What can I say… this was excellent. If you are not technical minded (I am not and although my fiancée is, I was starting to find that I wasn’t able to help on issues, but after today I can) and want to help on your camper, then do a day at Type 2 detectives.
Andy and Paul were brilliant, very clear and great teachers, we were showed around the workshop and then explained what they do. They included everyone and made everyone feel able to fix or service their vehicle.
They showed us an engine with clear explanations of how it worked, and labels were on the different components, so we could understand things fully. They explained a few stories about what could go wrong, and how they fixed them. They also showed that the scary wiring system isn’t that complex once it had been explained and showed what to do in situations that may occur. Also, you could buy a wiring diagram (which is totally worth getting) (Editor notes that you can get these online and the Bay window 1972 to 1974 wiring diagram is on the club website in the “Technical articles” section because I had it for Eric!). They included everyone and made everyone feel able to fix or service your vehicle.
We were shown:
How to change a fan belt
How to change the oil
How to set the gap on the valves
How to set the gap on the distributor points and describe the firing order of the cylinders
Andy and Paul walked us around the underneath of a variety of vans on ramps, then explained components, common faults and visual checks to keep our vans healthy.
We were well feed and watered – seriously, the choice of food and variety of drinks was excellent. All staff were friendly and welcoming. We would pop in to say Hi, and have a drink if I was ever up this way … and you should too … totally worth a look.
I thoroughly enjoyed the entire day, I have come away with extra confidence of what to do if I was on my own in my Rusty Leigh and had issues or broke down. I also liked that we were told a few times throughout the day that we could just call them and they would talk us through any breakdown (which is so reassuring) also what essentials tools to keep in the van, that you might not think about. (Editor notes that the Spare parts list is also on the web site in the “Technical articles” section)
Although we were told that Paul had a spare engine in his van when he was on his travels … smart man, we believe he didn’t need it lol!
At the end you were given a boot camp bible to take with you covering what you have been taught to you on the day and we were offered a comprehensive health check for our vehicle at a later date, convenient to both you and the workshop at an amazing cost.
I will pass on Type 2 detectives’ information to anyone who needs it, and when my stepdaughter is ready, we will be sending her to one of these workshops so she can get a better understand of our T2 camper.
Thanks again for an excellent and acknowledgeable day.
One not to be missed. our Annual get together at this lovely camp site. Here you can have your say on how your club is run. Its not all about the admin either as the majority of the weekend is set phasers to chill.
In my humble opinion one of the best shows of the calendar and my personal favourite. Organised by the wonderful Leicestershire & Warwickshire Volkswagen Owners Club the event hosts classic air and water cooled models side by side. This is a one day event Sunday only but camping is available on both Saturday and Sunday nights, details of booking can be found on their Web Site.
Organised by your club this will help owners to service and maintain their vehicles. This course is based at Type 2 HQ in Cambridgeshire. This is a pre booked event only. Spaces are limited
The next edition of the club magazine has been finished by our Editors and looks fantastic. It should be arriving through your door soon! If you are enjoying the club magazine and have a story about a trip, an upgrade, a restoration or just a tip, send a contribution to our Editor at editor@vwt2oc.co.uk.
The unreliability of our beloved vans is not the sole ownership of the air-cooled bays and splits. Helen and I waved summer 2023 travels goodbye due to our 2019, 18,500 miles only T6 Kombi developing an EGR fault.
Back in May we were literally just pulling onto the drive after a trip to Derbyshire and Suffolk to visit family when an engine fault light lit up on the dash. My usual mechanic was able to diagnose the fault as EGR problems but as the van was so low mileage reckoned I should try to get VW to fix it on goodwill.
Now the fun begins. Yes, VW will look into the fault and possibly fix as a goodwill gesture but there’s a three month wait for a garage slot! Bye Bye summer camping. The appointment eventually arrived and despite a few niggles, VW did indeed fix the fault on goodwill (the new manager was very helpful). An EGR flush was carried out. I did have to pay for a forced regen which wasn’t so bad as you all know put the word Volkswagen in the mix and costs reach for the sky.
It seems this problem isn’t uncommon with the newer Euro 6 transporters due to the ever increasing tightening up of emissions basically blocking the EGR valve with carbon. Pottering around town, which I try not to do seems to be the arch enemy and I have been told by a few knowledgeable people to minimize carbon build up red line it and drive it like you stole it!!!
