Yes, photos please. I'm thinking something similar..

 

I will get on with the camera, trouble is the puter is having a bit of a tantrum about reading SD cards atm.

When it comes to buying Ex Police vehicles they are usually cast at about 10 years, obviously they are fully serviced, though some may not need an MOT whilst in service. There are various roles and the kind of goosing they get will arise from that. Many will have aircon and secondary heating as standard, split charge systems, lights in the back etc etc which can save a lot of work. Ventilation can sometimes be an issue, windows often don't open and vehicles rely on electrical fans to change the air.

Generally, they are cast at various auction houses around the country, from where they often find their way to specialist dealers. The dealers will have them prepped so minor glitches will be sorted, MOT's done and other stuff sorted out.

There will be a big difference between hammer price and forecourt price but that can reflect the work the dealers do, or how greedy they are, decide that for yourself.

I went yet another route and bought private from someone who had bought the van at auction started work on it and lost interest. So all the seats were there, the racking in the back, creating a large storage area at the back. I took my life in my hands and bought it unseen off the bay of evil, I arranged my own recovery so no money moved from bank to bank till my driver had the vehicle on the recovery, and had verified that things were as they seemed.

This did turn out to be a bit of a gamble. I was almost caught out, I knew it was a 135, just like my T4 was after it's remap but when I took it out for the first time and gave it a little right foot it was a case of "whooooooaaaah here we go" it was quite wildly quick. It was very easy to light the rear end up. This was like my T4 with a nitrous kit!! Suspect someone had been inside the ECU having a little meddle, open the bonnet and there were the tell tale signs, ECU covers off - warning sign. Not put them back properly - bad mechanic alert!!!

Stuck a Lufi monitor on there, the over boost was beeping like car horns in an italian traffic jam.

The digital tachograph had been removed and the 65 MPH speed limiter was not there any more. The former is (I am told) quite a technical operation involving pulling the dash apart, the speedo and rev counter are a bit floaty sometimes agreeing with the LUFI and Garmin about revs and speed, but not often.

Luckily SRS tuning are a company very close by and were able to unlock the ECU, which the previous meddler had locked, to see what was going on. Turned out the ad blue, EGR and DPF had all been turned off, the engine settings themselves had been seriously meddled with in ways that sounded very errr technical. He tweaked the system to take the savage delivery out of it and calm things down, the only effect I have noticed so far is that it's much smoother, quieter and the LUFI is less noisy. I can't say the torque and power have dropped so as you would notice but the fuel consumption is significantly better. Just spent early Easter in Brittany and got 36 MPG overall, thats pretty acceptable.

Tomorrow, I will endevour to start the photo trail, how the hell I will load them on here I don't know but, I'm sure I can get there somehow.

Rhys

 

So it begins, the vehicle as i bought it. looks pretty good from that angle.

 

Welll that really worked.... Where did the photo go?

 

That one's worked ... Looks like a good project base van.

 

Hi Rhys. I'm really enjoying your ( very well and humorously written ) Crafter story so far and looking forward to more pics soon!

 

To pick up the story.

Being ex Police, the roof had been a hole drilling practice area what with the carnival lights, riot shields, aerials for various radio nets and a ventilation fan, someone had been pretty busy up there.

When it was punted on, that stuff was all removed and the holes all professionally sealed by someone with a big roll of insulation tape. I need to get up there and do the job properly. There is a serious leak somewhere above the windscreen.

The roof fan has to go, first of all, it does not work and, in certain wind conditions, water blows in through it. Running water is great, but not when it comes in through the roof when you are sleeping. I will probably recut the hole to take a caravan style roof vent.

I used one of the existing holes to bring the cabling for the 200W of solar down through the roof. The hole was pretty comprehensively bogged up from the tube of tiger seal I used to stick the solar panels to the roof, we will come back to the solar later.

This is, not a very good view of the collander, errr roof.

 

Keep the updates coming 👍 - always interesting to see how people tackle converting their vans. Sounds like you've had your hands full with this one!

