Hi all,
    
        Well, I've just returned from my holidays taking my camper 
across to France. Thanks to everyone who replied to my mail before I 
left giving me advice on what last minute checks to make. this is how 
the trip went.

    15th July 7.30pm we set off from Manchester heading for Newhaven 
on the south coast for the ferry.

              7.32pm, about 1/2 a mile from home the van cut out and 
would not restart - I should have realised this was a bad omen. I 
eventually discovered that the distributer had become dislodged and 
the rotor was not turning. I repositioned the distributer and screwed 
it up nice and tight and everything worked fine.

              8.30pm Set off again, feeling a little anxious !!
              

 After the slight problem in setting off everything ran fine, and we 
made it to the ferry in plenty of time with no further problems. When 
we got across to France we drove about 400 miles down to the 
southwest coast of France stopping near Bordeaux. The drive through 
France was great, no problems with the camper and the French VW 
campers (and Beetles) that we passed all waved and flashed their 
lights enthusiastically at us, (there didn't appear to be as many 
aircooled VW's in France as there are in the UK though).

    After five days on the southwest coast we decided to slowly head 
north again to stop in the Loire valley. We drove for about 2 hours 
whereupon we reached a small village with some rather sharp bends. It 
was upon gearing down for one of these bends that a horrible, loud, 
crunching noise could be heard from the transmission. We managed to 
get the van off the road before it came to a grinding halt. Oh s**t I 
thought, that sounded serious - I was right. At first I thought it was 
maybe the clutch that had gone and since there would be no way I 
could do anything about that at the side of the road I made a call to 
the RAC with whom we had arranged breakdown insurance. The 
mechanic arrived and towed the van to a garage where, after 
examination, he determined that it was the final drive that was the 
problem and the whole thing needed replacing. Since the van could not 
be repaired before the end of our holiday the RAC decided that the 
best thing to bo would be to send us home in a hire car and to send 
the camper back to us at a later date which could be anything up to 
three weeks.

        So there it is. We are now at home, camperless and fed up 
after cutting our holiday short by a week. Oh well you live and 
learn. For now I'm waiting for the van to be returned so that I can 
determine exactly what the problem is, (since the mechanic spoke no 
English and I only speak a little French this was difficult at the 
time) and I will probably be writing to you guys for advice on how to 
put it right.

                        Cheers for now 
                        
                                        Jon