Shackleton

That's the plan Mike! Weld in a frame, bond in the see through bit The flat circumference that will hold the rebate will have to be relatively deep to bridge the distance between the outer extremities of the van wall, and those of the inner ribs and insulation. So the window will have a bit of depth to it. I haven't nailed down an adhesive that's appropriate for polycarbonate yet, but I have found out that just because a given bonding agent might do glass, doesn't mean it'll be suitable for polycarbonate. If I end up having to bolt the poly in, like a split rim, and use sealant for weather proofing then so be it, but I'm sure that can be avoided. None of this is happening until the Vogue is done though!

Oh boo! 😆 I could fit windows, I just got the screen back in the Cortina, flat glass would be a p.o.p. compared to that. I have conventional side windows sourced second hand and I'd even done a mock up of them before the one above, but I'm carving out a lifestyle for myself playing with cars so I figured why not have some fun with the Sprinter.... one man's hellish amount of work is another man's challenge. I'm looking forward to a change from straight restoration. Plus it's a 16 year old van that I traded some wiring work and cash counted in hundreds for because I needed storage badly. It won't owe me anything and resale is not on my agenda. It's going to be rolling advertising for the series so it might as well be eye catching [think; presence at car shows]. It'll be a studio of sorts too and the modifications will be even more novel from the inside. I want to bring the level of the interior down a foot or two, lwb van conversions tend to feel like you're living in a hallway. There won't be any presses or worktops up the walls and big windows will help pull the light down. Aside from all that I'm in the biz of making videos of my car exploits... it'll make interesting content. Tell you what, if when I'm done [assuming it comes off] it was an exercise in ball ache, I'll say you told me so 😋😋

Been looking into it and there are any number of them, there's so much 'van life' stuff online. Here's a couple I've seen recently; http://www.epsolarpv.com/en/index.php/Product/index/id/571/am_id/134 https://gpelectric.com/products/30-amp-digital-solar-controller/ Know nothing about them other than they seemed to be working well for some people living in their vans.

Great work man, that's a big bus 😎 What watt is your solar wot wot?

That's the most resounding sentiment I get from most who get in touch. Thanks Mickey, with the motivation it really is a case of reaping what you sow! Going to cut a big hole and weld in a frame. Nothing fancy. It'll be a large expanse of polycarbonate so I may put a stay through the centre of it, tied to a brace on the inside to stop it doing a wobble board impression. There'll likely be one or two of the vans side ribs directly behind it, it depends on what I find when I start measuring up for the window. The panel vans have more ribs than the passenger versions so it's notionally possible to lose one or two ribs either.

Was originally going to go captain's chairs, found a supplier for the swivels for less than £100 each too, but I'm going to keep the bulkhead, put a door in it and swap out the bench seat for a single instead. It'll be easier to heat the cab, it's more secure and less obviously a camper and the main area can be a more pure design. The logo on the side is a polycarbonate window wrapped in branded perforated vinyl, and I hope you noticed the D2 alpine windows in the roof

Have considered having someone else to share the presenting aplenty. Even aside from would be dynamic gains, it'd take so much pressure off me. You can't manufacture rapport though, ironically Top Gear is the perfect counter example of that, and with the greatest respect to the one or two car buddies I have who would have the confidence for it, they'd [unintentionally] transform the series into a style that I don't want it to be. I mean we'd end up contriving stuff despite the best of intentions. SOUP is really about perseverance and spreading the motivation to get the car done, and it's more powerful with just me in that sense. The channel is young, only a year and a half old. The view/sub numbers aren't bad at all and there's a generally accepted pattern that a channel needs to be at least 3-5 years old before it gains critical mass. [Project Binky is 5+ years old]. Anyway the people dynamic is part of the reason I've done the interviews, and have tried to do how to's, that bit of interaction. I've been squirrelling away little bits and pieces to convert the Sprinter into a mobile podcast studio/camper so I can do tours of Ireland, the UK and the Continent in comfort and bring that relaxed interaction back in in a meaningful way. That takes us back to cars... So what I have so far is an emergency hatch/roof vent from an ambulance, a pair of alpine windows from a D2, a tiny little stainless steel sink, a mock up of the exterior and this very early and rough floor plan...

