Digby's Aimless Adventure

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New Glow Plugs

Like many Delica owners, morning start-ups on cold days could be a nervous experience that came with a number of attempts and huge clouds of grey smoke, so it was time to investigate. After reading the forums the general advice was to take a look at the glow plus as a first step, and if that didn’t work, there might be a more serious issue. So I got hold of some Bosch 5.0mm glow plus (Bosch part: F005X12917) which took no more than 10 minutes to install, including giving the Bus Bar a good clean, and the Delica fired up immediately and with much less smoke. I can report that the glow plugs have been in Digby for a while and it still starts up first time every time. I strongly recommend that any Delica owner that is struggling with cold starts change the glow plugs immediately…. Note: I have had the new Glow Plugs installed for over a year now and the Delica is still starting strongly on the first attempt, and almost no smoke at all.

A Long Time Coming.....

Well, this blog post has been a long time in the making, but I’ve got a good excuse lined up. I had a knee replacement operation in the middle of last year which kind of took me out of doing any build work for about 6 months and even though that shouldn’t have stopped me writing, it did cut down on the content I had to write about. So even though there has been a gap of over one year, I have done some work on Digby during this time and I am now gonna try and catch up this blog and bring it back to almost up to date…. So here is a list of the posts you should expect to see coming up: - New Glow Plugs Roof Bars Roof Pipe Carrier Adding an Awning Centre Console Build Rear Window Repair Summer Camping Trip Rear Drawer Build Electrical Wiring

“Second Fix” and finishing the Interior

It’s been a while since my last blog post so I thought I would update you on where we are up to in terms of the fit-out of our beloved Delica; Digby I’m calling this phase the “Second Fix” not because it’s the next step in the build process, but a lot of what I have been doing recently is redoing stuff a second time…! After building the rear wardrobe unit I realised that I had positioned the bottom openings far too low to allow for the 15cm mattress we were planning on, and that the openings were a bit larger than we needed so I re-designed and re-built the front of the wardrobe to fit the new plan I had also built the carcass of the right-hand side unit as part of the “First-Fix” but again realised that it was both too long and would be difficult to access, so I completely re-designed the unit with an integrated wine rack, (yeah, I did that..!), some open storage space, and closed-in storage on top with a lockable side opening for access. Whilst this was a much better use of space, or

"First-Fix" Starting the Interior Build

Now that we have the Captain’s Chair mod in and working as expected, the time has come to start the interior build process. The good news is that I am not in any hurry to get the interior of Digby sorted, which is useful as I am also working full time and can only get stuff done when I am free at the weekends, but ideally, I am aiming at getting the ‘first-fix’ done by March next year. By ‘First-fix’ I mean removing all the seats and carpeting from the rear of Digby, building and insulating a subfloor, framing out a side unit, framing the bed structure, installing the drawer system, and if possible, creating a foldable rear seating assembly that will convert to increase the length of the bed area. Along with having absolutely no mechanical skills, I also have no woodworking skills either and the last time I touched a saw or a woodwork bench was roughly 40 years ago, yet I am just about to cut and fabricate an intricate camper interior…. This should be interesting…. Anyway, no turning b

Captain’s Chair Mod

I have spent about 9 months looking through various Delica forums and websites to find some information and guidance on how to move one of my middle-row Captain’s Chairs forward to the front passenger side location in Digby. This is a pretty popular mod for your Delica if you can have a Captain’s Chair or can buy one cheap, and I have found a good resource for this mod, ( here ), that show how the mod can be done with a degree of involvement and complexity. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how much research you do in advance, something you didn’t expect comes along to throw you off…… When I removed the front passenger seat and lifted the carpet it became apparent pretty quickly that my simple idea of just lining up the rails and drilling some holes was not going to be as simple as I had hoped. Firstly, the bolt holes for the rear mounting on the front passenger seat were significantly wider than either the seat holes at the front of the passenger’s seat or the width of the Captain’s Chair

Side Project Wrap up

Over the past few weeks, I have been carrying out a few minor side projects while I awaiting the necessary funding to start the camper build proper. These “mini”side-projects are things that I can get done with little fuss & bother, and don’t cost too much to undertake, that will hopefully improve the general look & feel of Digby in an attempt to bring him back to near his former glory. The Grab-Handle – When we first purchased Digby on of the more obvious signs of wear and tear was the fact that the passenger side dash-mounted grab handle was missing, leaving two ugly holes in the dash and the unmistakeable indentations of the former handle. I pondered the fact of how this item could have been lost or removed by a previous owner…? I suppose excessive force of over-use could have pulled it away from its moorings, or the M6 nuts holding it from behind the dash could have come loose, but who knows for sure…? Surely it could not be too much bother to re-mount it…? I contacted