 

Interesting as ever! Keep em coming..

My ex-AA T5.1 had a few holes in the roof from the old light bar as well as 3 x aerials, tracker, GPS whatnots still fitted.

When I had my pop top fitted the rear lightbar holes disappeared with the big rectangle of metal that was cut out but the three holes from the gizmos were an issue so I used ( or rather gave to Simon at Vamoose to fit..) 3 x plastic tap hole stoppers from the plumbers merchants.

I had sprayed them up in AA yellow and then lacquer beforehand. The thread can be trimmed down if need be. Worked an absolute treat.

Barely visible and well sealed underneath are totally waterproof. I'm probably not the first to do this but it's a neat solution.

Got mine from the local plumbing outlet for a few quid but basically this:

Tap Hole Stopper White | Victorian Plumbing UK

SHOP the Tap Hole Stopper White at Victorian Plumbing UK

www.victorianplumbing.co.uk

 

So next we come on to the back,

The original layout can be seen in an ad on the bay of evil:

2009 58 VOLKSWAGEN CRAFTER 25 TDI CR50 MEDIUM ROOF MWB VAN 1 OWNER EX POLICE | eBay

Interesting as ever! Keep em coming..

My ex-AA T5.1 had a few holes in the roof from the old light bar as well as 3 x aerials, tracker, GPS whatnots still fitted.

When I had my pop top fitted the rear lightbar holes disappeared with the big rectangle of metal that was cut out but the three holes from the gizmos were an issue so I used ( or rather gave to Simon at Vamoose to fit..) 3 x plastic tap hole stoppers from the plumbers merchants.

I had sprayed them up in AA yellow and then lacquer beforehand. The thread can be trimmed down if need be. Worked an absolute treat.

Barely visible and well sealed underneath are totally waterproof. I'm probably not the first to do this but it's a neat solution.

Got mine from the local plumbing outlet for a few quid but basically this:

Tap Hole Stopper White | Victorian Plumbing UK

SHOP the Tap Hole Stopper White at Victorian Plumbing UK

www.victorianplumbing.co.uk

Thats a really great idea.

I have put my own take on this though, I am very commited to green solutions, oh and also I spend a fair bit of time in Britanny. You may not know this but, in France an awfull lot of wine bottles still come with corks in them at least the better quality wines that cost more than 3 euros.

As someone who is deeply commited to recycling I am going to be up there on that roof with a bucket load of corks and a mallet. They are self sealing, they expand when wet! Sadly they will decay with time and I will need to open more bottles of wine to get some more corks.

It will be a tough job, but someone has to do it.

Rhys

 

That wasn't supposed to happen,

I was writing about the rear layout as it has sort of evolved. It's been one step forwards and two steps back, I am working a festival end of the month, Things need to be moving on.

Will catch up some more soon.

Rhys

 

Between work and everything else it's been a bit full on. Out of bed at 0700 Saturday to hit the road by 0730 and be on Barry Island in time to start work at 10.30, with the need for a pit stop enroute. I was well pleased to be on site and ready to rumble by 10.15. 12 hours of festival security work, lots of drunk people, some of them wearing Transporter t shirts, maybe some of you were there, dear readers...

22.30 wave a sad goodbye to the last vehicle off site just as the local peace heads on the beach were getting into full on party mode. Not a place to hang round wearing the security suit - time to go home. A leisurly trip home and fall into bed.

But anyway on with the build tale.

Management rather wanted a double bed in the back, this would not normally be a problem in my head: chuck a double mattress in there on the floor when we went camping - jobs a good un!! So we hit the first point of conflict, she wanted a proper bed, I wanted the possibility of using the rear for carrying cargo. Much measuring and moving of seats went on, as I said the seats are all on unwin tracking so moving them round is just a matter of slackening off the bolts and beating the frames with a lump hammer to move them back and fore.

A little aside here, I live on a smallholding, and the log burner does rather a lot of the heating. I also have a big burning pit, one of my mates has a business which generates quite a lot of wood waste, some of it is OK for firewood, some of it goes in the burning hole and a fair bit goes in my "usefull stuff" pile. He would have to pay quite a lot to dispose of this, so he bring it up here for me to have a rummage through instead.

