Projectamber

08. Boar Patrol

Hey folks, excuse the delay, we had a mad weekend catching up and the heat is causing some issues, but I'll go into detail on that in a later video.
This week Lance visits the vets & becomes Portuguese, Emma sets off on her first solo outing,  and I tinker around the land, stumble across a boar, welcome some guests and fill in a hole.

Next week we return to the UK and from there I will have finally caught back up to a sensible timeline! No more 2 months behind! 🤘
I wi...

Bloopers & Outtakes 3

Hey all,
Happy Wednesday! As this posts we are currently out in the middle of the ocean returning home to Portugal, finally!
It over run a bit, and although It's been nice seeing family and friends whilst back on the whole my feelings about England were compounded on this visit 😆 It's been testing.
But that's a story for another day, I will have to share some of it with you soon.

here is a little mid week vid for you, or blooper reel if you like spanning quite a while back ...

07. The Wild Critters of Escanevada

This week we get close up and personal with many of the wildlife creatures we share the land with, some a little too close for comfort...

06. Terrace up, Awning Down.

With my Brother still with us, we make a start on a few jobs around the land.

Mostly around the rear area of the trailer, creating a mini-terrace workspace.
As we begin building up the walls and raising the level of the ground though, the wind picks up with destructive results.

New shoes!

Whilst back in the UK I got onto sorting out why the van’s RPMs were too high and burning through fuel.

There were a number of options but all expensive. 😑

I decided to go with the less mechanical & journey stopping option of digging out the old 16” wheels from “the other Sprinter”, having them sand blasted & powdercoated then slapping some michellin Agilis Cross Climate tyres on (same tyres as before as I think there are the muts nuts) I did want all terrains b...

05. Well well well, a Guest!

My younger brother Jordan pops in for a while as he makes his own journey through Europe for the first time.
We play with a myriad of new toys & make a start on clearing the old well.
The plan was to drain it completely and clean, but it's a little deeper than we first thought.

The wedding and other UK stuff 🇬🇧

Hello you lovely lot, how we doing?

Just a quick photo update for you whilst we’re busy getting some bits done here in the UK.

The wedding was Saturday just gone and was well worth the trip, Emma got to see a load of her old work colleagues and I got to meet all of them and put faces to many stories I’ve been told, I was welcomed to the clan and many drinks were had! plus we got to dress/suit up which is a rarity these days!

With that behind us it’s now time to get so...

04. Wind Power! 💨

I was generously given an old wind turbine oh over a year ago now which has sat patiently in pieces in the trailer until we could make it back to the land and bring it back to life.

I did make a brief start on it when i first picked it up, but soon got pulled back onto the trailer project itself and other stuff, but now that we are back it’s time to put it all together , tart it up and see what happens.

Enjoy! And keep your eye out for another post this evening regard...

03. Rain’s back.

Getting the land back under control is an ongoing mission but we make headway, until an awesome storm confines us to the deck once again.

We try out the wet tracks with the vans to see how they fair up now, mine with all the bee mechanicals and Emma’s first climb, and the offroading continues as we meet up with Martin (Houseless not Homeless) who introduces us to some friends.

02. The slower pace of life

Hello all!

Things on the land have begun to settle and sink in that we'd actually made it and could chill out.
That chill lasted a month, not gunna lie to you, we vegged hard.
A couple of things got done and project started, but because we wanted too.
After the fast pace of, well most of 2022 so far, it was indescribable to have the option to slow the hell down.
The first section of this video is designed to reflect that and, if you've had a particularly rough day/time, hop...

01. Day One.

Before we could sit back and switch off after the big trip over, first we had to get the trailer into its place.

That was not an easy task but we vaguely managed it and began to let it sink in that we had made it back.

We "perfected" the trailer the next day and had a look around the land that we'd left.

Sorry this is late into the evening, the signal dropped out as I pushed send at 7:00 so the page has just sat here until when I came back in just now �...

Trailer burrowed in!

Hey all! I hope your well,

Im just working on the next video where we are attemting to locate the trailer the night we arrived. 😱

Below is a screen grab from that night with a before and after shot of the tool shed, I stumbled across the orininal photo the other week and it’s crazy how it was just almost lost to the woods.

The night we got to the land we were exhausted but the trailer kinda had to be in place to help us get settled properly, otherwise it was ...

Escanevada photo dump

Now that the video of our return is out I can start to share some photos of whats been going on over the past 3 weeks, some of which will give you some clues on whats to come. 😉

We’ve been busy but none of it has felt like work, just a nice slow pace, plenty of graft mixed with plenty of breaks, sangria, um-bongo & bimbo sandwiches. 😆

it’s just great to be back and living simple again. We’re 10x more prepared this time with many new toys/equipment so tha...

Returning to the land- Roadtrip to Portugal: Part 2

Hey folks!

Part 2 is up for your viewing pleasure now.
We disembark in Santander and face an "interesting" experience in the port, before making our way 600 miles south through the dead of night to Portugal.

Hope you enjoy.

We're finally returning to our Off-grid Land in Portugal!

It's been 1 year and 3 months since we had to leave our land in Portugal. (not that we've been counting or anything)

 With a Covid restrictions & Brexit cocktail of ever changing rules we had no choice but to drop everything and return the the UK where we got stuck waiting to hear on our residency. Well now we can finally return! the van is running again, Emma is ready, the trailer is ready, all we have to do is lug everything over there in yet another huge road trip!... Althou...

Will it Run? Vintage Citroen HY van off the road for 40 years.

So after 4 months of farting around with vehicle internals you’d have thought I’d be done with all that, but no!

Geoff had asked me right at the start of us moving into the unit if at some point we could have a play with his lovely little Citroen HY72 that he’d started restoring 8 years ago but gave up on.

