Bush Lapa Vlooi, first impressions

**Elsabe Terblanche** · 2012/10/16, 01:55 PM

Aviator. It was on this site but thanks to lekhubu I was now able to change it to sold. The ads on Gumtree and Junkmail was also removed.

**lekhubu943** · 2012/10/17, 04:28 PM

Slight thread hijack again. We discovered that the Prado's lights work fine with the Bushlapa.

Pieter was so kind to let us come and "plug" his Miskruier into the Prado and the lights are perfect. So both Prado 120 and 150 does not have the light problem

**Tobie4x4** · 2012/10/21, 05:13 PM

Few further comments regarding the Vlooi

We have not been camping yet since our return from collecting Buksie from Bush Lapa in Worcester but off for a weekend of fun in the sun (we hope the weather plays along) in a few days time. I fetched Buksie from the long term storage and managed to get her into my garage. The only problem in doing this was it is slightly uphill so the angle made the Bush wing just a little too high. Leveling out the Vlooi with the nose wheel solved this problem but meant that it was up to me and Swambo to manually push into the garage.

I fitted the black taxi carpet on the floor and all the shelves inside. It just gives it a finishing touch and will take the cold of bare feet (as experienced in a cold, rainy Langebaan when we fetched her)

The spare wheel is supposed to be lockable (through wheel nut hole onto base plate) but no hole drilled into the rather THICK (and very sturdy) base plate. I don't know if this was an oversight from BL side or if the owner is supposed to drill this himself. I still need to do this.

Perhaps rather small but for me a real pain in the "you know where" is the canvass coverings of the shelves inside. It has only a small piece of velcro (+- 2.5cm) to keep open when in use (e.g. packing) The cover is too heavy and this piece is not sufficient to keep open. A longer piece would not cost much and would be more effective. I have been using clothes peg to hold open but intend getting a bull dog clip to use in stead.

We also managed to fit Buksie (turned side ways) into our garage in front of my wife's car. Although this restricts garage space (less packing of rubbish!!) it makes it so much easier than to drive to the storage facility for this spur of the moment outing (that will hopefully happen)

Jaco I have included your side ways photo to give you an idea of the distance the Bush wing protrudes. As stated before the normal L shaped tent has a better finish but we still opted for the easy of setup of the Bush wing.

Will give further updates after the weekends outing but so far still very excited (perhaps I can sleep in the garage tonight

)

**Kooskop** · 2012/10/22, 08:15 AM

Tobie, my spare wheel bracket only has one hole in the shaft for the lock. Not sure what I'm missing but I will take a photo of mine tonight so we can see where yours is different. The velcro strips on mine is fine. Keep in mind that you first need to fold it halfway and then fold it in half again. Did they not perhaps use the wrong kind of velcro.....same on both sides?

I made a reading light for mine over the weekend an will post it under the Bush Lapa mods later.

**Jaco Kruger** · 2012/10/22, 09:22 AM

Originally Posted by Tobie4x4

Jaco I have included your side ways photo to give you an idea of the distance the Bush wing protrudes. As stated before the normal L shaped tent has a better finish but we still opted for the easy of setup of the Bush wing.

Thanks for the pictures Tobie, that was exactly what I wanted to see.

Same as Michael, I also do not have any problems with my cupboards' canvas covers or the lockability of the spare wheel.

**Tobie4x4** · 2012/10/22, 06:33 PM

Originally Posted by Jaco Kruger

Same as Michael, I also do not have any problems with my cupboards' canvas covers or the lockability of the spare wheel.

I will check again so might be stupidity from my side but I was looking for hole to lock wheel to Vlooi's "base plate" and not shaft. I will appreciate photo

**Kooskop** · 2012/10/23, 08:49 AM

Tobie, as promised, a pic of the lock on my spare. The lock fits through the shaft so that the wheel spanner cannot be turned to remove the wheel.

The other pics is of the canvas door on the cupboard opened halfway (folded half way) and then full (folded a 2nd time). Once folded halfway, you will see the piece of velcro in the middle on the inside of the canvas door. That piece of velcro then gets attached to the bottom one that now sits at the top. Oh hell.......just read this and not sure if it makes sense.......do not know how else to explain. Rather look at the pics.....

Apologies for the bad quality cell phone pics....

**Tobie4x4** · 2012/10/23, 03:18 PM

Michael,

Thank you, I now realise my mistake, I did not fold it double and then back again but rolled it up. This meant I ended up with the 2 "wrong sides" of the velco which obviously will not stick together....

I will check my spare as well

**Tobie4x4** · 2012/10/25, 09:49 PM

Just a quick feedback on

1. Covers of shelves, yes it works perfectly if you fold and not roll as I did, although a longer piece of velcro will work better
2. I checked spare wheel and needed to loosen wheel spanner 180 degrees, which revealed the hole in the shaft for the lock.

Thank you Michael for pointing me in the right direction (again

)

Both problems thus solved and Buksie is ready to go on our weekend camping

**Tobie4x4** · 2012/10/30, 09:24 PM

Back from a very wet weekend

We camped the weekend at Umoya, just outside Bela Bela. After struggling through the normal weekend exodus out of Pretoria (with 2 truck accidents within kilometers apart) we arrived safely at the very nice caravan park. Quickly set up camp including the Bush wing and 2 slides, made the bed and sat down for a cold one (Ice tea Jaco

), in total probably 1 hour. After a swim, in both the cold and warm water pools, we saw the thunder clouds starting to build up. After some spectacular lightning the heavens opened and it started to RAIN

Now for the business end. Although I am the first to admit that it was one hell of a storm I was a bit disappointed about the number of leaks. Most of the stitching (around velcro holding Wing to frame work and the circular inlay where short poles are attached) have leaked quite a bit. The main support over the swivel part of the wings was the worst. On my rip stop canvas dome Tent I pitched and thoroughly wet it a few times before use allowing the stitching to expand and fill the holes left.

The bed remained dry except when the wind really drove the water under the protective sheet (almost horizontally) we closed the sides of the roof but still had some wet spots.

In total the Vlooi behaved very well and I was very surprised at how stabile the wing was in those strong winds. Compared to my rip stop canvass tent's stitching that of the wing is much thinner, and leaked easier. I will use wax sticks to try and seal the holes from the stitching.

I am having connectivity problems and will post photos once restored

**Tobie4x4** · 2012/10/30, 09:39 PM

This is going to be slow with my ADSL down.....

Attachment of velcro

**Kooskop** · 2012/10/31, 08:42 AM

Hi Tobie!

I posted some feedback on my wing in the rain on the Miskruier review thread this morning....

**lekhubu943** · 2012/10/31, 11:06 AM

Tobie, can you perhaps elaborate a bit more about where the leaks inside the van was? You say the wind pushed water under the protective cover, presume this is the sort of flysheet jobbie going over the foldout bed on the outside?

And at the pop up roof?

Did not take the wing, so not too worried about leaks there

**Tobie4x4** · 2012/10/31, 09:40 PM

Yes correct the flyscreen jobbie is what I tried to describe. The pop up roof was ok as we closed the roll down "windows" before storm arrived.

What tent did you order? Normal L shape or just the awning?

**lekhubu943** · 2012/11/01, 06:53 AM

Tobie, just the awning. We have very sturdy and well trusted Tentco gazebo that we will use for longer stays. We like keeping our basic set-up very basic.