Stu's 1985 Liteweight Tracker Caravan

[Stu]

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.

 

 

[Stu]

Progress update:

Got stuck into the painting the chassis which now has two really good coats on it - I might put a third coat on if I feel motivated but for now that will do. I also bought some waterproofing paint used for ponds and threw a couple of coats of that onto the underside of the ply floor which has nicely covered over where the sand blasting took off the old sealer.  Last job job was to make up some new brake hard lines so bent up some and clipped them neatly to the chassis rail.  Bled up the system and took it for a drive to bed things in.  All seems to work reasonably well - I should really look at getting the discs skimmed but it works 

 

Then I got brave and put it thru for a wof.  The supervisor came out and took a look, then the area manager came out and took a look followed by 20mins of intense caravan chat...

 

But it got a clean sheet! Woop!

 

So that's a decent hurdle overcome and another doomer back on the streets.  Rego is in the mail so she's legal now.  Pretty stoked!

Next steps are removing the old graphics, giving the outside a good cut and polish, new graphics, and get stuck into the new kitchen.

 

 

[Stu]

Polishing the turd...

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)

[Roman]

Far out, is this the first vehicle on OS to ever get a WOF first try? 

Looks like you'll be ready for some summer caravanning in no time! 

Well done. 

[Stu]

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!

[Stu]

I'm stretched really thin working on the starlet panel work, the 86 wiring, plus a couple of other engine looms that are on the go at the moment.

With normal work on top spare time is at a premium and I can only scratch together the odd hour here and there so I've been focusing on small jobs that don't take much effort and ticking them off as I can fit them in.

First small job was fitting a new jockey wheel so got a basic one from Supercheap as they were on sale with a bolt on bracket, seems to do the job.  Yes the cover is a mess but I've got plans for that.

 

The last electrical cert was in 2008 but everything looked reasonably ok and I checked a few things before plugging in a new lead and waiting for the inevitable smoke to leak out.  But it was a touch boring when nothing went bang and all the lights and plugs worked fine.  I've spoken to my electrical inspector mate and he wants me to fit a RCD and then he will test and sign it all off.  Will sort that out once the inside is mostly done.

 

Externally I've cut and polished one side and also removed the black pin striping too, still have the blue stripe to go, but the weather has been a bit shit and its a dick of a job.  I've got new pin striping from Decrastrip, found a guy in Hamilton that sells replacement Liteweight and Tracker decals, and will cut new blue graphics at work when the weather improves.  Once all the graphics are back on I'll give it a final gentle buff then wax it all.  I have zero interest in painting it!

 

On the inside it all needed a bit of a refresh and the kitchen was in a sad state so we decided to give it a bit of a make over.  I would have liked to keep it all relatively original but the closer I looked at the issues the more convinced I became that we could give it a pretty nice make over without spending the earth or taking too much time.  We are keeping the layout the same, building a new kitchen, putting some fake timber flooring down, and giving it a paint etc. Ash has decided on the fabric to recover the squabs and she's dropped them off to a mate of hers who will recover them and have them back to us in about a months time.  She's also been really busy cleaning out, sanding and painting the inside.  I think she's 4 or 5 paint layers in already as the wall linings have been soaking it up big time, but its starting to look great! More on that later.

The original kitchen was very tired - the fridge has rust holes in it and replacements were eye wateringly expensive.  I managed to pick up a second hand fridge a while back off a super yacht for a steal - it has a really nice gloss black front but its slightly larger which meant rebuilding the cabinetry.  The gas hob has rust and sink was pretty average so out it all came.  I ordered a new gas hob and sink but they took nearly a month to arrive which slowed progress a bit.

Here's the original - not too bad from a distance but bad up close:

 

Drew a quick model of the new version, basically the same design with new components.  Cutting a drop in insert for the sink that will double as a chopping board.

 

Out it came:

 

Have started on the new cabinets and cut the new bench top from some Kwela - the cut is amazing and almost no finishing will be needed.  I was a bit nervous cutting into the sheet so started with the sink insert on the bottom left of the sheet - rookie move though as the timber grain is the wrong direction and wont match the benchtop so will cut another one as there is plenty of offcut.  

 

Bit of oil splashed on the wrong part and it looks pretty great! Will use it for a chopping board at home.

 

And ages back I bought a solar panel mounting kit of trademe so have fitted it to the panel and sat it on the roof - will get around to fixing it down sometime soon.

 

That's it for now.

 

[Stu]

Bit more progress:

Finally got around to cutting the rest of the kitchen components and have pieced most of it together to make sure was all going to work. Im pretty happy with the result, still basic but a big improvement over the original stuff which was really in quite a state. It will need to be broken back down again to get through the door.

