Caravan Rebuild - Part 9

Well this weeks work was spread over a few days.  It started last weekend with me starting to mark a grid out on the floor for the delamination kit.  I bought the 'one shot' stuff which is manufactured by Pennine Leisure.  I paid over the odds for my bottle, I now know but hey ho you live and learn.  Yes I did say bottle!  By the time I had marked out the 4x4 inch grid, for each 8mm hole drilled I would require 180 dowels!  Not a small area.  So I took a day off work and my brother Lee came back to help out - we started on the middle section where we believed the delamination to be worst and we covered an area 12 inches 24 inches with just one bottle!!  We plugged the open drilled holes with dowels and had to leave it and I went on my merry way to source another 5 bottles.  Looking at what we had just used we guessed that would over what we needed but better to have it than not.  The following day the additional 5 bottles arrived and we entered the van to begin again and we got a shock.  Holes around the area we hadn't plugged the green fluid had leaked out of as it had spread, so we had covered a bigger area than we thought. So we cracked on with adding the 'one shot' resin to each drilled hole until we had completed the whole area  (a total of four bottles were needed so I am left with two spare).  We ensured we had placed a dowel in each hole and then retreated to leave it to set for 48 hours.


Saturday morning I entered the van to find the floor very firm in the worst area of delamination as you can see in this pic.  The grid pattern 4x4 inch and the sawn off dowel heads.

You can see remnants of the green resin that did leak out around some of the dowel heads.  This could be sawn off easily too.

Was very impressed with how level it was considering the instructions made no mention of putting any weights on the floor.  However when I looked toward the front of the van where the delamination had been minimal, we had obviously put far too much in.  The floor was domed and it was very noticeable - I was absolutely gutted - all this effort and the floor was ruined!  Trudged back into the house to get hubby to go out and take a look...he came back in 5 minutes later saying the floor where it had been worse felt great however, yes the front was still a little spongy!  Eh, spongy, it should be rock solid - so there I went again and true enough it was spongy!  Hope!  I guessed that because there was so much resin underneath the floor it hadn't managed to expand and react as it should to form the hardened resin that it ends up as.  I hammered a couple of 2mm test holes and heard a rush of escaping air followed by an eruption of seeping resin.  24  hours later I came back to this.....

Obviously far too much resin, but once this escaped the floor began to find it's level.  Now just to saw off this mess and all good again!  This is a learning curve, I will know for my next delamination job.

Now that floor was done, I moved on to paint the inside of the van with matt emulsion to blend in the new wall panels.  I started at the front and worked my way to the back.

I still have to clean up the window rubbers and put the edging down the sides.

Looks a little patchy because it's wet in parts, but will need a second coat to get good coverage.

Once the seats are back in, should look rather nice.  The pelmet plinths have been removed to allow the painting of the wall.  Tape to be put over where panels join.

The insides of the cupboard are still to do.

Kitchen window blind removed to enable painting.  Taking shape.

This is pretty much a true reflection of the colour, not too cold, not too dark.

The skylight trims were removed to enable painting.  You can see the door shutting closed in this pic, something it wouldn't do before we fixed the floor delamination!

Looking a little patchy due to it still being wet.

Really pleased with the way it's turning out, ceiling edging and trim still to fit.

So now to let this dry before second coat applied.  The bathroom has already had one coat, no pictures to show of that.  Next job to sand floor and fit vinyl tiles.  Then the seats can go back in and I can start making the curtains!