Haircut

The camper kitchen has had it’s haircut.  60mm off the bottom and 50mm of the right side.  As I suspected, afterwards it didn’t look nearly as good as the original build.  After the glue had set it had a trial fit on the tailgate.

Tailgate closed

Now open.  Finally, the kitchen fits through the tailgate opening. 

You might have noticed the bottom drawer is now shallower.  I guess this means it will be the cutlery drawer.  All the damage from the modifications needs to be filled, sanded and painted.  However that may not occur today as the mercury has risen to 32C and if I attempt to paint it will dry on the brush as I lift it out of the pot.

Yesterday we were invited down south to Rockingham where blog readers Ken and Elaine live.  They recently purchased a used German made caravan from the other side of the continent.  It took Ken three long days of driving to bring it back to Perth.  It was on the way back that Ken discovered unless the caravan was plugged into the 230V mains, there was no on board domestic electrics and the battery was going flat.  There’s nothing like an interesting challenge to absorb one’s time.  

After an hour of fault finding it was obvious some else had attempted a ‘work around’ fitting a CTEK 240V mains charger instead of using the originally installed Schaudt Elektroblock.  This is a very sophisticated device combining a 240V mains battery charger, a vehicle battery to battery charger, a solar panel charger and a 12V power distribution system.  The caravan is also fitted with an Enduro 12V caravan mover.  However there was no wiring to this latter device.

We started soring through the wiring gradually fault finding to the point where both devices were finally removed from under the bench seat.

The battery charger half of the Elektroblock has failed and the last person to work on the caravan obviously decided it was too hard to identify the problem, hence the subsequent installation of the CTEK charger.  However that doesn’t solve the problem of battery recharging when the caravan is moving.  Actually it’s a rather crude solution.

Ken and I went to Jaycars (Maplin equivalent) for a few bits and pieces to reconnect the Enduro.  Once it was all rewired we spent 30 minutes unsuccessfully attempting to get it working. 

Poor Ken will have to get both units repaired.  However you wouldn’t think by the smile on his face that this concerns him.

Something obviously caught Elaine’s attention!

This morning I made up a few timber pegs before driving them into the ground roughly where my ‘man cave’ will go.  My co-opted worker (Jan) and I then used my brother-in-law’s laser level (kindly loaned) to level the pegs and run string lines in order that I can accurately level the ground.  Well that was the plan until Molly the daschund decided those nice tight string lines looked great for chewing. <ping>