 

On the inside Ash has put in a heap of hours painting everything with many many coats of paint.  She's used a bathroom paint as the top coat and while it doesnt look much different in the photos, in real life its looking really good.  Theres a few areas to finish off but the back of it is definitely broken. We have templated and cut the new vinyl for the floor which was quite a dick to do. I've also removed and patched over where the original foot pump was for the sink taps - Ive got a 12v pump to go in instead.  The vinyl is just sitting in there for now till I get around to gluing it down but its quite a big step forward visually.

 

Now the flooring is down I can fit the new kitchen and start finishing things off inside.  The squabs should be back from being recovered in a 2 weeks time so really want to have the majority of it sorted out before then.

I've picked up a new battery for the solar setup so will leap into the wiring side of things once the kitchen is done.

Ciao for now

[Stu]

Another month gone and its been quite frustrating that I haven't been able to get much done.  My eldest son picked up covid, so that meant working from home for a week, then on the last day of his isolation my younger son picked it up so that meant another week at home, then the next weekend I was in Napier for a mates wedding so I have had very little time to actually work on the thing.

First thing was to finalise the solar panel mounting.  Yes the panel is overly big but it was free which is the right price. I had the mounting kit I'd bought off trademe but wasn't super happy with how it supported the panel just sitting on the thin roof as there is very little structure in these caravans - hence the liteweight name.  So I cut and folded up some 3mm ali as full length brackets down each side that I have VHB taped/glued and rivited to into the edge of the roof which is rock solid.  In hind sight I should have powdercoated them before fitting them, but I may sand and repaint the roof at some stage so will make it future Stu's issue. I ran the cabling through a sealed housing down into the full height cupboard and temporarily setup the charge controller, batteries (2x 104Ah deep cycle) and a string of LED modules as temporary lights.  I don't know how many watts the panel is rated at but Ive seen over 200w on the controller app so Im guessing its maybe 300w?  More on wiring later.

 

Following on from the previous post I got the flooring glued down which turned out to be a bit of a dick to do.  Being contact adhesive I needed to glue both the back of the vinyl and the floor, let them tack off then stick them together with no room for error - quite a tricky job inside a caravan and making sure it fitted perfectly into the corners etc.   I had some help for this from a mate at work thankfully. The glue was pretty potent stuff to inhale in an enclosed caravan, plus the beers we had it made for a fun few hours.  At one point we were both at the back end of the caravan finishing off and the whole thing suddenly tilted from the weight imbalance (tow hook wasn't attached and I didn't have the stands down) which gave us both the shits then a good laugh as we were thinking we must be pretty wasted haha. 

Got it done but a day or so later a few bubbles appeared which was probably from sticking the flooring down too quickly - should have waited and let the glue outgas for longer.  The fix was to use a tiny syringe to pierce the bubbles suck the air out and then weight down with big lumps of ali I had on the shelf at work.  After a few days of doing this the flooring was done.

 

Next I pulled the kitchen apart so it could fit through the door in pieces, then assembled it again inside.  I machined 5mm out of some ply that the original folded ali drawers can slide on.

 

Fixed it off to the wall and floor temporarily.  You can see all the lumps of ali holding the floor down while the glue set off.

 

Took the top back off, fitted off and sealed the sink, fitted the tap and some of the waste outlet.

'

 

With the drop in chopping board in place. The tap outlet swivels out of the way if needed.

 

Fitted the fridge and ran some cabling under the floor over to the cupboard on the passenger side where the batteries and charge gear is - hooked up the cabling and now have cold beers which adds to the motivation while working inside.  Also fitted some of the drawer fronts and handles.  I need to cut some more ply to replace all the other drawer fronts and the cupboard door so will finish that all off at some stage.

 

Next I started looking at the front seats as the chipboard needs replacing and for some reason the middle sections is completely closed off so there potential for more storage space.  The center part of the double bed slides in and out like so:

 

To make the most of the storage potential I cut the guts out and will make drop some drop in inserts.  It will be handy being able to use this space and also get the load balance/tongue weight right for travelling.  I figure the awning could fit in here at least.

There's no photos of it yet but Ive also replaced all the chipboard under the rear seats that turn into bunks.

 

This is with the old chipboard/ply, I will replace it all with ply at the next chance I get.

 

And to close this episode of wounding caravan updates off we now have the squabs back from being recovered. Ash chose the fabric and I'm super happy with how they came out.  We have fitted the bunk hinges and frames in the back and I couldn't resist temporarily fitting the fronts and taking a photo.

 

So that's it for now, more progress soon hopefully.

[Stu]

Now that the track car is at the painters, we've put a metric shit ton of hours into this thing but you wouldn't really know it by looking at it.

Its been annoying me for a while that the roof hatch doesn't fit down snug, but while rummaging around at work I found some self adhesive seal which by fluke does the job perfectly.  I will set the hatch up just slightly most of the time so there is some air flow, but if its pissing down with rain or a windy day we can now seal it closed.

