Autosleeper Stratford modifications

Hello all,
As my post in the “Changing the radio” thread generated some interest, I thought I’d post a detailed thread relating to our Stratford & the modifications I’ve made to improve it (& invalidate the warranty!!! ), some of which were inspired by members of this forum, particularly nimbus ! Hopefully some of you will find the modifications interesting & useful.

Having previously owned two VW T5 campervans, A 2004 Beckenham Freeway & a 2010 California 4motion, the growing need for more onboard facilities (due to more frequent & longer trips away to sites with just a tap!) got us searching for something that wasn’t much bigger than a T5 but had a loo & shower & better Kitchen facilities & the Stratford was our final choice. A few weekends away in & it has more than exceeded our expectations. However, a few modifications were soon needed to adapt it to our needs & to address a few design issues:

1: Occasional small table & all related fittings removed.

2: Main table storage relocated from over cab shelf to behind drivers seat to free up over cab shelf for storage.

3: 2nd 100Ah leisure battery fitted to allow compressor fridge to run for 2-3 days without hookup. (a solar panel might be on the cards for the future )

4: Nasa BM1 compact battery monitor installed.

5: Extra LED light fitted over oven & flexible LED reading light fitted in the cab.

6: Whale surge damper fitted to prevent rapid cycling of water pressure switch.

7: Additional heater outlet vent fitted & outlet from truma 4E boilers modified as Autosleeper use 1 upper & 2 lower outlets which caused the single upper outlet plastic to melt during water heating mode due to excessive heat build up. This outlet was also made a permanent outlet rather than butterfly valve type.

8: Hanging rail removed from wardrobe & shelf fitted.

9: 230V supply for fridge changed from awkward to access plug behind kitchen lower drawer to a CBE 230V switch next to the 230V socket in the kitchen unit. We’re then easily able to switch the fridge off when the van is hooked up at home for battery top up etc!

10: Sony radio fitted to replace naff factory unit & a 12V feed routed under the vehicle from the leisure batteries to power it so it can be left on all day without fear of draining the vehicle battery when on site for a few days at a time.

11: Oregon Scientific weather station fitted with external sensor hidden in rear bumper for outdoor temperature monitoring.

12: Fridge moved back an inch to fit flush with the furniture. I don’t know why Autosleeper fit it proud as there’s plenty of space behind it!

13: Flexible magnetic strips sewn into rear curtain edges to allow them to stick to the rear door frame to prevent gaps.

14: Bin attached to kitchen end. the Ikea composting bin works well & looks great!

15: Off-cut of carpet fitted to temporarily replace the original (just while our dogs are still with us, they’re a bit old & smelly & we don’t want the nice original carpets ruined!)

16: Rubber strip fitted to top of side sliding door frame to prevent water ingress.

17: Front mud flaps fitted.

18: Remis Remifront IV front cab blind set fitted & crappy cab curtain removed.

19: Grab handle fitted to top right of sliding door to make it easier to close (A Landrover Defender door grab handle works well & can be found on ebay for £2.19)

20: FINALLY, the ubiquitous engine bay waterproofing with silicone & additional rubber tubing applied to the scuttle top edge & rubber strips down the side of the bonnet, drain pipes added on the nearside of the scuttle & heater air intake box font edge.

I am very impressed with the layout & generally impressed with the fit & finish of the Stratford although there was some untidy, loose wiring found behind the kitchen unit when I was re-wiring the fridge & a very tight wire to the sliding door floor light which was a bit disappointing, as was the amount of sawdust found there & behind drawers etc.

The truma heater controls aren’t in the best position when lounging feet up on the offside sofa as it’s easy to inadvertently change the heat setting & as mentioned above, Autosleeper should read the truma 4E heater installation manual & fit at least one permanently open outlet & fit the ducting to the correct outlets on the 4E heater when only 3 outlets are used.

Lastly, I’m surprised nobody ever mentions how badly the X250’s steering wheel is offset to the left from the driver’s seat, I thought the VW T5 was bad but the X250’s steering wheel is more convenient for the passenger to use!

Please click on the WWW below my avatar for a link to some photos I’ve taken of the Stratford & the modifications (as well as some photos of the oily bits for those who are interested! )

Happy Motorhoming everyone & enjoy the 2012 season.

Dolwen,
That is a lot of work that you have done and it all looks top quality, well done.
Thanks for sharing your mods and for adding the pics, they are very helpful to understand what you have done.

squip

Dolwen wrote:I’m surprised nobody ever mentions how badly the X250’s steering wheel is offset to the left from the driver’s seat, I thought the VW T5 was bad but the X250’s steering wheel is more convenient for the passenger to use!

I have to say I don't notice the steering being off centre as much on our X250 Nuevo as I did with our previous VW T4 Trident... Glad to read you have added drain pipe to the air intake box as this has been a concern of mine since getting ours and something I plan on doing, does it drain well / solve the problem? I've often wondered where this water goes to if just left

CC

Nice mods Antony I did the 4e vent mod as soon as I got my 2011 Duo . Why AS do not read the installation instructions is beyond me . I have a Panasonic MP3/Radio without s/wheel controls fitted. This only works when ignition is switched on and with no 20min overrun so will have to find a live feed. I also have a crappy front roof vent with aluminum louvers that rattle when traveling and in strong winds when pitched this, I hope will be changed soon by Marquis via complaint to AS. I'm also fitting front blinds when I have spare cash, where did you get them from and any problems to watch out for when fitting?. I have purchased a solar panel and fittings; will fit when better weather comes. Where did you get magnets for rear curtains from? Drip strip for side door ordered by Marquis as fitted to Autocruise panel vans, just sticks on approx £5. Tow bar and rear step fitted.

Good pics and easy to follow. Thank you for posting.
Colin.

CruizingComet wrote:

Dolwen wrote:I’m surprised nobody ever mentions how badly the X250’s steering wheel is offset to the left from the driver’s seat, I thought the VW T5 was bad but the X250’s steering wheel is more convenient for the passenger to use!

I have to say I don't notice the steering being off centre as much on our X250 Nuevo as I did with our previous VW T4 Trident... Glad to read you have added drain pipe to the air intake box as this has been a concern of mine since getting ours and something I plan on doing, does it drain well / solve the problem? I've often wondered where this water goes to if just left

CC

It goes over the diesel injectors and seizes them into the head!!!! Crazy design fault.

It's a similar fault on the Peugeot 807 and Citroen C8 MPV - when it comes time to replace the timing belt, number 1 injector won't come out to time the engine. Cit/Pug dealers won't touch the job and say a new engine is required!!!! £8000 fitted Sir/Madam

I've a friend who buys these cars up for next to scrap money - he's designed a hydraulic puller to get the injectors out - the maximum pressure he's seen on the gauge is 20 tonnes! and that's from a push fit injector (held in by a top plate and 2 bolts) Once the seized injector reaches 11 tonnes the injector starts stretching and is scrap but at least the cylinder head is saved. When these injectors finally come free you can hear the bang from streets away! Like I say - totally stupid design which can let this happen.

Here's a wee video of one not too tight................ [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

CruizingComet wrote:Glad to read you have added drain pipe to the air intake box as this has been a concern of mine since getting ours and something I plan on doing, does it drain well / solve the problem? I've often wondered where this water goes to if just left

CC

dandywarhol wrote:
It goes over the diesel injectors and seizes them into the head!!!! Crazy design fault.

Hi Dandy... I'm aware of the water on top of the engine and rusted injectors, don't have too much bother with this on ours that I can see, but I was really referring to the bonnet louvers on the passenger side where the air intake is, water runs in here and collects so when you open the bonnet one part of the air box stays attached to the bonnet and the other part stays attached to the engine and as you open up the bonnet water pours out, which is why I was thinking of adding drainage like Dolwen has... unless the air boxes have a drain point somewhere else I'm really curious to know where this excess water goes to otherwise (btw With our Taylormade silver covers on I've not had any problems with water getting in the airbox as the bonnet vents are covered)

Ah, sorry, on the wrong track..................

