Stu's 1985 Liteweight Tracker Caravan

[Willdat?]

11 minutes ago, jackie said:

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

Hi @jackie there's a really active Lightweight caravan group on Facebook...

[HighLUX]

Liteweight Caravans Fan Club

https://www.facebook.com/groups/558866664456591

[Thphantum]

10 minutes ago, HighLUX said:

Liteweight Caravans Fan Club

https://www.facebook.com/groups/558866664456591

Onlyvans

[Stu]

21 hours ago, jackie said:

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

 

Sadly I don't know of any for sale - not unless you want to offer me lots and lots of money for our one - we love it.

You could call Dave @ Motorhome and Caravan World in Hamilton, he's got a few caravans in his yard but don't think he has any Trackers specifically.

WIll update this thread soon, we have the caravan back so will be sorting a few things before using it again this summer.

[Stu]

On 09/01/2024 at 00:08, jackie said:

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

 

You have probably seen them but there are a couple on Trademe at the moment and this one is pretty slick https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/motors/caravans-motorhomes/caravans/17-20-ft/listing/4500180760?bof=QEGN65WP

 

 

[Stu]

Update time:

So insurance eventually processed our claim and lumped some cash into our account to pay for the repair with as the repairer isnt in their system. I headed to Hamilton very early in the morning a few days before Christmas to collect which was good timing as we needed most of the gear inside for our new years camping trip (with the camper trailer, not caravan).  Dave had the old panels inside his shop which was interesting seeing how they are made.

 

We had a good chat about all things caravan and I paid him some money and went on my way... however the first mistake I made was not pulling the caravan into the sun to take a look at the new panels. In the darkness of his workshop the new panels looked super straight with only a bit of workshop dust on them. However by the time I got back home and parked the caravan in the sun I realised that the paintwork is a bit patchy...

 

Im annoyed at myself for not checking this out closer when I picked it up. It wasn't obvious in the workshop but yeah... silly me.

Ive emailed Dave and he said it might need a cut and buff. In my mind its not my job to do having paid for a repair, so trying to work something out with him to get this sorted.

In the mean time I took it for a long overdue wof and it sailed through with a clean sheet again.

We took it away to Kauri Coast over anniversary weekend and we had an excellent time - we even won a campground competition for best setup.

 

I still need to get the water tank out for a good clean and setup the electric pump so will hopefully get that done before summer is out.

Away to Raglan for Waitangi weekend.

 

[Stu]

Many camping trips later...

Its that time of year when I vaguely entertain the idea of getting this thing ready for the holidays.  I haven't actually bothered with a WOF for a couple of years but I might feel generous and get it one soon. 

The draw bar was a bit neglected and been showing its age.  Its been in the back of my mind how much of a bitch it would be if it let go somewhere remote..

 

So I took it to work over the weekend and the front fell off:

 

On close inspection the steel wasn't too bad but it was probably a good thing to replace it - better for my piece of mind anyway

 

Ghost bar

 

Then got some 75x50 duragalv, a new braked coupling etc and after a couple of hours:

That aint going no where.

I had a good poke around at the rest of the chassis and its mint so that's good.

Towed it home and got to work with the black paint:

 

Picked up a roll of brake line today, and am 3D printing some clamps for it and the LPG line, then assembly time followed hopefully by a wof.

Plan is to make some sort of box on the front instead of having the fibreglass fairing which does wreck the original vibe, but the extra space will trump the looks.

Will be something like this but custom made because I'm a sucker for punishment:

 

Lovely.

[Stu]

After a few coats of the finest black paint I got on with replacing the brake hard line and refitting the LPG line. 

I 3D printed some clamps for the lines which got dutifully fixed into position, because OCD.

Then by some miracle it got a clean sheet WOF!

 

The front of the caravan has a couch area that forms into a bed like such:

 

But as you can see it doesn't fill all of the area and make the bed a bit small.  

We never use the area as a couch as its always setup as a bed, so while I had the caravan at work I made a few changes:

 

This is an interim solution and long term will replace all the tops to one big panel that will hinge up on some struts for easy storage access. Will be picking up a queen size mattress for it and maybe building a head board/storage area as the space is longer than the mattress.

Also applied some black vinyl to the corner of the front windows to elude the peeping toms

 

Have most of a drawing done for the box on the draw bar so will try to get build that before Christmas in amongst all the other projects.

[S-nut]

Hey Stu. Awesome Reno here. Ie got an 84 one of these and always adding the next thing. 
On the duratorques I ended up putting in a 50mm raising block to give it the improved ride height rather than replacing the whole axle. Also can’t recommend the tube on the front for the draw bar enough for the awning poles. Happy travels. 

[Stu]

Thanks! Pretty awesome to hear of a few others around, post up some photos!

Continuing on from above I also made a box between the head of the mattress and the side of the caravan which formed a bedhead but was also a convenient booze cupboard.

Anyway the plan for the box was worked out which I decided to split into two  - a smaller part to hold the small LPG bottle with lots of vent/drain holes so it can also be a wet box, and the larger for tent poles etc. 

I cut up a mix of treadplate and sheet to form the box:

 

Then started to press them into shape:

 

This was all going fine until something in the press controller decided it had done enough work for the year and it completely stopped. No amount of probing with my multimeter could solve what went wrong so at 3 days before xmas I thought the game was over.

Luckily, one of our suppliers that we use for oversize sheet folding came to the rescue and pressed the last few parts for me.

The sides have folds at the bottom and the base plates rivet in place which was the first step:

 

Tack welded the inside then tig welded the corners and lids:

 

Then fitted some piano hinge and made up some flat bar spacers between the two boxes so the lids cleared each other, and bolted together.

 

Bolted this to the draw bar and fitted some latches:

 

Fitted the jockey wheel, loaded up and we were on our way to Shelley Beach on boxing day.  I was worried about too much tongue weight so only filled the boxes with light bulky items like camp chairs etc and it towed pretty well even up the winding roads from Thames to Coromandel town.  It was a bit wet and wild for a few days but had a great time all except for the canvas awning splitting in the high winds which Ash sewed back together during the storm!

Here's us in Thames on the journey home.

 

Saw a couple of much longer Liteweights on permanent stands - one of them was 8m!

 

All in all a good trip with the only issue being the awning needing to be restitched which we will sort soon.

Future plans may involve changing the interior around a bit and putting the queen bed at the other end and reinstating the couches - TBC.