Has The Wet Belt Engine Destroyed My Campevan?

追加: 2026-05-11

[00:00:00]Today is the day that I will be finding out if buying and owning a camper van with a wet belt engine is a good idea or a massive mistake. Good morning people.

[00:00:11]I'm not usually up and about this early, but today is a very important day. Today is judgment day. We are about to find out whether a year's worth of driving in my wet belted engineed camper van has been a success or a massive disaster and is about to blow up and that will be the end of my van life journey. She is booked in at the garage for an inspection and a service. And I got anote on the van the day that I bought it. So, basically, it's been one entire year that I've been driving this absolute be around. In that time, I think I've done close to 20,000 miles. I've driven it into many countries. I've driven it all the way up to the Arctic and back. She has been through some rough times, but she's still standing, we think, and we hope. I haven't really looked under the bonnet since the day I bought it. I know I did when I had to change the battery and all that sort of stuff, but other than that, I've not actually looked at anything mechanical in the van whatsoever. Now, there were plenty of horses or naysayers as some people called them that were adamant that this van was just going to blow up instantly. But I personally have always had faith in ye oldie wet belt. I think she is as strong as an ax. Touch wood. Well, touch bamboo since we have this beautiful sheet of it right in front of us. Anyway, I will take it to the garage shortly and we'll figure all of that out. But for now, I need to wire up the sink because, as you can see, the tap is not currently connected. Let's get a bit of light on the subject and I need to remember which cables are which. It appears I'm an idiot. Basically, I don't have any wire strippers to trim that back right now.

[00:02:07]All of my tools are in storage and I don't have time to go there right this second because I do need to get to the garage. So, it looks like that job is going to have to wait until later in the episode. In fact, I think it might wait until next episode. But who needs water anyway? We'll just make do with wipes again for now. That's absolutely fine.

[00:02:29]And if we do need water, we will simply buy some wine and activate the reverse Jesus technique.

[00:02:41]I guess that's some sort of punishment.

[00:02:44]We probably shouldn't mess around with the lord's party trick. Let's head on down to the van hospital to check out if this beauty's days are numbered.

[00:03:00]It's dropping my van off. I was sat in the waiting room for about half an hour just getting on with a bit of work on the laptop and that. But I think it's going to be at least another hour. So, I thought I'd come out for a little walk.

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[00:04:43]>> Why do you do this to me? I've turned you down once. You turned yourself back up, you maniac. Anyway, we've got the results of how is she doing this? She's overriding the matrix. So, we have the results of the health checkup and theote. I'll get to that shortly. But my mate Bobby rang me and he said he wanted to go and cook up some stuff on his gas cooker. He loves a bit of cooking, old Bobby. So, I said, "Why the hell not?"

[00:05:12]So, we're driving down to a spot now where we can do that. Hopefully it doesn't rain. And then when we get there, obviously I'll fill you in on what the garage said. We are just pulling down into this tiny little country lane. Every time I come down here, I just hope that no one comes the other way. But this time, we got my mate following behind in his car. So, if someone comes up towards us, surely they are the ones that are going to have to back up because there's two of us.

[00:05:40]I'm not 100% sure this is the place to be. Yeah. Have you been on my videos before?

[00:05:45]>> I have once or twice.

[00:05:47]>> I think he has when we first got the pigeon.

[00:05:49]>> Yeah.

[00:05:50]>> And he helped me take the boards out. If not, this is Bobby.

[00:05:53]>> Hello.

[00:05:54]>> I just realized what you're looking at.

[00:05:56]He's looking at my sunglass. It is the sunglass cuz I've only got one of them.

[00:06:01]>> My shade. Uh yeah, I got struck down by a higher force earlier in the video.

[00:06:06]Long story. So, this is my favorite spot to park, but usually all this hedge line isn't here. And you can see out across the field there's a train track over the back.

[00:06:16]>> But obviously at the moment, yeah, those are great. It's still a nice spot, but I don't know if it's the place to cook.

[00:06:22]But Bobby's just going to go and check out the spot up around the corner. See if it's worthwhile to go around there.

[00:06:28]In the meantime, I've had an idea. We want one of them and some of that. It's been a bit weird all day just having like one sunglass on. So now I'm having to wa Now I'm having to even them up a bit with the other one. What do you reckon, mate?

[00:06:43]>> Absolutely beautiful.

