So, THIS Happened On The Freeway 😳 // S02E07

Welcome back to Combi Life and let me bring you up to speed. Myself, Ben and Tamara are attempting to drive to Asia but we've spent the past week or so living at this riverside camp due to a problem with our alternator in our 1973 vintage Combi that we call Boomerang. The good news is we've managed to source the part and with the help of a friendly local lending us their toolkit, we've successfully replaced the alternator even if it did take way more effort than we anticipated. But as you're about to see that is far from the end of our problems. Did you see that? No. Boy was this embarrassing. That was a major disaster on the motorway. Subscribe and buckle up. It's one heck of a ride. All right let's get this baby started. You ready back there? No. Voltage going up. It should be. Yes. Yeah. And the light for the alternator has gone out. Can't believe that. That's been way too long. Let's hit the road. Come on. Yeah let's get out of here. Time to go. And then came the test drive which didn't exactly go to plan. We've got a major disaster on the motorway. Oh my god all the trucks are pulling around us. Jesus get off the road. Please don't hit that buddy. Can you come out my side? No. Did you see that? No. I'm gonna bust you this top. Take that bus and that. Okay. Everything's gonna come off the roof. The whole solar panel was hanging off the roof into the next lane. All the trucks were swerving and like beeping. It's all completely buckled. I can't even close it now. I'm gonna get out of here. I need like a bungee cord or something. Luckily we have them right to hand holding in our bin. Look it's all buckled on the other side so it won't open. I can't believe it didn't smash. That was embarrassing. Obviously that's an awful situation. Slightly preoccupied with the fact that our alternator is squeaking a lot and running really really hot. And there's obviously an issue and we're trying to get off the road. And I don't know what's going on there. But yeah anyway solar panel temporarily secured and we'll get back to fixing that problem later. Let's get on to get into the auto parts shop and see if we can figure out something for this alternator. Do I need to go? No. Guess what's in here? Only one of the most intriguing bundles of van life tech you have ever seen. This is the Acoolies camper kit designed especially for outdoor adventurers and minimalist travel lovers like me and probably like you too. It's an 11-in-1 multi-tool. Basically the swiss army knife of van life tech and you will be amazed what this thing can do. First of all all of the attachments are powered by this 25.9 watt hour smart controller which has magnetic structure stick and stay design. Pretty sweet. It can also be mounted via a tripod mount or via the integrated magnetic carabiner which I personally find really useful. So there are three different lighting modes. A camping lantern, an ambient light for some mood lighting and a really high quality flashlight. This thing is one of my faves. It's also got a power pack module for charging your devices. Look at this one. Any ideas what this is? This my friends is an emergency alarm module which has a motion sensor built into it. So you could use this to warn you if there were animals sniffing around your camp or if humans were approaching. Pretty interesting inclusion in this camper kit. It's also got an air pump mode for inflating mattresses like air mattresses, camping mattresses and kayaks inflatable sup. For me alone this module makes it worthwhile so I don't have to pump up my sup. Look at this one. Camping in the summertime? No problem. A Corleys camper kit comes with a ceiling fan that you can hang from the ceiling of your accommodation or tent. Hopefully it's a high tent. Not too bad. It also has a high speed fan module. If you don't have a high speed fan for van life this is such a good useful thing to have for dusting, for sweeping. I basically don't sweep anymore. I just put my high speed fan on. It's also great for cleaning electronics and things like that. A really useful thing to have for van life definitely. Behold water pump module. Yep it does that too. That's insane. And you can turn the pressure down to save water. That's brilliant. Holy cow. What high power. It's basically a hose. What the hell. Look at this. High pressure mode is on. Shower sorted. It basically covers the whole camp setup. All you need to do is bring the campfire. But don't worry there's an attachment for that too. The arc lighter module. Oh my days. Oh there's the campfire. Somehow this camper kit made camping even more fun. Anyways the A Corley camper kit comes with this nice storage bag. It's obviously a very resourceful cost-effective way to upgrade your camping experience. No wonder it won a design award. If you're interested in A Corley's camper kit I will link it below the like button. You can check it out see how much it costs and customize it to your particular needs. Thanks so much to A Corley and thanks to you guys. Back at the campsite. I don't even know where to begin with this. The alternator has been installed upside down. The cooling plate on the back which is why it's running really really hot on our test runs. And it means that I've got to do the entire job again all of it. What a disaster. You already know how this dance goes so I won't be vlogging this. I'll be concentrating on doing the job properly this time. The third time, fourth time, fifth time. I don't even know. Here's the alternator back out and yep it was installed upside