Hi I have watched your van build videos a least twice and found them amazing, as your attention to detail is great. Also with the greatest respect your building skills when you started looked quite basic, which more of us can relate to, Thank you. Great to see see you you both enjoying it xx
Thank you, glad you've enjoyed them! And no problem, we hadn't really done any DIY before we started so we definitely picked up quite a few more skills along the way! And it was a lot more involved than we imagined so we're very happy to be on the other side and travelling around in it now 🙂
Fantastic to see so many positive comments on your channel. Another lovely video, lovely people with a lovely channel, I hope you continue to explore and share :))))
We have the exact same van as you (L4H3), and ours also has destroyed the bump stops with the extra weight of the conversion. Thinking that it will probably just destroy a new pair of bump stops, we have fitted airbag suspension in their place (which is quite easy to do), and the difference to how the van feels and drives now is amazing!! No more leaning on roundabouts and wallowing about when passing lorries on the motorway, and the rear end is lifted to where it should be. Watched all your vids and enjoyed them all....well done with the conversion guys 👍
Cool, yeah the stock single leaf is pretty lightweight! We're rocking 3+1 heavy duty springs now and that makes a huge difference, like you say a lot more stability on the road and also can practically sit up under there now! Would have been handy for all those times we were crawling around under there trying to build it 😅 Cheers, glad you enjoyed them! 👍
Cheers! Ah cool, it would be interesting to have seen it back then to compare how much it's all changed over the years, probably quite a lot in the towns but would imagine the coast paths are mostly the same today. Thanks for watching 🙂
Hi guys, I have followed your van build from day one and enjoyed every single ‘episode’ and always eagerly await the next.However,would your ‘non build’ videos be as enjoyable and informative??? ABSOLUTELY!!! Can’t wait for the next video .
Haha, thank you! We weren't sure if people would enjoy our travel videos after we've only released build ones before so that's nice to hear 🙂 It's been fun to put them together and refreshing to mix up the editing a bit too with all the scenery and outside adventures, something a bit different from all the technical stuff!
Lovely, calm and picturesque episode as always. Thanks guys. I was worried there would not be sheep in your videos anymore since the build is (well, the episodes) nearly finished, but I'm happy to see them there. Not the same as when you had the lambs, which were the cutest ❤❤❤ I can see a future travel book in the makings there with your dairy as a source of inspiration. Again, I really enjoy your episodes and look forward to the next one.
Thanks very much and really glad you enjoyed it (and the sheep, but can't guarantee there'll be some in every episode 😄 we're always on the lookout for nice wildlife to film though!) A travel book is an interesting idea, there's lots of things we've thought about doing at some point so you never know 🙂
Very relaxing and enjoyable video. Tihe geek-out session was a classic. Every time I've visited the UK it has always amazed me how gracious and forgiving the land is, with no snakes or other bities to worry about (like on the narrow paths Tim was running down). BTW, you could use a single levelling ramp to level up just the back of the van (that all I do and it works well - much less space taken up than with two of them). Thanks for bringing us along with you on your trip!
Thank you! And haha yeah, it was really satisfying getting that to work! And you're right, we are very lucky to have such an accessible coastline with pretty much no wildlife concerns to worry about. We spent some time travelling around Australia a few years ago and we definitely don't come across the kinds of warning signs we saw over there around Cornwall 😆 Thanks for the tip, we haven't needed them really so far but will keep it in mind 🙂👍
Cheers! We're very happy with it 🙂 We did consider adding air suspension but our very happy with the beefed up 3+1 springs at the moment, it made a huge difference putting those in 😀👍
What a brilliant video! My comment on your previous video included that I live in Cornwall, well, I'm on the Roseland near Mevagissey, so everything you've shown is 'home territory' for me, but seeing it through someone else's eyes is really interesting, and also reinforces what a lovely part of the country this is! Really looking forward to more adventures, you're a great couple obviously already very 'at ease' with van life. Enjoy, and keep the entertainment coming please!!
Great video (or should I say travelog?) I'm sure by now you've sorted the suspension issue but I was very surprised to see what looked like a single leaf spring suspension! I'm no expert but that really seemed far too weak. Even for an empty van! Your editing skills really are very good and your calm and peaceful videos are a treat. Very much looking forward to many more.