[00:06:44]>> And plus, I love pirates. All right, we've made the decision to move on to the next location. But first of all, I'm not going to make you wait for the results. So, there's no official documentation for the inspection side of things. They just had a good look around it. And basically, he told me that the wet belt system and just the engine in general is running smoother than a varnished cheetah. So to all of the naysayers, it appears on this occasion you were incorrect. The wet belt has done me absolutely proud. As for the MOT itself, the number of what are they called?

[00:07:30]Miners. No, that's when you do a driving test. What the hell is it called?

[00:07:33]Advisories.

[00:07:35]Zero. Absolute zero. She sailed through undetected like a pirate ship. We've arrived at location number two, or rather at the beginning of it. We got to go down a long windy dirt track and we think it's probably best to only take one vehicle cuz I don't even know how we're going to manage to park at the other end of it. So, Bobby's going to chuckle the cooker and that in here and then jump in the passenger seat. We're a little bit further down the road from where the van caught fire that time.

[00:08:03]There was a horrendous incident. Do you remember when I turned one of these little beasts into a camper and I had from the front there all the way to the back a little bed on the side? I don't know how I pulled that off, but I stayed in it a few times. Is this the new way of carrying H2O? What's the chances of it splitting? It was very cheap.

[00:08:24]>> All right. Well, if it starts leaking, open the door and just boot it out the side, I reckon.

[00:08:29]>> Have you ever been down here?

[00:08:30]>> I have not been down here. This is the first time.

[00:08:33]>> It's well good down here, mate. I used to come here as a kid all the time.

[00:08:36]That's where I took I don't know if you ever saw me and Becky took an ebike down there with her strapped to the back on a little kitty car.

[00:08:43]>> I think I may have.

[00:08:45]>> One of the funniest things I've ever filmed. That was It was amazing. In fact, I'm going to put that clip over on my Instagram. So, if you haven't seen it before, trust me, you're going to want to see that. Right. So, up there is the beach with no sea is literally just a beach. It's like a field beach, but I filmed in there before. So, we're going to go even further to a secret private spot. Whoa. In fact, you know what? It's so sunny that I'm going to actually have to have both glasses on now. Look at that. We might actually be here already.

[00:09:20]I thought it was much further than this.

[00:09:22]Oh, no. Yeah, this is it. And the bush is gone. And there's people on the bench. We're going to keep going down this road. I've never driven this far before. Well, I don't know what's down here and then we'll just see if there's somewhere else to rock up. I guess if not, we'll go back there and I'll just park by that couple and >> see what happens.

[00:09:38]>> Yeah, I don't reckon the mini would have fed very well down here.

[00:09:43]>> I would have not liked it.

[00:09:44]>> We're not even on a road on the map.

[00:09:47]Completely off grid. But we drove all the way down that road right to the very end. Came back cuz we couldn't find anywhere else. And the couple have gone now. They were sat on that bench there.

[00:09:57]So, we now have this entire private beach to ourself. Bob is just checking out whether there's an even better spot around the corner up the back there. We have chosen the location of dreams. The sun's come out. It's actually really nice now. Van's over there in the background. We've got a nice lake off to the left. We've also got a vast expanse of beach with no sea behind us. And I've even got my very own private chef. What are you cooking up today then, Bobby?

[00:10:26]I'm doing a twoingredient flatbread. I prefer 3D bread. So, Bobby is planning on starting an enterprise which is going to be load of social media content. When it's all up and running properly, I'll let you know what it is. But he has got his own logo already. He's called the bearded fryer and this is his little thing of having a mic in the beard. So, this here is the cooking setup and it's just running off of a little can of gas there. One thing I forgot which I'm a little bit not One thing I forgot to bring is a chair, which is unfortunate. He's telling his camera what the hell he's doing.

[00:11:08]>> So, we want equal measurements.

[00:11:11]>> I'm just back at the van and I'm looking over here. Imagine I wasn't with him over there and somebody just walks along and sees that. It's just a ger. He looks like he's full on talking to himself whilst cooking up. Well, I see. That's what I must look like 90% of my life.

[00:11:28]That's amazing. But anyway, the reason I've come back to my van is because I am a genius. An absolute genius. Hold on one second. I am now an absolute genius because I've remembered that I do have a seat. And when I say seat, I mean a toilet. Whoa, I'm getting caught in brambles.

[00:11:52]There we go. And in actual fact, it's extendable. So, I've raised it up to a perfect seat height. How we getting along over here? Just about to put the sausages on. Oh, look. There's a fellow camper van up in the distance. Thinking, why are we in the only spot that you can park?

[00:12:09]God, that is so much better. I'm not taking a dump, by the way.