After having the T6 EGR flush and forced regen carried out in early September 2023, I thought that the engine might behave for a while. It did, but only for nine months and not a lot of miles. On the return journey to Bristol from South Gloucestershire in early June on the M5 joy of joys engine light came on. Managed to book into the local garage within a week. Diagnostic results came back; EGR insufficient flow. They fixed it there and then but I picked it up at the end of the day with a bank balance £1,100 pounds lighter! Most of that bill was for parts.
By all accounts the EGR flush is basically like sticking a plaster on the problem. I suppose I did get nine months out of it.
The next edition of the club magazine has been finished by our Editors and looks fantastic. It should be arriving through your door soon! If you are enjoying the club magazine and have a story about a trip, an upgrade, a restoration or just a tip, send a contribution to our Editor at editor@vwt2oc.co.uk.
Between Saturday 2nd August and Sunday 10th August 2025, 6 club member vehicles or Bay windows parked nearby, were reported to have sliding door issues. Each one was the same root cause, each fixed in under 10 minutes for free. You can do it too!
Sliding door won’t close and nothing has changed? Sliding door won’t open and nothing has changed? Sliding door won’t run smoothly and nothing has changed?
The root cause is the same – something HAS changed! Time has passed.
The sliding door has a top roller that runs in a channel. Grab your grease pot (avoid copper based as it is potentially carcinogenic), and put a decent sized blob of grease on that roller itself above the cream plastic cover. It runs in that top channel and only touches the left and right / inside and outside edges of the channel. Add a smear of grease to both sides – don’t bother greasing the top, the roller doesn’t touch it.
At the bottom of the door opening is another roller and another channel. You’ll need to repeat the process with the grease here – don’t just spray product into the hole, you need to grease the C shaped channel inside that hole and again you are doing the sides not the top. A blob on the roller as well will really help.
Now put the sliding door almost closed as in the above shot. The middle runner slides on top of a single 2mm thick piece of steel. Grease on the top of that but don’t worry about getting it perfectly on, just grease it up. The rearmost inch or so doesn’t get used, no need to grease to the end. When you are down there, that red U shaped steel goes up into the latch mechanism. From underneath, get a load of WD40 into there.
Now with the door almost fully open but not quite, locate the middle latch as shown above. That little finger holds the door open. Spray that liberally with WD40 from this side having just doused it from underneath.
That’s it for the hard work, now slide the door mostly closed to mostly open. Repeat 20 or 30 times to get that grease really spread through the dry sections and your sliding door should be a whole lot better.
You do do this as part of your regular maintenance though right?
We have always used a freestanding awning with the campers, especially when the offspring were going away with us. Now it’s just two, we find we don’t need so much space, and putting an awning up for short stays is a chore. At the moment our van is a kombi conversion with a rear slide out kitchen, so rather than extra people creating a lack of space, it’s now the large bulk of a triple middle row seat that forms part of the bed and can’t be removed for camping.
This got me looking at tailgate awnings but most had one flaw. The tailgate had to be left up to support the awning therefore major lack of security. This is where the Sandcrest L is different. It has a single aluminium sectioned hoop to support the nylon, and so the tailgate can be lowered. Although not advertised as driveaway, I have done so using the guylines for support like any tent, although I wouldn’t risk it if it was too windy. It only takes about ten minutes to erect, is light(5.7kg) and takes up very little space (packed size is 64 x 22 x 22cm). As with all Outwell tents/awnings it has many useful features including a zipped mosquito mesh for when camping in warmer climates. Overall size is 310 x 220 cm and living space is about 180 x 200 cm. Enough room for a couple of chairs, table and my offside slide out. The Sandcrest L fits most Transporter sized vans and there is a smaller Sandcrest S for caddy sized vans.
Well, what do we say – a very exciting and fun trip for our three vans.
First of all, a massive thank you to Lorna for all the hard work she and Nick put in to make it work so well. A group WhatsApp was set up so that we could all follow each other, which was a terrific bonus and we didn’t lose anyone en route. All of the camp sites were amazing. A true testament to the organisation of the trip.
Sunday 19th May
Departure day … we all travelled separately to our respective campsites before crossing the channel tunnel the following day.
We set off for Park Farm Campsite about 30 miles from Folkstone as we wanted the train journey to be stress free. We set off from home around 9am and had the day to get there. The campsite was spotless and virtually empty at this time of year. A great start for the coming trip to France the next day. We arrived late afternoon and so we took a walk to Bodium Castle. There was a pathway from the campsite alongside a river. A beautiful walk in the sunshine and had an evening meal in the local pub next to the castle.
