Coachmen Leprechaun

More ebay stuff.
Most of the originl marker lights need to be changed as the bases are rusted. I got some new lamps last year but still need to fit them. I wanted to replace the 5w T10 (wedge) incandescent bubs with led to reduce power consumption, so I found some white T10 COB leds on ebay. It took a few atttempts to get the right colour temp, but I eventually received warm white.

The led's use about 0.5 watts each.

(Incandescent on left and COB LED on right)


The first two ebay orders were cool white and gave a very weird 'faded yellow' colour that I didn't like.



The third order was much better and closer to the original warm colour.

Yeah, I'm probably over thinking it, but there's 14 of those marker lights (not including Headlights, tail lights) when driving lights are switched on, so I'm thinking less pressure on the electrical system is a good thing. With the added benefit of longer life leds.

Experiments.

Hopefully I'm not boring ye too much... but with other personal stuff going on in the background, I don't have much time for working on the camper. I steal an hour here or an hour there do do odd jobs. The latest item was the old Reflect-o-lite ceiling lamps. They had aged badly and turned very yellow, as if there was a heavy smoker living in the camper (neither of my folks smoked). After a bit of googling, it seems plastic does this on its own due to UV aging.

I was thinking about painting them, but I recently discovered there are some DIY tricks to whiten the yellowed plastic. So I figured I'd give it a shot on two of the fittings over the weekend and if this works, I'll do the rest of them.

I chose the "Hydrogen Peroxide method" using a ladies hair blonding product. The method is as follows:
* Purchase 40vol (12% peroxide) hair blonding product.
* (wear rubber gloves & Safety glasses)
* Clean and de-grease the light fitting.
* Dry it thoroughly.
* Apply the peroxide cream product liberally over the surfaces you want whitened.
* Place the fitting in an airtight bag.
* Leave the fitting out in the sun OR under a UV lamp for 6-8 hours.
* Remove the fitting from the bag then clean and dry it.

The first attempt was ok but not great. Probably for two reasons... I left it out on a table in the garden for about 6 hours on Saturday but we didn't have much in the way of sun which probably didnt help. Also, our local chemists in Fermoy only had 30vol (9% peroxide) which did knock off a few shades of yellow but not as much as I wanted.
So while we were down in Cork city yesterday, I found the recommended 40vol (12% peroxide) which I applied to the lamp fitting last night. I then left the fitting under a UV lamp overnight (the Wifes face tanning lamp)...

I was fairly impressed this morning when I checked the progress.





I still want it a few shades lighter so I'll give it another whirl tonight. The goal is to get it down to the shade of light cream on the back of the light switch.

I couldn't be happier with the results of this whitening process. Its a bit like magic!!

Below is a pic of the various stages.
#1 took over 16 hours to get to this shade using UV light and 12% peroxide blonding cream. This shade is where I want to get to with all of the fittings.
#2 is the result after 8hrs under UV using the same 12% peroxide cream.
#3 is the control and shows how discoloured the fittings were.


I "amped" things up a wee bit yesterday by getting some stronger peroxide solution from one of our chemical suppliers at work. I also wrapped a small clear plastic container with silver foil to help reflect the UV light into the nooks and crannies of the fittings. This helped to speed things up a lot. I then chose sample #3 (yellowest fitting) to test the new setup.

Pic of the results. Sample #3 after 6 hrs under UV in 35% peroxide.


A pic of the new setup:


Using 35% is a bit tricky and needs the correct care and PPE (filter mask, gloves, goggles etc) but it sure works a treat.

Now I have the method figured out, I can get on with whitening the rest of them. (11 in total)

If any of you decide to give this a try on your old fittings, the 12% blonding cream works fine, it just takes longer.

It's a good question!

There's lots of varying opinions on it as you can imagine, but I couldn't find anything to convince me it was a bad idea. There's LOTS of hearsay but no facts.
There were recommendations to avoid treating light plastics or plastics that were originally brittle!

Mine seem heavy enough so hopefully they'll be OK. We'll see how it goes!

My weekender lumber-jack duties are almost finished and my woodpile is stacked high, so I got back to working on the camper last weekend. There may be a few long overdue updates on this thread over the coming weeks...

Finally getting on with putting more of the engine together. (Measuring up for new V belts in this pic).

I spent a few hours plumbing up the oil lines and bolting on dip sticks and other random engine parts. It felt good to be back working on the old girl.
The old rusty alternator (temporarily fitted above) felt a bit grumbly so I splashed out and bought a remanufactured one from RockAuto in the US. €65 delivered seemed a reasonable price to me. Delivered from Miami in 6 days by FedEx standard economy shipping?! I may refurb the old one at some point and have it as a spare OR bolt it to the engine to exclusively charge the hab batterys, the same as Ally has done in his RV.
New shiny alternator:

I continue to zinc plate stuff of course...
This air filter collar that normally sits on top of the carburettor was red rusty. After a bit of wirebrushing, the zinc plating kit brought it back to life. To the right is some alternator mounting hardware that was also pretty bad.