I came up with this design, based on two sheets of ply, hinged against frames secured into the Kevlar panels supported by a bigger frame in the middle.

 

Another view showing the luxury rear step. In case it's not clear, the centre frame comes out and both plywood sheets can be held up against the walls creating a large cargo area which can be further increased by unbolting the seats and taking them out of the truck.

 

A new mattress purchased to go on top of the frame, so that was a job well done. The mattress is not quite a full width fit so there is ample room either side of the bed to have the wine bottle and glasses. Of course, you could always leave the wine bottle in the Aldi fridge, which is the right size to fit between the row of seats. It's almost like it was designed like that.

This would be all very well if it was just us, but we have two toddlers to plan for, things unravelled a bit here.

I set too, raided the woodpile and designed a bed which was, within the available dimensions, very robust, and removable. When the management saw it, she was, frankly, slightly, less than enthusiastic. Downright caustic in fact.

A full and frank exchange of views took place, now, the counsellor said you should allways be open and honest, so I was.

I suggested, that since she had so many better ideas than me, all the time. Everything I did was pretty ****, she should take the lead and show me how to make things. No time like the present, do it now.

That was after all a genuine plea for help but it just seemed to escalate things, and lots.

Out went my rattle from the pram, and armed with measurements off I went to the bay of evil. Found a company alled Camlit, phoned them up, and soon a unit was on it's way. Roger at Camlit was extraordinarily helpfull and they have a huge range of furniture. Spending money is my least favourite way of dealing wth a problem, but in this case, it was money well spent.

Soon two big boxes of mdf arrived with two full boxes of screws loads of brackets and suprisingly easy to follow instructions!! It took up a whole day to assemble the beast of a bed which, fortunately came in two halves as I would never have lifted the whole unit on it's own.

Goodness me is it ever solid, if ever things go wrong, and we are facing nuclear war, thats going to be our core shelter in the living room. Never mind diving under the stairs, hide under the camper bed....

The mattress was recycled from my old caravan, sadly deceased, yes it looks very 80's but I know it's really comfortable to sleep on.

The Eagle eyed reader might have spotted a mess of wiring on the floor as if someone had been cutting out quite a bit of it. The saga of the sparks will be revealed in my next missage.

Rhys

 

One of the delights of an ex service vehicle is the rather large hole in the dash where the myriad electrical controls would have lived. Plus of course the missing stereo. Lets be fair, a hi fi is pretty much essential so quite early in the ownership I bought a mid range hi fi and popped it into the Din 1 sized hole.

This is not the days when I cut my teeth on cars so this is a simple plug and play job, well, or is it? Plugged the unit in and it worked fine, till you turned the ignition on. Then it switched itself off and stayed off till you unplugged the lead from the back of the unit, left it a minute and plugged it back in. Everyone knew the solution, on VW you quite often have to switch the permanent and switched live round, then all is well. Unless it isn't, now it would not run at all. Maybe the unit was faulty, take it back to the shop and the unit ran perfectly. Try a spare Stereo in the slot, that was the same too.

Lots of swearing and scratching of head later, I ran two leads off the solar charge controller to the back of the dash, took the power from there, added a switch off a Green Goddess fire engine which does not need a relay, to create a switched live. A positive overall as I can leave the radio on 24/7 without worrying that I will be left needing a jump start. It won't even flatten she service battery as the MPPT switches everything off at 11.5V.

But I checked the wiring over and nothing seems to have been messed with, I was just connecting into original VW wiring for a stereo, a real mystery, the colours of the wires all matched the standard for car wiring. There are a few redundant plugs back there that I found when I had the front of the dash off, in fact there are wires everywhere that have either been cut or disconnected!!