Monday 20th May
The next morning, we packed up early and set off for the Channel Tunnel. This was the first time that we had been on the tunnel, and found it interesting and exciting. It could not have been easier. We arrived early and were told that we could take an earlier train than our ticket specified, as it was not busy. We took this opportunity to go to France early and I would certainly use the Tunnel again.
Arriving in France 35 minutes later we decided to go to Dunkirk, as it is nearby and I have been fascinated by the stories and films of WW2. This was well worth the small trip. We then headed for the campsite at Renescure. We arrived first out of our group and so set-up pitch. The pitches were individual and quite large. Val, Malcolm, Lorna and Nick arrived about an hour later having been shopping for supplies. The place was so nice. Each pitch had its own electricity and water supply. I did not bring a French plug convertor (against my wife’s advice) but the Campsite owners lent us one. They were such lovely people.
And so the trip had really begun.
Tuesday 21st May
The next morning we set off on a 240 mile journey through France, Belgium, and Holland and on to Germany. Although this was quite a number of miles, we stopped for meal / toilet breaks or whenever someone felt they needed a further stop. It gave the drivers a chance to get used to the ‘other side’ of the road.
Taking the bypass round Antwerp was quite an experience, as the roads were extremely busy and it was raining hard. We all noticed the extreme number of huge lorries on the roads particularly on this section. And when we say big, they were enormous. Apparently, this is a trade route so this could be expected. But this was all part of the Adventure.
Leaving Antwerp the road opened out and we made good progress. Our first stopover was to be in a disused coal colliery, and we wondered what we might find there. We had just stopped to decide if we were in the correct place when someone hailed us to follow them which we did. We arrived at the Bulli Museum in Gelsenkirchen.
One of the buildings was used by the T2 Club in Germany to store all their vans and parts. Roland greeted us and made us very welcome. My word when they opened the doors and we saw their fabulous collection (many under wraps), we all got very excited.
After showing us where the facilities were, we had a general chat and were invited out for a meal. We camped in the car park which was not as bad as it sounded as a water supply and toilets were available in the Museum which remained open during our stay.
Wednesday 22nd May
Bright and early our hosts arrived including Detlef (who was the German organiser of the trip) and Ulf (who became our driver to certain events) together with a few of the Club members. We couldn’t wait to have a look at their collection. Most of the vehicles work or at least they will when completed.
A lot of the vehicles had individual stories attached to them and one by one we were shown them. There was even a fire truck and 2 hearses; one reminded us of the Victorian times as it was decked out with lace fringing and carriage lanterns.
It was amazing the number of different kinds of vehicles. One was used at the airports with a lookout tower on the top, another had a crane used for carrying lamp posts. An ice-cream van and a Police radar van were also there. The vehicles ranged from Split screens to T4s. Each one was unique.
In the afternoon, we were given a guided tour around the colliery by a man who was working on the buildings and site. The whole site is being preserved and put to use in different ways. The Bulli Museum (Bulli being the German name for VW transporter vans) is working towards making a bigger area in order to display their vehicles to their best advantage.
We look forward to a possible return trip in order to see that!
There had been an art celebration a little while ago and many of the buildings had been painted with different artwork and writing. CAN YOU SPOT THE DELIBERATE ERROR IN ONE PIECE?
Some beautiful artwork included Canaries representing the birds taken down the mines to give an alarm when gas is detected.
It was interesting to know how the colliery had been worked and what the buildings were used for. One room was for the injured and there was a doctor’s house on site although this is not going to be used as part of the regeneration of the site.
One area contained many metal baskets which were hanging from the ceilings on long chains with an individual padlock on each one. These were for the workers to leave their clothes in when they changed into their working clothes in a different room. At the end of the working day they put their dirty clothes down into a special hole in the room where they dropped into the laundry area. They then took a communal shower and were so close to each other that they could wash each other’s backs.
As part of the art exhibition an artist had made origami birds. These were coloured from black to grey to a variety of colours depicting the coal dust to clean. The birds were then put in the cages. A lovely spectacle.
Being nominated ‘unofficial’ club photographer I was asked by Nick and Lorna to take a picture of us all from the top of the Bulli Museum building. I needed to get high, so I was offered this vehicle as the platform (Editor notes that “I needed to get high” means elevation, not smoking!). This vehicle is owned by a member of the German VW Club.
The resulting picture shows the fun were we having with the German Club. They laid on a BBQ for us with plenty of food and drink of all varieties including some incredible German sausages made by Roland’s next-door neighbour who is a butcher.
This was just the first day with the German Club members.