Cheers! And yeah we were pretty surprised by that too, the standard configuration for the XLWB jumbo that we have is only one single leaf. We've uprated our van to 4T now and as part of that process we decided to upgrade to some heavy duty 3+1 springs which gives us a lot more peace of mind and has made a huge difference to the feel of the van too, not to mention the extra clearance we have under there now. It would have been useful during the build when we were mounting things under there, oh well! 😀 Glad you enjoyed the video, we look forward to sharing many more! 🙂
Wonderful adventure video thank you for sharing it with us. Tim I use a “flip-belt” to carry my phone and money clip. So far no dropped items in three years use.
You're welcome, thanks for watching! And yeah I do actually have a running belt for my phone, so I can't remember why I didn't have it safely in it for that run! I either left it in the van with Abi or was too busy taking photos of the amazing scenery everywhere 😀🌞
Hi guys Hope you enjoy Cornwall van looks great. Can I suggest you treat the bottom of the van with Lanoguard it sprays on easy and will sort out any corrosion.
Hey, cheers yeah we love it down there! And yeah thanks we've had it in mind to spray somewhere under there for a while but it's one of those things we haven't got round to yet 👍🙂
great to see you out and about ,certainly beautiful beaches and great views ,hope they managed to sort out your bumpstops as ive seen on some vlogs they can be a pain to get off if the old welds on the bolt that attaches them fails
Thanks, yeah we really enjoyed exploring that bit of the coastline! And yep all sorted now cheers, it didn't take them long and they managed to fit us in at pretty short notice 🙂👍
Great to see you enjoying the fruits of your labors. You’ve provided such good information to the van building community. Did you weigh the completed van? My U.S.Transit, extended-high roof comes in at about 4,000 kg. The GVW for it.
Thanks, it's great to be out exploring in it 😎 Yeah we weighed it several times during the build and after we finished upgrading the suspension too. We uprated ours as well so it's also 4T now, which is great as gives us the flexibility to pack it full with loads of supplies and not worry about going over the limit. Especially with two people and the biggest Transit we figured it was well worth it, as the base weight alone before you've even done anything doesn't leave that much headroom otherwise!
Thank you! And it's actually one of the only things we didn't film in detail 🤣 But we did explain to someone else how we made it here: instagram.com/p/CtpMQQDoebd/c/18050537917900860/?img_index=1 👍
Ah cool, yeah it's a fantastic bit of coastline on a sunny day! And yeah we did consider it but we decided we didn't want to sacrifice the space they'd take up as we mostly stay off grid now in places where we wouldn't get them out. Aside from that one ridiculously sloping car park though it's generally not been a problem, we don't mind it if it's just a small slope 😛
Haha, sure. We have a RUTX11 router in the van with a 4G antenna on the roof that we setup here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-hnuyEH05z44.html . Then I setup a VPN using Teltonika RMS (cloud service) that allows me to remote into the van network on my phone. To control the heater we use the awesome third party Afterburner controller that we set up in this video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-VDz7J1r8kzE.html . That allows for remote control using the MQTT protocol which is documented in the (insanely extensive) manual: mrjones.id.au/afterburner/assets/files/UserManual-V3.5.pdf. Conveniently the X11 comes with an MQTT package so it can act as a broker. So I set it up on there and then setup the Afterburner android app to use that broker. The tricky bit was that it needs to use MQTT with websockets which the packaged installed by default on the router didn't support. But it has a pretty customisable OS based on OpenWrt which is cool so I was able to to ssh into the router and reinstall an updated version of the mosquito mqtt package that supports sockets and then everything just worked. HTH, maybe at some point I'll make a video on it 😛
@@diezmon No worries, good luck! At some point (when starlink gets a lot cheaper) we'll probably add it as an additional wan source feeding into our router 😀👍
@@SelfBuiltStories they're finally starting to gear them more towards mounting to rooftops as well. I had to cut mine apart (ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-NvIEysicOuY.html) What's also nice is you can pause service. That helps the 'ol wallet.
Sounds like you've got plans for the suspension. However you might be interested to know I fitted air bags to my transit where the bump stops were and it has changed the ride for the better. I found them on eBay of all places 👍
Cool, yeah we've upgraded it to 3+1 heavy duty springs now which is working out great for us and gives us a lot more clearance under the van too. We did consider air bags briefly but decided we wanted the springs, but sounds like it's working out well for you 👍🙂
Do you have a feel for how long your Lpg tank lasts you? Deciding between a permanent tank like yours and a calor gas type tank that I swap out as needed.
