Date: Mon, 31 Jul 1995 13:47:22 -0700
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From: coyote@zuni.chaco.com (Ron Lussier)
Subject: My first bus modification...
Well, I took the plunge last weekend and drilled holes in my bus. It came
out wonderfully.
My boyfriend and I tend to read in bed when camping, and because he's a tall
drink of water, we read with our heads to the hatch (his feet stick out.)
Unfortunately, Volkswagon didn't see fit to install any light sources back
there. I decided that this was one of the first things I was going to fix.
I bought an OSRAM Copilot K30, a 10" gooseneck halogen lamp, from P.U.M.A.
(doesn't this sound like a James Bondian nemesis?) The lamp base is meant
to be attached to a vertical surface, with the wires going through the surface.
I futzed around my van one afternoon, and decided that the perfect place for
this lamp was on the back of the rear closet. There is ample room back
there between the glass and the closet, and the lamp would be hidden from
view except from the rear.
I went over to the local Orchard Supply Hardware, and got the necessary wire
(white, 16 gauge.) I came back and soldiered the wire to the wires coming
out of the lamp. I'd never soldiered before, but I wanted to do this right.
Then I put shrink tubing over the soldiers and sealed them.
I cut out the drilling template that came with the lamp, and taped it
carefully to where I wanted to install. I then put the lamp there, wiggled
it around, scotch-taped it in place, and closed the door. Cool, it looked nice.
Now the really scary part. I ran an extension cord out, plugged in the
drill, and went at it. Two thin shallow holes for the screws, and one large
hole in the middle for the wires. The holes chipped the surface a little on
the inside, but you wouldn't see it unless you were looking for it.
I then unscrewed the mid-van light fixture, and was bummed to find out it
only had 1" of play. It would be next-to-impossible to hook into that lead.
Fortunately, someone (VW?) had already run a lead out from the light fixture
to a carbon monoxide detector. It was possible to hook into that lead, and
I did, using a neato parasitic connector that came with the lamp. I had
already planned to ground the new lamp to a screw holding on the 'oh god'
strap near the existing lamp.
Okay, things were looking good. The lamp was screwed in, and the wires were
all over the rear closet. I straightened them out, and ran them under the
middle shelf of the rear closet, then across the back of the closet between
the closet and the curtain.
At this point I realized that my 6' of wire was about 1' short. Damn.
Disassemble. Cut off wire just above the soldiers. Run out to Orchard, and
buy 2 10' lengths. Re-soldier, re-shrink-tube, run wires again. Yay.
Plenty of wire.
Okay, finally, I tried the lamp. It worked, so I began tieing down the
wires. I used screw-in little white tie-downs to run the wire along the
inside of the closet, just under the shelf. The I ran the two wires
together (with a few zip-ties holding them as one) across the back of the
closet to the underneath of the upper shelf. I ran the wire across the
bottom of the shelf, just behind the curtain track, and hooked it into the
live wire and the ground.
Around 10 that night Dan and I went out and tried out the new lamp. It's
great. Two can read by the light, and if one person wants to sleep, the
lamp can be turned to darken half the bunk.
The other great perk of this location is that I have a built-in light for
working on the engine.
Ron
P.S. Is this interesting to anyone?
--
Ron 'Coyote' Lussier /\_/\ ____ Chaco Communications
(408) 865-0657 ( ) \ _/__ 10164 Parkwood Drive #8
coyote@chaco.com \ / \X / Cupertino, CA 95014-1533
(1990 VW Westfalia Camper) \_/ \/ http://www.chaco.com/~coyote