Great post and nice work Anthony, one thing I noticed while scrolling the pictures was the fact you felt you had to tidy the wiring and one wire as like a piano string. Our new Cotswold underneath is scary in places wiring wise, so much for clipping every 300mm one of our heater hoses already fell off and we only drove 60 miles. The problem with that hose is that it has no clips for over 3ft Auto Sleepers really believe in zip ties a lot rather than proper clips underneath as well. I got a feeling there will be a few fixes under there listed for warranty work before I waxoyl the whole underneath to stop any corrosion.

Thanks for all the comments, to answer a few of the questions,

Colin, The Remis Blinds were easy to fit & I sourced the set from ebay for £475 so not cheap, but well worth it. The only issue I had was removing Autosleepers curtain rail! A block of wood is fitted behind the central fixing to hold the screw and this slid down the headlining & meant removing the courtesy light & sun visors to retrieve it! The flexible magnets were another ebay buy, search for flexible strip magnets. They can be cut to the required length. They're also more magnetic on one side than the other so fit them the right way round, I didn't first time! It'll be interesting to know how you get on fitting your solar panel. What kit did you buy?

Cruizing Comet, the pipe i fitted to the heater intake helps when parked facing downhill, it stops water pooling at the join between the bonnet intake section & the engine side intake, the extra drain I fitted is on the engine intake side, in the centre, right behind the rubber seal where the plastic slopes forward, (i'll take a photo!). The main drain for the intake is at the back just before the plastic mesh, hard to see but if you open the bonnet & look underneath the air intake, you'll see a large rubber pipe at the bottom of it.

I agree Robbie, some of the workmanship leaves a lot to be desired & waxoyling.... another job to add to the list.

Thank you again Antony, you are right about the Remis they are quite expensive but as you say well worth it. The other thing that has intrigued me,” what is that on your dash with the aerial"?. Call me nosey!!.
The 80watt solar panel I have, I bought from Sunrise_Energy off e-bay £109:70. This panel came recommended from Motorhomefacts.com, infact everything you thought you knew or didn’t know about solar panels on MH’s can be found here. I have acquired for £4, 2 x 40mm X 40mm X 5mm aluminium angle 540mm long to pop rivet to the panel and Silfix to the roof. Adjustments may need to be made so brackets fit on top of roof ridges, this will be fitted across the roof. I will use a 4 way junction box to Silfix to roof for cable entry, this being so I can fit another panel if needed. My regulator will be a 15/20amp MPPT regulator, this giving the best result. I will take the 3.5mm feed from this direct to my leisure battery under the driver’s seat. I am considering moving the jack and other tools from under the passenger seat and fitting another battery under it.
My good friend over in York got an 80watt Veetech System fitted to his Warwick within the purchase deal which he is very pleased with. Again the specifications for this can be found on Outdoor bits.com/motorhomefacts.com. The cost £580.

Colin

Hi Colin.

Thanks for the links r.e. solar panels, I hadn’t realised how much prices have fallen so I think I’ll be looking into fitting one fairly soon. Space might be a premium on our MWB roof unfortunately with 3 roof lights & an awkwardly placed aerial plonked right in the middle where a solar panel would go! I’ll get up there with a tape measure to see what will fit.

While I remember, there's a small negative point about the Remis front blinds I should mention, The sun visors can no longer swing round to the side windows as the top rail guard is in the way

oh, and that little thing with an aerial on our dashboard is a reversing sensor display that shows in metres how far to go before you hit something! That was fitted by Westcountry Motorhomes before we took delivery.

