justusandourbus@gmail.com
They say you get what you pay for.
So we have owned Shaggy now for about 6 years, I rememberl buying in from and Ebay action and it was really tense at the end as he was really quite cheap at the time. After we got him and drove him around for a while we realised the engine that came with him wasn't up to much, we started to get warnings on his MOT about emissions and little by little things got worse until one year he failed. The engine was combusting Oil , after some investigation we realised a new engine was our only option.
The Rebuild
At the time Shaggy was being looked after by a local VW expert, I had just started my business and time was tight so we paid him to build us an engine, we sourced some parts but they turned out to be in a fairly poor state so we bit the bullet and purchased all new, or so we thought!! Anyways the engine was built and running great, we collected him and started our 500 mile run in, unfortunately one evening after we collected him while showing off the van to a neighbour one of the new valves failed, the damage to the engine was severe and required another build, the engine builder at the time, did his job, and we got him back within a few weeks, unfortunately confidence was shattered and it was like starting all over again............
Fast forward to almost present day, several trips and a few thousand miles later and I have been noticing things getting steadily worse, serious lack of power, sometime we seem ok then sometimes we were climbing hill in 2nd or even 1st gear, so after we returned from Camp Quirky this year I was intent on finding out was what wrong, long story short I found were lacking compression in 2 cylinders, in short the engine was dead! Now we expected a lot more out our investment in the current engine and to say we were disappointed was an understatement, we paid a so called specialist good money and did not spare any expense on part only to get 4 yers of very light use out if the engine before another rebuild was required. It would appear our "expert" decided to attach out brand new parts to a knackered old engine we presume he had laying around. Not good!
The Plan
So after the disappointment of finding out the engine cannot be saved we looked into our options, now I could rebuild it myself, but I decided this was risky, and I also don't really have the facilities to do this comfortably plus time would be an issue, we then looked into a Subaru conversion and although tempting would somewhat diminish the charm of the bus so after a lot of research we have decided to buy brand new, we have found a very reputable company with excellent review and a long history. Shaggy is currently booked to go there around 16th September, after about a week or so he should be firing on all cylinders so to to speak! This is a significant investment, but with our travel plans coming up and the memories we already have with him we think it is well worth it, check back regularly for updates on the engine progress then we plan to renovate the interior for a longer then usual trips.
Received my SJRC Z5 in the week so have been itching to get it out, tonight i managed to get its maiden flight out of the way, my only previous experience with drones was with a very entry level non GPS drone and this was quite tricky to fly and hover so was keen to see how different a GPS drone felt in flight. First impression is great, the drone was certainly much easier to launch and fly, and i was able to have a reasonably controlled fly around, using the app on my iphone i was able to see the camera image well and adjust the camera angle easily, i was also able to take the drone high with some confidence and control it reasonably well. The only mistake i made was to set the drone off to close to a large bush, this meant that when i tried to end the flight and bring the drone home using the return to home function it tried to fly into the bush as the GPS for the take off must have been a couple meters off, so next time i will remember to take off in a more open spot. Click on the link below to go to youtube and view the video, the post image itself wasn't taken with the drone that was from my iPhone while walking over the field with the dog! https://youtu.be/Kzraqqtm4BQ
