Tag Archives: Clever changes

Coromandel 24

Cathedral Cove is Open!

Tim and Annette, my younger brother (not so little anymore!) and sister-in-law, flew over from Melbourne for a well-deserved break. It has been a while since their last visit, so when Tim shared his packed itinerary, we were really pleased to be able to join them for two nights in Hahei.

Click on any Image to EnlargeInitially,  Cathedral Cove wasn’t on the agenda, but with Annette being an avid kayaker and the iconic spot just reopening after the cyclone damage, it quickly became a must-do.

Hahei Beach

They had booked one of the Beachfront Villas at the Hahei Resort, and the team there gave us a motorhome park conveniently almost right behind them. Perfect!

The Villa’s

We arrived on a sunny Thursday afternoon and wasted no time setting up the awning and settling into deck chairs for some shaded relaxation. Tim and Annette arrived later after visiting an old friend in Tauranga. Luckily, Fiona had packed one of our trusty Bargain Box meals, which turned into a lovely, shared dinner, complemented by a few G&Ts.

The next day was all about enjoying Hahei. We wandered into the shopping center for a leisurely lunch before Tim and Annette geared up for their kayak adventure to Cathedral Cove. After a short safety briefing, they were off. Fiona and I opted for a swim back at the beach, enjoying the calm, sunny weather.

Getting instructions.
Tim and Annette at Cathedral Cove.
Pic by Cathedral Kayaks

When Tim and Annette returned from their kayaking expedition, we gathered on their villa’s deck overlooking the beach. The tales of their paddling adventure were as lively as the backdrop was beautiful. The early breeze had settled, leaving behind a perfectly calm day on the water.

While enjoying the afternoon back on the deck, a familiar face appeared at the top of the stairs, Caroline with a friend!  It had been a few years since we last each other, and after a moment of mutual hesitation (the “do-I-know-you” look), and after another old friend Chris, arrived in a car to confirm the situation, we pieced it together 🙂

Tim, Fiona and Annette enjoying a morning coffee on the deck.

Chris and her late husband, Gary, were old boating and motorhome friends, and we had spent many holidays together. It was lovely to see Chris and Caroline again.

The Deck bar area.
The amazing bar and social area.

Hahei Holiday Park has always been a favorite of ours, and this visit didn’t disappoint. A new bar, restaurant, and beach club had opened in the campground’s heart, a fantastic addition. That evening, we headed over for burgers and chips, and wow, those burgers were incredible! Quite possibly the best we’ve ever had.

Annette, Me and Tim at the Bar.

We bumped into Caroline and Chris again at the bar, enjoying dinner with their group.

The Kayaks

After another evening together on their front deck, we set off the next morning back to Auckland. We only there for a couple of nights but it was a lot of fun. Nice to see some old friends too.

Rafe’s tracker map to Hahei – Armada GPS
Close to home, Preparation

10 years on and its Maintenance and upgrade time!

1 Comment

This month, our Dethleffs Motorhome hits the ripe old age of 10 years old. It’s amazing how things creep up and need doing.

Rafe at Sandspit recently

About this time of the year, there is a list of things that we need to do to keep Rafe in good shape…

Click on any Image to enlarge

At North Shore Diesel for the Service

The annual service done at North Shore Diesel who have looked after it from day 1.

As we’d only done 6000 k’s since the service last year, we elected to skip the fuel filter for a year instead having an additive added in the fuel to nail any Diesel bug that might be lurking.

As they do most years, the Technician, Ben also did a pre-COF check and found a led marker light above the windscreen had died. We managed to get one from Zion Motorhomes, the Dethleffs agents and Ben was able to install it for me.

Installing the new Marker light
The new German light shining brightly

Interesting reading through the invoice, they also forced a DPF filter burn which is good.

The COF always a stressful time but thanks to the pre Cof check and the light replacement, it sailed through. Interesting though, the VTNZ tech invited me down into the pit to show me the brackets holding the Grey Water tank behind the back axle. It was empty of course and was light enough to lift up above its support about an inch. It has been like this since it was new so I’m not too fussed about it but I will put a couple of Rubber strips to pack the gap with big cable ties to hold the rubber in.

