Words from Kelly this time...

I've been a little slack in keeping this up to date, but for those that check back on here, a lot will be changing soon. Anyway, we still have the DodoJuice to give away, the Voltz energy drink to give away, and AWMAutoservices.co.uk are offering a free major service (Terms and conditions apply - up to 2,000cc engine being the main bit), as a raffle prize as well to people that donate £2 or more to our charity kitty. The link can be found at www.roguerun.co.uk

Anyway, some words from our resident Kelly...

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Hi all, I thought I would contribute this time (can't let the boys take all the glory after all).

Like everyone else in the Rogue clan, I have a love for cars and driving them. Between my best friend, Jon and I, I have participated in monster trucking, off-roading, high speed track events, rage buggies, rally cars, speed boats (ok that's not a car) but literally anything with four wheels gets my heart pumping - and of course I am always tolerant to those who call me names such as "Van Widow" - yeah right! ;o)

As you may have seen from previous posts, our vehicle, the Transporter T4 van is coming along really well and is slowly transforming from your typical white van to a proper pimped up day camper.

For those who do not follow the trend, you may be familiar with the bay window campervans but the VW Transporter T4 (and T5) are the new age campervan/motorhomes.

Depending on what you want from your van, the conversion can be anything from the adding of adjustable seats/bed (also known as a rock’n’roll bed), to a fully kitted out camping van with hobs, fridge freezers and even a toilet.

This week I had a rather in-depth conversation with a colleague at work, who decided to wind me up and keep questioning what the point was to converting a white van (keep in mind at this point Jon and I had been driven to despair by spacers that day before so I wasn’t in the mood to be wound up, but I will get to that in a minute)..

“But why would you convert a van, it’s for building materials?” says colleague.
“It’s not, they are the modern campervans,” said I.
“If you want a campervan, buy a campervan, your van is not a campervan,” said colleague.
“Yes it is,” said I.
“No it’s not,” said colleague.
“Yes it is, go on the forums and see how much of a following it has,” said I (you get the gist who is speaking now).
“Ok, fine then, what are you going to convert it to?”
“It will be a day van, which means it doesn’t have the sink, fridge etc_”
“Then it is not a campervan is it!”

So I leapt over the partition and engaged in beating the crap out of him – Ok maybe I didn’t but I will mention now that there was no coffee in the office that day, it was a Monday AND as I said before the previous day we were having a bit of a fiasco with the van’s new alloys wheels.

I will explain further.

Jon has been having a bit of an itch lately - yes I know you can get cream for that but this is an entirely different itch. Several months ago he bought a set of gorgeous Audi A4 2010 alloys complete with tyres (yes I know the badges are still in the picture). They were hardly used and in immaculate condition. Well Jon has wanted to get them on the van for a while and at the weekend he felt it was the right time to do it.

One problem - spacers!

They could not be fitted without the spacers, and have you ever tried to find the definition as well as what kind of spacers you need for a vehicle? It is surprisingly difficult, even with the aid of the internet nowadays. Jon became frustrated, I went for a swim (my favourite past time next to moaning about South Eastern trains), came back and he had got even worse.

To save myself of an afternoon of Jon moaning, throwing toys out of prams, dummies hitting walls and the like, I did some research and posted the question in the T4 forum. If you read between the lines you could tell the answers were just as oblivious as what we were gaining. Even after a phonecall to the Almighty Savage and there was still no joy.

So we went to the fountain of knowledge (i.e. the person we bought them from), and she said that she never used them and the only problem she experienced was when the van was on full lock. Given that her van was lowered and ours is not we couldn’t see a problem, so we went commando (without the spacers that is) and the difference it has made to the van compared to keeping the steels on – well the picture says it all.

After nearly six months we have welcomed a van into the Team Blind Panic camp, and the changes have included:

· Captain seats;
· Minor treatment of rust and touch-up in places;
· Adding of 2 brand new tinted windows at the back of the van;
· Wind deflectors on front windows;
· CB radio;
· Interior carpeting and insulation; and
· New alloy wheels (of course).

The list is still quite long but in such as short space of time we have a vehicle that we are proud to call our own. We know it can endure long distances (it originally came from Fife), we know it cruises at a respectable speed, and we know it is comfortable, but will it last Europe – watch this space!"