down. The backing plate. This slot should be at the bottom. That's where the air comes out. God damn it. I'm glad that I noticed it was getting hot. I'm glad that we just did it now whilst everything was relatively loose and not seized. And I'm super grateful for the advice and help of the guys on the Samba Forum who are always there giving me the advice I need to keep this ---- show rolling. Honestly those guys are really really great on that forum. If you have a Volkswagen I recommend you get over there and join the Samba. Not sponsored. Just awesome. To add to all the drama there is a storm coming. Still daytime out there. It's still daytime but the fact that we have to have lights. I don't know if you can hear Ben but what he's saying is it's raining a lot. It's a big storm and he's currently trapped under the tarp. Luckily got that done just in time. Holy crap. Missing one spanner though. Hopefully I didn't lose it in there. Coped. And I was under the tarp. I can't believe that. We were preparing for rain not like World War 3. Gorgeous. Oh my god I am soaked. You're absolutely drenched. Cup of tea. And there's one tool missing. It's lost. Lost the storm. It concerns me. As long as it's not in the engine bay. Let's have a look at what happened to the solar panel. You remember what happened to the solar panel. These are my not so trusty clamps. Normally like that. Normally this sits a bit further back too. But clamps came undone. The wind got up. There's the damage. Totally buckled inside. Totally buckled. Yeah. So when I looked out the window when the truck was beeping. This is how the panel was on the freeway. Holy crap. Tamara look at this. Shut up. That's what it was like. No way. Yeah. That's so bad. That's so dangerous. I know. It's not a good way to get solar. It's upside down. I can't believe it didn't smash. I can't believe it didn't break. It might not. It's more or less straight. I think it's going to fit. It's not pretty. It's not my best work. But you know. Didn't have a lot of tools. Time to get this back on. Yeah that's lined up perfectly. Yeah it's in. You think that's secure? Yeah I don't think that's going anywhere. Rivets so no one can steal the solar panel. You see two bolts for security. Two rivets for also security. Okay all done. Nice one Ben. Nice one Tamela. We do not want to have a repeat of that. Back on the road. I know every time it's coming and I'm never ready. It's because Tamela is a horsey girl. And she doesn't have a horse in her life right now. So I'm doing my best to fill in. No one's. You have a jumper. Can you jump on your horse? No I'm holding my boot. It hurts. Yeah let me do that. Hold 30 charging. Yeah yeah. And the uh what do you call this gauge again? The tachometer. No the to make it the throttle gauge is working too. Is it the throttle? The throttle gauge. Is it actually called a tachometer? Yeah. All right yeah the tachometer. Nice. We can just leave it on now. We're going right? We're actually leaving. I hope so. South of Italy somewhere. Here we come. A lot of tourists here. Still pretty cool to see. Look at the detail. That's like around 3 000 years old. I mean it feels like such a treat to be able to see all this. The touristic stuff. We tend to pass by because we prefer to be in nature when we're doing our band trips. This was the calmness. It's huge. It's a city. This world-famous ancient city in the region of Naples really needs little introduction as it's a UNESCO world heritage site. It was destroyed and preserved under volcanic ash and pumice after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. That's right you guessed it. This is Pompeii. And the quiet part of Pompeii without people is just cool. It's a massive site. There's some really cool bits. I wonder what this was. It's a pizza oven, no? It's a pizza oven. And a pizza hut. McDonald's, McDonald's. Sorry. Feel free to unsubscribe. It's the little red button down there. A lot of Pompeii looks like it's built out of rock. Volcanic rock which is pretty cool and slightly ironic. Look at these things. How do you recognize? This I was thinking is maybe a grinder. Everything you grind goes down. This one? And this one? Well, a small hole on top. Maybe this was controlled like this one. This must have been carved out of one massive volcanic rock. Look at it. And I reckon that the holes on either side were where they put beams through to be able to carry this as well. As you can see. It's heavy. It looks bloody heavy. Look at the detail on the floor there. That's impressive. It's even some places where there's still like street signs that are painted. This is where you have a pom-poo in the Pompeii. It's a public poo house. This is for your bottom. This big one here. This is from my bottom. That's about right. For a public poo house, you'd have to be pretty good friends with your neighbours, wouldn't you? How is your pom-poo today, my friend? Oh, it's a little bit stiff, you know. It's a shy one. You can see the old drainage system so that they didn't get wet feet. It's pretty clever. For fancy houses, right? This is so cool, honestly. That is a feature. This. With the colours of the walls. You've still got colour on the wall. How did they do it? Paint. There's still paintings on the wall. It's great to be back on the road and we have lots more to look forward to. But there was something that we discovered during these past two weeks being broken down that has thrown doubts on this whole adventure. And if we can even make it to Asia at all. But that is definitely a story for next time.