So I'm freshly back from a wonderful few weeks with the family and the campervan in Albania. What a stunning country, amazing landscapes, friendly people and small, cheap campsites where you could just rock up and there would be free pitches available.
Invariably though, with a nearly thirty year old van, we had a few small issues, chief amongst them was the fresh water pump packing up in the middle of the trip. Not a major issue because we only ever used the system for cooking water or washing hands, not drinking. Now I'm used to parts becoming scarcer and pricier as the years go by and with trepidation for the potential expense ahead, I opened up the fresh water tank to see what pump was in there.
I was more than pleasantly surprised to find after a quick internet search that it was actually a common pump and available to buy immediately in our local big camping store for €16 . Now in the manner of these jobs it quickly escalated! I noticed the inside of the tank was not looking great despite have run some cleaner through it a few months back. I also realised the whole system was approaching thirty years old, so I also decided to replace all of the pipes whilst I was there. Removing the tank from the van was fairly simple affair, a few bolts and out it came. We soon had in in the garden and gave it a good scrub.
The problem I now had was the main feed pipe. It leaves the tank, crosses the floor and then goes into the compartment under the fridge before traveling behind the fridge and the kitchen and onto the sink. My first plan to just attach the new to old and pull it through, quickly failed when I discovered that Westfalia had screwed the pipe to the back of the kitchen unit and the only way to remove it was to remove the entire kitchen unit. Luckily though the cooker is removable, so with a bit of wiggling I was able to thread the new past the old one and ram my hands down the back of the unit to feed it through.
I trimmed the old one down and left a big chunk of it permanently sitting behind the unit, it's causing no bother there. So with all the panels screwed back together we have a completely clean and mostly new fresh water system in the van and all for not much money, really pleased with that.