Insurance and Registration   one for the Budget 🙂
Big outgoings here!

About a month ago, we decided that our Queen centre bed was getting a bit uncomfortable and started looking at what we needed to do after 10 years. We decided that the feather topper over the mattress had done its dash as some of the feathers were starting to leak out onto the floor. After reading on Facebook, some NZMCA’rs are getting a good run from a Bamboo Memory foam Topper which was on special for just under $200 and its really comfortable. The bed is a little higher but really nice.

The new Headboard and Mattress Topper

The other thing we did in the bedroom is we reupholstered the Headboard which was a bit of cheap brown vinyl stapled to a sheet of ply and pretty hard if you slipped off your pillow.
We bought some good quality foam and some other stuff that covers it and some new good quality light grey vinyl and I re upholstered it and put it back in… much nicer.
Bedroom done!

Sanding the Headlight

Just before the last COF late last year I got a huge stone chip on the right-hand headlight. Amazingly it was a chip! I sanded it up and filled it will some clear Araldite and coated the Headlight with a left-over Headlight repair kit I used a few years ago but in doing so, removed all the nice 2 pot lacquer I had done professionally three years ago. It was chipping in form the edge anyway and was starting to go yellow, so time was pretty much up.

Polishing time
Sanding….

I booked it in to a place I found in Albany called Final Touch who specialises in coatings for paint and headlights. They quoted me between $150 and $250 depending on what was involved. It took two of them 2 hours to sand off the three coats of chipped lacquer! But they look amazing and now have a Ceramic Glaze on them which should be good for up to three years and it’s much easier to fix then.

The Reveal.. all done with Ceramic Glaze

The other 10 year upgrades this year have been the Dome / Mi Box Upgrade.

The Lithium Phosphate Battery upgrades was a massive upgrade too. People told me it would “change your life” which it has 🙂 Apart from the Lithium change we also went from 200-amp hours to 300-amp hours.

Looking smart

On the way to get the headlights done, I checked it at their next-door neighbours Carters Tyres to see if my tyres needed rotating, they were due but the experts there thought they were wearing well and were fine where they were so one job less to do.

So, we’re off for the Matariki weekend. I’m not sure where yet but Rafe’s ready and so are we 🙂  Safe travels everyone.

Close to home

Big Upgrade for Rafes Batteries – Lithium Phosphate

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I’ve been umming and ahhhing for some time about this mainly due to Rafe’s 10-year-old charging technology and what it might mean with keeping the new batteries in good shape. The other worry was my old saying from boating, “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it”, where the agm setup was working fine, just not enough of it.

Jonas at Zion Motorhomes has been telling me on several occasions how good these new French batteries are and how they work happily in a Gel mode that will still stir up the Lithium the way it’s meant to be stirred!

Click on any Image to Enlarge

Great parking

Because we are in Devonport and Zion are in Pokeno, I’d decided to stay at Pukekohe for the night to avoid the traffic on the Monday morning.

Jayco corner 🙂

After lunch on a warm sunny afternoon, I checked into the Pukekohe A&P society’s campground by the railway station. It’s a neat place with all the facilities at a very reasonable price and we’ve stayed here several times over the years.

After plugging in and settling down the Truck, I went for a bit of a wander around the park. The shops are just over the road through a railway tunnel and the main street not that far further on.

A great night there with a couple of trains rumbling past which is fun.

Rafe all ready to go

In the morning, I headed off to Pokeno and my first stop was at the Truck stop for some Diesel and then onto Zion Motorhomes for the Batteries.

Mark taking out the AGMs

They were going to swap my 4-year-old AGM deep cycles for some sparkling new Lithium Phosphate 150 ah batteries that would both fit under the driver seat. I’m always a bit apprehensive when disturbing something like there is usually a surprise extra somewhere or something gets broken in the process 🙂 Yes, I got a surprise, but nothing got broken.

