My 27th Birthday and an AA Recovery "Low" Loader

Remember the reason why I bought the van? Well just to refresh your memory, it was to travel round Europe.

Having discussed this with my friends, and inspired by the article in Camper&Bus, we planned a trip down to the Millau Viaduct. We were all very excited about this, until one of my friends Matt, decided to pull out. Whilst on the phone to him at one of our locals, The Swan, trying to convince him that he still needed to come, he said he'd be more inclined to come if we were going to Cornwall. I jokingly said this to the rest of the guys, and disappointingly they went for it. I was gutted, I didn't want to go to Cornwall, I wanted to go to France!! I was stongly opposed to this, until somebody said, "It'll be a good shakedown run, to check if anything breaks" - I couldn't argue with that - So Cornwall it was...

So with this in mind I knew that I needed some spare parts for when we inevitably broke down. Having read the Camper&Bus guide on bus maintenance, and from previous experience I knew what I needed. As luck would have it, I had to phone Jon Gilbert for a work issue, so I asked him where I should go for this stuff, and what was closest to where I lived. He recommended Just Kampers. This is what I got:

- Accelerator Cable
- Clutch Cable
- HT Leads
- Dizzy
- Points
- Rotor Arm
- Spark Plugs
- Millers Oil
- Fuel Filter

In addition to the other "equipment" I had:

- Spare fuses, mainly 8 amp.
- Duct Tape
- Jack
- Axle Stands
- Multimeter
- Tyre Weld
- Many, many, many tools

I guess with all this sort of stuff I thought I was prepared. Well as long as I didn't need a new fuel pump, which JK had run out of (this would come back to haunt me much, much later).

The day came for our week away, in fact it was my birthday - 27 and on my first trip in the Splitty, I couldn't sleep properly as I was so excited. The four of us loaded the van up with stuff and set off. Well for about 2 minutes until we realised there was a horrible rubbing noise coming from the rear. It turns out my very lowered van doesn't like having lots of weight in it. Cue 3 hours of trying to load the van with less gear, attempting to get new tyres, all of which made little difference.

Attempt 2: With myself, Rich and Pete on the front bench, and Jamal (asleep) in the back we headed off the Cornwall at an average of 45mph. All very exciting. Our first problem occurred with the delightful heavy rain on the A303. This caused the roof vent to start leaking water over our legs. Nice... Fortunately, Duct Tape and a tea towel came to our rescue here. Problem 1 Solved.

Over the next few days the van performed faultlessly, bar a snapped off cargo door handle. On the 5th day, we were in Newquay, heading back the campsite, along a particularly bumpy road, when I suddenly heard Jamal shout from the back something had just fallen off. This was bad news. I stopped immediately, looking towards the exhaust as to what might have caused the noise/falling item. Nothing there. We were on a fairly busy road, so I moved off it to get a better look. Once I got right underneath, the problem was obvious. The offside rear shock absorber bracket was no longer connected to anything.Oh dear.When I think about it, this was probably the last thing I expected to cause us to breakdown, I always thought it would be something far more complicated...

So whilst I got the bus up on axle stands, the boys walked down the road trying to find our missing nuts and bolts.

Where the missing bolts were (now replaced)

Jamal found 1 bolt, but no nuts. At this point having checked all the stuff I'd brought, and seeing it was 5:30 on a Saturday, I called the AA - Now, at this point, I explicitly said to the operative, "I don't want you to send a low loader, it won't get on it, please just send someone with some 10mm nuts and bolts".
So we waited.

Then a Beetle went past, it was a welcome distraction. Next thing we knew, it came back, pulled over and asked us if we needed any help. The driver turned about to be a very nice person called Matt. I explained the problem to him and we went off in his bug to find some bolts to a hardware shop we had been told was up the road, by yet another kind passer by (And another Beetle!).

The shop was shut, but after managing to grab the proprietors attention, and explaining the situation, she kindly let us in, showed us some bolts and then gave us a couple for free. Back down at the van, we tried fitting these, but they were too small. Matt suggested that he might have some at home, which he could go and get.

In the meantime, the AA arrived. What did they send? Well I'll let the pictures do the talking here. Suffice it to say I was almost in tears.

You can already see here that there's going to be problems...

Jamal's Facebook comment sums these up nicely:

"Sat on her arse and Rich pissing his pants! ....wait until the nxt one"

"At this point Jon was hiding in a bush crying somewhere....clearly obvious the AA man didnt know what he was doing!"

Oh dear, yes that mark in the tarmac is from the exhaust manifold!

The ultimate in humiliation

So with the van back at the campsite, after an even more tearful and somewhat embarrassing unloading (think whole weight of van landing on backbox), it was time to get fixing. Matt had said he'd let me know if he found some bolts, but barely had I got the van back up on axle stands, when he arrived with 2 10 mm bolts. I was a very, very happy man.

Matt and I then spent an hour fitting these and retightening everything in sight, just to be safe. We then invited him to join us for a beer and BBQ. We had a great chat for ages about his various cars, T25's, Splitty's, Beetles etc.

So my thanks go out to Matt for being so amazingly kind, and reminding me how good it is to be part of the VW community. If I ever see an aircooled VW at the site of the road I will be the first to stop. Matt, I owe you one, big time! After the whole event, Pete, Rich and Jamal, all said they want to buy a VW now, having seen how nice and helpful VW people are...

That reminds me too, I really must go out an purchase a random large selection of nuts and bolts to have in the van....

One final nice pic from the trip: