How to VW T25 brake squeak repair and general service check - DIY

This was actually a few weeks ago now (as you can probably tell by the glorious sunshine in the shots)...poor old Colin the Camper had been suffering with an extremely noisy squeak (squeal/what-have-you) which was obviously linked to the brakes as it stopped when they were applied (for a minute or two), the only problem was that we had absolutely no idea which wheel was to blame (the noise was piercing, intermittent, evasive and didn't happen at low speed)...Anyway, one kind chap we bumped into with Flyingpops' pal Sam to whom we mentioned the problem said that it was 99% likely to be a spring from the rear brakes that had either disintegrated or just popped out of position (leaving one of the pads pressing up against the drum), so, having nothing much else to go on, I bought a new fitting kit (£10 from Just Kampers), and we popped over to see Uncle and Auntie to see if they could help us diagnose the fault...

We started with the low hanging fruit (the rear ones) first of all find a hard point, then raise the wheel to be inspected off the ground with a jack (Uncle Alan has rather a good one) -

- (oh and that is the bag of springs etc. on the rear bumper)...anyway, remove the hub cap, followed by the wheel nuts -

- and put the wheel (and the nuts) somewhere safe...

Next, use a small spanner or socket to carefully remove the drum -


- to reveal the workings...

At this stage it's most important that no-one presses the brake pedal or the whole thing will probably fall to bits! Firstly, inspect the brake shoes and the inside of the drum for obvious signs of uneven wear (also if the shoes are noticeably thin, consider getting them replaced, the ones you see here are perfectly fine), next check for (and remove) any debris (Uncle Alan used his compressed air gun and considerable amounts of brake dust flew out - this can be a cause of odd noises if there is a build-up) -

- do the same with the drum -

- check to see if any of the springs have popped out from where they should be (it's fairly obvious) and if so, pop them back on, using new ones from the service kit if required, but if you replace one, then replace all of them on *both* sides of the bus to avoid uneven brakeing (just as you would with tires/pads/anything else involving the wheels) there are enough in the kit to do this...pop everything back together and then test the brakes by setting the wheel spinning (it should spin freely) and then get a friend to push the brake pedal (it should stop the wheel immediately and hold it, but that should go without saying)...now lower the bus and do the other back wheel...Next on to the front brakes, these are disk brakes, so no cover, just pop off the wheel and there you go -

- check the disk itself for pitting (stones and things can get caught up as it is exposed to the elements) and look for uneven wear (as before), now get your head over the top of the callipers and check that the two brake pads both jiggle around loosely on the pegs they are hanging off, then get a friend to press the brake pedal and make sure they are both pushed firmly up against the disk. If they do, then the brakes are fine. On our last wheel (typical!) it became apparent that ours didn't.

So, this is the process to try and fix the problem, first, remove the two restraining pins (hammer and thin screwdriver do the job perfectly) -


- remove the brake pad -

- and then watch while your assistant pumps the brake pedal to see if the calliper arm extends inside the gap -

- ours extended, but didn't go back when the pedal was released, so, some lubrication (WD40 and some specialist brake lubricant) and a lot of elbow grease (just extend it and then use something to push it back in until it works freely) -

- re-assemble, then check the wheel spins freely and then stops when the pedal is pressed, and then it's time for a test drive!

Squeaking brakes - DONE... ;)

Bug Jam Cometh

Bug Jam 21 is rapidly approaching, the weather report isn't wonderful (light rain for Saturday), and Bug Jam in the rain is a bit of a waste of time (as you can't do any drag racing), even a stray shower stops all the action for 20 minutes while they dry the track out with a giant hair drier (on the back of a tractor), and there really are some good things to look forward to on the track (so fingers crossed it holds off!) - Fireforce 3 (reaches 336Mph in a quater of a mile from a standing start, making it a world record holder over the quarter mile since 2005, can't believe the Americans are so lame!), Blue Max (jet powered, and yet road legal beetle, although the last couple of years it's just looked bloody dangerous) and a Swedish Beetle that can apparently do an 8 second run (about a second off the dedicated drag racing cars, so that should be fun to see, a 160Mph beetle!) and if you have £500 burning a hole in your skyrocket, you can take a hair-raising trip down the strip in the new two-seater drag racing car...this year (also) we have some new attractions, most notably the new Live stunt arena where they will be running Monster Trucks "Podzilla" and "Slingshot" (ooo! Crushing Novas and Saxos apparently), which I'm sure won't be stopped by even a quite determined downpour, the usual stunt car displays, but there is a beetle stunt display promised for this year for the first time, and another first, freestyle motocross (suicidal bikers launching themselves off ramps trying to pull flips and tricks)...On the stages it's Killa Kella (beatbox master, if you haven't seen him then prepare to be amazed) and a Queen tribute band (can't go wrong there), plus dance tent, and hippie "Car Wash"...and all the usual stuff like the show and shine, fun fair, run what ya brung, traders and autojumble...Petrol heads...Assemble! Burning rubber awaits!

Only problem is, Colin the camper is still poorly, he's in the garage today getting a new fuel pump, so fingers crossed it does the trick!

New Forest Mini-break - Day #2 - Burley and Cider

So back to day two of the mini break (Thursday last week), amazingly the thermal shields kept out the *blazing* sun completely, allowing us to sleep in until 10am (which would *never* happen in a tent)...only real mishap being some of the cushions falling off the end of the bed during the night...need to find some ingenious solution to that, as it's a bit annoying the bed getting shorter and shorter during the night...anyway, it was warm, and quiet and dark right until we wanted it to be otherwise, so a great success...

