I bought one front one and a floating rotor in an attempt to stop my SRAM rival brakes from howling in the wet. It wasn’t really any quieter, or not noticeably any more power than I had already. So when I wore both sets of pads out that came with it I swapped back to the original.

The rivals have been faultless for 5 years now, don’t really notice the noise in the wet, they just do the job.

<p style=”text-align: left;”>We have had a t5 camper stolen in 2017, then a Citroen relay self converted stolen last year. Neither of them were ever heard of again, I’ve always wondered what happened to them. It felt like they were both targeted as camper vans, so stripping for parts feels less likely, the vehicle parts are worth more than the conversion parts, so why not just take a plain van? Shipping abroad I guess is possible, but then it’s a right hand drive, which is not ideal in most richer Western countries.</p>
They do definitely get parked up to see if there is a tracker fitted, our Citroen was meant to have a factory fitted one, but the company said they don’t support it as it’s too old, it wasn’t even a four year old van. A while after ours went a very similar one turned up on our road over night, then later I saw the owner who luckily had fitted a tracker, and managed to get to it before it got moved on again, had to get it recovered due to the damage, but at least they got it back.

We’ve given up on vans now, got an old caravan, suits us well at the moment

Cheers. The more shares the better, I’m not expecting much. The last van was a t5, that got stolen at just under 4 years old too, never heard anything more about it, always wondered what happens to these vans

I’d just put some Michelin agilis crossclimates on too, waste of money that was! Didn’t even get to test them on anything other than tarmac. At least there was next to no fuel or adblue in there. Loads of camping stuff, wetsuits, duvet etc.

Thank you! What did I do wrong?

Here are a couple of photos, if they work. I don’t really use any social media stuff so I am not part of any groups or anything that I can share to.

I just spoke to trackstar/navman again and this time he said that the tracker fitted had already been installed in a few other vehicles beforehand, so is now 10 years old, and they stopped supporting it in June 2021, so when the van was only just over 3 years old! Surely that can’t be right, or if it is then citroen have really cut a corner.

Hopefully insurance will come through as it’s looking increasingly unlikely that we’ll ever see it again.

Cheers for that, interesting information, if a bit late now! I definitely registered the sat nav when I first got the van, I don’t remember them saying I would have to pay for the tracking after three years, but it was a long time ago now and my memory isn’t the best. The bloke at satman definitely said it was too old to track rather than it couldn’t be tracked because I hadn’t paid the subscription, sounds like he was wrong. I will phone again tomorrow and see if I can talk to someone else

It’s really horrible especially given the price of vehicles these days. If I was to buy the same age and mileage van now it would cost a couple of thousand more than I paid for the van new. And that’s without all the time and money I put into converting it.

I don’t know what to do, our little vw up! barely fits the three of us in, let alone bikes and camping gear.

In case it does pop up anywhere it’s a Citroen relay, reg MA18XKP, located in central Birmingham until last night

If there are 2 2 port valves rather than 1 3 port valve, and you can hear the valve opening for hot water then the micro switch in that valve which tells the boiler to fire up might be broken, so the valve is opening, but not telling the boiler to come on. But when you put the central heating on the valve is open, and the central heating valve is telling the boiler to come on so hot water can flow into the cylinder.

If that makes sense. The valve head can be changed without draining the system normally, depending on the valve

He’s also got a 26 luath in similar condition that needs to go!

Tom

My work colleague has a 24″ isla bike luath that needs selling, it’s in pretty good condition, but pretty old now, it’s one of the original red ones. No idea what it’s worth, but I’m sure it won’t be that much. Midlands based if that helps?

Tom

All done now, 501km all outside. Feel quite pleased with myself, the weather certainly has been against us. Just got to do 46km tomorrow to take my distance for the year to 10,000km.

Well done everyone for at least attempting it, even if it didn’t work out for some.

72km done today in heavy snow with extreme hand pain for the last 20 mins takes me to 399, all outside. 65 yesterday evening was one of the nicest rides I’ve done in a long time, deserted roads, cold but still, such a nice ride, definitely wouldn’t have headed out at 6.30pm on a cold December evening if not for this challenge.

Yesterday morning got cut short due to even the main roads near Wolverhampton getting inches deep in snow in a very short time.

