Tag Archives: trailer wiring

Thursday 17th June 2010 – Today started off quite nicely …

caliburn caravan chassis trailer les guis virlet puy de dome france… and so I heaved myself out of my stinking pit quite early in order to catch up on what I should have done yesterday.

And by the time I’d finished, I’d made substantial and real progress. Not only do we now have another trailer, I’ve even managed to put the bent one onto the new trailer, as you can see in the photo just here as I prepare to do a little moving about.

caravan chassis trailer les guis virlet puy de dome franceTaking the wheel off the bent trailer was comparatively straightforward and once I’d freed off the brakes on the new trailer (whose idea was it to leave it parked for 12 years with the handbrake on?) I could set about winching it out of the barn with the chain winch.

By the simple expedient of tying the body to the beams of the barn, the trailer came out of the barn without its body and I just shovelled up the debris and heaved it back into the barn again. I’ll tidy up another time.

All the loose wiring and gas pipes on the chassis were sorted out and then I had to position the trailer, swap the wheels around again and then winch the bent trailer onto the new trailer. I took all of the wheels off the bent trailer to stop it rolling around, put the good wheels and tyres onto the new chassis and then tied the bent trailer onto the new chassis so it won’t move at all.

That took me until 15:30 and I didn’t stop for lunch as the weather was changing and sure enough we had a torrential downpour. And with no trailerboard (mine was cannibalised for parts for the old trailer) I had to take the lighting board off the Sankey trailer – and that needed a total rewire. So I did all of that in the pouring rain. 15.5mm we’ve had, and it all fell in a four-hour spell this afternoon.

But soaking wet as I am (yet again) I can at least move the bent trailer and I have the other one to fetch my wood tomorrow for the barn roof, if the weather ever stops raining long enough for us to make a start.

I’ve always said I work much better under pressure and having to give Terry a hand to set his business up, I’ve accomplished far more this last three weeks back here that I ever would have done if I had been left to my own devices.

But I wish it would stop perishing raining.

Wednesday 19th May 2010 – This trailer is taking shape …

caravan chassis trailer sauret besserve puy de dome france… as you can see if you peer through the flare of the sunlight reflecting off a car window onto something inside the barn (I’ll take another better pic tomorrow).

But the trailer has now grown four chevrons between the metal frame pieces, and it’s also grown some outriggers too. The trailer base is half-done although it needs wood-treating (we ran out of the LIDL wood treatment stuff half-way through).

It’s not going to be the floor that will cause us any problems, that’s for sure.

But it’s slow going though. We’re doing it properly and that includes threading the wire through conduit and then through the chassis leg and out to the back rather than having wires dangling everywhere. We’ve also properly rebated the timber ends so that they fit nicely inside the U-profile channelling, and it’s all bolted down. It won’t half be impressive when it’s finished – which may well be tomorrow with any luck.

Thursday 20th August 2009 – AFTER WORKING ALL DAY ALMOST NON-STOP ….

base of battery box les guis virlet puy de dome france … I’ve finished the first part of the base of the battery box, as you can see.

The floor in the house is dreadful, full of cracks that let in the damp (a piece of wood that I laid on the floor across a crack rotted to nothing in 6 months) so I started years ago to dig it up.

Earlier followers of my organ will recall me pulling up a chicken that had been cast into the original concrete floor (such pagan rites were apparently practised here in comparatively recent times) but I abandoned the demolition of the floor for another idea.

The ceiling is pretty high and there is a large step uo into the kitchen, so I’m going to put in a suspended floor and seal in the old concrete with bitumen. This will give me enough headroom to put the batteries under the floor in the entrance hall where they will keep nice and warm, and the gases can vent out via a pipe laid to the outside passing underneath the false floor.< So the first job this morning was to rearrange everything in the living room so that I had the space to work. And as the fridge is just 50cms wide and the door to the verandah is 54cms past the obstructions, I made an extended worktop in the verandah and I now have the fridge right next to where I'm cooking.

battery box sand damp proof membrane les guis virlet puy de dome franceThen I had to dig down a little further, lay a layer of sand to cover up any sharp bits that might puncture the damp-proof course, build a framework, line it with a plastic sheet as a damp-proof course, lay more sand to protect the integrity of the damp-proof course, heap a pile of rubble inside the framework and then cover with a layer of concrete.

That took me until 19:00 and then I had to go to Claude and Francoise’s. Claude has given his old caravan to his son but the electrics aren’t working and he has to tow it to near Marseilles (it’s not moved under its own steam for 20 years and the tyres are totally perished – just like the rest of the caravan).

After what seemed like hours , and me tearing my trousers on a nail that was being used to hold up the jockey wheel, I noticed that someone had wired the trailer plug up wrongly. I fixed that and after another few hours I managed to get an indicator light working.

The whole electrical circuit on this caravan is shot to pieces and the light units have all short-circuited. Pascal is going to buy some more stuff tomorrow and wants to know if I can rewire the caravan on Friday evening.

Ahhh well.

After all these exertions I’m off to have an early night. I’m totally worn out right now.