Yep we find that it lasts around 2-3 months before the warning light comes on and we go to fill it up, which is pretty awesome! And there's usually a few litres still left in it at that point as well. We only use it for the oven (not heating) but we cook with it most days, and of course make lots of cups of tea! Works well for us and for less than £20 to refill we're very happy with it 😎👍
Cheers :) And sure, there's a (really extensive) manual which has details on MQTT setup: mrjones.id.au/afterburner/assets/files/UserManual-V3.5.pdf . Essentially you can have the afterburner connect to a broker and listen for messages on a particular MQTT topic that allows it to be controlled. For a broker there are web based versions available like HiveMQ that you can use, but seeing as our teltonika router we have in the van can also be a broker I used that so it's all under my control. I setup a VPN to the router so I can connect to the van from anywhere in the world. Then I have an android app for the heater that lets me send a message to the broker on the router, and as the afterburner is listening to that it picks it up and does what I asked. There's lots of good posts on the afterburner facebook forum about remote setup too: facebook.com/groups/388958075385659/search/?q=mqtt . HTH! 🙂
@SelfBuiltStories thanks, I guess it's how one connects to the the x11 via a VPN that escapes me. I already have MQTT set up so the Afterburner can talk to Node-Red on a RPi in the van. I use Surfshark VPN. Thanks for info, I'll try and get me head around the VPN.
@@tonysummers2334 ah cool. I'm using RMS VPN for that (ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-dfAudZR2wPY.html ) which was pretty seamless as it's all built in. RMS is a paid service but its only ~£14 a year so figured it was worth it for that and remote monitoring 👍
For some reason there was a huge amount of loose gravel in that car park, was getting cars stuck as well. Only took a few seconds to scrape some of it out the way of the tyres to get out though fortunately 👍
@SelfBuiltStories yeah could see that, but you hear the revs on the clutch, won't last long like that. Need to come on and off and rock the van . Love the conversion btw amazing job.
Yeah we weighed it several times during the build to keep track of how we were doing and again at the end. But we've also uprated our van to 4T now so we have a lot more flexibility with it 👍
Haha yeah, we did contemplate it but we didn't want to take up the space to store them. It's usually not a problem, that one car park was just particularly sloped! 😛
The Thule ones I have they don’t take up much room and have great degrees to help, once you have them you will always be using them opens up so many other sites as well
@@leedryden4502 cool we'll keep it in mind 👍We stay mostly off-grid at the moment not on campsites and move around frequently so wouldn't use them too much, we just try to point the van the right way 😛
So we could always control the heater when we were connected to the van WiFi (or via Bluetooth) but I wanted to be able to do it remotely as well. A VPN (Virtual Private Network) just allows me to connect to the van from anywhere in the world, as if it was on the local WiFi. So that opens up the ability to control the heater remotely too. You can set it up for remote control with the afterburner without a VPN too but I prefer it this way 😎
@SelfBuiltStories so you're rich 😂🤣😂🤣👍 enjoy your van adventures. I've noticed for such thorough people you seem to drop important items on your travels 😜 anyone for a phone or jumper 🤣😂🤣👍
@@md2320 haha, I think it's one of the only times I've ever dropped it! It's normally stashed away in a belt but think I was distracted taking photos and checking how Abi was getting on 😛
@SelfBuiltStories can't be perfect all the time 🤣😂🤣 at least you showed it 👍 the vans perfect,. I'd just have a rear seating area instead of a fixed bed!!! Separate areas to chill in 🤣😂🤣😂👍
They both drive Paul if you look back at the older content you'll see him drive too and it's nice they shared that whole build equally both invaluable to each other great partnership and great content
Thanks for your reply, I have watched their amazing and detailed build, but got to admit I have not noticed Tim driving, and I have to say that Abbi seems to be the driving force in this relationship, excuse the pun.
haha, yeah it just so happened with this one that Abi was doing all the driving that we filmed, and I took the opportunity to do a bit of running instead! 😄 We both have a C1 licence and share all the drives, although I probably do a bit more of the night time stints as Abi is less keen on that, which doesn't get filmed as much 😎
@@63twaters thank you very much! 🙂Yeah we decided early on that we'd make a rule that we both had to work together on every project we did and each try a bit of everything as well 🚐
