Here’s our Hetty the Hi-ace

Hi I’ve been a member for going on 2 years now, and thought it’s about time I posted some photos of our hi-ace. She’s called Hetty and she a 1992 2.8l 4WD with the LSD. Been working on her for the last 2 years We’ve owned her, mostly getting her mint and sound. Some of the list is 200watt solar with 260ah batteries, diesel heater, re-spray, wheels refurbished, tinted windows, and lots of general maintenance.

Hope you like her as much as we do!!... Steve

Some more photos...

Wow, what a beauty! Same year as mine but yours is in better nick.

Ah thanks Andonic, the re-spray made such a difference which luckily for me I have a mate who owns a body shop.

Looking good southee nice van

Beautiful looking mint indeed! Currently without mine for over 3 months now devastated.

That's a great van Steve, would love to see some more of the camper conversion photos!!
The electrical system looks good, proper panel but would block up my sunroofs LOL. I suspect you get some useful seating headroom with that roof.

You may consider sticking streamlining parts (half round on the front, tapered tail on the back) on your panel, probably worth 1-2 MPG.

What type of batteries did you use? My camper pics are in the 'Modified section' of the forum although they do need updating now, I got AGM batteries but in future would choose Lead-Carbon I think.

I fitted diesel heating to mine, I'm currently looking for a source of heat pad to insulate the hot air pipes from the inside on the first few inches as they seem to get quite hot. Interesting location to put it, I overlooked that corner as a location but it's nice and near to the regular exhaust which must help. Mine is in the middle near where the old rear heater was and blows the exhaust toward the van exhaust pipe as that's heat proof!

Looking good indeed, I much prefer the sliding windows to my hinged one's...when the dog see's another dog she goes nuts and hits the windows pretty hard I never have them open because of the way in which they are designed. I worry it's just a matter of time and then trying to find one won't be easy. Anyway, glad you're happy with your van...loving them is so very easy!

Was it blue when you got it? Can't say I've seen one in that blue. I have seen a pale blue but I'm in Australia and who knows what colours are around the world.

A few pics of ours its an SC superlong 3ltr turbo running on veg oil WVO now converted to our preference with 100ltr 3way fridge on board refillable LPG hanging wardrobe sink with hot water 70ltr cold tank diesel heater sat tv solar panel electric bed head raiser can seat 5 in the back with belts and even an inside shower. Two burner cooker and sink unit .

Fridge wardrobe and sinkcooker

Wow JT69 how have you managed to get all that in an hi-ace, impressive mate. Your van looks great too. 
I when for standard lead batteries mainly for cost and also because with the 200 watt panel I’ll never drop below 70% charge so should still last well. 
I’ve been looking for something to heat shield for the same reason, a mate mentioned plumbing heat pads was good to look into this weekend. 
I put my heater there because the battery was there when I got her, which I put back under the rear seat so I used to having that space taken up with the battery.
There are such great vans, and light years better than VW’s

Hi Jaadle63, it used to silver lower and blue top, but I had her painted to get rid off the two tone looked a bit dated. The new colour is a U.K. Ford deep impact blue.
Yeah I know what mean about windows I was going to have my windows tinted professionally but the guy said he would take them out to do it because they were sliding. So I watched loads and loads of u tube videos and decided to do it myself without removing them. Because if they got broken getting new one would be a nightmare. Also saved loads too.

I will post some more this weekend, weird thing keeps happening ever time I try it puts them in upside down

Great stuff, John this is the wrap I'm looking at to shield the diesel heater output for the first bits:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/232180977081
Maybe just wrap and staple as a stitch type to form a tube.

I'm still a bit short of Solar power and because I converted my van much is still connected to the van battery. With that in mind I went for a 24V house system, the interface to which is a bit subtle.

My diesel heater sits under the wardrobe that is still high enough for a short dress or jacket and has the most important 4 bottle wine rack on top . I will leave it to your imagination as to where the shower goes but we both managed a shower without getting out of the van and it only took 20 min .

I was playing with the diesel heater today as it was a bit noisy last time I tried it.

There is a setup pin code that varies, mine is the timer free one so is 9009 but it can be 1688, so I set mine up with a low fan speed and very low drip speed. I also have mine on thermostat mode.

So I noticed that the top cover is clipped with two clips plus a ring with a large object filter - so I removed the ring and with a little movement of the top cover managed to stop the fan hitting the side - it's much happier and quieter like that.
That ring+grid also cuts out a lot of airflow, without that in the way the air seems to whizz through the heater much better.

One improvement I will add is a thermoswitch, you can buy them at 40C for a 5A switch on eBay.
E.g: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/303260286616
The issue is that my heater is isolated by a switch on the panel, but the last thing you want is an accidental switch-off when it's at full heat as that heat will be trapped and apparently it melts the control boards.
So I'm going to use a relay to bridge the remote switch and the (normally open) thermo-switch will enable the relay while the outlet temperature / heating duct is hot. It's not perfect as the relay takes 0.15A when on, but probably wise. Note it can't be used without a relay as it's only 5A rated.