From http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/rvs/3209875715.html, a Westy for sale in Walnut Creek, CA. Check the craiglist post for contact email (it’s an obfuscated craigslist address, which is normal). No affiliation – I just post any Westy that I find for sale.
Okay, so it’s not our Sprinter Westfalia, but a Mercedes-Benz Viano in Westfalia trim just set the motorhome speed record, at 137.9 mph / 222 km/h.
It doesn’t seem very fast to me, though. I had my old 1980s Volvo 240 wagon up to 101mph once, and it had 400,000 miles on the engine and no overdrive!
While under the van working on the plumbing, I noticed that the driver’s side sway bar bracket had broken. Thanks to the sprinter_westfalia owner’s group, I quickly learned that:
Because of this second point, fixing it is a little trickier. First of all, the parts to order are:
Sway bar bracket: A 901 995 01 10
Bushing: A 901 326 00 81
I posted earlier about my new See Level II digital tank monitor. In the comments, Rob asked for more details about the installation. I bought the display from Dyers RV online for $183 shipped.
Installing the sensors
The sensors are made of flexible plastic with a sticky backing. They come standard at about 11″ tall, and can be cut to size for smaller tanks. For larger tanks, two sensors can be stacked on top of each other.
For our last camping trip we picked up a Coleman 10×10 shade structure, the screen walls for the same, and the sun wall. The sun wall is a 50 SPF fabric that’s made to attach neatly to the Coleman structure. It so happens that it fits perfectly to our awning, too!
The top of the fabric has three hooks: one for each awning leg, and one that hooks over the plastic bar in the center of the case. Each side of the fabric has elastic loops with hooks, that wrap around the awning legs. On the bottom are hooks that go into the awning feet, and loops for tent stakes.
In a decent breeze, the sun wall just flapped lazily. There’s enough give in the elastic loops to let the wind spill out the sides and bottom.
I only wish it was a bit more colorful!
Links:
Instant Shelter (10´ x 10´) Straight Leg
Coleman Screen Walls for Instant Shelter
Coleman Sun Wall for Instant Shelter (Target.com)
The first two are Amazon links, but I ended up buying everything in-store at my local Target. I think I ended up with an older model (the canopy is grey instead of green) but it works perfectly well.
I had a crazy day on Friday putting all of the pieces together for my new black water setup, in preparation for a 4-day camping trip the next day. At 5pm I was happy with it all, and filled the tank with water for its water test… unfortunately it failed miserably at a glued joint!! I didn’t have time to fix it up before the trip, so it was one more camping trip without the bathroom – luckily the campground we were at had very nice facilities, so we weren’t put out too much.
One part of the system that did work was the SeeLevel II tank monitor. It provides fullness levels for all of my tanks in percentages, giving a much clearer picture of where I’m at with each tank:
It uses electrical sensors on the outside of each tank, so there’s nothing to get gummed up:
There’s also a wire for a propane readout, that works with electrical senders. After spending a bunch of time online trying to find out how to fit an electrical sender to our propane tank, I went outside to see what model of gauge is installed. Lo and behold, an electrical sender is already fitted to the gauge! So it’s just a matter of running a wire from the panel to the tank, and a ground from the tank to the frame.