Old dunger

I asked a similar question to a bloke I know who buys and rents out old vans.

His number one rule was DON'T buy anything that lived near the coast for any lengh of time. Rust is just to hard to get rid of.

Stefan

I bought an old van at an auction in Alice as a joint venture with another bloke. It was pretty grotty but sound, and got it for $600. The other fella then had a change of mind and asked for his $300 as he didn't feel like mucking about with it. So I paid him out. Spent a week cleaning it up and then advertised it for $1200. Not a bloody phone call. So the next week I advertised it for $2000 and the people queued up to buy it. lol

But to your question. We bought a 27footer Viscount shell. Was an ex Cyclone Tracy van brought up from south for whatever reason to Darwin. Was brand new then. Bought it in 1990 for $2000. Then went about fitting it out for $500. We lived in the van and then took it on the road. It fell apart in 1999 having travelled over 250,000km with us. We then bought a house, I stripped the van bare and had the new neighbours do some gardening for me and then gave , the van to them. They still have it.


Cheers

Depends on why you do it up. My neighbour did an old van up. It looks way cool.

Check this link out.
Vintage caravans

I done lots of Vans up in between repairing others. It is well worth it but it does depend on how good you are. I have seen Vans people tried to do up and sold them later as an unfinished project for less money than they spend. Don't under estimate the work and cost in a rebuild but if you do it right you can use the van for years and sell it later with a nice profit
Cheers
Reiner

We've just finished refurbishing a '95 poptop. the chassis and body etc were fine but the inside terrible. Spent $3,000 doing it up and now have a great little van. Replaced both the gas bottles, put new 8ply tyres on, had to paint some of the inside linings because they were so bad, replaced a lot of catches etc, but the biggest job was replacing all the zips and insect screens in the canvas roof skirt - worth it though. Added some touches like a matching mirror and new curtains. The outside skin came up ok with a cut and polish and the decals got a new coat of paint. Awning and annex were ok but poles needed WD40 and new butterfly nuts, and the guy ropes went into the bin to be replaced with new springies. Kitchen got new drawers. I laid some marine carpet down the back and that was about it. Good little project - well worth it - we are taking it up to Carnarvon Gorge this weekend. I think you can do a lot if the basics of the van are sound.
cheers
T.R.

in the middle of doing up an old 13ft millard poptop van at the moment. already owned the van and was looking at buying a nice new 16ft offroad jobbie, but the $40 000 price tag made me think about doing our old van up instead. i'll end up spending about $4000 doing this one up, which includes a whole new chassis, axel, brakes, rims and tyres. then fully gutting inside of van and rebuilding beds , kitchen etc.
what can you expect? well everything is taking me 5 times longer to rebuild then i thought it would, and i'm a carpenter with all the right tools. don't really know why this is the case, just seems to be real alow going.
it's all the small things that really add up in price, like door hinges and cupboard handles. might not seem that expensive for a single door handle or 2, until you ralise you need 15 of the same thing.