One Month Living In A Small Space – Zagan Update
While we sit out the French dead hours between 12 and 2pm (aptly parked next to a graveyard) when everything is closed, I thought I’d knock up a quick update on how Zagan, our 2001 Hymer B544, is holding up after a month’s travel up to Aberdeen and down to the Dordogne (3304Km so far).
Brilliantly, on the whole, but more info below:
The Van
Zagan feels both more refined and a little more fragile than Dave did, our 1993 version of the same van. He’s got much less ground clearance, which has only shown up a couple of times when I’ve scraped the skirt under the engine on kerb stones. Not managed to damage anything more than my eardrums at the horrific noise of it. The fixtures and fittings in here are holding up nicely, although I did smash the wet room plug out of the sink, the repair to it has worked well. One of the side windows refuses to open too, having somehow trapped itself behind an outer seal.
Temperatures have gotten up to about 30 degrees in the van but the fridge is coping very well indeed, set at about half maximum it’s close to freezing stuff in the main compartment. A slightly broken freezer door compartment might be to blame (one of the hinges has been repaired in the past), and we’re getting a bit of ice build up in there. Water and air heating work perfectly.
Both taps refused to issue water early in in the trip, just pushing out air and a death-gurgle. After much sucking and cursing they started working and we’ve only had that problem once more after we let the fresh water tank run dry.
The aux belt (fan belt/alternator belt) squealed like a banshee when we set off, but a Fiat garage in Dieppe sorted it for £50. Also, the temperature gauge is banjaxed and annoyingly reports either a stone cold engine after several miles of driving, or flips up into the red zone for miles on end, sometimes bouncing in between. I’ve stopped once in annoyance and cracked the bonnet to find a beautifully cool engine and full coolant reservoir. Perhaps a dodgy sensor? The fuel gauge also once reported a sudden drop from a third full when we stopped at some point, to empty when we restarted. And then after a few miles back up to a third full. Weird, again poss sensor or could be related to the temp gauge? The plan is to get Norman the Garage Hero to sort it when we’re back home.
The engine’s coping nicely, although we don’t run faster than 60mph and haven’t hit any mountains yet. Time will tell on that one. No Phil, 5th gear hasn’t yet disintegrated…
The Table
A cantilever mounted table is fitted in here, attached to the end of one of the two benches, which swings out into the living area. It also revolves on the top of the mount so we can adjust it a bit more. The small square table fitted when we got the van was too small for a laptop plus mouse so we swapped it for a custom-made painted skim board, which looks cool! It stood the test of having four of us in here eating from it, but hasn’t done so well coping with heat, hot cups bring the paint off it and it’s stayed slightly tacky. The guy who makes them told us this was the first time he’s heard of the problem and has offered to pay for the varnish we need to use to seal it again. We’ve not gotten around to it and are using heat mats to protect it. The shape of the table works pretty well, but it’s not as good as Dave’s fixed dinette table as it’s not as big and is much less stable.
The Gas
Apart from me daftly accidentally loosening one of the interference fittings while checking they were all tight (muppet) the two bottle GasIT system is working well. The gauge on the 11Kg bottle stays at ’empty’ after we refill it, for a day or two, then pops up to full and starts working. The auto change-over valve works a treat. One garage refused to sell us LPG, but Ju spotted the teenager running the show was off on a break and more likely just couldn’t be bothered than out of any actual policy not to sell it for non-driving purposes. The two fill-ups we’ve done in France have been flawless and the mount point for the filler is strong and well positioned. All good. One thing I might consider adding is an additional safety cut-off valve which would let us drive without manually closing the tanks off (Larry had one on his Gaslow system and it looked fab), but I’ve gotten so used to turning them on and off, and I like seeing the system to check all is good, so I may not bother.
The SOG
This thing is cracking, I’m so glad we fitted it (info here on the SOG and how I installed it). In the UK we used the cassette but also tried to use public loos as much as we could, so it stayed unemptied for up to a week without smelling. Out here in France there are tons of free places to empty, so it’s only 2 to 4 days between empties, and we’ve detected only the faintest of smells, plus I can empty as often as I like without wasting blue. I’ve found it will smell if I use it (this is Jay!) stood up, which must agitate it all too much, so I sit down. No chemicals are being used at all, which feels pretty great.
The Solar
The van already had a single roof-mounted panel, controller and a couple of leisure batteries. We’re seeing up to 3.5A pushed through the controller on sunny days and the batteries are above 13V all the time, so I’m thinking we’re hardly touching them. We drive for an hour a day on average, which also tops ’em up. We’ll switch the lights for LED when back in the UK, they’re too expensive in France.
The Internet
Again this worked magnificently across the UK and across all the places we’ve been in France. We have a MiFi attached to a roof-mounted 3G/4G motorhomewifi.com antenna. This has a Three SIM in it and we’re currently using a PAYG feel at home package, although Larry suggested we check whether a Three contract would give us a better deal, which we’ll do when we get home. So far so good, only in the wilds of Abderdeenshire have we been unable to get a signal. Everywhere else it’s been 3G. Some small points to note though:
1. In a couple of places in France we had to log into the MiFi console and manually select the network, Adam discusses this in a video on motorhomewifi.com.
2. The system creates a private wireless network in the van, which our kit now automatically connects to. This created a problem in Glasgow, as we were using campsite wifi at the time to upload video to YouTube, but the laptop dropped off the site network and attached to ours, using a whole heap of our monthly allowance. Solution: switch the MiFi off when there is other wifi we can use (we also have a directional wifi antenna from motorhomewifi.com which also works well).