[00:12:15]But imagine if someone walks along now over in that bit in the background. They see you cooking up a load of sausages and me sat on the cary just watching you.

[00:12:26]Right, come on then. Let's inspect your work, shall we? Right, that should be Oh, so I think at this stage of the video, I should point out that Bobby isn't an expert chef, by the way. He's sort of learning as he's going. But what's the worst that could happen other than severe food poisoning?

[00:12:45]>> But these are looking good, right? These uh flatbreads tortilla items are about to go on. Let's see how successful this is, shall we? Right. As far as I'm aware, you whack it on and when it starts puffing, I think that's when you turn them. That's what it's all about.

[00:13:02]All right. That is smart advertising.

[00:13:04]The sausage has been branded with a Kadak logo. They have missed a trick here. It's back to front on the sausage.

[00:13:11]They should put the Kadak logo back to front on the grill plate and then it would literally brand the sausage.

[00:13:16]That's awesome. There's an idea for you.

[00:13:20]>> Look at it. Look at it go. It's alive.

[00:13:23]That's amazing.

[00:13:26]The cookup is coming to an end. It is looking pretty good now. I'll give him that. I don't know how it's going to be served to me now. What's What's the plan? You got four flatbreads and six sausages.

[00:13:36]>> I was going to put some mozzarella on top of flatbread.

[00:13:39]>> So, we got mozzarella. He's chopping up some chili. And we got some leaves in a bag. I'll just take a seat on my toilet and wait for the feast to arrive. I'm going to give this a go and I'm going to give you my honest rating. How do you want it? Out of 10. Your leaf's fallen on the floor.

[00:13:53]>> Out of 4.5.

[00:13:58]>> Yeah, I'll give you that, mate. Right.

[00:13:59]What was it? A rating out of 4.5.

[00:14:01]>> Yeah. Total of 4.5.

[00:14:05]>> Are you feeling all right? All right.

[00:14:07]Out of 10. Out of 10.

[00:14:09]>> Out of 10.

[00:14:09]>> Normal rating, please.

[00:14:11]>> I really like it.

[00:14:13]I'll tell you what, the only thing that I'd say needs improving is the the bread's a bit crispy on the outside cuz it's all cracked and it's not really foldable.

[00:14:24]>> Indeed.

[00:14:24]>> But flavorwise, yeah, there's nothing wrong with it. So, it's going to be high up. I can't give it an eight cuz I think that's just doesn't leave much room for improvement. I think I'm going to go with a seven.

[00:14:34]>> I mean, did you just want >> The flavor is really good, but I'm going to go with a seven overall.

[00:14:37]>> Seven overall. I'll take that.

[00:14:39]>> Okay, that is that. We have cleared up everything. Leave no trace and all that.

[00:14:44]Bobby, I mean, I know I'm going to give you a lift back, but for the sake of the camera, thank you, sir, for your hospitality.

[00:14:50]>> Thank you very much.

[00:14:51]>> I'm not 100% sure when, but Bobby may make an appearance again in a video at some point. We might make it a regular thing or I'll just buy the food, give it to him, and let him cook for me.

[00:15:02]>> Personal chef.

[00:15:03]>> Yeah, I am absolutely canackled. I don't really know why.

[00:15:08]Actually, I do know why. I was up way earlier than usual for the oldot and I've been sat in the sun all day eating.

[00:15:15]That food was really good. I will give it to Bobby. I enjoyed that so much so that I've got a similar snack for this evening. Well, it's not similar, but it's flat and breadage. We have a nice little view going on out the window here. Bit of nature surrounding us. And I am looking forward to an extremely relaxing evening of doing pretty much nothing. Next episode though, we're heading out on more than a one night trip. I'm going off on some sort of road trip. Don't know where yet, but it's going to be Well, basically, I'm leaving the country in 2 weeks time. So, before that, I want to do a UK road trip. So, yeah, that's going to happen. Right now, though, I've just been trying to figure out like options for my kitchen. And I've been looking at this. Right. So, this is where there's going to be a cooker eventually. It's either going to be it might even be this, but there's going to be some sort of air fryer mini oven device there. And I think I'm going to build it into the unit as well. So, I'll have like this gray wood for the walls and the back and then a little bit of bamboo on top so it fits nicely with the rest of the kitchen. But, as of yet, I do not know what cooker I'm going to be using. But, what I do know is we got a bit of an issue cuz I was going to use this this evening. The wire only just stretches down to just behind there and it's got to somehow plug in. Oh, it's not even in that cupboard. It's in this little one down here. That's where the plug is. I'll tell you what we can do for now. We'll just grab it out of here.