Cheers,
Antony

Dolwen wrote:

Cruizing Comet, the pipe i fitted to the heater intake helps when parked facing downhill, it stops water pooling at the join between the bonnet intake section & the engine side intake, the extra drain I fitted is on the engine intake side, in the centre, right behind the rubber seal where the plastic slopes forward, (i'll take a photo!). The main drain for the intake is at the back just before the plastic mesh, hard to see but if you open the bonnet & look underneath the air intake, you'll see a large rubber pipe at the bottom of it.

Thanks Antony... a pic would be very helpful as our van is parked on the drive facing downhill and I suspect this is the reason we get water in the air intake (when our screen covers are off) but I will look for the main drain that you describe out of curiosity anyway.

Your waste bin from Ikea does it lift off the mounting or is it permanently fixed? Just the kinda thing we need but not sure we have enough space near our habitation door as it might end up getting in the way, wonder if this would fit inside a cupboard door maybe, do you have dimensions if it's not too much trouble?

CC

Colin - If your Duo is a recent model you'll have no trouble fitting the Remis cab blinds. However, if it's more than two years old it's not so easy, as the Boxer cab used to be fitted with a high level parcel shelf. This causes problems in the area just in front of the rear view mirror and the entire shelf needs to be taken down and a section of the plastic moulding has to be cut away to allow the blinds to meet. Hopefully yours is a more recent vehicle! Mine needed this treatment and it took a lot of courage to start cutting the shelf.

Dolwen - Nice set of pictures and and useful set of mods you've done. My Duo is fitted with a 6Kw Combi so you can imagine the heat buildup when I only had one top outlet connected. It was only after talking to a Truma engineer that I realised that both top outlets must be connected and I was getting an acrid metalic smell from the heater when it was on 1.8Kw electric water heating. In fact, even with both outlets connected, I still do get the smell, but nowhere near as bad, which is caused by the heat affecting the inner metallic liner of the duct. Truma assured me it was nothing to worry about but I'd be interested if other get the smell.

Hi CC,
Here's a link to a photo of the additional drain I fitted to the front of the engine side intake: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
...and here's a link to the IKEA composting bin with it's dimensions: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
The bin is removable from it's supporting plate. If you're fitting the bin to a flat surface, the small top lip on the support plate needs cutting off with a stanley knife as it's designed to rest on top of a cupboard door.
Hope this helps.

Hi Nimbus
I wouldn't have been aware of half the issues if it hadn't been for your modification post so I'm eternally grateful
Yes we still get the slight metallic smell during water heating. The first time it happened with ours, the butterfly valve had also melted out of shape. Autosleeper should know about this so I might send them a courtesy email pointing out the error of their ways, before someone causes more serious damage to their vans!

Apart from these issues, I Hope you're enjoying your van as much as we are?

Morning Nimbus my Duo was built September 2011 so it’s not got the cab shelf. Also thank you for your posts if it wasn't for you I would never had known about the heat pipe configuration, also the metallic smell which I get.
Next jobs will be the drain pipes under the bonnet thanks to Antony's description and pics.

Nothing sensible to contribute to this thread, but I agree the wiring was not very tidy. I thought there was a surprising amount of surface rust on your disk brakes.

Great set of pics, I enjoyed those & .......... a nice looking van.

Thanks for posting!

Hi Spook 69,

Glad you enjoyed the photos.

spook69 wrote:I thought there was a surprising amount of surface rust on your disk brakes.

Unfortunately that's what usually happens to bare cast iron + the Welsh weather + 2 weeks sitting idle! Nothing to be concerned about though.

I took those pictures whilst I was applying copper slip to the hub surfaces as alloy wheels have a nasty habit of gluing themselves to the wheel hubs after a few years due to galvanic corrosion between the dissimilar metals & so making the wheels really hard to remove.

Dolwen wrote:.............

I took those pictures whilst I was applying copper slip to the hub surfaces as alloy wheels have a nasty habit of gluing themselves to the wheel hubs after a few years due to galvanic corrosion between the dissimilar metals & so making the wheels really hard to remove.

