1999 abbey gts vogue 517

Apr 13, 2023
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Hi I've just joined and need some advice. I'm a complete novice with a caravan (had a trailer tent)
Just recently scrapped our 1980 sprite alpine caravan due to major wooden frame rot.
We've now bought a 1999 abbey gts vogue 517 (5 berth) and it hasn't come with any owners booklet. I'm currently looking for the owners manual evan if it's a pdf file as I've no clue how the water pump/heater etc works. Also the rear lights including the rear marker lights are currently not working. Currently has a trailer board on the rear of the caravan
 

Mel

Mar 17, 2007
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Welcome to the forum. Sorry can’t help with your questions. Hopefully someone more knowledgeable than me will be along soon.
Mel
 
Jun 20, 2005
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Welcome to the Forum.
May I ask from where and how much you paid for the Abbey.
Did the Abbey come with a FSH? I’m not sure how much you know about caravans? IMO it will be sensible to have a qualified AWS caravan engineer to do a full service and check over. The concern with older caravans has to be the safe operation of all the gas and electrical equipment. Carbon monoxide is a silent killer. I may be worrying about nothing but helping to fix lights can only come once we know your caravan is safe for habitation
 
Mar 14, 2005
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Up to 1999 the majority of UK caravans were fitted with Carver space and water heaters.
You should find instruction manuals for them at arcsystems

Your water pump will most likely use an external submersible pump that you drop into a water barrel. That is also likely to be a Carver Crystal mk 2. You will find teh instructions here

The control system for the pump will be either a Whale pressure switch, or a micro switch in each tap.

Carver sold their leisure products division to Truma in 1999, Truma continued to support the products for a while but now have stopped providing most spares for them, but you may still find some old stock spares on auction sites or at some caravan dealers.
 
Nov 6, 2005
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Up to 1999 the majority of UK caravans were fitted with Carver space and water heaters.
You should find instruction manuals for them at arcsystems

Your water pump will most likely use an external submersible pump that you drop into a water barrel. That is also likely to be a Carver Crystal mk 2. You will find teh instructions here

The control system for the pump will be either a Whale pressure switch, or a micro switch in each tap.

Carver sold their leisure products division to Truma in 1999, Truma continued to support the products for a while but now have stopped providing most spares for them, but you may still find some old stock spares on auction sites or at some caravan dealers.
Worth noting that many of the Carver heating products were Truma built under licence.
 
Mar 14, 2005
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Worth noting that many of the Carver heating products were Truma built under licence.
In 1967 Carver first started importing and selling complete Truma heaters. Throughout the next decade, that changed to Carver assembling CkD kits of Truma products. Progressively Carver began manufacturing parts for the heaters, to increase local content, and to Anglicise them for the UK market. The licence only came in when Carver negotiated to assemble the two heat exchanger halves from Truma supplied castings. The companies agreed that Carver should serve the UK, and Truma the rest of the world.

In the late 80's the EU competition regulations took an interest, and told both companies the arrangement needed to change, and effectively it pitched both companies into competition rather than cooperation. Carver had to set about completely redesigning the space heaters to by wholly designed and manufactured by Carver. This included all the castings, and burner and valve gear.

There were natural similarities in the products because they had to do the same job, and fit in caravans in much the same way, but there were no common parts by 1997. About the only part that could be interchanged was the hot air ducting.

So for the OP and his 1999 caravan if it has any Carver Products, they are totally Carver not Truma.

Carver confirmed it's independence, by introducing the first room sealed storage water heater for touring caravans, the Cascade (MK1)in 1980. it later produced the Crystal water systems, and the Cascade II,(1984) then in the early 90's it developed the first Caravan Mover which drove the road wheels.

These were all products that Truma either wanted or threatened market share.

During the 90's the UK touring caravan market was shrinking, down to about 50% on its 80's peak. Having two major suppliers after a dwindling number of customers was going to be difficult, Carver decided to sell it's leisure business to Truma, but continues to have other business interests around the world.

After the acquisition, Truma renamed the Carver leisure business as Carver Technology. But completely closed the business after 6 months. Truma has continued and developed some of the unique Carver products under their own name, but the heating appliances were quickly removed from sale. They continued to manufacture a limited range of spare parts, but over the 23 years even some of these are now completely finished.
 
Last edited:
Nov 11, 2009
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In 1967 Carver first started importing and selling complete Truma heaters. Throughout the next decade, that changed to Carver assembling CkD kits of Truma products. Progressively Carver began manufacturing parts for the heaters, to increase local content, and to Anglicise them for the UK market. The licence only came in when Carver negotiated to assemble the two heat exchanger halves from Truma supplied castings. The companies agreed that Carver should serve the UK, and Truma the rest of the world.

In the late 80's the EU competition regulations took an interest, and told both companies the arrangement needed to change, and effectively it pitched both companies into competition rather than cooperation. Carver had to set about completely redesigning the space heaters to by wholly designed and manufactured by Carver. This included all the castings, and burner and valve gear.

There were natural similarities in the products because they had to do the same job, and fit in caravans in much the same way, but there were no common parts by 1997. About the only part that could be interchanged was the hot air ducting.

By 1997, all the Carver heaters were wholly designed and manufactured by Carver. The space heaters were naturally virtually the same size and shape, but apart from the hot air ducting there were no other common or exchangeable parts. The EU competition laws saw to that!.

So for the OP and his 1999 caravan if it has any Carver Products, they are totally Carver not Truma.

Carver confirmed it's independence, by introducing the first room sealed storage water heater for touring caravans, the Cascade (MK1)in 1980. it later produced the Crystal water systems, and the Cascade II,(1984) then in the early 90's it developed the first Caravan Mover which drove the road wheels.

These were all products that Truma either wanted or threatened market share.

During the 90's the UK touring caravan market was shrinking, down to about 50% on its 80's peak. Having two major suppliers after a dwindling number of customers was going to be difficult, Carver decided to sell it's leisure business to Truma, but continues to have other business interests around the world.

After the acquisition, Truma renamed the Carver leisure business as Carver Technology. But completely closed the business after 6 months. Truma has continued and developed some of the unique Carver products under their own name, but the heating appliances were quickly removed from sale. They continued to manufacture a limited range of spare parts, but over the 23 years even some of these are now completely finished.

Prof
thank you for such comprehensive explanation of the heater market's history.
 
May 7, 2012
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If you google caravan manuals you might find it on one of the sites that hold them. The manuals cover all models produced in the year and not specific to the individual model.
 
Oct 24, 2020
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Our early Abbey 518 GTS twin axle was fitted with a Alde wet heating and hot water system which only operated on gas. Very similar to the one in the link below.
 
Last edited:
Mar 14, 2005
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Our early Abbey 518 GTS twin axle was fitted with a Alde wet heating and hot water system which only operated on gas. Very similar to the one in the link below.
Adle products were certainly gaining some popularity especially with the longer caravans. But I don't know exactly which caravans had which makes of heater.

Incidentally Truma also own Alde heating. Around the turn of the century they were very busy acquiring European touring caravan gas appliance manufacturers.
 

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