It was all there, sort of, well not really, it doesn’t even have a fuel tank on it, but we were going to see if we could get the engine running again. Seeing ...

First venture out since transplant: South Central Self Build Get Together.

Hey all!

We've made it! and that's all I'll say on that front as I still have some videos back in the UK to get through, but we made it without any major hassle and life is once again good, just a lot of work ahead, this place is wild!

So in this video I start weeding out the small issues with the van before taking it on it's first real big journey down south to the South Central / Pateon meet.

It was a cracking weekend and I got to meet a good few of y...

Behind the scenes - Finale

Hey all,

Thanks for bearing with me whilst we are getting sorted in prep too leave the UK.
It's been a mad few weeks and as always we've been kept busy right up to the last few days, but we're almost set... I think.

Anyway here's a little slightly different video to the usual during the downtime, the night Jon and I recorded the ending the last Amber 2.0 finale.

Big Problems, Do I Give Up? Amber 2.0 Finale

Hey you lovely lot and hello to you few newcomers that have recently signed up.

Sorry I've been quiet this week, since the gathering last weekend it's been even more crazy here than usual.

But, we have some great news!

Firstly, thank you to all the folks that came to the South Central meet, it was amazing to meet you all and get to put faces to names.

We broke a record for the most people in my van at one time, hitting 12 all crammed in here!

Unfortuna...

Re-solidified: Amber 2.0 - Ep.9

We're getting there folks!
This has to be the closest to real time I've been for about 2 years!
Ady returns to tackle the titanic-like chassis on Amber, I'm able to get the cooling system fitted so can start running engine tests and fault finding there, and the van is beginning to look like a van once again!

Until it goes wrong, as per usual!

Enjoy

MUCH WELD! - Amber 2.0: Ep.8

Hey folks!

Sorry I've gone a little quiet again lately, it's been another mad few weeks but all the work has paid off! Amber passed her MOT last week! (That's a UK yearly safety inspection for any non-UK folk on here).
So I'm now onto the niggles and small issues that have shown their faces on the test drives but all in all she drives like a dream!
My brain however has some way to go to de-mushify, and i'm forgetting absolutely everything! lol
Anyway before I rant too much abo...

Ironing out the faults - Amber 2.0: Ep.7

Now that the van is running again, the real fun begins. It's time to address the many niggles that have or will show their face now the van is being built back up. We hit the electrical issues, sort out the power steering, move the gearbox cross member and send the prop away to get lengthened, amongst many other jobs.

Fitting a Log Burner In Emma's Camper Build - Ep.8

This time we start work on fitting Emma's beautiful narrow boat wood burning stove onto the plinth we'd built for it months ago. The video is a little bitty in places as it was during this time I was going hell for leather rebuilding my van at the same time, but with the after hours assistance from John, this was made a really funny job. We then test run the burner and cure the paint/cement, before making a start on her bedroom skylight.

Project.Amber Patreon Meet! 4th March 22

Hey all!

I have some news!
After talking with a good number of you on a livestream the other week we've decided to go ahead with a Project.Amber Patreon meet!

Alex on here has again been a hero in helping me sort this out, and we've been in touch with the organisers of the South Central Self Build meets who have welcomed us to join them and combine events.

So the meet will be held at the TURNPIKE SHOWGROUND near Shaftsbury on Friday the 4th of March.
a secondary ti...

2022-02-01 19:49:55 +0000 UTC View Post

Will She Run? Starting this Re-built Ex-Ambulance: Amber 2.0 - Ep6

Tonight's the night! Will all the work put into my full-time home-on-wheels pay off? After an engine swap, semi-auto to manual conversion, new wiring looms, ambulance setup removal & and much more, there is a lot of room in there for error. But with everything plugged back in, the only thing left is to turn that new key.

I've actually managed to get a video ready, uploaded and to you at my planned time!!
😂

Enjoy.

C.J

Panel work

It’s great to see a face re-appearing on the van again. Even if it has come at some extra cost.

The welding work has escalated somewhat, as it usually does, but it’s all in good hands with my amazing welder Ady, who takes one look at things and says “nah that’s fine, we’ll sort that” whilst I’m on the floor in the fetal position sucking my thumb.

It’s one of them, I’ve gone this far, no point backing out now.

Video wise, I’ll have the next instalment for ...

Re-Engined. Amber 2.0 - Ep.5

We dig out the replacement engine and give it some TLC, a new clutch and pull off some of the more "sticky-out" parts that'll likely hit my fresh engine bay paint.
Then a battle pursues of trying to get this thing in the bay, the engine fought us, the gearbox fought us, the fork lift fought us and my cameras fought us.

But we got there.

Not long now until "the big switch on" where I find if all this effort was worth it.

Enjoy.

Am-Bol-East Live Stream tonight!

LINK: https://youtu.be/YiZurSSP9zU

Sorry for the delay folks, this has been a long week of welding and sorting issues, it totally slipped my mind to get the info to you about the livestream tonight or indeed that we were doing it until today.

Myself, Ash, Marie, Jez & the dogs will all be having a few drinks and a chat tonight for the first time in a long while, we’ve all had some big ...

Pre-manual Prep - Amber 2.0 - Ep.4

The tear down is over!  The cogs have stopped spinning backwards on this project and have started to turn back in the right direction as I start fitting the new essential manual parts and build the van back up.

There was a lot going on at this point, as it was only here the vast majority of the past swaps, wiring and tweaks I wanted could be done.

But damn does it feel good to see things like the gearstick in and steering system resolved. A massive shoutout and thanks to Sam...

Livestream link

Remember, watch this on YouTube to bring up the chat window and be able to get involved. Cya later 👍🏻

https://youtu.be/oYwHUQPLd2M