Out they come

Because Rafe’s charging system with the alternator wasn’t that clever, it worked by being directed by the Start battery in terms of what was required for charging. If the house battery needed it too, it got charged at the same time but never got fried if it was already full, it just went without on a trickle basis.

New batteris

It needed a Booster unit that integrated with the German Electro block management system and gave the house battery what it needed and at a consistent voltage. Pretty good really and it should probably have been there all along, so I saw it as a necessary upgrade.

The Electro block under the passenger seat with the Booster behind charging.

I’d promised the AGMs to my son Drew for his boat as his boat house batteries had seen better days and these ones were good so free to a good home and off, they went 🙂

Drew’s ne Batteries and the Driver’s seat

Mark was the Technician on the job assisted by Jack and several others when required.

Jack and Mark sorting out the charging systems.

The driver’s seat came off, the old batteries came out and the new batteries took their place all without any drama. As Mark went, he was testing the various charging systems. Changing the Solar regulator to Gel, the Electro block to Gel and adding the Booster unit to the back of the electro block.

Being a new system on quite an old charging system, there were a few moments where what was showing from the Bluetooth app on the phone wasn’t quite what was expected but it very quickly all came together.

New Lithium’s getting set up.
New Batteries in and charging off the Alternator

So, the conclusion … I haven’t been away yet to really try it all out but it’s a massive upgrade for the whole electrical system.

Fiona likes watching her TV and things electrical in Rafe haven’t really had a real outing so we’re looking forward to being able to turn things on now and not be too concerned about power. You might recall my recent blog on the change we made to the TVs with the Mi Box. This will save a lot of power with the TV’s. The stereo and the subwoofer can be turned up and the lights can all be turned on 🙂

The pros:  We’ve gone from 200ah Agm to 300ah Lithium Phosphate with a much greater DOD ( depth of discharge) which means instead of being limited to about 90ah of power on the Agm setup, we now have full access to 240ah without damaging the batteries.  The batteries charge much faster so the solar panels charging should take roughly the same time for a moderately bigger charge.  The batteries are about 1/3rd lighter.  They’re guaranteed for 5 years and will last a lot longer than the agms. These smart french batteries will work happily with a gel charging setup so less to change for most of us!

The only con:  the cost is more  but that is technology for you 🙂

The Bluetooth info from the phone.

A pretty painless exercise and Mark did a fantastic job. Thanks guys.

Rafe’s tracker map to Pukekohe A&P Showgrounds – Armada GPS
Close to home, Preparation

All the Stone Chips have gone!

One of the things we should have done when we first got our Motorhome 7 odd years ago was to put some protection on the bonnet against stone chips. I remember Fiona mentioning it at the time but I was too eager to use the new toy!

Years later after progressively touching up the stone chips on the bonnet leaving pimples of touch up paint, it was time to either repaint the bonnet or tidy things up.

Click on any Image to enlarge

Masking out the design

Having just had the bumper done up after it dropped all its paint, I needed to have the decals that Dethleffs originally put on replaced on the newly painted bumper.

Jeremy applies the white base.

My son Drew was involved in Drift Car racing and met Jeremy years ago who is a sign writer extraordinaire who is also a dab hand at wrapping cars and anything else. Drew introduced us by phone so off I went to Jeremy’s workshop get the new decals.

Jay doing the other side with the white base.

Jeremy is an old school sign writer who can still do signs with a brush.. sounds to me like a photographer who still knows how to process a roll of film 🙂 I liked the sound of that.. nothing like experience!

He immediately looked at the images I had of the original decals and said “I can do much better than that” ! Jeremys right hand man Jay was there on one side while Jeremy was on the other.

On goes the blue
Applying the blue over the white.
Jeremy trimming the blue shape

Jeremy’s version of the Decals were quite a lot bigger but followed the contours of the bumper much more closely and also met up with the pattern on the sides of the van much better so it all looked a lot more streamlined than the original Dethleffs effort. I was over the moon.

