12 June 2019 – Raining today in buckets, so decided today would be a good day to begin on the van electrics. As you can see from the diagram, a lot to do here! At the time of starting the only electrics in the van are the items that are attached to the standard loom, so essentially none of the above. There is an old radio in the van, but this doesn’t work and was probably left in for stylistic reasons opposed to the practical. The purists will call foul but I am planning on ripping this out and replacing with a newer stereo with a built in Sat-Nav and reversing camera. Although I like all the original styling on the van I also want to enjoy the journey with some more modern attributes like a DAB radio etc.

So where to start?

1. Stereo (started here because its easy and I will have music in the van for the other install work!) – Having installed many car stereo’s in my time this wasn’t really too daunting to get installed. The old stereo was not connected to anything electrical, it was just sat in the aperture. Ripped this out and bagged up for prosperity! First thing to change if you are planning on upgrading to a modern stereo is the size of the aperture. This is too small for a modern stereo by around 3-5mm in all directions. Now, my dash had been butchered before by a previous owner during a LH to RH drive conversion so I wasn’t to prissy about doing this, I would recommend just take it easy, this is a hard job to do and make look pretty. Test and adjust constantly and you should do fine (tool used Draper Multi-Tool). Next, you could attempt to decipher the electrical diagram in the Bentley book or just use a standard probe for the voltages that you need. 12 V constant and 12v on ignition. I am guessing that your van is going to be as butchered as mine, have a play then splice your cables with those in the stereo accordingly (every time I attempt electrical work I label al the cables up meticulously for when you or somebody else is having another play behind the dash). You should see your stereo light up at this point when you turn the ignition on (if you don’t recheck polarity of your cables). Make sure that you have not connected it to some thing like an indicator, otherwise, your stereo is going to go on/off when the relay kicks in (although great for musical statues)! Next the speakers – decide where you want them and plan accordingly. My van did not have kick boards in so I initially opted to place the front speakers in the door panels. This takes some drilling and you have to take the doors off – BEWARE THEY ARE SUPER HEAVY!! However, once I had my kkckboards delivered there were speaker cutouts in them – yea, life became easier! Now the aerial – mine did not have one! Once again plan the routing, cut your hole for the mounting point from the outside in (recommend using some tape to steady your drill). Once in connect to the stereo (you should ensure that the aerial is grounded to the vehicle or your reception is going to be shite – use the continuity checker on your probe for this) – you should now have radio! Simples! Time taken 3 hours..
2. Leisure Battery & Split Charge System – This is really easy to fit, however, a lot of folk seem to take it to a professional to get done. Firstly, what is the purpose of the split charge system? Generally a leisure vehicle would have 2 batteries, a vehicle battery (for starting etc) and a leisure battery (for camping ancillaries). the problem with the latter is that unless you are able to connect the leisure battery in some way to your alternator you will never have a charged battery. So the split charge accomplishes this for you, by connecting the two batteries together in parallel. What you need to understand, however, is that without the split charge system in place you use the combine run time of both batteries when camping. This is going to cause significant problems when you come to drive off – dead battery!! The picture below describes how I connected my system up. Time taken around 4 hours (generally speaking none of the cables arrive terminated so you have todo this yourself – make sure you have a decent gas lamp on hand to do this)
3. Mains Wiring – My van is a USA import, although RH drive. I did not know this when I bought it, but now have to alter a few things. The Site electrical connector is made for 110v AC so cannot be used in the UK – see picture below. Some folk get around this by using a tail that they fabricate from USA and UK parts. I have ordered one and will keep this section updated on its suitability once it arrives! Obviously on the interior of the van you are going to need an inverter to change the 240V AC into a useable 12v DC (all electrics in my van are DC!). That being said you still need provision (a UK 3 pin socket) to connect any mains appliances you wish to use i.e. kettle etc. I do have a panel for this, however, once again this is USA spec and will need to be changed to make useful! Watch this space. If you are not comfortable with AC electrics I highly endorse allowing a certified electrician to either do all this for you or certainly endorse your work – bad electrics are extremely dangerous – BE CAREFUL!
