Please Help!

Kelley,
I would be surprised if it ever had a manual. What do you need to know? There would be a few of us here who have owned them and found them to be a good van. Mine was a 1982 poptop.


Cheers,

Bill

Kelley,
We had a few Viscounts from around the late 60's on to the early 80's and I can't remember any manuals on them or with them at all. All I can remember is a chassis number. The late 60's van was brand new.

One of the places you could go is to a caravan sales business as they quite often have those old vans for sale. Many of the older salesman and business owners know them well.

Also you could put in "1980 viscount caravans manual" in google and see what comes up, if anything is available, I am sure it would show up.

I've got an 82 Viscount Grand Tourer, definitely didn't come with a handbook, but I do have some manuals for the stove and fridge which I believe to be original equipment.
I'm not a member here but will offer what advice I can when I know what you need on this post on this forum.

Disco.

TH
here are a couple of excellent vintage & veteran caravan forums that might be worth your while.

Thanks for the help everyone. I'm in search of the model name, the ATM and the load carrying capacity of the axle. Any help at all with these will be a big help. Thanks again & I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend. Cheers Kelley.

Hi Kelly,
Compliance plating on vans and trailers did not come in till about a decade or so ago so many of the earlier vans and trailers did not have compliance plates where the GVM and
Tare weights could be noted on the vehicle. I had an early seventies van for many years, 34 in fact, and all it had on it was a chassis number welded on to the draw bar.

These tare and loaded weight figures would only have been noted on rego papers in the early days as I recall so if you were lucky enough to find someone with an old rego paper for your specific model, that would be about your best chance but highly unlikely.

Perhaps you could ask at a Motor registery if they have a records division. The chassis number would be the key to that information.

If it is for new registration you may need to go to an engineer and get them to go through the ratings for your specific van. To do this they would need to inspect the chassis elements and make some calculations based on the construction and general condition of the chassis before providing a compliance plate and certification.

Suspension would also come into it but remember the suspension can always be upgraded without too much hassle. It just depends on how much money you want to spend on it.

Cheers, Bruce.

As stated above handbooks were not produced for specific caravans. The only handbooks that have been supplied is the generic one that is supplied by RVM Australia to their members for inclusion in their own vans. You can download it here. Where PC items came with handbooks these were generally included in the delivery and mostly discarded (after all how many handbooks do you have for toasters, jugs and heaters do you still have?)

As far as weights and measures are concerned with pre 1989 vans, body length was always the overall body length and only the tare weight was specified. It was suggested that you would not need more than 300 kg of stuff in single axle vans and 400 kg in dual axle ones. (unfortunately this has been translated into the modern so called "industry standard" that many manufacturers will not deviate from.)

The most reliable method of estimating the GTM of your van is to survey the axle assembly. You have to look to see what is the maximum capacity of the springs, axle, hubs (bearings,) rims and tyres. Often the rims or the tyres were the limiting components and frequently the rims were undersized for the expectations of the van.

A good site for comparing axle bits is the Al-Ko site. Look at this page for the hubs and compare yours with the shown items. There is a link on the RHS "Bearings & Bearing Sets" to give you the actual bearing sizes and also one for the studs. Other links on the LHS will take you to axles and springs.

A word of warning. If you get the urge to modernise the van you will need to build furniture in the style of the time. The chassis were built lighter than the modern vans and will not take extra weight. The cupboard construction is much lighter than you will find in the drum construction or chipboard panels of our later vans. If you are going to install modern furniture then you will have to strengthen the chassis and drawbar.

Thank you everyone for all your fantastic helpful advice. Cheers Kelley.

Kelly B
As I was working in the area of inspecting vehicles for registration purposes in NSW in 1980 I can tell you the following
1. Tare weight of any caravan was obtained from the weighbridge ticket that was supplied by the applicant for the vehicles registration (usually the dealer)
2. The Agg weight (as it was referred to at the time) was always the lesser of
2a. the capacity of the tyres fitted at the time, or
2b. the capacity of the coupling, or
2c. the maximum allowed by the brake system fitted (at the time in NSW the maximum for over ride brakes was 1020 kg (1 imperial ton), and a driver operated brakes 1020 and up, with breakaway brakes over 2040, these have now been rounded down to the metric 2 tonnes), or
2d. the capacity of the axles if known.

There was NEVER any consideration for any reasonable load to be included, and it was not unusual for caravans to be presented with over ride brakes (max 1020kg) with a WBT showing a tare of 990kg (most common, but sometimes up to 1010kg) giving a maximum load capacity of just 30kg, and these vans were often weighed without any cushions or bedding as these were considered by some manufacturers as loading and if included in the WBT then the brakes would require upgrading.

The first time that any caravan manufacturer had to specify the GTM and ATM for their products was vehicles built on or after 01/07/1987 when the 3rd edition of the ADR's took effect.

Having owned Viscount caravans of that era all of mine came fitted with Holden wheels and hubs.

Also the first 2 digits of the chassis number were the year of manufacture.

Hope this helps
Athol