Long time no hear

Dear readers! preparing the Laro for its first trip took some time, time I did not spend on updating this blog. I drove over 2500km through the lake district and Scotland. The Laro felt very much at home in Scotland! So I post a few pictures to show you....

Internal Affairs

Finally the sun is coming through and that means....another day of hard work on the Camel.
Goal is to finish the inside this weekend so a new 12 hour working day was used to reach that goal. Pascal came all the way from Utrecht to help me out on paintjobs and other decorative support. We installed toiletpaper, towelracks ;-), a cubboard, 24to220V converter and numerous other details. It was a fun day, thanks Pascal!

Paint job & other

Under the sunny skies of Holland (2 days in our summer...) there was finally time to paint the inside. A light sandstone yellow was used, just a little lighter than the outside color. After painting the carpet was cut to size and put in place. The fire-extinguisher and a powerful Maglite were put within reach and a few moments later the superstyle curtains were hung (thanks mum!) The first steps of my new livingroom ;-)

My good friend Bas helped out on the pumping-the-stereo part; a new radioCDplayer plus two gigantic 3 way speakers were mounted in the slightly adapted overhead panel. Also a 12V connector was fitted in to support the TomTom or other 12V equipment.

To avoid 'sate-pierced-pedestrians' the two steel pins (designed to hold to hi-lift jack) were covered with rubber doorstops.

Cable car

The REAL reason the engine didn't start was not only the faulty startermotor; one of the big batts passed away. It gave 12Volts but as soon a high current was demanded it collapsed. So after replacing the two big 95Ah batts the car started without a problem thanks to Mike and a very smooth running startermotor. After some testdriving I could start with the numerous smallerjobs on the car. Two cables were made which should prevent sweeping tree-branches into my tiny windows. Not really a must, but hey, they look very cool!

Startermotor out&in

On monday my new LaRo friend Marius helped me out with the removal of the 'faulty' startermotor. This beast is a big as a biscuit-can and weights over 12 kgs. Of course it was not an easy job since the exhaust pipe had to be disconnected. Rust rests so we had to drill one of the screws out. After 2,5 hours of hard work the beast was tamed.
It has been revised and overhauled; the relay has been replaced. ' Unfortunately' the startermotor was running fine so the cause of not starting should be the two big batteries which seemed perfectly OK. New batt's will solve my problems. The Camel should run Friday smoothly again! I build the startermotor in all by myself so I learned at least something from this exercise!
On the photo; Marius and the Beast

A new frontend!

After a week of patience I could to pick up my 'brandnew' bumper, bullbar and jerrycan holders. Sandblasted, coated and powercoated in shiny black the bumper section looks better than ever! With the bullbar removed I was able to clean the front side of the car properly with the illustrious Commendant 4 stuff. It looks all new again as the pictures show. Some small work remains like exchanging the lightcovers (they leak because of cracks in the plastic lightcovers). The jerrycanholders are back on the roof giving the car an even more adventureous look. Next steps are the attachment of the Highlift and sparetire.......

Dieselpump misery solved

Building in the repaired dieselpump would be possible, however to take no risk a new one has been installed instead. The main remaining problem now is to get rid of the air in the diesel fuel system. The car has not run yet since the startermotor seems to have a problem. The batteries seem OK with 25 Volts total, however the car makes an astmatic sound when I try to start the engine. To be continued once more.....