Click on the Gallery below for blow by blow slideshow

Jeremy applies the white base.
Jay trimming the base
Half in half out!
Jeremy’s custom sticker for his car
On goes the blue
Applying the blue.
Jeremy sanding the “pimples” on the bonnet.
Applying the protective bonnet cover.
Jay squeezing the water out
Squeezing out the water.
Trimming off the bonnet cover.
Wow all finished

Next came the bonnet which I was only going to get Jeremy to tackle if it wasn’t a huge job. Jeremy took one look at it and after a comment like “easy peasy”, we were off.

Jeremy sanding the “pimples” on the bonnet.

Jeremy got some very fine wet and dry sandpaper and with some water, gently hand sanded all the little pimples of touch up paint that I had applied down so the bonnet was smooth. There was also a Globe 4 decal on the bonnet which had to go too.

Applying the protective bonnet cover.

The bonnet then looked like a bluey grey colour which looked awful. I think Jeremy could tell I was a bit nervous so he cut off a tiny bit of bonnet protector and after wetting it, stuck it in the middle of all the horrible grey and immediately, it took on the lovely deep blue I was used to! It was a WOW moment.. I was amazed and it was a high gloss too.

Squeezing out the water.

Jay appeared with a sheet of the protector big enough for our bonnet and between them, they wet it and the bonnet and on it went. The next 30 minutes or so were spent squeezing out the water but it looked absolutely amazing. The best part was that out of the 40 or so original stone chips on the bonnet, the sanded paint filled up the holes left like a filler so you could really only see a handful of them afterwards.. A HUGE improvement.. Its like a new bonnet.

Jay tidying up at the end

Watching the process was awesome too.. with the new technology products now it really was something to see.

Wow all finished

If you’re looking to do a stone chip tidy up or do something with your Motorhome or Caravan, you can find Jeremy and Jay at Big Brown Industries in the Wairau Valley.  www.bigbrown.co.nz

Jeremy and Jay with the end result
Europe 2017, Germany

Campsite Automation

This campsite in Dresden takes the cake for value for money and its a great easy to use tidy campsite and is well used. It is completely automated with entry barrier arms where you take a ticket like a carpark and you pay when you exit. There is a graphic based machine which allows you pay with different languages and also dispenses tokens for both the showers and the power.

Click on the images for Hi Res

Harry and Ralph on the Stellplatz

When we arrived at Schaeffer Mobile Stellplatz, we simply rocked up to a barrier arm and pushed a button for a card, just as you would in a parking building.

The entranceway

As we drove in there were 6 rows of parks on either side and it was simply just a case of selecting a park. After parking, there was just the job of plugging in to the power which is charged by the kwh.
All very simple.

The front of the dealers yard. Stellplatz behind.

There was no one anywhere near the site apart from the camping shop, and the Hymer / Dethleff / Concorde dealership in front.

Vans for sale. You can see the barrier arms and the camped vans out the back.

We ordered hot bread for 8 am in the morning for a couple of Euro’s .. magic!

The drive over grey dump and the pay as you go fresh water.

All you had to do was keep an eye on your power consumption as an electric jug would eat through your tokens for power depending on your consumption.

Fiona, Dianne and Gary walking baack to harry and Ralph.

For two days staying with free wifi, toilets, black and grey water the total was 30 Euros for two days stay and 4 euros for power (We had an electric jug!)

Busy and Popular Campsite

There was free Wifi and the water was 50c (Euro) per 50 litres and you could buy different amounts. Black and grey dumping was free.

NZ equivalent = about $60!! .. good value..

Harry and Ralph

I can see this working well for the NZMCA sites, even partially where they have power available and charged by the kWh for those who want to use it.

Close to home, Preparation

The Sunburnt Bumper

It seems at this time of the year, there is an endless demand on outgoing funds for the Motorhome.. Service, Insurance, COF and a rattle or two you’ve discovered that could be silenced.