Should easily do it, although judging by the cold out there tonight, tomorrow morning is probably a no no. Got to try and squeeze an extra 40km in somehow to get my annual total up to 10000km

I’ve had similar issues with various brakes over the last few years. Love shimano for feel and power, but random bite point got tedious after a while.

Swapped to magura trail brakes, which are great, but cheap plastic levers and long lever throw wasn’t ideal.

Then reading this got me thinking that I have plenty of shimano xt servowave levers with dodgy calipers, and excellent magura calipers with dodgy levers, so tried the shigura bodge yesterday.

Wow! I have everything I want out of a brake now. Short lever throw with great feel, fantastic power and super easy to bleed. Haven’t tried them properly off road yet, but round the local park they felt spot on.

Fingers crossed for the long term!

I have one. I find the navigation great, can’t compare to any other models, but it works as it should. So long as you mark a Strava route as a favourite it will automatically get added to the garmin once it’s synced. Or you can use the clunky built in Strava app thing which works but is a bit slow.

Feels like a bargain so long as you don’t need the live segments and power meter support. Battery life is ok, I get about 8 or 9 hours off one charge.

We have a neighbour with a garage and dropped curb. They never use the garage, but have recently got a white line painted in front of it so they can park their plugin hybrid there and charge it using a cable across the pavement. Parking is quite tight around our roads, so they have effectively reserved their parking space. Everyone always used to park across the garage before the line and sign. It niggles me a bit, but then I do park our big van and car on the street so can’t complain too much

I found on my rival 1x that there is a very tight turn inside the shifter that the inner cable has to go round. A little bit of grease on the inner wire inside the shifter has turned my ok rival into months of slick shifting.

Was a faff to find, and ended up taking the shifter apart to find what was causing the problem, but glad I did.

I have been meaning to swap my front and rear calipers round to see if that moves the problem to the front, but haven’t had a chance yet. I have also been meaning to try and send the back off for a warranty job, but that would leave me without a brake, which, as bad as the brake is, it’s better than nothing. I could borrow my wife’s back brake (xt working fine) but she might notice.

I did try over filling the system, which was fine for a while, but muddy sandy riding meant it wasn’t long before enough pad had worn down to bring me back to square one again.

What a pain this all is.

I agree that bleeding isn’t the problem. Air in a brake system just doesn’t cause this very specific problem. People are getting them working after a bleed, but it normally involves pushing the pistons to where they should be for the current disc thickness/pad wear and over filling the system, which will work until the pads wear down a tiny bit, then back to square one, the pistons aren’t realigning themselves.

Why it is more common on the back than the front who knows. Maybe because they get hotter which pushes fluid out of the system back into the reservoir, which can’t then get back into the system properly, doesn’t quite seem right because the pads haven’t gone any further back. Or maybe because the pads wear quicker it happens more often so is more obvious?

New pads and thicker rotors are just temporarily hiding the problem imho.

So, rear brake pads wear quicker than front ones, wet rides certainly wear them down a bit. Is Sherwood pines Sandy? This does all point towards the brakes not calibrating themselves for pad wear. Either the pistons aren’t pushing past the point where they slip a bit on the seal, which I think is most likely. Or not enough extra fluid is getting pulled out of the reservoir, less likely as two quick pulls gets them working until the brake lever is released implying fluid is being pulled out of the reservoir, but then forced back in again by retracting pads

And me noticing the pads going back over the course of a few seconds could be explained by this as the seals are pulling the pistons back, but having to force the extra fluid back into the reservoir, which is going to take a bit of time, much like when you push the poisons back in to install new pads, there is always a bit of resistance.

So could it be bad quality control on the main piston seal?

Not sure if my understanding of the way they work is correct, or my descriptions make any sense, but…

I’ve been following this thread because my back brake does exactly this. First pull, straight to the bar, then a quick extra one gets it working spot on until I release for more than a few seconds, then back to the bar again. If I do it off the bike I can see the pads going back for a few seconds after releasing the lever. I really don’t think bleeding or adding extra fluid, or using thicker discs is the solution.

singlespeedstu I think you are right, but it doesn’t explain why most people are having rear brake problems and not front. And if so why is it doing it? Would love to get to the bottom of it, I really do like thread brakes, apart from this. My wife’s are spot on.

I got mine from http://www.mantel.com/uk. Looks like they’ve only got 29er on stock now, I must have been lucky. Delivered within a few days too, and a good price.

