Dry

3 nights of rain interior dry 🤪🥳

Rain always finds away! No leak from window frame, so wtf! Then I notice that the opening window channel is soaking! 

Blocked drain aways 2 holes in the opener channel and 2 in the runner. Judicial poking the holes saw water run to the outside of the van. 

At this point it would seem to have been the problem.

wet wet ...round 1 to me?

Rained quite heavily last night , van on drive which slopes downwards (reversed in) this would cause some rain ingress culprit window surrounding is dry! C post damp which is good as it was soaking wet! New hatch rubber also seems to have done the trick lining in that a bit damp still but no wet patches!

More rain forecast so bring it on ( mostly lol) don't want to jinx things!

There's no point in continuing with the referb until this is sorted. 

Next up setup new electric board and new fuse box simplification! 

Once that's done re-carpet panels and general clear up. 

THEN I can start the rebuild of the interior! Hopefully finish it for a summer holiday! Covid permitting!

It's our 40 th wedding anniversary this year, and my wife's *0 th 😂 so there are other plans holiday wise that a week camping with the motorcycle and tent or the campervan are not included 😇😂

new roof rubber seal

In an effort to seal the poptop once and for all ( leaking thru side panel zips when shut!)

I'd fitted a larger rubber seal but made little difference. 

Whilst perusing tinternet I came across a local company selling replacement poptop roof seals. The difference was this seal is OEM size but has a small extra lip offset from the bottom plus on delivery I found it also has some small holes punched into the tubing. The other two seals didn't!

It makes sense ( to me)  as when shut you are able to pull the roof just a little bit more closed therefore ( in theory) making a better seal.

Whilst fitting I cleaned both van roof and poptop edges.

Due a lot of rain tomorrow fingers crossed. 😂

I'll settle for an improvement mind!

wetness still but not as bad!

Getting there, no ingress from top, but some damp only bottom right! Rain forecast so added a little more all smoothed and pressed home 🤞

wet wet flippin wet

Still some ingress 🤬 added a little more sealant, smoothened and pressed into the channel courtesy of latex glove! Then cleaned and pressed in again using a anti bacterial wipe works well.....who knew!

wet wet 5

Getting there 😂

As with all leaks whilst the bottom right hand corner remained dry thru the rain this afternoon there was some wet at the top of the window and had dropped down bypassing the carpet straight into the lower C post! 

So I've sealed the rest of the window internally rain forecast for tomorrow so hopefully!

If sealing the inside doesn't stop it I'll have to reseal outside with a fine bead! Pretty certain that the window won't come out without breaking as it's "glued" into place!

Other option might be remove the internal rubber seal ! Won't be easy but will be worse fitting a new one! 

Guess work:

Lubricate the rubber seal ( silicon spray non invasive to the rubber)to assist fitting the metal rib that attaches to the metal part of the window, which should allow the tube section to slide into the gap between the frame and glass.

Or

Replace glass but use a better seal, I seem to remember I was surprised that the tube section wasn't that big!

wet wet wet 4

Found the leak! 

Nearside rear sliding window.

I have thermal blinds on my 2 sliding doors and rear NS. Designed as an all in one panel in abs plastic and can be covered etc. I removed it over the weekend as part of the rebuild etc. Bottom right corner of the window was the culprit leak! As the frame is carpeted the water tracked along that to the C post! Drenching it from about half way down. 

I cleaned the edging between the van and window using a small flat screwdriver in the crevice. Dried it out an ran a small bead of black mastic sealant into the channel from halfway at the top round to halfway inwards at the bottom. The other side was bone dry but I'm make sure next deluge ! 

Not that much of a pain as I needed to move the window pod out into the van about 8 mm to miss the sliding window catch anyway. So I'll be cutting a new full length panel and stick the pod to that and re carpet. 

It'll tidy up the area as the new bed will be on that side and by adding a spacer on the panel just below the catch the problem will be solved regarding the opening catch! 

Onwards and sideways eh! Once it's all dried out.

On the plus side the rear hatch stayed dry after a massive overnight downpour!

wet wet 3

Rear hatch seems to be cured! But C post still a little damp so not sure. Heavy rain forecast tonight so let's see!

wet wet wet 2

C post is drying nicely and hatch D posts remain dry although its not really rained much! Did I just say that in winter in the UK 😂

Electrics Board

Decided to make a dedicated ply board to mount the sterling unit, fuses etc. 

6 mm ply board cut and s couple of costs of white emulsion to tart it up!

I'll be using the old sterling unit to work out what needs to fit where 

Sterling unit

12 v accessories fuse box unit

Bus bars positive and negative

Leisure Battery cut off switch.

Sterling Power unit update 2

Been a couple of weeks and batteries are getting charged! No sun so can't check anyway!

The sterling unit defaults itself to ""custom"  even tho I manually reset to sealed battery! I guess I'm missing something!

Looking at the sterling wiring instructions I Checked as couldn't remember if I'd taken the positive battery cable direct to the old sterling unit. I have! So that's not the problem, however it's charging batteries fine so it drops lower down the " why" list!