This year, the big one was repainting the Bumper just to add to the list.

Click on any Image to enlarge

looks like a peely shoulder !

To be fair, a new vehicle where ever it is made should not have to have its bumper repainted after only 6 years so that grates a wee bit, but not being one to dwell on these things, it had to be fixed.

Before.. you can see the yellow tint in the lacquer from the sun.

The deterioration started about three years ago and when I raised it at the time with the dealers, I was told it came under the Fiat warranty which had by then expired.   ….Hey Ho as they say.. Lets get on and get it fixed…!

It started with the whole bumper going a yellowy colour and then the paint peeled off in bits. I progressively sanded parts of it to blend the colour and make it look a bit better as it got worse.

About to be taken off

After talking to one of my favorite RV repairers Peter at RV repairs who is also a qualified spray painter, he advised that I should leave it as long as possible so as much of the peeling paint would fall off and remove the need for a massive sanding job!

.. It couldn’t wait any longer !!

Click on the Gallery below for a Slideshow

coming off
Number plate being attached so I could drive home.
Ready for sanding
Ready for preparation
How to look good naked !
Being sanded – pic by Nathan
Sanding – pic by Nathan

In Devonport where I live, there is a great family run business which many of my mates at school have worked at over the years, run by Dennis  and Nathan Hale, called Fleet St Panel beaters.  They have a great reputation for doing things properly and are well known around the community as being really nice people.

In getting the newly painted Bumper. reattached

Where they are next to the supermarket in Devonport is pretty tight for big vehicles so it was a case of getting the bumper taken off and taking Rafe back home until the painting was finished.

All sanded and primed.

The bad news came on day 1 when after taking it off, we found that the bumper was actually fiberglass, not plastic. This meant it couldn’t be dipped to strip the paint off and they couldn’t bake the new paint on. It also needed to be sanded thoroughly before applying a special primer for the fiberglass. The good news part of this is that fiberglass is really strong.

Sanded and ready for some colour

Nathan was telling me it they budget on a couple of hours to prepare a plastic bumper. This one needed a day and a half of sanding as a lot of it was by hand. .. I could see my budget being blown sky-high and Fiona giving me a stern talking to 😐

All finished and waiting for Rafe – pic by Nathan

Unfortunately, they had a couple of staff off sick  and with the extra preparation, the 4 day job turned into two weeks but the outcome was well worth the wait. The finish was just sensational.

Although I was given the German paint codes, Kris the painter used a fancy machine that could read the colour off the side of the van and match it wirelessly to paints in NZ that can deal with our UV.

All done .. – WOW – pic by Nathan

An amazing colour match and friends who have known the van from new and know a bit about paint reckon it looks better than it was at the beginning.. I agree!!

Yes, it cost a bit more but I’m not complaining with such a great paint job.

Looking really good.. also with the polished headlights.

I’ve ordered a new logo sticker from Dethleffs and have my friendly local signwriter Tom putting the blue and white decals on over the next few weeks.

Wow
Preparation

Full Beam Ahead

Just recently, I noticed that my headlights were getting a bit foggy and getting a bit of a yellow tinge to them. After checking a few websites out for a remedy, I found that there were several kits available for restoring the headlights.

I bought one of these kits and it being one of the better well known brands, I applied it to my headlights and they came up like magic. .. but they didn’t stay like it for long. Then I found out that the sealer used in most of these kits only lasted a few months and the headlights reverted back to their hazy yellow look again.

Click on any Image to Enlarge

All ready to go.. (bumper off being sprayed too)

Looking up on the web again, I found a company that comes around to your Motorhome, professionally cleans up your headlights and applies a two pot sealer that lasts for 5 years or more. It is baked on using Infra Red lights which also makes a big difference.

Fully prepared

Scott arrived right on time and parked right next to Rafe and immediately set about masking up the headlights and covering the front of the van with plastic to protect the van from muck and overspray.

