Category Archives: T25

They learned from their mistakes with this one. The shape was so 80s but evolved and started to include water cooled editions.

 Another one in the bag – Type 2 Detectives Maintenance Weekend

Type 2 Detectives Maintenance Day by Simone Smith

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.

Upcoming Club Event – Stanford Hall Classic Volkswagen Show May 3rd 2026

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.

Day Trips by Neil Elliott

If, like me, work (school staff) gets in the way of a weekend away, don’t miss out on some fabulous days out. Winter or summer get some use out of that VW. You don’t have to go far.

We live in a small market town near Skegness and often just drive into the Wolds for the day, but it’s not the only local gem. Within 30 minutes we can be parked at Gibraltar point, a marvellous nature reserve with long or short walks, within an hour to an hour and a half we’re parked on the front at Cleethorpes, in a field next to a castle, walking along a river or wandering around the ruins of an Abbey!

Yesterday (Saturday), we took two of our children to Cleethorpes. My Daughter Elizabeth has quite severe Autism and loves our days out. We had a wonderful walk to the ice-cream kiosk and along the Prom’. Then it was back to the T3 for cheese on toast before a steady drive home.

You’ll be surprised how many of us just don’t bother with or even know what is on our doorstep. Get your maps out and take a look, you’ll be pleased you did. And why not put the word out, meet another VW, I’m always up for an impromptu meet up that’s only up the road.

Happy days

Neil.

Inspector Gadget – Hub caps

Following on from a conversation with former editor Phil Aldridge, this is a mechanic’s cheat for any hub caps.

If you press your hub caps on and sometimes they fall off, the cause is loss of metal. The Splitscreen and Bay window steel wheels have hub caps that attach to the wheel by gripping 3 lugs on the wheel itself. Repeated attachment and removal of the hub caps over the years removes tiny amounts of metal from the steel wheel and can also make the hub caps slightly wider as well.

The new ones are known as “summer chrome” and do not last very long in our climate. The original ones tend to have rusted by now. Any time you clean one or fit one, there is a danger of them falling off.

A mechanic friend suggested this trick which has worked for him for decades. Remove the hub cap and thoroughly clean the wheel. It looks better already, doesn’t it? Now with a clean, dry wheel, apply some electrician’s tape over each of the 3 lugs being careful to cover the piece that grips the hub cap. Offer up the hub cap to ensure that the tape is not visible.

Once all 3 lugs are taped, place the hub cap over 2 of them and tap the hub cap onto the third one. It can be quite difficult to do this and be careful to tap the edge of the hub cap otherwise you are likely to dent the middle! There are plenty of dented ones visible on member vans! If you dent it, tap the dent out carefully from the inside.

With all of them on, admire your handywork – and be a lot more confident that the caps will be there when you arrive.

Ask the Mechanic – My sliding door doesn’t work properly

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?

Member’s Motor – Penny Lane by Philippa Symington

Our story is probably not at all typical of your members – all amazingly enthusiastic about their old campers!

My husband and I rather fell into the purchase of our first campervan, Penny Lane, a 1975 T2. Jamie is a 4th generation farmer running a big business on the Norfolk/Lincolnshire border. We’ve been thinking over the years of how to diversify and how to make the most of old buildings no longer suitable for modern agriculture. Not quite on the tourist trail, and not convenient enough for a business park.

Then a friend mentioned that they knew of a local couple wanting to downsize their campervan rental fleet, knowing that our son is a classic car enthusiast (his first car at 17 and all through university was a 1969 Imp – and it’s still running). We were intrigued, and met the then owners of Retro Campers Norfolk, which has been running since 2011. Their main issue was storage – they had to pay silly money for inadequate, often damp and not very convenient winter storage of their 5 classic campers and decided they needed to sell at least two of them to continue with holiday rentals of the others, and we agreed to buy Penny Lane. They then started to think they’d sell the whole business, and we thought why not? A new adventure, we have lots of space, and our enthusiastic son could help with maintaining the vehicles. We could do this!

By autumn 2023, we had ourselves a new venture on the farm, and we became the proud owners of Penny Lane, Buttercup and Mr Blue Sky – all RHD 1975 T2s in excellent order, plus Good Thing, a funky 1989 T25 – perfect for the holiday rental market. We spent much of the winter (and considerable expense!) converting a redundant building into their new home. Plenty of space for customers to get the hang of the gears and non-power steering in our farmyard and along quiet country lanes before they reach the main roads around King’s Lynn, ready for their camping adventures. Whilst we don’t have a mileage limit, we do ask customers to stay within a 60-mile (as the crow flies) radius of King’s Lynn, so most explore the Norfolk coast and Broads, but our area also includes Suffolk, the Fens, Rutland and Lincolnshire.

As you can imagine each camper has its own little quirks, and each new customer has to be carefully taken through how to drive and live in a classic camper. But our first major set-back was Buttercup needing a new engine! Despite having a pre- and mid-season service each year, you never quite know what’s round the corner with old vehicles. We are lucky to have Jason at Dubs and Classics nearby, and he put a new VW Engine Company engine in, plus various other tweaks. Despite being reasonably mechanically-minded on the farm, we are very much novices when it comes to old VWs, and feel reassured to have Jason and other local experienced guys to call on. The vans have to be in tip-top condition to hire out.

And running the new business has been quite a learning curve too! I’ve had to learn how to run a website, booking system and social media, but they say learning something new keeps our brains younger…

Personally we’re looking forward to a long weekend away with friends very soon – we’ll take two campers to the Norfolk Broads, so look out for us on the roads!

If any members of the T2 Owners Club would like to hire a camper for a few days (maybe yours is off the road, or you have friends who’d like to join you?), please get in touch – we can offer a 15% discount off any booking by members. Please see www.retrocampersnorfolk.co.uk or email info@retrocampersnorfolk.co.uk.