Went to the Peterborough motorhome show on Saturday, was a bit happier that i found a few discount entry tickets in magazines i had bought a few months ago, so got in cheaper than we should, it was bigger than ever, loads of stalls, but not many converters who do body only conversions, we did see a few bodies O'Leary's had done, and my dad said that if i was thinking of having them do ours he was not having anything to do with it!!, things like the Seitz windows had sealer over the outside of the flanges, it looked really messy.. especially as these windows are supposed to be sealed inside the flanges, we can only assume the holes were cut too big and the sealer on the outside was needed to hold the windows in :),

After about an hour we found Nu-Venture, only one bloke on the coachbuilt stand, and he wasn't the one who deals with the body only conversions, typical, they were very busy and had to leave most of the people who were going to the show behind.. including the bloke i was going to see to try and finalise the plans, i left them a copy of the plans i had printed out, and he said he's get the bloke to ring me when he got back to sort everything out, and hopefully give me a price more accurately for the size of body i want.

I bought my self a 12 volt fluorescent light, one of the 2D tube versions, like i mentioned on the last page i wanted the insides to convert a mains ceiling dome light into a 12 volt fluorescent, i also got a few leaflets on things i wanted to fit to the new van, air ride suspension for the rear.. only one firm was there and they want £400 for the kits.. they used to be £255, hopefully from another firm :), also got the blurb on the strike back motorhome alarm system, this van will have a real alarm system fitted, car alarms are just no good for the size of vehicle, the strike back system is a professional fit unit only, but it's a good unit, able to shut down the interior radar sensor and keep the exterior protection active at night, 2 sirens that hurt your ears when they are sounding, plus the option of another one inside the van, extras like mobile phone pagers, tracking systems etc, the basic cost is £500, but that will be money well spent when you get into the details of what's in the system, and worth it for a van that will cost over 10 grand to build (ok it will be no use to a motorhome thief as it's always going to be a homebuilt conversion, so impossible to sell on without a knowledge of how it went together, but the stuff in it may be wanted, including us when we camp outside of a campsite, especially abroad).

The bloke on the Nu-Venture stand told us they had just finished a conversion on an iveco, so off we went to find the Nu-Venture owners club, found them eventually.. but not before finding the VW LT motorhome club, no one was there, but Graham and Thelma's van was ,as well as a couple of other vans that were panel vans when i last saw them.. and were now coachbuilts.. by Nu-Venture, they looked very nice, well made and respectable, so i planned to go back there and see my old mates again, and find the low-down of a Nu-Venture conversion from people i know are not going to tell me what i want to hear.. if there are faults they will say.

Found the Nu-Venture owners club, and the iveco looked lovely, it was on a medium wheelbase van, but it was still really nice, the seams were tight, no excess sealer anywhere at all, a few under floor lockers like i want, even the cab was sprayed to match the body, it was nice, the bloke parked next to it was in a 19 year old conversion, he told me Nu-Venture used to be called Venture, but had folded because they made crap motorhomes, his was one of the old ones and looked perfect, so i don't know how crap they got, he told me a little about the company..3 brothers, they split up and now there's 2 sides to Nu-Venture.. coachbuilts and panel van conversions, there were a few other conversions on the club plot, old and new versions and they all looked very nice, we are sold, Nu-Venture are doing our motorhome body for sure.

We went round the show once more, then tried to find the SBMCC club's camp, none of the marshals knew and those that we asked seemed annoyed that i was asking for a club that's not on the list!, i knew the club had no official plot booked, and would be camped on the normal camping area.. i just wanted to know which area as there are a few thousand vans camped at the show, and i had no idea if the club even had a flag or banner out, i eventually got told they were in they purple car park, miles away from the show, so we set off towards the purple car park, i got as far as the yellow carpark and my legs gave out, i had to give up, after a while we headed back to the LT club's camp and this time some of the vans were occupied, no Graham and Thelma tho, but Roy's van was full of club members, they remembered me instantly!!, it's been 3 years since i was last in the club, i was invited into Roy's van, and it looked nice, he had paid Nu-Venture to do the whole conversion for him, taking his old panel van down and putting a complete coachbuilt on the back.. cost him 17 grand, which is not bad at all when you consider what's gone into it.

