Old caravans - are they worth considering?

We bought our first van in 2000 and it was a 15 year old Golf. Didn't want to spend a heap until we knew we would use it.

Did round Aus, and up and down the Stuart.

It lasted us 6 years and we traded it in for $1000.00 more than we paid for it.


It turned out to be a great investment.

Going baclk some years I bought a 27ft tandem axle Viscount for $2000 that was a shell only. It weighed in at 1300kg. I then fitted all my own furniture bush- style and towed the thing around for 10 years before it finally karked it. It had done around 250,000km at the end of its life

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The Viscount had an aluminium frame. The roof leaked a bit and I smeared the joins with Pabco. Eventually I had to prop the roof up from the inside :-)

When we settled down again I gave it to the neighbours who have used it as a spare room for the past 10 years. It is thoroughly stuffed now...lol

In view of the fact the caravans are over priced and overrated these days...if you are on a budget, it would pay to look around. Maybe you can find one with electric brakes which will be a lot better than the old cable manual override brakes that my thing had!


Cheers

Hi,
While in Landsborough QLD a couple of months ago, a couple of blocks over from us was, I'll have a guess here, an old Millard about 20ft in perfect condition. The owner wasn't about and I mentioned to another traveler what good condition it was in. He told me the couple had completely gutted it and put all new mod cons in it. He also said you wouldn't know the difference in age once you were inside.

We have an old Jayco swan 87 model that has been modified for serious off road work, and bit by bit I am updating the interior.

So yeah, if your handy or can afford to have someone else do the work, go for it. It means you can spend more on the tow vehicle.
Good luck with it all.

HI there. My first point, having looked at your earlier thread, is that maybe you should look at 2WD options as well: this would save quite a few dollars, and there's nothing in your comments that indicates a Territory 2WD/Falcon/Commodore wagon would not do the towing task, since you are not contemplating off road.
Second, you talk of adding air conditioner and awning plus sprucing up the interior of an old caravan: the problem with that it you add heaps of weight as well. A typical old van will have a Tare about 300 to 400 kg below the ATM, and typically, the actual empty weight will be 100 kg or more above the tare. So, if you add an air con plus awning plus a microwave and a TV, you will have added a further 100kg or more, and your van will weigh only 200kg below ATM, before you even think about food, clothes, utensils etc.
We have a 20 year old van, and we keep it going in terms of sealing the windows and doors, and repairing things as they break, like Willem has discussed.
Sad truth is that many older vans are a bit light on in the structural department, and will not cope with major mods. Also, 20 year old vans need to be inspected for rot, rust etc. as well as suspension and braking issues. Not much use having a sexy modern safe towing vehicle (side curtain airbags, etc) if you are towing a monster!!
So if you want to keep the cost down, perhaps you can look for an older van that is structurally OK, laid out the way you can live with, and perhaps spend a few dollars on the brakes, suspension and tyres, plus make sure the van is watertight.
DON'T hang an air con on the A frame; DON'T add a big box on the bumper; DON'T add two bikes, an outboard and jerry cans on the back, and you may be OK!!!
We spent about $13000 on our van, and we've had half a million dollars of fun already, so here's hoping you can experience the same!!

Well now! First, yes, there's an issue with early vans and light weight: ours is a single axle 17ft 6 in van, and there ain't no such animal these days as far as I know! So there's a real penalty involved if you load up an old van with new tricks.
As to your discussion of dirt road access, I'd say this: if you are pulling an on road van, then there will not be many places you want to go that a 2WD rig won't manage. Conversely, if you have ground clearance problems with a 2WD tow vehicle, the odds are your on road van will be in bother as well. In my experience (others may disagree) ground clearance is more of an issue than traction most of the time.
You ask about reliable checks of caravans: I am not aware of any formal test options, through motoring organisations or whatever. In SA I deal with a caravan business that specialises in brakes and suspension, and I would be happy to ask them to do a pre-purchase inspection of the mechanical parts of a van. But, as to checking out the seals around windows and doors, and general structure, I suspect you are basically on your own. There are repair businesses that may give you a quote on, say, window re-sealing, and naturally you can get a van inspected by an electrician.
Perhaps others can help here.