[00:16:42]It's not even long enough to go from there. Oh, yes, it is. We'll unplug the induction hob and then that can just go up there. All this cabling and wiring are part of the finishing touches that I want to do. I don't know whether I'm going to do it in the next couple of weeks or whether I'll wait until I'm back in the UK after my little adventure. But at some point, all this is going to be fully wired in. So, it's just ready to go at all times. But for now, we got some hummus. And not just any old hummus. We've got sweet red pepper hummus. And in the glory drawer, we have got style flatbreads. Let's see if these are better than bobbies, shall we? I'm not really that hungry to be honest. I'm only going to have one of these. But that if I can remember how the hell this thing works. I mean, turning it on would be a good start.

[00:17:34]These ones are proper flat, true-dimensional bread.

[00:17:40]Right. Uh, do we work this? Let's just hit start and see what happens.

[00:17:46]Why is it doing that? Is it like safety?

[00:17:49]Oh, yes, it was. It wasn't shut properly. Oh, by the way, I am extremely happy that you guys loved my gamechanging product that I showed you in the last video. Oh dear. Oh dear. I can smell it burning. Surely that can't be done already. That is well art. And that's not quite. But yeah, basically I thought you guys weren't going to like it, but you all seem to agree that this is incredible. The peeler plate. I might as well whack the link down in the description again for those who missed it on the previous video. Right, come on. This has got to be done by now.

[00:18:24]Surely, we're not cooking it. We're only trying to warm it up. She bit me. Right, let's give this a run for its money, shall we? In fact, come on. We know we're not going to eat this until we've given it the old slap test. It's safe to say she passed.

[00:18:43]I'll tell you what, red pepper hummus is the one. I've had all of the hummuses that there is, but red pepper never fails to. What the hell is that in there? Is that mold? Surely not. That must be just crumbs. I have officially finished. My plate is empty. And I'm going to share with you once again the glorious technique. I really didn't need to use this plate today, but just because there's a smidg in of grease on there, we're going to peel it away. Left with a fresh plate. Oh, by the way, right, so everyone was saying what happens when you get to the last plate, it's going to be all flimsy. But now, there's a thick cardboard layer at the bottom. It's just that all the layers on top are just these thin things. So, when you chuck that away, there's really not much waste, and it's just a fresh plate ready for your next exquisite meal.

[00:19:39]Thought I'd have one final stretch of the lower limbs before settling down.

[00:19:43]Car alert. My favorite. I love nothing more than a good old dandy client. What else are they called? There's another name for them, isn't there? Something about a clock. Who knows?

[00:19:58]But answer me this. Of all the species feces, what do you reckon's the worst? I don't reckon it's horse. Personally, I'm voting cat. The feline feces is amongst the most disgusting substance in the known universe.

[00:20:16]The hell? The squirrel just throw something at me. What is that?

[00:20:27]What the hell is happening?

[00:20:30]That is absolutely mental. Anyway, I'm going to continue my evening walk and I will meet you guys back at the van.

[00:20:40]We've officially lost all daylight. It is time to call it a night. Well, not quite. It's something I've been meaning to do for a very long time, and I don't know why it's taken me this long to get around to it. But right here, we have the stickers which go over the lights.

[00:20:59]Well, it's not just lights. It's just all the switches on here so far. The only ones that are active is the CCTV and the main lights themselves. Oh, and one of these is the fridge. There is actually a specific fridge one. Right, I need two hands for this. The last thing we want is a bit of light leakage. Bear with me. And there we have it. She's no longer glowing in the background. So, I've got the four along the bottom done.

[00:21:26]Top ones are blanked off. And now I just need to actually install some soft lighting in here so that that one has a purpose. But as for me, I'm going to get some sleep shortly. I know usually I end these videos in the morning after we have had a caffeinated beverage. But on this occasion, unfortunately, I'm going to love you and leave you tonight because in the morning I got to get up early and just get straight on out of here. Got a busy weekend. Then it's my mom's birthday on Monday. And then after that, I will be jumping back in the van to head out on some sort of road trip.

[00:21:58]Still don't know where. Going to check the weather. Going to speak to some people, look at some options. But obviously, you'll find out on the next video. But as always, thank you guys so much for watching. It's massively appreciated. And I will catch you on the next episode where the road trip adventure begins.

[00:22:18]>> Starship is a fully reusable rocket.

[00:22:21]It's two stages. So, it has a which is the upper stage and a booster below it.

[00:22:26]The booster accelerates the ship to get it going towards orbit.