Sunday, 17 January 2021

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!

Friday, 15 January 2021

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!

Monday, 11 January 2021

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!

Tuesday, 29 December 2020

wet wet wet

Seems the T6 are a nightmare with water ingress!

I've had problems from the start B & C posts near side. B post damp at bottom. C post soaking from halfway down. Rear hatch OS also gets wet!
Copious reading of T6 forums has found this fault common! 
So easy option: possible water ingress because of lining carpet going under the rubber seals and wicking thru! 

Removed the os part of seal from the rear hatch, trimmed cloth back refitted seal. Looks like a result last few days lots of rain. The lining has not got wetter in fact it's seems to be drying out! 

Checked this afternoon all most dry!

So onto the C post! I'd removed the inspection panel above rear seat belt mount removed insulation. Damp not wet but the lining cloth was drenched. So round two, removed the sliding door rubber on the right as you look in the lining completely soaked as said, trimmed the excess off squeezed he seal closed then refitted. 
Time to sit back and wait for next downpour .............fingers crossed!

Tuesday, 22 December 2020

Sterling Power B2B update

After a few trips to work noticed the auxiliary battery seemed low on charge than previously.

The remote gauge was showing that the leisure battery was low on charge and flashed up in red. It was not starting up either. Forced it would fire up then go back to "SLP" yep sleep!

Emailed Sterling and it was suggested to wire in the ignition live feed to the unit.
My T6 is a 2016 but euro5 engine so want sure. So this done the unit fires up within the allotted 60 secs. 

The leisure battery was still showing red and had lost a few volts in charge!
Investigation time! 

Checked the obvious wiring and connections etc all ok.
Bit of head scratching found the issue!

I've yet to swap over the van 12 v electrics to a new fuse box ( one trauma at a time 😂) but took the cover off and after a bit of head scratching and volt meter checking suddenly dawned on me I'd transposed the two live feeds on the Sterling unit 🙄

So swapped the feeds no more red lights and the leisure battery is getting it's share of power! 
All I need is some sunlight to check the integrated solar charger is working! The light flashed briefly which I take as it is at least monitoring. I did a factory reset so I guess it was when the unit checked itself! 
Final check will be tomorrow on drive to work.