I got talking about the parts i had for sale from the old van, how i had to do an iveco turbo daily for the next van and all that, i mentioned about the problem i could see taking a van up the motorway with no body on it behind the cab, they agreed that it could be illegal, but said people have done it before, so there must be a way to do it, then Roy said it cost £300 to have Nu-Venture cut the body off the van at their shop, well that's sealed it i guess, I'll take a whole van up and get them to do all the work, saves me having to cut off and dispose of the body my self, it can't be a light thing, and bod knows what the neighbours would say if i got the jigsaw out and proceeded to cut 4.5 meters of body off the back of the van :)

Graham and Thelma came back then, they seemed happy to see me... which was good considering i just left the club and was never heard of again (i never did say why.. evil woman troubles and all that, all gone now since i found Vicky :), we got talking and i mentioned i was having a body built probably by Nu-Venture, all i heard was praise for the company, Graham and Thelma had never had any problems with their van's conversion, apart from when a tree jumped out and pushed the bike rack through the back panel when he was reversing :), Nu-Venture replaced the whole back panel under insurance for them, some other firms would have patched it up, but Nu-Venture wouldn't hear of it, they take pride in their work and it shows.

A few other converters were mentioned, one was very bad, things like square wheel arches, and skinning the body panels over the wheel arches so the opening is smaller than the wheel!!!, another firm to avoid, we just talked about the conversion for ages, Vicky was getting very fed up with me as i was talking continuously, her and mum just sat there, dad had gone back to the car ages ago... he gets bored easily, i mentioned the parts i have for sale from the old van, and they said they'd contact Dave Wallace for me.. he bought my old engine off me, and might be interested in getting another van for spares, i can only hope, Thelma also said i could put a list of parts i have for sale in the clubs magazine!!, the next one is due out in 10 days and i have to send them a list ASAP and they will include it, i'm not even a member of the club!.

Turns out Graham and Thelma are looking for another van too, they want more room and it seems a VW LT is out of the question for price reasons, the new LT is about 7 grand extra compared to any other base vehicle, so they will probably have another make of van soon, they'll either have to give up being secretaries of the LT club, or see if other vans can be allowed into the club, it would be nice if other vans were allowed as i could re-join then, but there has to be limits, as it wont be a VW LT motorhome club if too many people have other make vans... maybe you have to have owned a LT in the club before or something.. and have to change the vehicles badge to say VW :)

Vicky and mum were hinting that they were bored by now, i could have stayed all night, but we had to get back and let dino out as he'd been in the house for about 8 hours, and has started peeing in the house lately (due to being on water tablets for his water in his lungs), so i had to say goodbye, and we headed off home, we let the dog out, then went and got the dome lamp fixture i wanted for the 12 volt fluorescent lamp conversion i wanted to do.

When we got back i took all the mains parts out of the lamp.. not much a porcelain bulb holder, and a heat shield, there was plenty of room for the fluorescent fittings inside the lamp, as the lamp was designed to take a 60 watt light bulb, and needed lots of room for the heat to disperse, a few screws undone and the lamp unit was bare, then i cut the base of the fluorescent light unit up so it would fit inside the mains lamp easily.. it's just a circuit board and the tube i needed to fit, and that was fitted inside with 4 pop rivets, added 2 wires and the lamp was finished, i then went to put the glass dome on and one of the screws that hold in to the base broke, so i had to take the 12 volt lamp parts out, and put the mains lamp parts back in, and go and exchange the unit the next day.

The next lamp was fine, and i re-fitted the 12 volt light, put the glass dome on it, and it's done, when i fit it to the van I'll have to modify the glass dome fixing, it's 3 screws that grip the glass, ok for a house, but not good for a vehicle that will be bouncing down the road, I'll use silicone sealant to bed the glass to the base, the tubes on fluorescent fixings hardly ever go, so i won't need access to the inside regularly like if it had a filament light bulb in there, it looks very good tho, the light output is nice and bright, and well diffused, and the lamp runs on 12 volts, and pulls about 0.85 amps when it's running, it's a 16 watt tube, so brighter than the 60 watt mains bulb that should be in the fixture, I'll put some pictures on one of the tech pages sometime soon, in case you want to make your self a 12 volt nice looking ceiling lamp.. looks miles better than any ready made 12 volt lamps for motorhomes, boats or caravans, and cheaper than any half decent looking ones too :)