasting 5 mins it is also very cheap.
Polishing Cervantes twice a year should make it an easy job to keep our motorhome sparkling clean.


Dash Camera and Sat Nav
Trawling through YouTube on the internet I came across great footage of travelogues, near misses, and proof of whose fault an accident was, all supplied by a camera constantly recording everything that happens in front of your vehicle.
I thought this was a great idea, and after a great deal of research finally decided on this one thanks to the recommendation of this man whose name I saw on the afore mentioned motorhome forum (very useful these forums!)
I got the GPS version as I wanted to track our daily route and reproduce it on our blog.
As we drive along now, if anything unusual or spectacular happens, we can review it at the end of the day by transferring the data from the camera SD card into our Samsung netbook, and saving whichever section of footage we want.
We haven't needed it to prove blame as yet, and hope we never have to!

Dash cam permanently wired and fitted

Practically invisible from outside

Our SatNav was ageing and the maps would not update, so a new one was needed.
We have always got on with Garmin and research showed one with a 7" screen. I have always struggled in the motorhome to read the street names and instructions on our old 5" screen, so this was a step in the right direction (we never have the sound turned on as it gets very irritating after a while, and Glyn usually overrules it to keep us on a decent width road)
The Garmin 760LMT-D was just what we wanted and has proved to be brilliant in all respects.

A screen big enough to read

Of course you have to treat every SatNav with a modicum of suspicion and not just blindly follow it off the edge of a cliff. As a tool to get you to (or near) an aire you have punched in as a destination - it does the job.
I've currently got 50,000 POI's in it for aires, campsites Lidl and McDonalds(WiFi) for all Western Europe.


Cycle carrier adaptation
I have adapted our rear cycle carrier to carry my road bike, so I can do some hills on our travels.
I have fitted an old wheel hub onto the cycle rail, so that the front forks (minus the front wheel) fits onto the hub.

A good use for an old hub

The fitting is of the belt and braces variety, but is not about to fall off!
The front wheel then straps onto the frame, thus I can carry a road bike that takes up no more room than a 20" wheel bike.

Safe, secure and legal

and still room for another bike

Cab Seatcovers
When we first got Cervantes we wanted to protect the cab seats from the worst of wear, tear and sweaty bodies that go with 9 months touring.
We originally bought a throw from our local market, then gathered it up behind the headrest of the seat  (held with a strong plastic clamp) and let the rest cover the seat squab. However, every time you got in or out the cover moved, and we seemed to be forever re-arranging them. The cover frequently covered the handbrake, and it was always a scramble to put it on/take it off.

The old seatcovers - they worked but were a pain to use

On our travels we found a car accessory shop in Elche by chance, and they had some synthetic rattan covers held on with elastic that looked just the job.
They had a choice of 2 styles, so we bought one of each and tried them on the seats in the car park. Decision made we took the reject back and swapped it for a matching set.
They do the job beautifully and are very hard wearing, and they don't look at all out of place in the colour scheme of things (I have been told)

Very smart and very hardwearing

We have noticed wear on the the 2 cab seat armrests caused by squeezing between the seats to get to and from the cab. A solution is in hand for this involving a protective sleeve to go over the armrest which will not impede its operation or adjustment.


Red LED in windscreen
We did have a rear cycle light flashing red in the windscreen for many months, but the batteries needed changing every week, even though the light was turned off during the day.
We came across a great alternative in Aldi in the form of a mock CCTV camera dome. This flashes a red LED every 10 seconds and looks as if it has a camera inside the dome.

Flashing LED and fake camera in dome - €4.99 from Aldi!

To date it has been running in the windscreen for 16 weeks, running 24/7 on 2 AA batteries and really does look the business.

LED looking good in the cab from outside....

......and inside

Tour statistics to 25/06/2015
We have owned  our motorhome now since Feb 2013, a total of 28 months. I keep a database of everywhere we have slept overnight and they add up to 269 nights away - a total of nearly 9 months.
111 of these were in aires (mostly free ones), 10 in España Discovery sites, 4 in France Passion sites, 61 wildcamping, and 82 in campsites (mostly ACSI ones).
Adding up all the costs of aires and campsites (€1,782.48), that makes the cost of each night spent in the motorhome €6.63
We still have so much more to see.


The first service
A Fiat Ducato X250 2013 model (ours) is due a first service at 48,000 km or 2 years, whichever is the sooner. In Feb 2015 we had done 33,000 km, so the time was due.
After the first year in Feb 2014 I had an oil and filter change done because I was not happy leaving it 2 years and not doing a thing.
For the 12 month oil and filter change we looked in the Fiat handbook and saw an approved dealer was Cartagena Motors, so made an appointment there. They were primarily car dealers, but looking in the workshop there were 3 motorhomes in there so we felt a little more relaxed.
They had the motorhome at 9am and took a phone number to let us know when it was ready.
We duly walked the 5km into Cartagena and had a good look round, visited a few museums, and had a bite to eat. By 4pm still no phone call, so I rang them. They said they were halfway through and it should be ready by 5pm. We got back at 5:20pm and the bonnet was still up and a head inside it. For this privilege they charged us €160!
When I phoned them this year in Feb 2015 to ask the price of a first service they quoted me €500 - a bit steep I thought for an air filter, a fuel filter, a pollen filter, and an oil and filter change, plus a visual check of the levels, hoses, belts, brakes and exhaust.
So it was back to the Fiat handbook, where we spotted Gines Huertas Industriales who had 3 branches - 1 in Cartagena and 2 in Murcia.
I phoned one of the Murcia ones to enquire the price and was told approx €250 - thats more like it - booked!
We had already booked the annual damp check at our Burstner dealer where we bought the motorhome, so booked the engine service for the week after and had the week inbetween touring the valley north of Murcia.
We dropped Cervantes off at 9am and returned at 11am to a finished service at a cost of €290. The difference here was that Gines Huertas Indutriales deal in commercial vehicles, from white van man to HGV's. Thus they know that time is money to the working man and so price and deliver accordingly.
On the handover back to us the guy on reception told us we had a major problem with the steering which would require a new power steering pump and a new steering rack, but not to worry because he could do it under warranty. When the steering is on full lock there is a vibration through the steering wheel and an increase in noise.
I pointed out that we are now in March 2015, and the 2 year warranty ran out in Feb 2015, at which he went a little pale. I asked him how much it would cost, and after a couple of phone calls to parts suppliers was told €1500.
I told him I would think about it and get back to him.
I had experienced the small vibration before on full lock and assumed the pump was working at maximum pressure and that this was the cause of it. Other than maximum full lock the steering is as light and responsive as the day we bought it.
I obviously checked with the local garage where our car is serviced, and was told the belt was in good condition, and it was possible that when on full lock under maximum load, the belt is juddering slightly. It certainly did not warrant €1500 worth of new parts. Even if the pump and rack were contaminated they could be flushed out and be perfectly serviceable.
On reflection I think the receptionist was trying to get himself some warranty work, and when he found out it wasn't under warranty tried to back-peddle, but didn't quite manage it.
I will monitor it closely and see if any more symptoms develop and then decide a course of action from there. (A further 4,000km later the small vibration is still there on full lock, otherwise the steering is perfect)
Apart from that a clean bill of health, and the damp check was all good too!
The story continues.....