Cheltenham Caravan Ground-Up Rebuild

[Deleted]

Well, I supose I'd better explain myslef....

It's been a fair while since I posted any meaningful content on RR. I seem to have a drive full of cars crying out for attention; one of them is even mid-restoratation as we speak. The problem I encountered has afflicted many of us at some time or other and it's that of mojo loss.
I was getting a bit bogged down with cars, a never-ending house refurb and a distinct lack of time and cash to make any real headway on anything. The only thing that didn't need any attention was our little caravan, after I rebuilt that last year. However, Zoe had other ideas.....

"...erm, I've found an old caravan I really like and it's not too far from here..." began the phone conversation one afternoon "It's a better size than our tiny one and will look great behind the old Merc when it's done". I knew she'd been looking at classic caravans, on and off, for ages, so this wasn't a huge surprise. "I've said we'll have it and we'll go and get it tonight!"

In fairness, I didn't mind. It was the cheapest Cheltenham ever and was a rare three birth, which was just what we needed. The guy was pretty honest about it's poor condition, so it was a done deal before I even got involved. So that evening after work we made the short trip from Hereford to Worcester, had a brew and a natter with the guy, gave the van a cursory once-over, laughed about buying more work, chucked it on the back of the Caddy and set off for home. Two miles down the road, some tool of a tractor driver promptly wedged the cutter bar from a combine harvester into the side of it and squeezed us against a tree. Not the best start in the world.

Anyway, we made it home without further drama. It seemed to tow pretty well, thankfully due to the fact it didn't way 14tons like many of these old vans. Zoe was happy.

I set about photographing the interior, for future reference, before stripping it back to find out just how bad things were. We knew the roof was leaking, as were some of the windows and there was a definite spongyness to the floor, so it was just a case of rip it out and have a look.



This is the only photo I have of the outside, before work began! I was obviously having visions of it being a quick fix. The inside looked pretty good, to be fair, and the layout is pretty cool – double bed at the front, single bed down one side, wardrobe the other and then a kitchen and loo at the back. There are doors on both sides too, which is pretty cool.





More in a sec...

[Deleted]

Onwards and upwards...

So, first job was to carefully strip out the interior. This promptly filled my almost-finished-lounge in the house. "won't be there long" I thought - must have been overcome by mold spores, or something.

It soon became aparent just how much of a snotter we'd bought ourselves! These old caravans were put together with the bare minimum of sealant, combined with 40-odd years of neglect, meant that every joint on the van had been merrily letting water in for god knows how long. It was totally rotten. I think we had actually done well to tow it home in one piece! Every single one of the side ribs crumbled away under your fingers, the roof timbers were about 50% gone causing the fibreglass roof to distort and crack, the perimeter frame at floor level was completely gone and the floor itself was knackered. The body was actually sitting about three inches lower over the chassis than it should have been! The sag had cracked the front and rear GRP panels and both of the inner wheelarch tubs for good measure.

This was the low point that destroyed my mojo!







At this point, it's fair to say I wasn't feeling the love. Only one thing to do though - crack on; it aint fixing itself!

[Deleted]

My plan was pretty simple - start at one corner and work my way around!

The frame cosists of curved hardwood ribs, forming a frame between a chassis-mounted lower rail and a curved header bonded into the roof skin. I tracked down a load of hardwood from a mate of mine. He dropped a couple of lengths off for me to try and them promptly dropped about 100m off and wouldn't take anything for it! The only slight issue was that they were rough sawn and small section. To get the rib shape, they needed re-sawing and then gluing up into a board. My mate came up trumps again, dropping his spare table saw off for me to borrow - he just turned up with it and said "I was looking at this last night in the workshop and though I know who could do with that!". Legend. I'd already realised I was going to need a bandsaw, so had bought an old one off the bay and done a quick refurb on that too!



With a load of rib blanks cut, I then set about the van....





Ok, that went well enough. Let's have another go...









Not much van left really!

The arches were pretty rough too. One side was fixable, but I thought I may as well just replace them both. Easiest way to sort these was to double up some 18mm marine ply and just cut them out in one piece, rather than making them up from loads of hardwood pieces as they originally were...



Roughed out..



Profiled to shape..



Looking better..



More soon!

[Deleted]

The panels on the van were originally held on with just a few tiny screws and some panel pins - it's no-wonder these bloody things leaked, not to mention flexed!