 

I slid the kitchen back away from the wall and fitted some receivers onto the backs of the drawers so they don't jiggle out when travelling. All the other drawers are into original cabinetry just with new faces so they already have catches.

 

I gave the kitchen top a bit of a sand and Ash got busy and sealed it up which has brought out the Kwela colour nicely and will protect the timber. She gave the cabinet a couple of coats of a whitewash stain which allows a bit of the timber grain to be seen, and also found some stick on "tiles" from Kmart that she has put up as a splash back.  I refitted the kitchen and made up some angles sections so its now fixed to the wall and the floor - its solid as a rock now.  Just needs a bead of silicon along the back edge.

 

Finished up replacing the front seat bases.  Will be modifying the slide out panel next time I get a chance but for now it works. Also one hinge short on the right hand side but will get that next time I go past Bunnings.

 

Wiring wise the original 240v system worked, but it was pretty dated and last inspected in 2008.  I wanted to add in the ability to switch the supply so we had the option to use either ground supply from a powered site, or supply from the inverter fed from the batteries and solar setup.  I ripped the old board out, made a new backing panel, then fitted a new one with a change over and rcd etc etc. I then ran a new double insulated supply feed around the wiring track to the cupboard on the other side where the inverter is hiding and fitted a RCB0.   I've also replaced all the switch/plug fronts with new ones. Everything works so next is replacing the aging fitting on the outside of the caravan it can be tested and hopefully signed off. 

 

The old light fittings at each end were pretty garked and we couldn't really find anything that we both liked and weren't $300+ each.  Ash found some cheap wall lights from Kmart so after checking in with a mate who is an electrical inspector I designed some bases from ply, wired in some pull cords, and voila we had some lights.  I'm going to make an opal acrylic diffuser for the top to hide the fitting but for now they at least work.  We will likely paint the ply base white too.

 

Finished up replacing all the drawer fronts and cut a new cupboard door that is a bit taller and wider so the mirror Ash chose fits.   Its starting to come together now.

I've started on the 12v system and have partially fitted a touch panel control which you can see in the photo above. At the moment it only controls the circuit that powers the string of LED's I'm using as temporary lights above the kitchen. Eventually it will control the everything including a large solid state relay between the batteries and inverter, LED light strip underneath the kitchen cupboards facing down onto the bench, another strip of lights on top of the kitchen cupboards, maybe an outside lighting circuit for when the awning is out, the fridge and an aux outlet I will run somewhere outside so we can use one of our portable fridges as a freezer, water pump, and radio.  

I sat down and made a to do list which ended up being a mile long, but I'm going to focus on the must haves first and hopefully have them ticked off before xmas... hopefully! 

[Stu]

Rig. Far from done but good enough for a maiden trip from work to home. Will be towing it with the Sante Fe over summer.

[Stu]

Catching up a bit as it all turned into a bit of a rush at the end of the year as predicted and shit just needed to get done, so prepare yourselves for lots of spam...

Continuing on the 240v wiring was pretty well in and working and I replaced the last plugs and switches so its all new - good piece of mind more than anything as a few of the switches were a bit brittle.  The gas hob has electric ignition so I changed the old fridge fridge power point (its now solely 12v) and shifted it up so the fridge can slide right in.

 

One of the last things to update was the external socket for campground supply that was a bit brittle and showing its age.

 

And with that, it got its e-wof! 

 

12v wise there was a lot of work to do and bugger all time to get it done in so some of the below isn't pretty - will be replacing some of the cabling etc later on so its neater.  Firstly I made up a battery bracket - kept it simple with a base that's screwed down to the floor, M6 threaded rods and a folded top plate to clamp it all done, does the trick!

 

Originally I had fitted a Powertech 1500w continuous modified sine wave inverter (from Jaycar) which I stole from the setup in the camper trailer. They are ok but create a fair amount of electrical noise through laptops and battery chargers etc, so I shopped around and financially crippled myself by buying a Victron pure sine wave unit instead.  Its a significant step up quality wise and has an app so I can monitor its load etc and has battery protection where as the other one didn't.  Interestingly its a 800w unit but will power things the Powertech 1500w unit wouldn't so there's obviously something to be said about buying good gear.  This got mounted onto the wheel well as I figured this would help disperse heat through the metal.  I will eventually put a vent into the cupboard as the solar charger does get a bit warm when its really working.   There's a rated breaker just in case something dumb happens.  I am tempted to replace the solar charge controller with a Victron unit too after reading some efficiency data on the Powertech thats currently in there.

