Blizzo and Shonesy's 62' Starliner caravan

[BLIZZO]

Hey team! well last night myself, Shonesy, Dolan and Jemma went on a bit of a mission to go aquire my next project that we are both rather excited about as it was the deal of a century.
Tis a rather original 1963 12foot starliner caravan! so pine as these things are pretty hard to find now and although very neglected this one seems to have pretty good bones.

 

anyway pictures first - 

 

So it has sat in this resting place for the last 8 years, and in another resting place for several years prior. The cool things about these starliners is the entire top half is a solid fibreglass shell, so they dont leak! thus the bottom alloy half and framing doesnt rust!. The fibreglass has a few patches in it, and will need a new gel coat on it. The chassis is very surface rusty, but i will try repair this with the floor out but shell on, as apparently it is incredibly easy to break the fibreglass shell when removing it.

 

it has a rather whack but cool duratorque suspension setup that keeps it relativley low, with drum brakes and a what cable break setup. the interior lining is also pretty degraded as it is a spray on foam type that is all brittle and cracking and falling off. most people rip it out but i have seen someone use carpet underlay and "solo" what ever that is, dont know how they have done it, but this is it here - 

 

anyway back to our van, our plans are for a re line, tidy up the cupboards, new gelcoat and paint, all to the original colours as factory etc, probs try find some sweet brown / burnt orange retro lino for the floor, get it real tidy, and then use the hell out of it, will look sweet behind the triumph.

 

only thing i am gutted about is the sweet starliner hatch in the roof is missing, and has been replaces with some shitty broken wooden one.

 

can you all please do me a favour and head to the starliner nz facebook page, there is a competition post to win a bunch of parts, can you please like my comment "blake jones" so i can win the shit out of some stuff. please and thankyous, line here - http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=423583487844790&set=gm.1064454596920661&type=3&theater

 

anyway more photos for the thread - 

 

[KKtrips]

What a decroded piece of crap.

 

I know you'll make it pretty though - or Shonesy won't sleep with you in it.

 

Target - bring to Wagnats next year.

[HighLUX]

Will it have a cat door for Jeff to smash through

[BLIZZO]

Will it have a cat door for Jeff to smash through

 

maybe he will get his own that tows behind it

[Seedy Al]

holy shit this is lush

 

I am epicly jealous

[CaMpylobacter]

THIS IS AWESOME

[felixx]

good work son

[BLIZZO]

so after a bit of a mission on the weekend we went down and picket this bad boy up. Apparently in the week between paying the lady the money and picking it up three people tried to buy it off her, i certainly timed it well.

 

happy chaps!

 

Got the thing home and gave it a good dose of 30 seconds and a water blast, then spend 3 hours cleaning all the rat shit out of it. Came up surprisingly well, someone has previously painted it with house paint which although flaking off has done a reasonable job and protecting the fibreglass

 

is very fitting hangin out the back of the triumph

 

a quick bit of investigating has revealed (like most of these now) that the wall supports are completly rotten away where it meets the chassis, so there isnt much holding the wall up. Will see how these can be replaced once its all stripped out as the chassis looks like it can be resurrected. hopefully these can be replaced with 3mm angle without removing the whole fibreglass top, which would make it easier to keep all true

 

its now tucked away in the shed at work waiting for the work on the rally car to be done before it do anything else on it. pretty excited to see some progress tho, whats even better is that unlike any of my cars the cooks pretty excited to get this done up too, winning. 

[kyteler]

Phwoar, check out the pins on that denim shorted adonis.

[Big Value Buddy]

Phwoar, check out the pins on that denim shorted adonis.

Thanks KY, I have learned a new word!

Definition of ADONIS. 1. : a youth loved by Aphrodite who is killed at hunting by a wild boar and restored to Aphrodite from Hades for a part of each year. 2. : a very handsome young man.

I assume it's definition 1 that applies here?

Sweet caravan Blizz, I look forward to following the resurrection.

[felixx]

did you win the contest?

[Mr Vapour]

Thanks KY, I have learned a new word!

Definition of ADONIS. 1. : a youth loved by Aphrodite who is killed at hunting by a wild boar and restored to Aphrodite from Hades for a part of each year. 2. : a very handsome young man.

I assume it's definition 1 that applies here?

Sweet caravan Blizz, I look forward to following the resurrection.

Great little van. Have you ever gel coated something like this b4?  

 

Charlie sheen has Adonis DNA, and tiger blood, along with the HIV 

[BLIZZO]

Nah I havnt gel coated anything before Brock, havnt even looked into it, was just recommended that this may need it

[Mr Vapour]

It's not hard. If you can spray paint you can spray gel. When I worked in the glass shop we sprayed gel on repairs regularly, but it often Ne needed a bit of effort to get it back to the automotive finish that we supplied,

I was looking at painting my boat a couple of years ago. I think and that a marine epoxy 2 pac finish Will work best for you on this. Gives a good finish off the gun, use a epoxy primer to seal the old gel and then spray the marine finish. Guys even report good results when rolling it on boat hulls.

Might be worth looking in to.

[Mr Vapour]

Looking at your pics.

My boat was in a similar condition when I got it. A good blast and a scrub with 30sec got the crap off but you will find that the gel will have oxidised. You can buff it back to a finish it will look better, resist water and green growth better, but in this current state I would not be supprised that you end up buffing so far back that you can see the fibres in the glass through the gel.

[BLIZZO]

Awesome cheers for the advice man. It is getting a bit thin, there is a few spots where you can see the fibres, and it will get a good sand back before I do anything with it. I'll look into that stuff cheers.

Also another real cool thing with it is when we popped off one of the hub caps we found this! Some old Barry's name and address that used to own it. A quick search in the archives of that address brings him up as William Edwin Adams, a carpenter, and it looks like he passed away in 1996 at the ripe old age of 80, imagine how cool it would be to track down some old photos of it in its hey day!

[Mof]

Nice van!

On my tiny little phone screen the rims looked like gold turbos/wouldn't it look awesome on gold turbos

[Seedy Al]

that's creepy you can find such info.

[kicker]

Can just imagine him when the phone number changed to 6 digits, "well better update the caravan hubcaps, now how do I squeeze this extra 2 in"