Rhys

 

The joy of ex-service vehicles ....i'd have to trace all the cut wires back and strip out anything thats unused .
They shouldnt have messed with the radio wiring you wouldnt have thought though

 

The joy of ex-service vehicles ....i'd have to trace all the cut wires back and strip out anything thats unused .
They shouldnt have messed with the radio wiring you wouldnt have thought though

They can be a little complex..... There is a whole mass of wire under the passenger seat where something has been removed. Thing is you can never really know just how messed with the loom has been and those people tasked with de commisioning the truck will have gone down the quickest route. They could well have just unplugged the units leaving their live feeds in exactly that state. So to strip it all out would take forever and doing the job would only be "safe" if you disconected the battery and that would be inviting an absolute ECU tantrum trying to get it to run again!!

Rhys

 

Yep ....i.used to build this kind of vehicle 😬. AA vans ,BT trucks, ambulances,blood service trucks and police 4x4's used to be on our lines .

 

 

Not sure how, but the previous owner got it through the MOT with main beam not working. Somewhere down the line, the loom has been hacked into so they can have flashing headlights when they are on a shout.

This is all very well, but how to work out how to bridge the gap when the loom was hacked into, is a really interesting challenge!!

Rhys

 

Not sure how, but the previous owner got it through the MOT with main beam not working. Somewhere down the line, the loom has been hacked into so they can have flashing headlights when they are on a shout.

This is all very well, but how to work out how to bridge the gap when the loom was hacked into, is a really interesting challenge!!

Rhys

Biter and twisted suggested cutting out all the non essential wiring, something I could see ending up with a buggered ecu when I connected two of the wrong wires together.

This went on for too long, but we got there in the end, biting the bullet I got my local auto leccy involved, suggesting he try and patch the loom, not how he went about it. He basically removed a mile of excess wiring and put it all back to standard, only charged me two hours labour too.

Should have done that in the first place!!!

Rhys

 

Some times it's just easier (and less stressful!) to pay a professional to do those kind of jobs 😁

 

Oh yes, it was done in a couple of hours, I had been flailing round behind the cash looking for elusive wires and connectors.
Rhys

 

I spent a short while building ambulances, police 4x4's ,AA vans etc and i know just how much 'stuff' is put into these .
Then when theyre decommissioned people will chop plugs off cause its quick and easy but leave the rats nest of wiring behind .
Sounds like your man has been able to identify the bits to keep and junked the rest 👍 .

 

So anyway, a deal of time has passed and we now hve a few years experience with the beast.

It works quite well at a lot of levels, but really the roof needs a bit of decent sorting. I've resorted to sealing the small holes on the roof with Tiger Seal and topping that with tiger seal.

The double mattress in the back was just a PITA, not terribly comfortable to sleep on and a real buisence when stuff needed to go in the back. The whole double bed bench has also prooved problematic, the floor is high enough on the RWD crafter without putting something in there thats another 12 inches off the deck. I've retrofitted body door handles as fitted to the vans put a step on the tow bar and chuck the spare wheel out there as a step when we are camping, but it's still not ideal.

I think the turning point came at a festival, when, after a long shift, I was in the van "relaxing" and ended up falling out of the back door while I was just opening the door "to let some air in", or maybe it was "to let some fluid out". Kind collegues from the security team rushed over to offer supportive howls of derrision and quickly called the paramedics who needed a laugh too.

There is going to be some design revision there.

Also on the "to sort out" list are all the electrical things in the rear. When the original solar went on, the regulator was placed at a height that would be good for the low bench I envisigised at the front of the body, which of course management binned and we ended up putting in something much higher which now obstructs access to the MPPT box and the controls for the ****** Diesel Heater which, incidentally runs much better on kerrosine than diesel.

I think getting in there and sorting it all out is the next job.

R

 

Thanks for the update Rhys, always welcome ( and humorous as ever )

If I may still suggest the tap hole stoppers for the holes in your roof issues?

Mine have been on for 2.5 years now, spot on. Never leaked. Couple of quid each well spent.

 

Mint idea btw

 

I think, in retrospect, with all my silly suggestions aside, that might be the way to go. I have used Tiger seal with Butyl tape over the top, which seems to work very well, but thats a cheaper suggestion requiring my level of technical skill, one plug, one mallet....

