The last couple of days have been a bit fraught. Wheel balancing has proved to be a bit of a nightmare as we have replaced oval rims (seriously! failed balancing attempts: 5) with round ones and eventually after another 4 attempts, managed to get the balancing within tolerable limits. We still have a slight wobble at 65mph but that encourages us to stay within the 60mph we’ve set ourselves. To bear this out we have been logging fuel consumption over the last weeks and have recorded a  consistent 8% decrease in consumption by reducing speed from 70 to 60mph.  We are hoping for more of a saving now that the rims and tyres are sorted.

We're also having to get our heads around foibles of the sill/pod tanks. 

We have had one of these installed on either side (at considerable expense).  On the Girl's Side (as shown in the diagram above) for water and on the Boy's Side for fuel.  The only problem is that the filler enters the tanks on the side albeit at the top.  Likewise, the outlet is on the side albeit at the bottom.

In order to completely fill the tank, it has to be tilted away from the inlet.  This is because the inlet is mounted below the top of the tank so even if the tank is completely level there is still a gap left in the top of the tank when the fluid reaches the top of the inlet .  Here's what happens.

Even with the tank level, you lose filling space when the fluid reaches the top of the filler/inlet On filling the tank with the vehicle in a nose-up attitude an even bigger space is left at the front top end of the tank and the tank can't be filled to capacity. The greater the angle, the more acute the problem. On draining the tank with the vehicle in a nose-down attitude, the tank can't be drained and again, the greater the angle, the more acute the problem.

We realised this when we tried to fill the water tank and could only get 45l into the 56l tank and, on inspection, found Sully to be in an almost imperceptible nose-up position.  It took us a while to suss it though and some frustration on thinking that we only had a 45l fitted at this late stage - 11l makes a difference when water and fuel aren't readily available.

So, to resolve this, we will be taking plastic caravan levellers with us.

This way, we can make the most of the additional tanks by tilting Sully nose-down to fill and nose-up to empty, and in the spirit of "nothing goes with us unless it more than 1 function", we will be able to level Sully up on campsites to make sleeping a bit more comfortable.