Going to hit up a few brands I've been recommended. The kitty is a fair size now and there are 30+ people vested in it so I'm in great stead in terms of a micro influencer marketing Don't presume to be able to tough something as thin as a LR panel in alu to begin with but I've a few little SS ideas I'd like to start with and practice on. Hopefully I'll find an expert to give a demonstration and do a little learning from.

only 100% mate 😂 I've been intentionally fooling myself into believing the gasless unit was good enough. We'll it was in a sense but the minute I used the lads MIG a little voice said 'it's time to stop mucking about'. Can't wait now and I'm angling for a plant that has TIG capability too because I've been wanting to start down that long road for years. The Vogue is a very big elephant in the room at this stage. It's incredible that you can do so much work on a car like that and at the final hurdle run out of steam. Have to dig deep and finish it asap. It's just the last thing I want to do for some reason. Sorry this took a month mate

Yeah would be great, I'll DM you now

👍🏼sounds like a sensible plan. Love the colour of your D2 btw, would have it over any other. Tough to find though.

Thought I'd cut them out with the surrounding metal, let the whole lot into the van roof.

Fair play Johnno! Was on to try and find out what a D2 roof is made of and what's the top thread in the Disco section.... Good luck with the job. I'm off to try and find a pair of breaker D2's to source the alpine windows out of. Have a madcap idea to let them into my Sprinter van roof.

I use a 3M mask too [a little different model but quality none the less]. For eye protection you really can't get better than the full face mask and they're especially good when you're grinding overhead or using a knotted wire brush that's starting to disintegrate and piercing your face with wire projectile. Trouble is if you're alternating between welding and grinding it's a bit of a problem so regardless of what else I'm wearing I'm usually wearing a pair of glasses underneath very like the ones below. They're incredibly scratch resistant, flexible and hardy. They're comfy, lightweight and they sit on/behind the 3M mask and ear defenders well. The latter can make the wrong safety glasses painfully uncomfortable. You have to be careful to always look directly at whatever you're grinding with them otherwise you're in danger of something getting under them, but I find them great. Can get back to you with the brand of mine tomorrow if you like.

Everything's an episode, or at least part of one! A.B.C. - Always Be Creating! I have a cool colour scheme and branding I'd like to do on the Sprinter. I'm thinking of making it a hand paint feature, as much to satisfy my own curiosity as anything else. Gents thanks for the pledges on the go fund me thing!

Don't know what to say gents. Thank you! I read this stuff earlier and had to sit back. I got to thinking. What I want to do as soon as the Vogue is done is get the Sprinter recommissioned and tested. It's currently full of the dismantled RR. Would you believe they failed it on a brake line that was re-run the wrong side of a bit of linkage, fair enough, but if that hadn't been the case they also deemed a worn sliding door bottom runner arm a fail. It drives great but has some sort of gear linkage issue where the sift is just a little stiff. Anyway maybe I can take it to the UK and do the rounds! On the welder thing, a patron took it upon himself to set up a one time Go Fund Me thing to get me a welder. I'm not pushing it, these things are awkward for me but here it is anyway. PS - "...and it cost more than that to go and see Mamma Mia!!" 😆

Something that has me stumped. There are a pair of captive bolts in the boot floor between the inner arch and floor rail on the O/S of the '91 RRC Vogue SE. There's a third one further aft along the same line of longitude, and all have little rubber sheaths protecting them. They're obviously for extra equipment but what? There really isn't much space on the pair just over the suspension turret [pictured].

The pic is from summer '08 but it was last on the road in '12 which was it's 6th year as my sole daily. You can tell in the pic that it was really clean, maybe six months later I was invited on a club offroad day and that was the beginning of the decline. Within about 2 hours I'd damaged every panel.

