Changing a light bulb for the Ford Transit’s headlight can first sound frightening. The van’s manuals instructs to remove the whole light element, which includes all the front facing lights. However, Ford’s engineers have made a good job on the mechanics and it is actually pretty easy to remove the element.
Ford headlight
A Phillips screwdriver is needed to open up the two screws on top of the element. These are the only screws that fix the element to the chassis. They are quite loose and thus easy to turn. There is one plug at the back of the element in the bottom corner. This plug feeds the electricity for all the lights inside the element. The plug goes into the small green connector shown in the figure. The connector needs to be unplugged.
Ford headlight
The element is now ready to be removed by pulling straight forward. Be careful not to drop it! The clear plastic front and the shape make it a bit slippery. It is very easy to replace the light bulb, since there’s nothing preventing the access to it. The bulb type is H4 in my Carado, but other types are also possible if you have a different van version.
New bulbs
I replaced the originals with Philips bulbs that promise 25% more visibility with the same rated watts. The new bulbs atleast look more bright when driving through a tunnel. I do not know if they really light up the road any better, since it is mid-summer and there’s no dark even during the night. This is a nice phenomenom in the Finnish summer. Mid-summer nights are almost bright like a day.
I will see if the Philips’ promise holds in the Autumn. The old light bulbs had seen over 29000 km / 18000 miles of road and the light output was probably decreased somewhat. So in that perspective the new bulbs should be clearly better.
If you are travelling in Finland you can also easily check out Latvia’s capital Riga. Ryanair offers cheap flights between Tampere Finland and Riga. The flight takes less than an hour and it takes off at 9 pm. Motorhome or caravan can stay at the airport’s parking area under the open sky.
There are cheap hostels near the downtown of Riga. The beautiful city can be enjoyed by foot. The locals understand and speak English, so it’s easy to communicate with them.
Eiffel Tower, Paris France
Eiffel Tower is the icon of Paris. It is a must see location at least if it’s your first time in Paris. The best time to visit the tower is in the evening. That way you can see it in a daylight and also when it is dark. It looks magnificent when the lights are on. Every hour the tower will also sparkle in blue light.
There is a small chance to get a parking place quite near the tower if it is not a tourist season. The photo above was taken from top the Arc de Triomphe and it illustrates how the Eiffel is situated in the middle of Paris.
The tower has three different levels to enjoy the views. The elevator ride feels a bit wobbly and there’s also an option to take the stairs. The photo below is taken from the top.
A view from the Eiffel Tower, Paris France
There’s now 24000 km in Carado’s display and it’s 1.5 years old. When I returned home from my last journey I notices that the third brake light up on the rear wall did not work properly.
I took a Phillips screwdriver and opened up the light. It was made by Hella, so I expected a quality product. There were 7 small 1.2 W bulbs inside the light. Most of the contacts were covered by rust. Only one light bulb was working and 6 were broken.
I used electric CRC to remove the rust from the contacts. There was water inside the light, so it was no wonder that this had happened. I replaced all the light bulbs with new ones. However, I had a lot of troubles getting the bulbs working.
It seemed that the contacts were unreliable and the mechanics was not so quality made after all. A small bulb movement could turn the light on or off. This was not acceptable and the brake light just cannot operate reliably while driving.
Could it be that the Hella mechanics are so cheaply made that the bulbs can be reliably installed only at the factory? It started raining so I had to leave the brake light as it was. I will take another try to see if I can fix it.
Arc de Triomphe, Paris
Arc de Triomphe is one of the most famous monuments in Paris. It is located in Place de l’Etoile in the middle of a large roundabout. It can be easily reached also without a car or motorhome by using a subway (metro).
The monument is 49.5 meters tall and it was designed in 1806. I climbed to the top and the view over the Paris was beautiful although the weather was cloudy. The streets leave the Arc like a radius and shape the architecture of the buildings.
Arc de Triomphe, Paris
It was also interesting to follow the cars in the roundabout. The traffic was high and many times it looked like they are going to crash, but nothing happened.
Paris is a very enchanting city to walk around. The busiest tourist season is during the summer. The city had a lot to offer also in March. Temperature was around +2 Celcius (35 Fahrenheit) in the morning and +10 to +15 (59 Fahrenheit) in the afternoon.
Notre Dame, Paris
Notre Dame was easy to find when we walked by the Seine river. There were service taking place, but we were allowed to enter the cathedral. Tower was closed, but there were a lot to see and experience on the ground level. The architecture is full of small details and the acoustics was unbelievable. The construction was started in 1163 and it was completed around 1345. The diameter of the large rose windows is 13 meters.
Notre Dame, Paris
The entrance was free and there was no queue at all in March. The whole experience was magnificent and it had a greater impact than we anticipated. It is definitely worth to visit in Notre Dame if you are in Paris.
NordicDetours provides escorted motorhome tours as a first company in the Nordic countries. Their web site is available in English and Swedish. Finnish language will be added soon.
You can rent a motorhome via NordicDetours or book a tour. There are at least the Baltic countries, Sweden, Finland, Russia, and Germany tours available at the moment.
Jeanneken Pis in Brussels
The Manneken Pis that was presented in our earlier article is a very famous statue in Brussels. There is also a not so well known counterpart Jeanneken Pis that is a little girl statue. It was created by Denis-Adrien Debouvrie out of blue-grey limestone in 1985. The statue is approximately 50 cm tall.
Jeanneken Pis is not so easy to find and even many guide books are missing this little statue. It is located at the end of a narrow dead end street near the Rue de Bouchers restaurant are, which is at the east end of Faith Alley.
It has been a while since our last post. We have been traveling in France and soon we’ll be posting our experiences from Paris.
The economic climate has also hit the motorhome and caravan segment. The recent figures from Finland show that January-February motorhome sales are declined 21,2 % and caravan sales 33,2 % .
The top five in motorhomes are Adria, Dethleffs, Bürstner, Hobby, and Sunlight. Adria and Dethleffs hold together over 30 % of the market.
The top five caravans are Hobby, Solifer, Kabe, Dethleffs, and Cabby. The Finnish cold climate is clearly visible in the statistics, since Solifer, Kabe, and Cabby are all specialized in excellent winter capabilities. Also Dethleffs has put a lot of effort on their winter characteristics. The two leading brands Hobby and Solifer dominate the markets with over 50% combined market share.
In Finnish, Caravanuutiset.com
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