This coming weekend I plan to mount the radiator. All of the mounting brackets are in the wrong places of course so it'll take a bit of fandangling to weld in some new brackets and get it all to fit properly. Once thats fitted and plumbed in, I think I'll be in a position to fill the engine with fluids and hopefully it'll be time to give this ol' girl a whirl...

This old video clip I took while building up the bottom end of the engine reminds me of Paul's animated avatar!

A 6 year project condensed into a 25 minute slideshow. I hope you enjoy it!

Thanks All!


Me too David!


Yes, an eBay purchase from a seller called Gateros plating. They give you just about everything you need in the plating kit to get the job done. I think it was about €75 delivered to ROI.
I find it very satisfying to zinc plate rusty old stuff. Much more fun than just painting parts OR buying new ones!!

Despite best efforts, I didn't get the engine started this weekend. It was ready to fire up only for the want of a 3/8" NPT blanking plug to fill a vacant hole on a coolant passageway on top of the inlet manifold.

So close.

I was tempted to weld the hole shut, but I figured I might need that port at some time in the future for a temperature sensor or something, so I admitted defeat and cracked open a can of cider instead!

I only took one decent photo all weekend while I was priming the oil pump & galleries. (I need to get back in the habit of taking more photos.)


My Mrs resumed recovering the seat cushions and making new curtains for the back half of the camper over the weekend, so we're starting to make a bit more progress on the fun stuff now...

Handy tool tip:
I bought this cheap laser tachometer on eBay several years ago. Another beer induced impulse buy some Saturday night no doubt.
It's been a remarkably handy tool to have. I used it a lot when I was a field service engineer in a previous job, checking the performance of motors & pumps. But these days I only use it the odd time when working on cars or bikes at home. All you need to do is put a blob of white paint on the shaft or pulley you want to check. When it's spinning, you point the laser dot at the blob and you get an RPM readout on the LCD display. A very knacky tool to have in the back of your tool kit. I think it was less than a tenner including delivery on ebay.

Thanks John, Hopefully I should be able to pick one up locally here, but if not I'll let you know.

Thanks Robert!


My local pipe fitting supplier had a 3/8" BSP iron fitting that fitted fine. It'll do temporarily. I've ordered up a 3/8" NPT 80°c thermostatic switch that I might use with a 12v radiator fan at a later stage.

When I tried to fire up the engine on Sunday morning it wouldn't spark, so I pulled out the distributor and stripped it down. Luckily my dad had already picked up some spare internal parts and they were sitting in boxes ready to use! Including 2 new distributor caps and rotors. I got it cleaned up and back together later that afternoon. I still need to stick it back on the engine and do one or two other things before trying to fire up the engine again.
That distributor is a monster!

I noticed water dripping out of the front of the waterpump after turning over the engine for a few minutes so it looks like I have a bad mechanical seal on the impellor shaft. A refurb kit (with special tool) is €35 and a new pump is €55 (including delivery) so I ordered up the new pump. Rebuilding the waterpump looks very precise and time consuming so I'm going to bypass that misery for the sake of €20. Hopefully it'll arrive in the next few days.

In the meantime i got on with some other small jobs. I cleaned up the expansion tank and windscreen washer bottle using various suggestions from the internet. The expansion tank (on left) was thick inside with rust sludge and it was pretty gross. It's a pity I didn't get a photo of it beforehand. It was dark brown and I didn't even realise it was opaque until after cleaning it. It's been a chocolate brown rust colour for 25 years or at least as long as my folks have had the camper!

I tried using strong bleach first (and shaking the sh*t out of the tanks with sharp pebbles inside), then shaking again with baking soda (bad bubbly idea) .... then onto leaving them soak using other stuff I had available in my shed, - Petrol, Hydrogen Peroxide and hydrochloric acid. Seperately of course (not mixed) but none of them worked very well. In the end (after more google research) I tried this "lime & rust" stuff with Phosphoric acid which we got in B&Q for the bathroom in thr house. It worked very well after leaving it soak overnight. If any of you are restoring an old car, or even freshening up the engine bay on your old camper, then this is THE stuff to re-new your plastic expansion tanks!

I also started cleaning up the engine-bay wiring loom. Theres a rats nest of surplus wires from the smog emissions system that are no longer required, so I stripped all of that out and tidied up that loom. I was glad to have a good wiring schematic in the workshop manual.

Thanks Waterman.

I wish I had an update to share, but it's on the backburner again. Work, and other home projects getting in the way (or perhaps being pushed in the way...).

My daughter is doing some work inside in the camper for me, sanding and re-staining the faceframes on the cabinets, but I don't have pics to share just yet.

And yes, I know I am procratinating big time... Nervous of firing up the engine for the first time to be honest. It is just about ready to start but I need to grow a backbone, finish the loose ends and press the start button and just get on with it.

We'll get there.

The latest home project was this "low" bike trailer build:
It was a half built trailer that I had around the back of my shed. It was getting in the way and I wanted to finish it.
(My brothers CBX)