Rhys

 

it's high time I updated this thread....

One of my ongoing issues with the truck has been the gearing, don't get me wrong it's fine for round here on tiny little lanes and B roads. There are however other sorts of roads with letters starting with A and godness grascious even an M where yyou might need to make some progress.

Remember this is a 5 ton chassis which originally had a tacho and speed limiter, so 2500 revs at about 60
would probably be acceptable. With those two items gone things unravel a little, tolerates 70 at about 2900 but should you ventur any further, like 80 for example the whole thing feels like some thing is going to get out and walk.

So the hunt was on for a higher ratio rear diff. After a lot of hunting I sourced a 4.1 : 1 ratio to1 replace the original 4.7: 1 a modest up grade. This went in quite easily, well if moving bits of metal at that weight is ever easy.

Sadly, aquiring the new axle coindicded with a rather less pleasant event, the main box decided to get out and walk. weThings had been looking dear, we were now in cancel Xmas territory. An interweb search for a new cogbox was launched. Now, there was a major change in gearboxes in 2009 with, apprently all models being given a higher final drive ratio. In fact the gearbox is quite top loaded with 5th and 6th being overdriven. It was also clear from the workshop manual that 2.0 cogboxes were a different beast to that of the 2.5 which is logical

Put a request into a part finder website of two and back came the quotes.

bought one from a breaker which would definately fit a 2010 - arrived the box and it was nothing like the one that had just come off the truck.

Phone the dealer and say it's the wrong part, "must be the other one" says he, to be fair he was a very helpful chap who checked with his VW fitter who said there are only two on the 2010 model year

So off we go to the races. The replacement turned up, first observation the part number was not the same. It was OK says my man, his fitter told him this part would fit with a bit of jiggling.

To be fair, this new box this box looked a lot more like the old one, at least this one had the same gear linkage as the one that came off.

Get it up in the air and offer it up, the primary shaft slotted right in - result. This would work so long as you didn't need to bolt the box to the engine and the starter wasn't going to fit and you would never get the rear box mount to fit and iven if you did the prop would not go on.

Why on earth would VW fit multiple gearboxes for the same vehicle with the same engine in the same MY? The guy in the breakers yard has been mega helpful and seems as ****** off and bewildered as me that the thing does not fit. He swears blind that both boxes came off a 2010 2.5.

I have resprted to being logical, I know, should have done that in the first place, got the part number off the cog box and started searching by part number. Glory be!!! I have found a match on the bay of evil, the exact same number - it's there on the photo. The vendor has listed the application too, this is a gearbox for a 2015 2.0 L crafter, thats OK then....

Sprinters basically have 2 gearboxes, but VW seem to have dozens of variants.


Rhys

 

So have you now got one that fits ?

 

The guy who har sent me two units (both of which are still here) and I had a "robust conversation" pver the weekend.

To be fair to him, he was doing his best but he had a mate who was a Crafterologist who had been telling him which boxes to send.

He assured me this morning he had identified the correct box, from the part number I supplied a while back and told his custodian of the crafters to get one that had that same part number on it, which he has done and the courier is picking it up.

Watch this space....

Rhys

 

Another reason I bought a sprinter anywhere worldwide you can find mercedes parts (hope karma stays on my side now!)

 

I can sort of relate to this, the interfaces between VW side electronics and Merc are really complex, not it turns out there are more permutations of gearbox than tickets for the national lottery.
But, in the 2010 model year you get the option of the 2.5 5 cylinder, that alone makes it worth the choice.
My other car is an XC90, which alse has a VW 5 cyl under the bonnet.
Not that I live that engine of course.

Rhys

 

On he plus side, I hav a cogbox here he sent me, which he said the second courier was going to collect when he delivered the next box, but would not take it away, so i have another carrier with another cog box on his way.

I could end up with two gearboxes here, to sell, that in effect cost me not a lot.

Xmas might be back on.

Rhys