I’ll let you know what happens in the middle of nowhere when something goes wrong, but I suspect it won’t be too much harder than putting a tube in a knackered tubeless system.

Keep us informed on how the 19mm rim installation goes patrickbateman.

So after seeing this thread a couple of weeks ago I went ahead and ordered a set. They arrived before last weekend so was keen to get them on ready for my Sunday ride.

They went on easy enough, but air kept leaking out of the spoke holes, and could not get it to stop. Then after a quick Google it turns out my stans arch rims are only 21mm wide! I was sure I had read they were 23mm. So it looked like the valve wasn’t sitting tight down onto the rim tape, I’m guessing with the recommended rims this wouldn’t be a problem. But after some thought and lots of failed attempts I wrapped some plumbers ptfe tape round the valve to beef it up in the hope it would seal against the rim tape. And it worked! I would be amazed and impressed if anyone got them working on 19mm rims.

So I took them out for a quick trial run around the local park, no proper biking there, but plenty of kerbes and steps to ride into, running 15psi or so no rim dings or flats, so all good so far. Then off to cannock on Sunday, maybe not the most technical place, but plenty of loose corners and enough rocks to test super low pressures on a hard trail. And it all felt superb, for the first time I get that lovely soft tyre traction feeling with no puncture worries.

No idea how they will hold up long term, or if I do get a problem can I sort it out on the trail? Who knows, it won’t be easy, but fingers crossed it won’t happen. I’ll definitely be keeping them on and testing them in proper rocky terrain. I’ve been a tubeless convert for a few years now, but still run pretty high pressure to avoid dinging my rims. So this an exciting new world of learning how much soft tyres do actually stick to the dirt

I’ll report back after a few more rides.

Tom

I have done it a couple of times on our tandem, it is a great ride to do on one. You could borrow ours if I don’t find someone to sit on the back with me. I will always try and do this and the beast on the tandem from now on, makes them much more interesting.

I’ll keep an eye on this thread, let us know how you get on.

Tom

My wife’s 575 did the same, drove me mad, stripped everything down and greased. But it didn’t go away, eventually took the rear mech hanger off and greased where it touches the frame, and hey presto silent bike at last.

We have never put a floor thermometer in the screed, it is possible, and might make it more efficient but works fine without.

No extra pipe runs to the manifold is always good. Sounds like you’ve got it sorted!

Tom

Definitely need two runs there. 100m is the longest run, better off sticking to 75m if possible, but 100 should be fine. Is the manifold going to be close to the conservatory, because if not that distance needs factoring into the pipe length? Bring all the pipes out close to each other, the distance between the outlets abd inlets on the manifold is only a couple of inches. I would bring them in out, in out.

16mm is the standard for domestic use. Don’t forget to put a wire in for the thermostat before plastering. And the screed must have fibers mixed into it to stop it cracking

Good luck, if you need any more help just ask, I have fitted a fair few now. And enjoy toasty warm feet!

Diesel rhinos is a firm favorite in the vw t4 world. Can only be bought on line though, but definitely made a difference to our camper. Have a search on the vwt4 forum.

Tom

Our t4 Westy came with it on the left, put there by the guy who imported it, and that’s what he does for a living, so probably knows about these things. Not really thought about it before this though.

I missed the fact that the return loop is behind the stat, so I would agree with flux above, one of the red arrows could be the return from the central heating and the bypass valve is a quick loop from flow to return

I would say that that valve is a bypass valve that should generally be closed until both the hot water and central heating switch off, but the boiler is still on overrun mode (for about 30 seconds to get rid of some heat). Due to both motorised valves bring closed the pressure will build up and open that valve so the water can still circulate till the boiler switches off, which will also switch the pump off. So wind the valve in quite a long way so that it stays closed until both motorised valves are closed, in which case it will allow water to circulate and cool the boiler a bit. Why the pipes with your red arrows split I have no idea, maybe to make a bigger bypass circuit. These pipes will join up with the return pipe to the boiler. So if the valve is too open it is much easier for the water to go that way than through your coil

Hope that makes sense.

I have one of the original grey ones, and it takes the 05 mount.

Cheers Tom

My wife rides flats at all times on solos. But on the tandem she would not ride anything else other than SPDs, she says she'd have been shot over my head a few times if she was riding flats.

We love the tandem off road as much as solos, very different, but just as much fun in the right places.

As an aside we need a new back tyre, what would people suggest?