Hi there,

From most reactive to least reactive we have the following metals:

caesium
potassium
strontium
calcium
sodium
magnesium
aluminium
manganese
zinc
iron
tin
lead
copper
silver
mercury
gold

To put a copper based product between aluminium wheels and steel hubs will INCREASE the corrosion of the wheels!

I won't mind being wrong!

Best regards,

Hi Dutto,
Thanks for your comment. Copperslip or Molyslip is a universal anti-seize grease that's used where corrosion could prevent dis-assembly of components later in their service life. Your table of reactive metals answers the question why it's used as copper is less reactive than steel & aluminium so provides a barrier between the 2 metals.

Where's my pint!

Dolmen,

Copper is far from "inert" (which is why copper sheathing was used to provide an anti-fouling layer on old ships and why copper based paints are used today) and any magnesium/aluminium alloy in contact with it will corrode (which is why it is NEVER used on aluminium boats).

The following is an extract from the relevant site (but with my BOLD highlights). Personally I would be much happier using Alumslip!


Copaslip

Copaslip (often misspelled as copperslip or coppaslip) - the original anti-seize compound. It is a very high temperature (up to 1100°C) anti-seize assembly compound, bentone based non-melt grease with copper, polybutene, and anti-corrosion additives.


Alumslip

Alumslip anti-seize assembly compound is specially formulated to protect against seizure even under extreme conditions of pressure and temperature. Also a highly effective thread lubricant and protective. Designed for same applications as Copaslip (often misspelled as copperslip or coppaslip) but where there is a prejudice against the presence of copper. Temperature range up to 1100°C.

Best regards,

Hi Dutto,
Thanks for the reply, I'd never heard of Alumslip so I'll add that to my shopping list of essential greases

I still think my use of copaslip on hubs over the years has prevented plenty of stuck wheel syndrome though

Thanks again

Hi there,

I have no problems using Copaslip on steel threads (I was using it as far back as 1969 on the Humber Oil Refinery) it's just the thought of bringing "winter, wet, salt, steel, mag alloy and copper" all together that got me thinking.

Best regards,


Ian

It dont matter if your in the copper camp or alu camp here's why.

Wheel bolts should (generally) be installed dry.

The design intent of bolted fasteners is that they should develop clamping force. This means that the bolt is in tension, and the joint is placed in corresponding compression.

When you apply torque to a fastener, most of this effort is spent in overcoming the friction beneath the rotating head of the fastener, and the friction in the sliding threads. Only a little effort is actually expended in tensioning the fastener.

The relationship between the torque you apply and the tension you achieve is, therefore, strongly influenced by the condition of these sliding surfaces, and by greasing them, you will obtain much more tension in the fastener than was designed for.

This extra tension can be enough to strip the threads, to damage the fastener, or to damage the component being secured. If the joint has been well designed, the shank of the fastener will snap first, before thread stripping or component damage, but, not all bolted joints are well designed.

This dependence on friction to determine how torque tightening produces fastener tension is why torque tightening is quite a poor method of installing fasteners. Torque tightening is popular because it's quick and easy. Even with the best torque tools and highly trained fitters, the scatter in bolt tension between a population of bolts is quite wide. For more critical fasteners on cars, a torque plus angle specification is usually given which gives much more accurate tensioning, and which usually makes much more efficient use of the fastener material.

Incidentally, the joint face between the wheel and hub should also remain dry - this face is, effectively, a clutch face transmitting drive and braking torque between the hub and wheel. This torque should be transmitted by the friction, and not by shearing the bolts.

The bottom line is that all safety critical fasteners should be tightened by following the manufacturer's specification, with no ad-hoc modification. There is a very strong reason manufactures do not lube these surfaces !!!!

Robbie,

I agree!

Got carried away with the corrosion possibilities and forgot about the wheel falling off possibilities!!

Best regards,



Ian

PS A mate of mine had the gut-wrenching experience of watching his own right rear wheel overtake him as he was going into a right-hand bend! Luckily he managed to stop this side of the ditch!

All a bit of fun and banter and we gain tips from each other