Hi Everyone,
I'm new to the forum. I've been given an old caravan. It's a Chateau 320 ELITE. Age is 1983. It's 11ft long. Right now it looks horrendous on the outside. The inside isn't actually too bad overall but there have been some leaks. From my first investigation the leaks seem to have come from loose external handles on each corner of the caravan. Regardless my plan is to totall strip out the inside. We're looking to make a cool vintage looking caravan that we will use for short 2 to 3 day trips to fully serviced sites. We're a family of 3 so I'm thinking one large permanent bed replacing the existing seating and convertible bed. and on the other side a single bed/day bed type setup. I'm going to remove the hob and sink and replace with a fridge only and small countertop with coffee maker.
I'm hoping I can make the whole thing more comfortable with a nice awning outside that we can use during the day.
The frame of the caravan looks perfect to me. The underneath is very clean and good condition. There are some damp corners that I've already exposed. If the caravan was bigger I probably wouldn't do this project but I feel like considering it's quite small and doesn't have any of the complications of toilets, showers etc. in it then it could be a worthwhile project and manageable. I also think with a new paint job on the outside it would look really well.
Any tips would be greatly appreciated. I'm pretty good with woodworking and have all the tools and machines needed to easily cut out new Ply etc.
I am considering going full on and replacing the entire floor with EKOPly and possibly the walls also rather than using traditional ply? Anyone have experience with this or is there a reason not to. It seems like a perfect material for a caravan?
Regarding sealing the caravan I see a lot of mentions of SikaFlex is this superior to something like Tec7?
Comments and laughter welcome. Hoping I can post my progress here. Seems like a great forum.
I'm new to the forum. I've been given an old caravan. It's a Chateau 320 ELITE. Age is 1983. It's 11ft long. Right now it looks horrendous on the outside. The inside isn't actually too bad overall but there have been some leaks. From my first investigation the leaks seem to have come from loose external handles on each corner of the caravan. Regardless my plan is to totall strip out the inside. We're looking to make a cool vintage looking caravan that we will use for short 2 to 3 day trips to fully serviced sites. We're a family of 3 so I'm thinking one large permanent bed replacing the existing seating and convertible bed. and on the other side a single bed/day bed type setup. I'm going to remove the hob and sink and replace with a fridge only and small countertop with coffee maker.
I'm hoping I can make the whole thing more comfortable with a nice awning outside that we can use during the day.
The frame of the caravan looks perfect to me. The underneath is very clean and good condition. There are some damp corners that I've already exposed. If the caravan was bigger I probably wouldn't do this project but I feel like considering it's quite small and doesn't have any of the complications of toilets, showers etc. in it then it could be a worthwhile project and manageable. I also think with a new paint job on the outside it would look really well.
Any tips would be greatly appreciated. I'm pretty good with woodworking and have all the tools and machines needed to easily cut out new Ply etc.
I am considering going full on and replacing the entire floor with EKOPly and possibly the walls also rather than using traditional ply? Anyone have experience with this or is there a reason not to. It seems like a perfect material for a caravan?
Regarding sealing the caravan I see a lot of mentions of SikaFlex is this superior to something like Tec7?
Comments and laughter welcome. Hoping I can post my progress here. Seems like a great forum.