I wanted to not only have the van water tight, but also try and get some extra strength into the shell. I had a look online for what mastic to use and one that kept cropping up was Sikaflex 552. Only one problem; it costs a fortune! Stuck a saved search in on ebay and a couple of weeks later some leftover stock came up, so I grabbed it sharpish!

It really does appear to be the stickiest stuff known to man! It also had the added benefit of evening out any discrepancies in any of the timbers!



you can never have enough clamps...





The left hand rear panel had been butchered sometime in the past, to incorporate a badly fitting (and leaking) access door. There was no bloody way I was going to all this effort and then putting that back on, so I splashed out on a new sheet of ally.

Can't be doing with that butchery..



Excuse the clutter..



more bonding







much better



roof adventures next, if you're still awake!

[dungbug]

Great project, enjoying this thread.

[Deleted]

Well I've just about bored myself to tears on this, so I can only apologise for inflicting this amount of caravan based tedium on you.

A problem shared and all that...

I'll keep this brief, spurred on by the fact PotatoBucket seems to have devoured a batch of my photos.

The roof is just a one piece grp clamshell with precious little in the way of extra support. It features a huge skylight and came with just as huge leaks! The roof had sagged under its own weight, causing the skylight to leak. This then rotted out the few small timbers, causing the roof to sag further, then crack, then leak some more.

I decided the best solution was to cut two full-width timbers and then fibreglass them in place. Like so...





I then added some additional timbers down the lenth of the opening and fibrglassed the whole shebang together. Obviously, I sorted out the cracked roof too!

The roof still has a few buckles in it, but you can only see these from above, so I think I might just live with it for now.

It seems like naff all, when I run through it on here, but this is the product of month's of Saturdays and snatched hours here and there! I've replaced most of the other rotten timber in the roof and end sections now too and made a start on the misery that is prepping for paint.

More on that much later though.

Thanks for stopping by to read through this!

Joe

[sheffieldcortinacentre]

brilliant i'd love a 70's van to go with my mk3's but can't afford a good'un, as i'm no good when it comes to that wooden metal.

[tickman]

Huge amount of work going on here!
Loved the picture with the Acro prop in the van
Not boring at all, now knowing how these are put together I have made a mental note to never buy one unless I am willing to rebuild the whole thing (like you are doing)

Carry on and when the Mojo is back crack on with the Merc

John

[passatman]

Much respect....looking good fella

[Deleted]

Cheers for the positive comments!

A little more progress today, in between the April showers!

Got the two wheel tubs back in, all sealed up and screwed in position. I'd previously rebuilt a fair chunk of one, as it had snapped off at one end when the framework had collapsed. I was pretty chuffed with how well it turned out, but didn't get any amazing pics of this - so it may have never really happened! I also got the left hand wheel arch back in position - this too had received minor fettling with the glass and resin, as it had picked up a fair few battle scars over the years. I couldn't refit the one on the other side, as there were other things to sort first...

The right hand side panel of the van was looking decidedly shoddy, after our run in with the combine on our drive home from collecting the van. It was now sporting a few healthy scars, which I'd already tidied up a fair bit when the panel was off the van the other week. The ally was pretty stretched though, so I was never going to beat it back to shape - I would have replaced the panel, but it's 11 foot long and I couldn't find anyone stocking a sheet that long!

So today I've spent my time filling, sanding and filling some more! I hate filling - mainly because I'm useless at it. I seem to put it on ok, but then end up sanding it back way too much and needing to put another skim on again!

Anyway - forgot the before shot, but here's a couple of work in progress pictures. Nothing too exciting, I'm afraid!





Joe

[dodgerover]

You do realise when its all together and looking like a good one, nobody will ever realise the epic amount of work that it has taken, really enjoyed reading this though.

[dungbug]

Well done fella, more good work done today........I hate filling too so I share your pain. ;D

[skoda_norman]

Lovely thread. We had one of these caravans when I was very young. I had no idea they were so poorly constructed. You'll have a really nice, sorted van when you're done.

[hamps]

Well done fella I'm enjoying this thread

[montythemole]

Loving this thread for some reason!

[skinnylew]

excellent work indeed, will be a beaut when its done!

[Deleted]

WOW! Me and the wife were looking at caravans... Nice to sorta know what to expect with the older ones.. Probably likely avoid actually as ive got enough projects... Nice to read yours tho

[gt]

great stuff, i had no idea a van like this could be repaired

[waynedear]

More please,

[Colonelk]

grew up holidaying in Cheltenham vans, they really are great things. Look forward to this one progressing