Three separate upgrades landed in this one, and honestly it was long overdue. The three-way fridge had been the bane of our summer trip, the garage had room for something new, and the cab wiring looked like a bowl of spaghetti. Good news: SNG Leisure sorted the lot, more or less.
Why the Three-Way Fridge Had to Go (and What Replaced It)
If you followed the summer series, you’ll already know the story. When temperatures outside pushed toward 40°C, the fridge inside was hitting 21, 22°C. That is not a fridge. That is a warm cupboard. Three-way fridges run on gas, mains electric, or battery via the alternator, and in theory that flexibility sounds great. In practice, once ambient temperature climbs above 30°C, the absorption technology behind them simply can’t keep up. Lyndsay reminded me of waking up on our first Croatia trip to the smell of rancid chicken, and not old chicken either, chicken we’d bought that same day. The fact that she had to walk it to a bin far enough from the pitch so we couldn’t smell it says everything. That memory made the decision to fit a compressor fridge in this van a lot simpler.
The replacement is a Dometic RCT 10.4G. Compressor fridges run on 12V from your leisure battery, which makes them ideal if you’ve got lithium on board, and they’ll maintain temperature reliably up to 43°C ambient. The fit wasn’t quite the straightforward swap-out I’d been hoping for. The height and width were spot on, but the depth meant we had to remove some metal framework and reroute a gas pipe further back. The team at SNG were confident they could do it, and they did. The fridge sits very slightly proud of the original aperture, which actually turned out to be a bonus: the door can now swing fully open, which the old one never could. It’s deeper, it’s bigger, it’s lighter, and it’s cold. Lyndsay approved. Winner.
While we were at it, Mark also tidied up the cab wiring. The Wolf Box dash cam cabling had been hanging loose since it was fitted just before we went away, and we still hadn’t sorted the MagSafe charging cables for the phones either. Everything’s now routed, hidden, and tidy. It makes a surprising difference just not having cables dangling in your eye line when you’re driving.
The Honda PCX 125, the Garage Clearout, and the Pull-Out Kitchen Project
The bigger news, possibly, is that there’s now a Honda PCX 125 living in the garage. I’d been looking at this for a while after spending the summer watching people in Europe buzzing about on scooters while we either walked or jumped in an Uber. The original plan was to go electric: I’ve got a decent battery pack on the van, and the idea of charging a 125 from the leisure system while parked up is genuinely compelling. The problem is that the 125cc electric bikes available right now just aren’t there yet. The range is limiting, the charging technology is proprietary rather than Type 2, and the best Honda electric option I looked at needed six hours on its own charger. That rules out the spontaneous “pop into town” use case completely.
The PCX 125 is the best-selling bike in the UK and in Europe, and there’s a reason for that. I’ve always trusted Hondas, so I went for it in white to match the motorhome and to be visible on the road. I’ve got a full bike licence, so Lyndsay can hop on the back any time, and she’s keen to do her CBT so she can ride it herself. The plan isn’t to take it on every trip: when it’s the whole family, we’ll leave it at home. But for trips where it’s just the two of us, or possibly me, Lyndsay, and George, being able to roll the bike out of the garage and explore properly changes everything. Right now, we tend to move every one or two days. With the bike, we could stay four or five nights somewhere and actually use the local area rather than just passing through it.
Getting it secured took a bit of thought. My mate Stuart, who has motocross bikes, talked me through the approach: prop the front wheel against the bench, two straps on the handlebars looped to the tie-down points, compress the forks a little, and tighten both sides evenly. Honda themselves confirmed that handlebars only is how they deliver bikes, so two straps is fine, though I’ll probably add a second set either side just for peace of mind. The bike weighs 134kg, and with everything reorganised in the Starflex system, we’re comfortably within the 250kg payload limit for the garage.
The pull-out kitchen is a work in progress, but the Starflex slide-out unit is fitted for now, with Mark still getting it working properly. Mark 3D-printed some standoff brackets overnight (literally had the printer running until 11pm and was back at 5am to finish them, which I thought was above and beyond) so the unit could sit at the right height without just bolting a lump of wood in there. The vision is a 1,200 by 300mm unit with a worktop, possibly induction cooking, possibly a sink, potentially some storage. If anyone out there is a cabinet maker and fancies helping build something to match the interior of the van, drop me an email: romanyramblers@gmail.com.
One last thing: the dents along the side from the hailstorm on the summer trip. The chassis pieces are straightened, and SNG confirmed the damage is cosmetic. Lyndsay, correctly, pointed out we were in a tornado, not just a hailstorm, and that these are adventure wounds. I’m going with that.
Questions People Ask
Why not keep the three-way fridge and just manage it more carefully? Because above 30°C ambient temperature, there isn’t much managing to do. The absorption technology in a three-way fridge simply loses efficiency in serious heat, and if you’re travelling in southern Europe in summer, 30°C ambient is a good day. A compressor fridge maintains temperature regardless of what’s happening outside, up to 43°C in this case. If you’re heading somewhere warm, it’s not really a question of preference.
Why choose a petrol 125 over an electric one? The electric 125cc bikes available right now have proprietary charging connections rather than a standard Type 2, which means you can’t charge them from a public point or from the van’s battery system in any straightforward way. The best option Steve looked at also needed a six-hour charge time on its own charger. For a bike that’s meant to be flexible and spontaneous, that’s too limiting. The PCX 125 fills up from any petrol station and is the best-selling 125 in Europe for good reason.
How did the Dometic fridge fit if the depth was wrong? SNG removed the metal framework behind the original fridge aperture and rerouted a gas pipe further back to create the clearance needed. The fridge now sits very slightly proud of the cabinet face, but the upside is that the door can swing fully open, something the original fridge never allowed. In practice it makes no difference to usability, and Lyndsay saw no problem with it at all.
What is the Sirocco fan, and where can you get one? The Sirocco is a 12V clip-on fan designed for motorhomes and camper vans. Steve has two fitted: one above George’s cab bed, fitted before the summer trip, and a second in the rear of the van added during this visit to SNG. They’re available through Adventure Van Life, and there’s a 10% discount code linked in the video description.
If you want to see all of the above actually happening rather than just reading about it, the full video is well worth a watch. Fridge swap, bike loading, garage reorganisation, and a small cameo from George trying to disconnect the electrics in a way that could only be described as optimistic.
Watch the full video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixzxP_pSAoI