 

Then I got on with the 12v wiring to get the bare basics working, namely the fridge, 12v lighting, and switching for the inverter. Will eventually get the stereo fitted with a few external sockets and lighting circuits for when the awning is up.  I bought a 8-way touch panel which has a neat control board with solid state relays and fuses, and a remote panel.  I also got a 30amp resettable fuse to go between the solar panel and the solar charger but I haven't fitted that yet.  On the left you can see the RCBO that is in between the inverter and the main 240v circuit board on the other side of the caravan.  Again, none of this is uber pretty but its functional for now.

 

Here's the touch panel and USB socket for charging phones and shit

 

12v lighting wise I bought some LED extrusion with diffuser from Ullrich and put a section above and below the kitchen cupboards and wired these on separate circuits through the touch panel.

 

The entry step was just a shitty piece of ply temporarily fitted way back when we first got the caravan as the old piece was a death trap.  Cleaned and spray bombed the step, fitted a better piece, covered it in flooring, and found some powdercoated angle in the workshop that covered the edges. And threw in a couple of 12v outlets by the door which I ended up plugging the portable fridge/freezer into and leaving in the awning.

 

I'd forgotten to buy a spare wheel ages back when sorting the hubs and brakes etc so sorted that and then had an idea to mount it up underneath the caravan so its not a hinderance.  I made up a ali mounting plate that was to sandwhich the chassis bolting through the front cupboards below the seat and got most of it fitted before realising that I had failed to take into account it would hang too low and get taken out by curbs/driveways etc.  I may look at it again in the future and mount it in the middle by the axle where its less likely to get taken out, but it will be a total dick to get to there if I do have a flat.  Other ideas are making a mount on the front somehow but spare wheels are always ugly and I'd prefer to hide it somewhere so for now its too hard basket and it all got put on the wall of shame - the spare gets thrown into the back of the car or on the floor in the caravan and tied down. 

 

Made some rough and ready shelves for the cupboard

 

Finished off sealing the sink and got the waste side of it plumbed to atmosphere  I ran out of time to look at the fresh water or hot water tanks which seeing as it hasn't been used since 2008 is probably in amazing condition... and none of the pressure side is done.

 

Made a support for the rear table as the old one had snapped off. Now we have a table for playing cars, spilling beer and telling sharns 

 

Ash got busy with painting the light backers, heaps of touch ups and adding some cushions and things for character - it certainly started to feel like the job was getting close to being done.  We hung some cheap blinds from Bunnings so we can sleep off hangovers without bright light burning our eyeballs.

While towing the caravan home from work the tow coupling decided to start making some awesome clunk noises when taking off or changing from decel to accel.  I figured the seal inside the hydraulic cylinder was fucked so at midnight on the night before the maiden trip I was back at work pulling it to bits.  Seal seems ok as there was suction when pulling it apart, but the fluid was super shit so gave it as best of a rebuild as I could in the time I had.  Only had some ATF so filled it it up and crossed my fingers.  It is better but in the end I disabled the brakes which made towing a bit yuck but eliminated the terrible jolting/clunks.  This will be a priority number one to revisit when I get time.  Will likely get a seal kit for it and proper fluid.

 

So if you are still reading we did eventually get this thing loaded and off to Whangamata for a few days over New Years and it went pretty well.  Few teething issues to sort out but all in all pretty happy with how it came together.   The awning turned out to be in awesome condition (we never got it out or tried it) so that's a total bonus.  

 

Immediate plans are to look into tow coupling again, and sort the plumbing but at least its usable and we have quite a few trips planned.  There is a big list of things to complete like finishing  gas hob plumbing, finishing cutting/polishing the paint, replacement NOS graphics, tidying up the front fairing, maybe tinting the windows, fit the stereo and speakers, repaint the ceiling etc etc, but the goal for 2023 is to get the 86 on the road and this thing as burned waaaay to much of my time.  

 

 

[rusty360]

Looking mint now!! Is that the campground at the Wentworth valley?

[Stu]

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.

[hood]

What a neat job on the revamp, well done!

How cool are old caravans, enjoy the memory making moments!

[Stu]

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!

[Stu]

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.  

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:

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

[Robert Algie]

Hi Stu,

I have a Tracker 520. I believe it has Durotoque suspension. It looks like they are nackered as I have just taken the wheels off and the arms are pointing upwards. Do you have any tips on how to replace them??

Regards

Bob

[Stu]

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.

[Stu]

So with selling our old place and moving house, the caravan got parked at a mates place and unforunately one of his rams took exception to its new paddock intruder 

Insurance is covering it all so Ive dropped the caravan to be repaired at Motorhome and Caravan World in Hamilton. 

Dave there worked at Liteweight for many years so its in the best hands to get fixed in time for summer.

Will udpate when its back!

[jackie]

We are wanting to buy a Liteweight Tracker Caravan can you help with this ?