The weather was staggeringly gorgeous again (what luck!), breakfast was rustled up (bacon sarnie and tea for me, coffee and a toasted cheese scone for Flyingpops) then we zipped up the awning, opened all the curtains, fired up the engine and headed into the New Forest in search of some nice scenery and local wildlife, which we found in abundance -

- we parked Colin up by the side of the (almost deserted) main road -

- and then hiked off towards what appeared (in the distance) to be a promising body of water -

- which even turned out to have a name "Whitten Pond" (accompanied by stark discouragement, should one be contemplating a cooling dip) -

- and there, beyond the wall of gorse flowers, we found some wildlife -

- a small field of New Forest ponies, stopped to drink (and scratch their itchy behinds on the gorse) -

- we stayed and watched them for a while, but they didn't seem inclined to do very much apart from munch continually at the thin grass by the side of the pond, so we walked back to the bus and continued our journey to down the road towards the lovely little village of Burley, this time being slightly outside the tourist season, it didn't seem quite as bad as our last visit, still quite busy though -

- the queue for ice creams was still as long as ever (and this lot wasn't even the hand-made variety) -

- we wandered around the town (which most oddly seems to consist of mostly witchcraft related gift shops, for no other reason than that a white witch lived there for a bit in the 1950s - the locals objected to her presence and she felt compelled to move out - but they seem to be making quite a good living in her wake, ironically ;) -

- then up the road towards the busy little scrumpy cider farm (woo hoo!), found out they do borough market once a week too(!) -

- where I scored a small bottle of "medium" (very nice indeed) -

- then we headed back to the camp site, Flyingpops feeling a bit poorly with a cold, so she had a little sleep in the back of the camper while I played on my PSP, made a start on the *excellent* "Vulcan 607" (about the bombing runs on the Falklands during the little spat we had with Argentina), then back to the gastropub for my lovely steak (as already mentioned) -

- came back full and happy, made a hot water bottle -

- and then drifted off to sleep watching Pirates of the Caribbean on the Shinco -

- a lovely day... ;)

DIY - Welding new step into T25 Camper van

Today we had our welding appointment at the RANS household, arranged with Vodqueen and Al to fix where the step on the drivers side has rusted away (rather badly, as you can see, so badly, in fact that we have spent all the time up until now clambering in and out of the van by the passenger door) -

- lacking tools (as well as the skills and knowledge) we yielded to Al's expert assistance, who used a hammer to remove all the rusty bits, then clipped some plate to the perfect shape -

- which I helped to hold in place (as/when necessary) -

- while Al welded it into place (took just over an hour in the end, including filling the little holes)-

- had a few little fires in the coating of the underside as we went along, but they weren't anywhere near the fuel lines/tank, so we just blew them out once the metal cooled down (bit scary though!) -

- and here we see the weld finished -

- then just a lick of white Hammerite and the mat went back into place, perfect!

You might also notice the pink patch just below the throttle pedal, this was another little hole, but just below it was the speedo cable, so we couldn't weld anywhere near it, so the pink stuff was a glass fibre mixture which plugged that perfectly (after brushing vigorously with a wire brush to clean it up... ;)

Shoreham Beach and Nature Reserve

So Sunday (after I spent about an hour painstakingly scraping off all the spots of blue paint from the wood panelled floor in Colin), we loaded up with supplies and headed out for a little drive, deciding initially to go to Hove, but there was nowhere to park, then Portslade, but it turned out to be an industrial estate, then littlehampton, but the traffic was a nightmare, and finally found a little gem in the form of Shoreham beach...

...it was extremely busy for the time of year (and weather, it being absolutely freezing), amazingly the car park was T25 friendly (height-wise and width-wise), so we parked up, went and bought 2 portions of chips from the busy little shop, hurried back to Colin and boiled the kettle, then had a wander around the wildlife reserve (which was full of gulls and swans) -

- took a walk along the cycle-way (might be a nice thing to do to bring the bikes next time and cycle to Worthing for a pub lunch or something like that) watching the planes coming in to land at Shoreham airport...I suppose we walked about a third of the way there in the end...would have taken quite a long time on foot... ;)

On reflection I think we will probably make a return visit, when the weather improves a little though... ;)

VW T25 Camper main battery upgrade

(or, "Colin gets a power up")... ;)

Well, there we go, took about 5 minutes to strip out the under powered 44 (resting in shot by the blue box), and pop in the new 96 Heavy (capable of 700 revolutions per minute at -17C!) which is in the slot (correctly sized for the larger battery), the next step up from that is to convert the vehicle to start from the mains (like they do in Scandanavia, believe it or not!)...don't think we are going to have to go that far though, after a bit of coughing (it's been over a week since he last ran) he spluttered into life...thank goodness...hopefully that's the end of all this "not starting" nonsense... ;)

Got to go now, in the middle of cooking roast lamb for dinner...yum... :)

Colin by night...

Hope you appreciate this, had to go out in the frost last night to take these... ;)

I did really need some better pictures of the lights though, so first up is the promised shot of the santa lights given to us by Vodqueen -

- and a better shot of the fairy lights -

- and these are the standard LEDs that illuminate the speedo etc. on the dashboard, but they are also lights, so they do merit an appearance... ;)

Garden Christmas Lights

Well, not *hugely* successful, but the wind is blowing and the rain is coming down (as I suspected would happen), so it had to be a quick ninja dash...you get the idea though...these ones are like little bunches of flowers in the flower bed, with lit up stars instead of a real bloom...

...Oh and one of the neighbours rang the doorbell shortly after I got home to say "Oh it was wonderful, I came out of my house and looked out across the close and thought to myself 'It's Christmas all of a sudden!'"...which was nice... ;)

And here is Colin with his happy camper lights...So everyone is getting into the spirit of things... ;)

Update - better pics of Colin here...