Caravan Rebuild - Part 6

Woke up to a promising morning, looked like it was going to be a nice day and warm!  Not a day to waste, so outside by 8am and started to lift the caravan cover.  


I started to remove the back quarter awning rail, unfortunately a couple of the screw heads were well worn and the phillips screwdriver was not shifting them!  Only one thing for it, would have to put my new tool to the test.....

Silverline Multi-function Tool about £18 from good old Ebay!

Wow, fantastic - worked a treat, nice and small so easily got into the small areas and I was easily able to grind with a grinding wheel attachment a groove into the top of the screw head and hey presto could unscrew it and remove it.


So awning rail removed

What I found on this side of the van is the awning rail had been sealed correctly, there was bedding mastic between the underside of the caravan roof and coming out over the side wall which you can see in the pic above.  On top of this had been a 32 mm strip of mastic and then pushed into the the middle of the awning rail itself was a 19mm strip.

Although the sealing was  good at back quarter and front quarter and there had been no water ingress due to how good, the middle shows a previous repair that could have been done a little better.  Somebody had stuck a small section of awning rail here with silicon sealant which is where I found trappings of water! Such a shame because if it had been done better then the damage inside could have been prevented, it doesn't help that the flue you see hasn't been bedded in at all, that's right, at all!!

Most of the screws I removed looked ok, there were just a couple that were really rusted and they came from the middle section near the air vent where the flakes of rot and fluttered to floor inside.

Cleaning the mastic off the van isn't easy work, it takes quite a bit of time using the turps, but I'd made a good start before Lee turned up to start on the inside.  Time to tackle the shower room and get the ceiling, back wall and side wall cut and up.  As I went off to purchase some more plywood Lee cut the back section and and the ceiling section.  I had a bit of a mare because I had an 8ft x 4ft piece cut down to 5ft and tried to get it into the VW Saloon we bought for towing  and I was struggling to make it go in when it split in half!! Cracking.  Of course important to remember it would have easily fit into our Focus hatchback but that was traded in to get the VW!!


Lee thought I was joking at first, until I showed him the evidence, "oh well, it will have to go in in two pieces, will probably be easier".  Onward and upward - we started to glue and staple the panels.

There is a baton at the bottom holding the bottom of the panel in place until the adhesive sets, this panel will be lined with vinyl paper and painted.

Ceiling section was cut, glued, stapled and clamped in place to ensure good adhesion.

Attack of the clamps!

Back and ceiling done, now for side wall - mmmm, template time!  This proved very difficult, at the front of the van it had worked well because I could staple the paper in place and hold it in place but couldn't do that at the back with the foam....managed to make one..but it wasn't ideal.  lee cut out the section and started to fit it, it needed about ten adjustments here and there...very frustrating...but finally

Now for the bottom section.  Lee decided to make a ply template for the ply this time as there were so many cuts and angles a paper template just wouldn't do.  It wasn't easy but he did it just by using the tape measure....great job!

looking good

Mark (hubby) had to have a ride over to Teesside Caravans to get us some more adhesive as we were out of Tigerseal, we would have to use Sikaflex 512 instead.  Once Mark got back we were able to start glueing, stapling and bracing!

Look at that join - perfick

Looks very dark, but once lined with vinyl paper will look a lot better.  To do this, the ply will be coated with PVA glue first to seal it and the shower room will only be used as toilet and wash basin.

These are the wooden braces put in place to ensure a good fix.

The day was getting on - we started to look at the front right quarter upper cupboard and cleaned that out a bit more - but we were both tired and getting a little short tempered so we decided to call it a night at 7pm, so that was 11 hours for me and 7 hours for Lee - wow Lee's bill is adding up!  We try to offset the bill a little with food at the end of the day and what better way on such a gorgeous day but a BBQ (there was more food than this!)

This is our little folding BBQ that we take camping - great surface area for grilling - one of the best things I have bought my hubby!  He loves it!

So another day done - what is left?  Well there is the front top right cupboard new batons, ceiling support, insulation and wall/ceiling covering to do, there is above the door and into the fireplace cupboard, new batons and some repair work to the aluminium, air vent support, insulation and ceiling/wall covering to do and then the delamination kit will be put to good use on the floor before resealing the outside of the van and laying the vinyl tiles and painting the inside of the van........so a few more blog entries yet.


Now I will spend the night thinking about how we're going to tackle that aluminium in the fireplace cupboard...

Can you spot the rivet hole?  Might have to put some aluminium support in here....

Until the next blog, goodnight.


Well it's now the morning after and the sun has got his hat on again, so have to make the most of it and get our there and carry on removing and cleaning the awning rails down.


This took some doing, I have cleaned down with turps just need to go over it with methylated spirit now.

What a difference without the cover on....

You can the whole awning rail has been removed

For some reason the front window section has been sprayed white - custom caravan!!  But you can see where I have cleaned all the mastic off.

The back of the caravan cleaned

When it's under the cover it looks a lot bigger, looks tiny now!

It looks a little patchy in parts, but when cleaned with methylated and resealed it will be getting a good clean with Fenwicks caravan cleaner

Vent at the top looks a little wonky because it isn't braced in the wood inside yet

Windows resealed a couple of weeks ago but added the bumper strip today...looking ok and don't mind the custom colouring! lol