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Stu's 1985 Liteweight Tracker Caravan


Stu

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It cost me $1750 to get blasted and coated in epiphos.  The guy was the cheapest I could find, most were around 3k, one quote was for 5k including a single layer of black paint but no rust repairs.

Its not too bad in my opinion, and saved a metric shit ton of my time crawling under there with a wire wheel etc.

 

 

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Polishing the turd...

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Pretty happy with how its coming up, thats just with a quick cut using my polisher and some G3 compound followed by a wipe and quick buff. 

Once all the original graphics have been replaced I'll wax that thing if I can be bothered.... (probably wont)

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Haha its certainly my first OS vehicle that has had a clean sheet - if only my starlets and AE86 were that easy... (no chance)

Cheers Dave! Still shit loads of work to do but at least she's on the road!

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Thanks! It's nearly there, not sure how much wounding caravan updates the forum can handle haha!

Yeah we stayed at Wentworth Valley, pretty cool place, we were in the upper end where it was mostly families. Some good walks around and swimming holes.

Ive heard the main Whangamata campground has been sold to a developer so I can only imagine how busy Wentworth will be if the main one closes.

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Thanks! Originally I didnt want to modernise it too much but the old interior was pretty shit and falling to bits so it finished up close to the intended vision.

Yeah they are super rad! We had heaps of comments from people in newer caravans saying they wished they could get an old one. 

Ours is relatively new too being 85, I'd roll a smaller 70s one if I had the chance but this one suits our purposes well for now!

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The original Powertech solar charge controller that I had stolen from the camper trailer and fitted was ok, but I didn't fully trust its charging characteristics into the reasonably expensive batteries. The battery warranty info had some pretty specific details on how to maintain them long term, so after a bit of research and mucking around with checking various voltages and charge currents and not being 100% happy with what was happening I bit the bullet and ordered a Victron solar charge controller and a smartshunt for better battery management.   The new unit seems to be much more intuitive with different charge characteristics which are customizable to suit the battery suppliers recommendations, along with a big step up in logging so I can check what's been going on every few days.  The batteries seem to be floating at full charge alot better and longer and not depleting as much with the fridge on etc so I think its money well spent.  The only thing I need to get now is a 240v charger I can hard wire in so when its plugged in at campgrounds etc it keeps the batteries topped up if needed - like was needed this weekend...  Anyway no photos of the new controller or shunt yet - let me know if anyone is interested in seeing them.

Prior to going away and with no spare time to look at it myself (plus I'm no expert) I resided to having to get someone to look a the brake coupling for me.  

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This issue with it is that its supposed to hydraulically dampen in both directions so when you take off from a start the shaft pulls out of the body softly and the same when braking.  What happens is that the shaft pulls out too quickly and the locking ring (item 8 in the drawing above) slams into the back of the main body (item 7) which results in a big jolt that's fairly horrible to endure. 

So I ripped the coupling off again and dropped to a brakes specialist down the road from work who said they could take a look for me. They were pretty busy and I got a bit busy myself so it wasn't until last week that I pestered them as to how it was going.  Anyway they pulled the pneumatic dampener apart again, cleaned it all out, and put new seals in etc and filled it with proper fluid.  It seemed better on the bench when I picked it up and had some dampening in both directions but once I fitted it back on and took it for a test drive there wasn't really any real improvement to the jolting when the coupling takes up to towing force again after braking. So I took it off again and left it with them to try again. The day of departure and after few calls to see how they were getting on I got a call back that they had it on the bench and would I come and take a look. Time was ticking so i shot around and helped them muck around with it.  It all seemed ok but once again once fitted it jolts so I gave up and did the trip with the brakes disabled and it wasn't too bad - good job its lite weight...

We head away to Hot Water Beach for a mates birthday each Auckland anniversary weekend so with the sun still partly showing we left after work on Thursday to avoid any traffic and the impending weather.  There's plenty to do there so we weren't concerned by the weather too much and in the end it was a heap of fun!  We rolled the dice and travelled over the Tapu/Coroglen Road which was in pretty reasonable condition considering all the rain. On the way over we came across a few cars parked on the side of the road so stopped to check they were ok - general consensus was they were a bit nervous about the road and conditions and would we mind if they followed us which was a bit of a laugh when they realised we had a caravan on the back.  Anyway made it over with no worries, had a few wet but fun days mucking about. Few small road trips to Cooks/Whitianga and Hahei, plus many hours spent on a water slide at the campground. Then with the Tapu/Coroglen and Kopu/Hikuai roads closed we cruised the long road home via Waihi on Monday - all in all good times.  Plenty of site seeing along with way, the kids loved it and we avoided all the chaos in Auckland.

Camp:

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Stopped at the Martha Mine to show the kids, couldnt resist a rig photo

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Stopped in the Gorge for a look - plenty of water!

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And ignored the yellow lines for another photo op...

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Will try to sort the coupling again this week as off to Raglan this weekend coming...

 

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Yeah mine has durotorques too which are luckily in pretty good condition so I haven't had to do much to them. 

I haven't looked under mine for a while but from memory the durotorques are welded to a beam axle that then bolts up to the chassis so you may need to replace the lot.

I'm due to do some work on the caravan later this week (all going well) so I'll take another look when the wheel is off.

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