Lads I'm not getting notifications even though all my settings seem to be in order. Sorry for not having been on sooner. 👆There's a formula for success on YT just the same as TV and if you follow it you're almost a dead cert, but it means dumbing stuff down, being cool for the sake of being cool and hyping everything. Much as it'd make my life so much easier [I can't understate that] I can't bring myself to do it. And I'm struggling as a result. The welder debacle. I told myself when I started that reward for everything, my own quiet measure of success would be treating myself to a dream welder. It sounds silly now that I've not admitted defeat and bought a €3/400 welder [I'd have to get very lucky here to achieve a Dave's Clarke for €100, it's not quite the same as the UK, and don't talk to me about Greece]. The budget is tight sure, and I've prioritised tech stuff on the production side, but I'll start looking for something because I can tell you this... that flux core plant isn't getting anywhere near the two door - the car this whole deal is about in the first place. It'd be exciting to think that I might be an ok welder once the carp shack that is my plant is out of the equation. @daveturnbull - I'm stoked you're doing your own welding, it's the most satisfying thing isn't it! A whole world opens up. The other thing I've realised is that for years I listened to people going on about clean welds and good looking welds, and you couldn't be blamed for thinking that's how they have to be. Well like you say - a weld can be strong and look like carp. Nice fab work btw! @Snagger - There's a lot to be said for a stick welder from what I've seen. They're a great thing in the right application. I've seen outer arches being put on a classic VW bus with a stick welder though! The guy wasn't even wearing a mask too, so he was lining up and then looking away 😆It was a much better result than it sounds but I wouldn't want it on my car. I'll get on the welder case, it's high time. @Blanco - you aren't working on a Land Cruiser are you? I lost a guy who messaged me with photos of his project and I'm trying to find him! It was the Cortina that took a nip at me, it's just about healed but still very tight across the knuckle. Gave me a fight because it bled like crazy. I'm going to hopefully get in under the scuttle through the wiper holes, haven't quite got there yet 😅. I've actually built a custom 5ft lance for the range rover sills too! just need a compressor now ha. Oh and hey I presume you've checked the YT notification settings but in case you don't know, it's a three click deal now. Click to subscribe, click [the little bell beside subscribe] to get notifications, then click [in the subsequent pop up] to tell YT what kind of notifications you want. @FridgeFreezer - having the respect of the fellows here is a big deal for me. Being an LR guy is being honest, practical people who get things done. If I was going the hype route I never would have posted a single episode on here.

There's no constant fps formula for this kind of stuff, there are multiple factors that effect how many frames you take - like whether you have to move much to get out of frame, what the particular thing your animating is, how long it will take to achieve the work on that item, how important that work/thing is to the overall theme [as in how much screen time you actually want to give it]. I trigger each frame manually because setting an intervalometer to trigger the camera at a given duration between frames is counter productive. It'll either be too long a duration and you'll tire of waiting or something unexpected will happen and you'll be caught in the shot. Does that help?

I didn't actually buy the Cortina, I made a trade with the owner for the use of it against the work done, and I did it to save what little money I had. In fact the money I was going to buy the car with before the deal, went straight to an expensive car camera mount system instead to keep the production quality on the up and up 😉

Yep YT I feel are playing games. First there was a 'glitch' which meant notifications didn't go out for a few episodes and now they've changed the setting yet again so that it's not enough anymore that you've subscribed AND clicked the bell to select 'all notifications', now you have to click it a second time to make it 'ring'. It's hard to swallow. Anyway here's the latest, the RR is in reassembly!

You'll need to give the ECU the codes from the injectors too. Never sync'd the ECU/BCU before but you're going to need a diagnostic tool for sure.

This has happened out of necessity, I've actively started cutting out large parts of the processes - some thing when some piece of work has to be repeated more than once for instance. It's a fine balance I'm always trying to strike. The other piece of the picture is the time part of the time lapse. Watching someone doing DIY is frustrating if their hand or a tool is partially in the way, but it's also a let down when someone says "now I'm going to..." and then there's a cut and it's done. You get no sense of what it took to do it. If it helps mate I'll do a lapse of some shirts being ironed When I was nine to fiving I used to do my weeks shirts in a half hour on a Sat morn or Sunday. Have to say I'm happy with a fortnightly instalments, no it's not easy but to shoot for more regular instalments would totally change the format, and it'd still make it more pressured. I've thought of splitting the interviews into their own stand alone videos but that's a completely different series and not what I intended. I think the DIY work pulls people into listening to people they wouldn't normally get to hear, or bother to listen to, and the interviews do the same [probably to a lesser extent] for the DIY. Have to say gent's it's a really interesting and insightful conversation. There's a depth of understanding here for the processes I go through. I've made a fairly big commitment in the last few weeks by bringing the two cars home to work in the open. No unit and no roof over my head but a small saving in both time and money. It was causing me some anxiousness but after the last few days I've a growing excitement for the newfound energy it's given me.

In the simplest sense it's from 'souped up'. But it's a catch all - fuel, oil, water.... booze . Later if I thought it was a natural progression I'd like to bring sailing into it. The self sufficiency that blue water sailing requires is very like the attitude a lot of LR guys have. You need to self sufficient - a navigator, a pilot, an engineer, a dare devil, a carpenter, composites expert, metal worker and cool under pressure all at once. The cool thing is that the internet says the earliest record of the expression is early 20th century and it was used in horse racing - soup was the concoction of drugs they'd give horses to make them run faster. They were souped up. I'm making the stretch that it got carried over to cars with horsepower when they replaced horses.