Probably pay to have a bit more info on intended use and your budget restraints.
We had a Trak Shak camper and found once the kids grew up it was big so we sold it and decided to invest in a $30K new hard floor camper which was great except it was sitting around for 48 weeks of the year or more and only came out when the wife came away and for more than a few nights. When I go away by myself I usually swag or tent so it was just a waste of money sitting in the garage. Sold it and bought a 1972 van for $450 and had to replace the whole front due to rot in the timber. All up with a change to the bed configuration and the new front it owes us about $1500 which I don't mind sitting around idle. If I want something modern for off road I will just hire it and still be way in frnt. We just keep the old girl for highway stuff.
When the time comes that I don't camp anymore then I may invest a bit more money. Having looked around a bit there are some really good $8-10K vans that would need very little spent on them but it really depends if you are planning serious off road adventures.
If I was going to travel the country for several months then I would probably look at something better but it all depends on your individual circumstances.

Hi,
We have an older van, 1974 Viscount 14ft, which we have owned for many, many years.
Over this time we have done many things to make life ,travelling, easier.
The most expensive were a new rollout awning, and a new full annexe,and seperate sunshade.
We did a lot of the work ourselves, particularly on the inside, and have always tried to keep the van in good condition. We have towed with a standard two wheel drive car always,Falcon,Commodore,Camry, always a six cylinder.
We are both older now, and in the next year, all being well, we intend to update to a late model dual cab ute, and a van with all the extras, en-suite,aircon etc.etc.etc.
I say ,go for what you can afford, getting the best condition van and tow car,
and do what Doreen and I have done for many years,ENJOY.
pete

Did you read my last reply to your original thread.

I think you are worrying yourself over something that MAY happen.

Side bags will probably only go off if you get T boned and not much chance of that on the highway.

More chance driving around town.

As others have said they would be well down the list in vehicles to buy.

Intrusion bars would be of more benefit.

The car I got hit in didnt have them and luckily the car that hit me hit low

enough to lift me out of the seat and when I sat back down it was only half

the width. Had it hit higher Goodbye pelvis.

As far as old vans are concerned why buy what could be trouble when for not a lot more you could have a good one.

Plenty of Jaycos and the like around that arent expensive.

Dont be like my neighbour who tried to cut corners and bought a 98 Cruiser that looked like it had been around the world.

Good price he said.

Not so good after he had to do the transfer case, the aircon, electric window

controls, the injectors and finally the motor let go.

For less than the vehicle and repair cost he could have got a later model good one.

Something to consider

one main problem with getting a 70's van is that it will probably leak, myself and 2 other friends have bought 13ft Millard poptops over the last 6 or so years and they have all leaked, regardless of what the seller tells you....lol
they are quite easy to fix if you know where to look (usually behind where the spring for the poptop screws to the main roof shell is a good to place to start looking, the screws flog out bigger holes and then water gets in easily)
we are more then happy with our van, i have done quite abit of work to it over the years, including building a complete new chassis for it (the originals are abit scary when you see how they built them back then) aswell as giving it a spring over conversion and also rebuilding inside the van. we take it to places such as Teewah beach and Fraser Island regularly, it's also been to 4wd parks such as Rover Park near Tenterfield and LCMP at Jimna aswell as many other places like Boonoo Boonoo Nat. Park and Cania Gorge just to name a few places. it's alot of work to renovate old vans, like said rot can be a problem with their old timber frames, and finding something solid to attach those extras you want to add could be abit hard. but spruching up an old van can be done with alot of time and effort needed usually.
we aren't to concerned about having the biggest and flashiest van out there, we are just happy to have a van that gives us a dry roof over our heads (since i fixed the leaks), that is relatively modern inside, if somewhat primitive. it's hard to justify spending big dollars on a van when we only use it at the very most a half a dozen times a year.

Hi Garbage

Six or seven years ago we purchased a very old (1980) wind-up van which cost us $4,000. We spent a further $2,000 on a new compressor fridge, solar panel to put out when we stopped, battery and control unit. We were lucky that it had fairly new canvas and clear plastic zip opening windows with fly screens, and the view of the stars at night through these large windows was lovely - better than from a tent. We put a geared boat winch on it to make thewinding up chore a bit easier. Apart from having to use a packet of matches and bottle of glue to put the cupboard hinges back onto the chipboard after rough roads and a couple of other incidents, it survived the rugged roads we took it on although the front of it looked a bit stoved in and unpainted from stone damage. It is now used by daughter and young family for holidays - it has a fully enclosed annex. Main drawbacks were there was not a lot of room for storing luggage, and it had to be disconnected from the Patrol to slide the beds out. It was similar in size and style to a Jayco Dove. Roomy enough inside as it didn't have a built in dinette; we used our camping fold up table. It was very light to tow and can be towed by a small sedan.

Camping out need not be expensive.

Structural soundness would be a major concern in an old van.


Motherhen