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some of my Westy modifications A listing, in no particular order, of little modifications I have made to the the living space of my Westy. |
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Installed a pop top skylight. Got a clear plastic skylight from Trevor, The SkyLight Guy, scrounged the seal and lift mechanism from a wrecker and ended up making the hinges myself from some stainless channel (heating, forging, and grinding). The vent made a big difference in the amount of condensation formed on the pop top roof when sleeping on the upper bunk. For the past couple of years I have been using 2 small (size of a box of matches) bike lights as reading lights for the upper bunk - "Planet Bike" brand, single white LED units. They emit a sexy blue-tinged white light, narrow focused beam, that is quite good to read by. They attach to the transverse metal tube of the pop-top lifting mechanism as if it were a bike's handlebars. A great buy at around Can$9.00 each.
Found a few more uses for the strong rare earth magnets I purchased from Lee Valley Tools. Great for holding curtains back, or the front windshield curtain in place, slip one into a box of Kleenex to secure it to the underside the storage trough, glued one to the back of a Planet Bike 3 LED (yellow) bike light - for a positionable source of "battle stations lighting" that is surprisingly useful. Bought a cheap foam mattress pad from Zellers, a double, needed only minor trimming to fit the upper bunk. Wavy, waffle pattern, only about 1.5" thick, but makes the bunk much more comfy. Stores folded up behind the folded upper bunk. Anyone else hate the screeching noise generated by the metal on metal contact of the hinge unit of the upper bunk when the bed is unfolded? I cut a narrow strip of 1.5mm thick telfon and using one of the screws attaching the hinge the van, I installed it on the wear surface of the hinge (both left and right hinges). Now the bunk folds out smoothly and quietly. Took a tip from Phaedra Savage and bought some pile material (heavy weight) to go over the mattress pad. Got (not that I had much choice) some in a chocolate colour that matches the brown trim on the westy cabinets. Luxury! Still using a small (30 A/hr.) gel cell lead acid battery as an aux. Mounted beside the main battery and in front of the right hand side tail light. Relay used to isolate main battery when ignition off, aux then powers everything on van except starter. Works perfectly well for our needs. New no-see-um netting in canvas. We followed Dave Baker's and Tom Hanlon's posted instructions and had no problems installing the new mesh. Glued (fabric cement) no-see-um netting over the existing netting (which has the original VW no-butterfly netting) that is used for the rear hatch. Now have to make a screen for the sliding door. 12V cpu fan on top of the heat sink-like evaporator in the fridge, Helps to "distribute the cold". Same type of fan (but a bit bigger) installed to replace stock fan on cooling fins on the back of the fridge. A 3 lb Halon fire extinguisher (Pyrene model HA3-3) stored in a section of pvc pipe mounted behind driver's seat.
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