Popular Post solidstripe Posted September 23, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted September 23, 2020 Don't know if peeps are into caravans on here? Anyone else got any threads? I've seen motorhomes. Anyway, got this sweet '80 Roma caravan that is a bit different. The story goes that it was owned by an old engineer that wanted to get his Ford Model A (or T) to Ford meets, but it wasn't exactly easy to drive it to each meet, so he cut the back off his caravan, strengthened the chassis and turned it into a O/S toy hauler. He had a single fold up bed and a little kitchen up front and modified the back to use as a ramp/deck and could drive his car in, cart it around, then when he got there, drive it out and fold his bed down to stay. Primo! However, it was pretty beat up and in need of some love when we got it: 14 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
solidstripe Posted September 23, 2020 Author Share Posted September 23, 2020 He had used random ply over windows that had been removed and it had some leaks but the structure was sound. 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
solidstripe Posted September 23, 2020 Author Share Posted September 23, 2020 First things first, full steel brush down of the chassis, rust treat and chassis paint: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
solidstripe Posted September 23, 2020 Author Share Posted September 23, 2020 Next up, measure up some ali sheet and the bro-in-law folded it up at his work - boom, new cladding to replace the deleted windows. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post solidstripe Posted September 23, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted September 23, 2020 If anyone else needs this type of cladding, back fold about 10 degrees for the "log" type joints and then fold 90 degree for the angled body lines. They should be kind of curled up on themselves, but then once laid flat and rivited on, the "logs" will buldge out giving that typical caravan cladding look. Also, don't go bigger than 1mm in thickness with the ali as it gets hard to bend, is more expensive and unnecessary. The stuff that's on there is probably around 0.5mm? You can see the new stuff as it's shiny in the photo below. Seal the joints with MS marine sealant (not the black stuff as it gets everywhere!!). Oh, and hammer the ends of the angled body lines down once in place so its all flush and matches what's there. 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Gruntfuttock Posted September 23, 2020 Share Posted September 23, 2020 Holy shit that's awesome. What a great way to get to events with an old car... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris.QCR Posted September 23, 2020 Share Posted September 23, 2020 Nice work ! I used to do this for a job and we used 0.9mm alloy sheet and just a little tweak with the hand folder to get the swage lines. Pretty cool plans. What toys ya gonna be hauling ? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
solidstripe Posted September 23, 2020 Author Share Posted September 23, 2020 Swage lines! That sounds so much better than "logs" hahaha... Where about's did you work Chris? It was a bit of a mish trying to find cladding or even a wreck to take some off so ended up just making it ourselves. Measured once but it didn't feel right and realized I had to offset the measurements a bit to allow for the shrinkage from folding. Thankfully came out pretty good for a first try. All sorts of toys! Hopefully by the time it's done it will have space to fit at least 3 - 4 motorbikes, or a kei car (anything up to 3m long or so depending on the bumper set up) and/or a dingy and still sleep our family of 4 and be self-contained. AND still work as a functioning office too! Bring on the working holidays... haha 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nzstato Posted September 23, 2020 Share Posted September 23, 2020 That's so awesome.... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
solidstripe Posted September 23, 2020 Author Share Posted September 23, 2020 Cheers ears! While the old boy had done a great job of the rear end conversion, this junction detail here had me concerned about moisture ingress. It has an "internal gutter" for want of a better word underneath but I wanted that to be the last line of defence, not the first: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
solidstripe Posted September 23, 2020 Author Share Posted September 23, 2020 So knocked up these: And run draft stop strips underneath, boom, no more leaks. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
solidstripe Posted September 23, 2020 Author Share Posted September 23, 2020 And the rear door can still open fully: 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thphantum Posted September 24, 2020 Share Posted September 24, 2020 Pretty cool, So much room for activities. 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
solidstripe Posted September 24, 2020 Author Share Posted September 24, 2020 Look at all this floor space! You could do aerobics in here 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
azzurro Posted September 24, 2020 Share Posted September 24, 2020 1 hour ago, solidstripe said: Look at all this floor space! You could do jazzersize in here this is OS M9 Looks choice, cool idea, conversion and nice save, surprised they are not more common TBH. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
solidstripe Posted September 24, 2020 Author Share Posted September 24, 2020 13 hours ago, azzurro said: this is OS M9 Looks choice, cool idea, conversion and nice save, surprised they are not more common TBH. Mate, there's enough space to have O/S jazzersize classes haha - Enroll now! Yeah I thought it would be more common. But it's the only O/S toy hauler I've seen in NZ. There's quite a few modern ones. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
solidstripe Posted September 24, 2020 Author Share Posted September 24, 2020 Ok, onto the paint prep. Now I've been around a paint can once or twice, but I have no idea what paint they used on this, it was the oddest stuff - as can be seen in the photos, the original paint was crazy cracking everywhere, yet for some reason it was impossible to sand off, even with the most gnarliest sandpaper I could find for the orbital sander (I think I was down to 60 grit? and it still wouldn't budge). Despite all the elbow grease and the abrasion it wouldn't sand off. I have no idea how something could be so flaky, yet still somehow have such awesome adhesion! Which turned out to be a bad thing, but a good thing, as you will see. We ended up trying some paint stripper, two coats didn't work so tried the "cling wrap" method which worked a lot better. This is were you put the paint stripper on, then lay cling wrap over it straight away to try stop the VOC's from off gassing as quick and keeps it more reactive for longer. While it improved the performance, it was still slow going and tedious. The photo below where there's a square of mostly raw metal took ALOT of sanding and several coats of stripper to achieve. Considering the amount of m2 real estate on this badboy, I was not impressed with the ET calculations, so had to come up with another plan... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
solidstripe Posted September 24, 2020 Author Share Posted September 24, 2020 This is about as flat as we got it. Got all the flakey bits off however the height difference between the metal and the paint surface was still quite uneven, quite a few microns. There's no typical auto paint that could look good on that surface - However, the coating system I had in mind was thicker than the micron difference and stuck like high school nick name. I just hope it would work as I hadn't seen it applied to such a rugged surface. Here's a pic of it prepped and waterproofed. We took it camping like this looking all ratty, was crack up watching all the people looking at it in disgust when it arrived at the campground but a few came by to say they thought the opening back end was pretty cool. I was tempted to leave it like this but also wanted to ensure it was waterproof so ended up painting it. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
solidstripe Posted September 24, 2020 Author Share Posted September 24, 2020 Here's a pic that shows the paint height variation, if you painted with a typical glossy paint (even matt) it would look terrible. However we eneded up painting straight over this surface - with Raptor Liner! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
solidstripe Posted September 25, 2020 Author Share Posted September 25, 2020 Old mate helping with spraying the raptor liner. If you have a decent compressor the kits come with the 2 pot paint and the gun. It is way cheaper than normal auto paint, more durable, uv resistant, scratch resistant, flexible and provides good waterproofing properties etc. so is a good option if you don't mind the rugged texture look, which I'm a fan of. Tip for players: If I was to do this again, I would tint the etch primer undercoat the same colour as the Raptor Liner to help with coverage. This stuff can be tinted any colour and is available from your local Resene Auto shop. As you can see, we were able to do it in the back yard on a still day. It's pretty easy for DIYer's too as it doesn't appear to run despite the high DFT. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.