Once that was done, he fired up the generator in the back of his van and sanded the residue of the useless sealer I’d put on and got the headlights looking quite clean but very cloudy as they now had no protection at all. After changing grits on the sander progressively up to 3000 grit, the headlights then felt like silk.

Sanded but not sealed

Out came the chemist in Scott and he sat down and mixed up the sealer.. it looked like three different parts actually and it all looked very precise.

Mixing the sealer

Next came the spray gear and the mask and as he sprayed  each headlight, it was like someone turned the clarity filter on.. the difference was amazing. He then set the IR lights on to bake the sealant on.. After about 30 minutes, on went another coat and it looked even better.

Before !
first coat

Scott’s a really interesting guy having worked in the UK as an engineer supervising the manufacture of Computer chips for many of the worlds biggest manufacturers. When he came out here with his Kiwi wife a long time ago, it was time for a change.. A really clever guy and looking at my headlights, I felt pretty fortunate to have someone like him cleaning them up.

The cost was a little over $120 which I thought was pretty good value given the setup involved and what he had to do.

Click on the Gallery below to see the Sideshow

Fully prepared
Before !
Sanded but not sealed
First coat of sealer
All done

The danger of not doing it and ignoring your headlights is .. you fail your COF when the line between high beam and low beam gets diffused by the cloudy headlights.. by then you’re also likely to have crazing in your lights which can never be sanded out. The only remedy then is to replace the headlights which in most of our vehicles is a very expensive exercise.

Drying

An amazing process and I have that warm fuzzy feeling of knowing that our UV laden sun can go for its life on my now well protected headlights.

Scott’s email is scott@fullbeam.co.nz

Drying coat 2
All Done
Preparation, Quirky things

One of those clever creations, the Water Pig

1 Comment

One of the nice things about doing a blog like this is every now and then, you come across a really clever person who has designed or invented a clever new way of doing things.. this time its Ross Parkes, an all round clever bloke who  after needing a spare part for his SOG system, decided he’d design and 3d print it !

The other side.. ready to go

From here, ho moved on to his Water Pig  Its probably better that I let Ross tell this in his own words as when you hear the background, its an interesting story…

Much tidier

Take it away Ross 🙂

The Water Pigs, it all started when the fan motor on our SOG started failing and I enquired as to the cost a replacement – some $162 – yikes so instead I looked into the practicality of making a replacement fan assembly using a standard 50mm computer type axial fan.

During that investigation I considered that 3D printing a fan unit might be fun so purchased an Ender 3 v2 printer. Spent a day setting it up and then designed and made the fan housings (pic below) and experimented with different fans until I found one that worked ok – a whole nother story…

Pic by Ross
Pic by Ross

After that I played around and made some other SOG parts such as the bayonet fitting that goes in the top of the cassette – really to get around the design issue with the factory fitting in that it allows liquid to get down the pipe to the motor if too much slosh going on. It also meant we could have a fitting on our spare cassette all ready to go when we do a swap and also played around printing our new house which is yet to be completed

At that point I had become fairly competent designing and driving the printer so started thinking what else could I make and the water filler attachment that we use on our van came to mind. Like many people I have something I made from bits and bobs that you can connect the hose to so as to not have to hold it when filling with water. (pic below) A bit of a consideration if you have larger tanks or if you are on your own.

Pic by Ross

And so was born the first “Water Pig” or “Poaka Wai” (pic above) which fitted the Fiamma brand fitting on our Traillite and out of interest I posted it on a couple of Facebook groups, “hey look what I made” and then had a flurry of people also wanting one but of course they were not all Fiamma…

So on with the R&D hat again and came up with 8 different piggy designs, some of which I am still refining.  It would not have been possible without the help of quite a few people out there who volunteered to be guinea pigs for the water pigs. There are still a few tweaks that I need to do to perfect some of them and I have quite a lot of “seconds” that I sell off for not very much, well actually, I sell the good ones for not very much as well 😉 It is important to note that there are “commercial” water filler fittings available on Amazon/Ebay for various filler types but these are quite expensive and from off shore sources.