4. Inverter DC-AC (12v to 240v) Easy but expensive install, these units generally retail around the £150 mark for a decent one! They are connected by only 2 cables (a positive and negative) directly to your battery (or in my case via a small fuse box (see picture below). Once powered on you should have 240v from your leisure battery via the 3 pin sockets on the unit. Time taken 20 minutes..
5. Inverter AC-DC (240v to 12v) Watch this space, still not purchased and installed.
6. Coolbox or Wine Cooler – My van has the original Westfalia Wine Cooler (DOMETIC RC 152) still intact in the van. As with all things electrics I wanted to soak test this item and ascertain its reliability. After all, would you trust a 40 year old fridge in your kitchen? Probably not! One thing to note with this unit, you cannot find any replacement parts, or for that matter a replacement fridge (well not the exact one). I did hunt around for a new version that would fit and just came to a complete dead end – happy to be informed otherwise by anyone out there! The unit in my van is wired up via a 110v AC to 12v DC inverter. The van was probably an import from the USA (need to research???) and still has all of the USA electrics in it. I started by ripping this out – no point keeping 110v inverter kit in the UK – pointless!!! Once I had done this I connected my fridge up via the Westfalia distribution panel to my 12V leisure battery directly. On my panel this is connected via a switch and a 25 Amp fuse (which gave me some reassurance that once I began the test it would stop the bus from burning down if we had an electrical fault!). Once connected you should hear a faint but reassuring hum to let you know the fridge has come to life. Do not expect the loud noise that you get from your fridge at home, there is no compressor, the unit works by circulating ammonia. Once I connected power, the fridge kicked into life, but only after I put the thermostat on max. Came back 4 hours later and fuse blown, fridge not cold! After some further research (there is hardly anything out there on the WWW) I discovered that the fridge is extremely prone to overheating if not tested on level ground (imagine a glass of water on a slope, now apply that principle to ammonia in a network of pipes at the back of your fridge!). My van is currently on very high rear axle stands due the engine overhaul. This caused the ammonia within it to overheat and almost certainly induced a huge current draw which caused the fuse to blow. Once I realised the cause I decided to remove the fridge and connect directly to 12v DC power supply and test on level ground out of the van (note: no in line fuses so keep a constant watch here). The power supply that I have, has an ammeter on the front, as soon as you turn up the thermostat you can immediately see the fridge draw current, if you have the same fridge this should be in the region of 4.5-5.5 Amps (very high see notes below on the implication of this). You will notice that this drops to zero when the fridge reaches the desired temperature. After just 3 hours my unit had cooled down a bottle of beer (yea!). I ran several tests on the thermostat which is working fully (again keep an eye on the ammeter and you will know if it is working or not). I then kept the fridge connected for 3 days to make sure that it was up to the task and all has worked perfectly. The photo below shows how I connected, note which cable is positive and which is negative. Apart from that simples!!!! NOTE: As mentioned above the fridge draws 4.5 amps when on. If connected to standard car battery you can do a little math and you will realise that a battery is not going to keep this unit going for long. Here is how to work it out:

Voltage =12V Amps = 4.5 So, Power = VxI = 54 Watts

A battery is rated by Ampere Hours to ascertain run time you use the following formula:

Run Time = (10xAh of Battery)/Watt of Appliance so for a 100Ah battery

(100×10)/54 = 18.5 hours

IT DOES NOT TAKE A GENIUS TO WORK OUT THAT YOU ARE NOT RUNNING THIS FRIDGE FOR A WEEKEND ON YOUR LEISURE BATTERY ALONE (NOTE: FRIDGE DOES NOT DRAW POWER CONTINUOUSLY SO ALLOW MORE THAN 18 HOURS) – THEY ARE NOT CALLED BATTERY KILLERS FOR NOTHING!!!

1. Lighting – Watch this space, still not purchased..

Reverse Camera.

Tap.