Milly the 1979 Westfalia Berlin Deluxe

Wandered around the show on Saturday & was very impressed with the trade stands & quality of some of the campers.
I bought a 5 pin headlight relay from Mega Bug & some new wooden winder handles. Baught apair of brand new UK RHD Hella headlights from Danburry motor caravans. Tried to fit my new speakers & stereo but reallised the connections on the back of the Kenwood fitted had been soldered on & I didn't have a stanly blade in my knife to cut the speaker holes out.
I bought a large bag of door clips from Megga Bug too so I can fit my front door panels better.







Took loads of pictures wandering around on Saturday & ended the day by getting drunk again in our Marquee with a great bunch of friends.

On Sunday got up a bit worse for wear but after a cup of Tea & one of Deans breakfasts I was ready for more wandering around. I decided to enter Milly in the Show & Shine & to my delight I had a top 5 award. There were some real nice cars there & I shared the award with a nice notchback, an Orange Beetle, a T25 Redstar & a nice red T4. I was chuffed:-

After that we packed up & headed for home or in my case a 12hr Sunday night shift
Got to my works earlier than expected & decided to use the time wisely. I manged to buy some ISO connections & heatshrink of a trader at Octoberfest & wired up my new Becker (I had my soldering iron & solder with me)
I also swapped the heat controls so that they are now the right way around.
I reallised when I got to work that I'd left my new 110A Leasure battery on the floor of the works car park & now it was gone. I checked with security & nothing had been handed in, checked the security cameras & we could clearly see a guy in a short wheel base Pajero putting it in his car. Through a bit of detective work Ifound out who he was & aproached him that night I said to him "is that your short wheel base Pajero?" He acnowleged it was & then I said "Can I have my battery back" he didn't know what to say, first of all he told me he dumped it in a skip, he could tell by my face I wasn't having it so he confessed it was in his garage at home & gave it bcak to me Monday night. His face was a picture, but alls well that ends well.

Some other bits I bought in Octoberfest a five pin rellay so I can flash my headlights without the lights on, a bold for my battery earth clamp & a pair of brand new UK style Hella headlights.




Fitted my new front Alpine speakers & run in new OFC speaker wires.
Soldered & heatshrunk the ISO connections on, at the moment there is no ignition wire at the radio but I'll sort that soon & I'll wire up the illumination circuit.
Notice my new window winders?








Fitted my GPS aerial too on top of the dash board.

Had a great day Saturday playing bus fitted my new Empi shifter replacement for the one I snapped in Chug Chug:-

Went over Penllergaer Woods again to take more photos:-

A nice chap called Suart called in to see me for a chat & I ended up going down his lock up to see his Beach Buggy, it was actually in a James Bond film in 1985 & the good news is that he plans on restoreing it to how it was then.









Went out down the Mumbles with My M8's Kevin, Clare & kids & Ali, Sue & kids. stoped first at Knab rock.

Katy decided to climb the kids playground:-

Then Kevin did:-


Spotted this old Splitty in Mumbles:-



& this old Volvo estate:-

3 of us Lined up out side the chippy:-

Even got a couple of pics in the chippy:-

Car park in Langland Bay:-

Spent yesterday afternoon playing with my lights, I removed the USA spec General Electric sealed beam units & disconected the grey wire from the front indicators (this is the side light feed) pushed this wire into the headlight bowl through the standard grommet kept the original spade so I didn't have to modify the wiring. I wouldn't recomend breaking any cables that are outside the vehicle so I ran a new earth cable put a ring on one end & secured it to the headlight bowl on the inside ot the bus to the location already used. pushed the cable through the grommet & fitted a size 2 red spade, used a brown wire to be consistant with the VW colours. Notice the UK spec indicator it has a twin fillament lamp & a small sidelight lamp so three separate light sources as opposed to the UK's one.

Fitted a pair of H4 lamps to the new Hella units I picked up & the side light bulb holders I salvaged from Chug Chug.
Connected them all up & now they are UK road legal. You'll notice that the UK Hella units glass is flat where as the USA versions are curved.

Decided to sort out the Flashers while I was playing the USA lights only flash when the lights are on where as the UK ones flash with them on or off. I removed the standard relay which as it happened was a 5 pin anyway fitted a size 3 red spade & red wire to the terminal 30 opened up the terminall location on the fuse box & refitted my new 5 pin relay. I connected this to a permanant live so now I can flash the headlights with the lights & ignition off (they just stay on untill you let go of the stalk) they also flash on & latch when the lights are on (drop off when you flash again). I may alter this so it only works with the ignition on I haven't decided.