A whole bunch of piggies – Pic by Ross

The process of printing the pigs is not quick with each taking 5-7 hours depending on the size. (pics below – A piggy for Rafe) I could print them quicker but they would not be as pretty and probably not as strong.

The one for Rafe hot off the press – Pic by Ross

Sometimes things go wrong (pic below) so the printer does need to be monitored during the initial stages to ensure adhesion to the build plate is good and also if I have messed with a design I sometimes get it wrong and create some mutant pig…

Pic by Ross

Anyway, its been good for my brain developing the eight little pigs (so far) and hopefully is helping some people out by making dump station stops more efficient and easier due to not having to hold the hose….

In summary.. I’ve tried it on Rafe’s water filler (I had to wash it first before I could photograph it !) and it works really well..

For those looking for one, Ross is an administrator of the Facebook group RV Happy Travellers.  You can contact him here

Well done mate   a nice bit of Kiwi ingenuity!!

Close to home, Preparation

New Batteries – UPDATE

One of the first things I do after publishing a post is to link it through to several Facebook pages relating to Motorhoming.

I’d only just posted my post on my new Batteries from AA Solar when several people commented on how they were not optimally wired. They weren’t incorrect but I would get more life out of them if they were changed and several made suggestions on how it could be improved.

To be fair, Thorsten the Technician, only rewired what he inherited from the previous setup and increased the wiring size while he did it.

I actually thought it looked much better than how it was but when I posted into the NZMCA facebook forum, the advice came back on improvements that could be made and it was worth giving it another look.

How it was

I called AA Solar and after seeing my photos, they agreed and were more than happy to reset the wiring. What a difference!  Its got a much more obvious flow to it and even tidier than before.. It should perform better too.

Its a Beautiful thing
Thorsten finishing off the changes.

Thanks to all those who pitched in with the advice and thanks to Thorsten and AA Solar for a job well done.

Close to home, Preparation, Ready to go

New Batteries ..maybe before time.

2 Comments

Isn’t it funny how as you go through the various upgrades on your Motorhome or Caravan and someone tells you, “buy this, its the best there is” and you say to yourself later “more homework was required!”

In early 2018, I did just that and bought some new batteries which were then the best thing since sliced bread as they had a new fangled silicon plate system.

Click on an Image to Enlarge

Not long after I had them installed, I took Rafe back to get the new batteries load tested as I thought they were dropping their voltage too quickly but they passed with flying colours.

Over the last few years I’ve persisted with them and we’ve found ourselves being plugged in to power more often than we’d probably like to prevent  voltage range anxiety.

A nameless friend and battery advisor has  explained to me that the batteries I had, due to how they’re made were  not  known performers as house batteries for Motorhomes.

So here we are only 3 and a bit years later replacing them with Champion Deep Cycle AGM’s from AA Solar in Silverdale.  With the NZMCA discount, these batteries are known performers as house batteries and are quite a bit less expensive than the 3 yr old ones I’ve replaced.

The empty space under the seat for the new batteries after the old batteries were removed.

Thorsten was the technician on the job and got into taking Rafe’s seat out to get at the batteries underneath.

Thorsten re doing the cables for the terminals.

Out they came and with a quick test, although they had lost a significant amount of power, they were probably ok as low load crank batteries for a year or two. I made the decision to dump them as I could see them sitting in the back of our carport in three years time 🙂

Just about done.

In went the new batteries.. the new Champions were a bit longer but just fitted in under the seat. Thorsten took one look at the wiring for the second battery and declared it to be vastly undersized.. so he replaced this with colour coded heatshrink and new terminal bolts.. very tidy.

I was really pleased with how it went with the wiring and the batteries and am now looking forward to now being able to be off grid a bit more than we have with known performing, Deep Cycle batteries.

All done !

With the new wiring and all cleaned up it really is a big improvement just looking at it and it almost seems a shame to cover it all up with the seat 🙂 Thanks Thorsten for a really tidy job.