3. We let all of the data run out then tried to apply a top-up we’d already bought in the UK. The Three website accepted the top-up but then refused to convert it to an add-on, saying that we’d used some of the data (possible, since all our kit is attached to the network). We added another voucher then it started working, although the full value of the second voucher also remains available. Yeah, whacky. Solution: don’t run out of data before adding new vouchers? We’ll see.
Right, it’s after 2pm so our little bastide village here should be opening up. Time to go look.
Cheers, Jay
Enjoying your posts. Re the erratic meter readings, given there’s errors on more than one you may find a dodgy voltage regulator is to blame rather than the sensors. I had a car once which had a regulator whose sole job was ensuring accuracy of the dashboard meters.
Some good info guys, we had a similar situation with our old Sog, will try the sitting approach!
Hope you continue enjoying your travels, we’re loving the blog.
Pop & Miles
If you ever have any 12v problems I suggest you don’t waste your hard earned spondoolies on any of these self-advertised “motorhome electricians” but go straight to A and N Caravan services of North Wales (Google it, you’ll find Allan. The only link I have is as a customer). Having a similar van to yours I eventually (doh!) realised that the problems we were experiencing were down to the Electrobloc – the blue plastic lump underneath your seat (maybe?). Check out the website and you will be reassured by the vast wealth of knowledge and understanding this guy has. I know SFA about electrics but can read and understand an explanation when well presented by one who knows. He offers a postal service to repair / replace your faulty unit and I am convinced that I recently saved myself many hundreds of pounds by using A and N rather than taking the advice (and bills) of the self-proclaimed experts who arrive in a spanking van to do your work. Do you get the bit in life about having to live with something for a time before you understand its value or faults ? I have owned and used my Hymer for nearly 2 years and have only really scraped the surface in terms of knowing what does what/fits where etc. Hope this helps one day! You’ll know when you need it when, sitting one winter’s night reading or whatever, it all goes black and nothing you do (after you found the torch and batteries) changes the situation!
Keep blogging. It keeps us inspired to do more!
Really look forward to the daily update. Full of envy but just you enjoy every moment.
Regarding priming the water system after you have run your water tank dry:-
– Try not to run your water tank empty, sorry for saying the obvious … :)
– Always first turn the taps to the hot position and then open both bathroom and kitchen sink taps. This allows your ‘hot water’ tank and piping to fill and prime itself first, which eases the priming of the rest of the system. Flush the loo at the very end once all has been primed and water is running freely.
This info was given to us by the LOWDHAMS Team at Nottingham when we collected our Chausson back in 2012. We were also drilled into ‘pre-flighting’ the whole exterior and interior of the ‘van before we set off from any site.
Loo and cassette:-
– The cassette in Fifi went for 6 or 7 days before it needed emptying. Yes easy, Marius mostly did all his ablutions in the Great Outdoors when not at a campsite – huzzah! The benefits of practice and practicality.
Happy travels and Cheers!
Finally got our Greek number plates after 2 months of bureaucracy! Excited to go on our first trip, probably to Naplio in the Peliponese. Our Hymer is 2000 B544,a 5 berth,we’ve so been enjoying your blogs and the info it gives, now it’s our turn..can’t wait!
Sweet! Greece is a top country for free style motorhome wandering. Have fun Jackie, Jay
Very many thanks for sharing your exploits. Reading your excellent blog led to our recent purchase to our ’97 Hymer B564 called Bertie. We are new to motorhoming and I picked up on your comments about gas which seem to suggest that you turn off your gas when driving. Should we isolate the gas on the bottle every time we drive?
Hi guys, yeah, as far as I know you should close the valves when you’re on the move, presumably to reduce the risk of them going pop in the event someone drives into the side of you. Cheers, Jay
Ref your comments on noise levels in the van. Is it engine noise or general road noise? How does it compare to the Dave van, which is similar to ours.
Do you have MPG figures. WE have Fiat 2.5 turbo and achieve 29 mpg trundling along like you are now but drops to 26 on long all day runs cruising at 95 km/hr
Hi Dave
Hmmm, noise levels much depend on the road surface I reckon, but my feeling is the old and new vans are equally quiet/noisy.
Ju’s just worked out the MPG and we’re getting 28MPG at the moment, which sounds about right. I’m trying to stick to 80KPH, but have to admit on longer runs I do let it creep up to 90KPH. The tyre pressures need checking too…
Cheers, Jay
Did you put an external fill point on your Gaslow system ? We had a couple of refusals in France last year, so we fitted an external fill point to the gas hatch before heading off this year. We have had no issues refilling LPG from London to Turkey this year. We don’t turn off the gas when travelling any more, we have found the fridge works much better in very hot weather on gas than 12 volt. All the gas pipe work in a Hymer are steel apart from the short braided flex between the cylinders and regulator, so I see the risk is minimal.
Hi guys
We have a GasIT systems (much the same as Gaslow as far as I can tell) and yes, we have an external fill point. We’ve only been refused once across umpteen countries, and that was this fella in France but he was almost certainly, ah, not arsed to serve us when it was time for him to go on his break.
All is good in the world of GPL!
Cheers, Jay
Regarding gas solenoids, I have the Gasflo system and fitted a solenoid in the aft gas locker with a switch just inside the side door. It really is very good and means that I turn the gas off every time we move. It was not cheap. I had a marine gas fitter install it in Southampton and it was the top end of £300. However if you are a good DIY’er you can get the bits for just over a £100. Be careful though some solenoids draw more current than others in the “off ” position. Good Hymering
Richard Weston