Got the Westy tow bar that was on Chug Chug off before he was scrapped. Had to weld the tag for the electrics back on because it snapped when I straightened it. My M8 Dean got it picked up shot blasted phospher coated & white powder coated for me. & now it looks the dogs bollox. The black marks are from where I trial fitted it. It won't fit properly because the Previous owner fitted J-tubes instead of the heat exchangers & this makes the exhust sit higher, when I get heat exchangers back on I'll fit it then & wire it in then I can tow my new Beetle trailer:-

Got my new Propex heater yesterday, looking forward to fitting this I'll post full details when I do:-

Going to wire in my heater fan tomorrow weather permiting here is a diagram:-

Wired up & fitted my fresh air fan & it works so happy days, I also got my fridge working off the leasure battery, not sussed out the tap yet though, the split charging system isn't working its been wired wrong & I'll need to sort it.




Pics of batteries both will be changed soon:-



Going to fit this next my reversing alarm:-


Checked my back lights & I had a reversing light out so sorted it, happy to report my back lights are as new if not new & are Hella:-

Started looking into the mains hook up stuff in the bus today, in the USA they have 100V AC 60Hz supply in the UK they have a 240V AC 50Hz supply.
In the USA they use White, Black & Green cables in the UK they use Brown, Blue & Green/Yellow (Live, Neutral & earth)

Its my intention to convert the bus to the UK spec & fetch it up to date with the use of an RCD I don't want to make it look modern though so I'm going to use as much of the old kit as I can.








All the gear is underneath the rock & roll bed I'm going to use new Twin & Earth in UK colours, I've noticed that the earths are not sleaved I'm not sure if this is normall in the USA but in the UK all bare conductors are sleaved Green/Yellow for the CPC.

Nearly forgot I bought this from Britania tow bars its a lighter for the stove & its long so you don't burn your fingers. Its a must have accessory for the wife.

US westies have the type of wiring as standard that you are talking about!

I am now converting mine using the original panel that goes inside the bus, but am repalceing the 110V to 12V for a new one 240V to 12V all the wiring in the US runs on 110v NOT 240v like us, so very important to get rid of any old cabling that takes mains power.

To convert 240v to 12v I'll get a transformer that bolts in in place of the US transformer (FM Caravans sell them)

This set-up then means i can run the fridge on the mains and also trickle charge the battery, the transformer has a built in overcharge cut out too!!
Found this useful post on VZI & its what I'm going to do to Milly:-

Took off my mains hook up point & rewired it with UK (european harmonized) 230V basec twin & earth cable. This is coloured Brown Live (white or hot in the USA) & Blue neutral (black in the USA) this will run straight to a fuse board comprising of 2 MCB's (Minature Circuit Breakers) both MCB's will be 16A one will feed the mains chargeing unit the other the 230V 3 pin socket outllet & an RCD (Residual Current Device) ratted to a trip of 30mA. I sleaved the bare copper core with yellow/green sleaving this is my earth or CPC (Circuit Protective Conductor) this is manditory in the UK to meet the current 17th eddition wiring regs.

The supply in the UK is 50Hz (it switches 50 times per second) in the USA its 60Hz. also our Neutral is the same potential as the earth but our Live has a potential of 230V so if you get an electric shock its a big one, thats why an RCD must be used. In the USA the earth is centre tapped so the live & neutral both have a 55V potential (55 + 55 = 110V) so the risk of death from electric shock is much smaller.
Anyway here are a few pics:-
Before:-


After:-



Painted the outside Satin Black the centre will be covered with a silver sticker reading as follows:-
DELTA SIXINDUSTRIES
N.Hollywood, Calf. 91601-U.S.A.
Waterproof Motor Base Cover
Catalogue # DS-100
RECREATIONAL VEHICLES ONLY
THIS CONNECTION IS FOR 3 WIRE
230vOLT ac 50 hZ (cYCLES)
16amp SOURCE


My leasure battery has no connection to the chassis of the vehicle so the split charge circuit won't work so I bought this:-


You could see te copper so I sleaved it to make it look a bit nicer with heat shrink:-


I also bought a 12V fuse box so I can fuse each circuit:-

Got my two new batteries today so they'll be fitted tommorow after work hopefully:-

Main battery is an 096 72Ah 680A cranking


Leasure battery is a 678 85Ah Maintenence free

Drove down Oxwich today for some pics I'll post these later on but on the way I spotted this little winner, I knocked the guys door but there was no answer:-