Our Touring Past

Well the time has come to start the restoration of the Glen Caravan.

This is how the Glen looked in 2004 when the current owners purchased it.
and this is how it looked in January 2009 when Dad and I picked it up from Victoria after spending 12 months outside with a tarp over it.
The Glen loaded on the trailer ready for the very hot trip home. It took 3 days for us to drive down and back and I think they were 3 of the hottest days that we have had in 10 years with temperatures nearing the 40's, and I wasnt looking forward to the drive home towing the car trailer with the Glen caravan.

I have been asked to give the Glen caravan a restoration for a young couple from Sydney.

The Caravan was built by Messers Lewis and Matthews in their workshop at 820 Glenhuntly Rd. Glenhuntly in Victoria in the early 1940's, and the van is still in its original condition with hardly any modifications made to it over the last nearly 70 years.

Here is a link to the Glen Caravan section in the library.

The Glen was purchased a couple of years ago by the present owners, as it needed to be moved out of its storage shed about 12 months prior to me picking it up, where it had spent all of that time outside with a tarp over it, which has caused a lot of deterioration due to moisture being trapped under the tarp with no flow through ventilation.

Looking at the Glen to assess the restoration.
Good Points.
* Typical pre war design which makes it a very rare caravan.
* Has a lot of unique features, such as.
.............Lantern roof.
.............Wind up and down windows.
.............Fold up step.
.............Original valve radio.

Bad Points.
* Short A frame.
* No brakes.
* Exterior needs recladding.
The photo below shows the very short A frame as well as the very unusual jockey wheel that can be wound up and down with the handle on top as well as via a socket on the side using the leg winder handle.
So after discussion with the owners we were given the brief to restore the caravan using as much of the original materials as possible so that the Glen doesnt lose its Historic Caravan title
As the caravan will be used for touring as well as visitor accommodation, the chassis will be replaced with a custom made chassis fitted with a new drop axle with over ride brakes.

To start the restoration we needed to begin at ground level and work our way up, so that meant we needed to work out what we were going to do for a drop axle, brakes and wheels. With the help of forum member Col, he identified the rims as standard after market 16" rims which were sold by many caravan accessory outlets. Col also noted that the stud pattern of the 16" rims was the same as the stud pattern used for many Jap four wheel drives.
After a lot of research on axles and accessories, and finally with a lot of help from All States Trailer Spares and Sales.

Click here for the All States Trailer Spares and Sales website

I placed an order with them and four days later I had a custom made drop axle and accessories delivered to my door, as ordered. With the drop axle now at my workshop, we could have a chassis designed to suit the axle and caravan body. With all going to plan the old chassis should be unbolted and taken out and the new chassis slipped under and bolted in.

With the help of a friend of mine who is an Engineer, the chassis has been designed and I have had a couple of quotes for the welding.
The chassis is now under way so it was time to have a look at bolting it to the caravan frame. I started to remove some of the outside cladding so that I could gain access to the bolts that hold the frame to the chassis, only to find that the edges of the flooring and the outer floor joists are started to be affected by rot.
With the only choice being to replace the floor and floor joists, I had to decide on what to do for flooring, I could use ply or I could use tongue and groove flooring.
The Glen originally had Baltic pine tongue and groove flooring, but this is now very hard to get. The other choice of flooring would be Cyprus pine , but this is nearly as heavy as hardwood flooring and is brittle.
Or I could import some Baltic pine flooring at nearly the same cost of using a marine ply for the floor.
So to keep the originallity I ordered some Coachwood for the floor joists and I had to imported some Baltic pine from Sweeden for the tongue and groove flooring.

The photo below shows the milling of the 70 x 30 mm Coachwood floor joists.
The photo below shows the Baltic pine being rough cut to length. The Coachwood and Baltic pine will now be left for 3 weeks to "season" before it is fixed to the chassis.

I have been slowly working on the Glen, but I have been abit slack about posting the restoration photos.

This is the chassis after it came back from the boilermakers, with a detail shot of the plate welded on the A frame for the coupling and the safety chain welded on.
While the chassis was being constructed I took a series of detailed photos and measurements from the original body so that in case I had a problem I could use the photos as a reference. I also took photos and measurements of some of the fittings so that I could put them into storage till nearing the end of the project.

There are 3 of these metal framed flyscreens that screw over the 3 opening windows, on the outside of the van.
This is the original table that has lino glued on as the table surface, which looks to be original.
There are 4 of these original seats, although there should be 6 as the backs for the dinning table are missing. The seats have a hardwood frame and are innersprung.
This is the original unfaded colour of the seat material from a section down the side of the seats that hasnt seen too much sun.
I then started to remove the outside masonite sheeting to have a look at how the timber frame was constructed.
It is amazing what you find tucked away in little corners or drop down the frame cavity. Although I have not found an original newspaper to date the caravan.
After studying the framework I have decided to modify the chassis so that the side rails run through to the front and back radius'. This meant cutting off 31mm from each side of the front and back outrigger.

Iam a bit behind with the progress photos of the Glen so since I now have a little spare time I had better keep downloading.

To start on the restoration I had to move some of the "stuff " out of my shed so that I could have the Glen as well as the new chassis in the shed side by side so I could check measurements easily as well as making it easier to transfer the frames etc over later on.

I placed the chassis on the garage floor and lifted it up just enough to get my trolley jack under to lift it later on. I havnt installed the springs and axle at this stage as it makes it alot easier not to have a big step up to the caravan, and when I do install the springs I can make a small adjustment back or forth to counteract the weight.
The chassis was then levelled around the 2 sides and front and back, and packed up to suit. This will make building the caravan easier as I now have a level surface to work from.
And to check that all is level, the front and back cross members should be parrallel to each other.
The 35 x 70 hardwood floor joists laid out ready to fit.
The floor joists are cut over the steel support angles and the cuts chamfered so the timber will fit snugly over the welds.
I used coach bolts to bolt the floor joists to the steel chassis, and the bolt heads were countersunk so thet they don't get in the way of the flooring or the external wall cladding when they are fixed to the timber frame.
All of the bolts are cut off about 5mm longer than the nut and the end of the bolts are riveted over so that if they do come loose the nuts will not fall off.
I used a string line down each side to straighten the outside floor joists for "in and out" as well as "up and down".

With the floor joists in place the next job is to fix the flooring. With the tounge and groove flooring it is a simple matter of starting at one end, ensuring that the first board is fixed parallel to the chassis. The rest of the boards are then fixed one at a time, using a chisel to tighten the joint with the other board. Or if you have a flooring clamp it a simple matter of clamping 5 or 6 boards and nailing them down. ( Keeping in mind not to clamp the boards too tight.)

Fixing the first floor board. The flooring is left longer and trimmed off after.
Using a flooring clamp to clamp the flooring.
The floor nailed down and the sides trimmed off ready for the wall frames.
Note. The wheel arch holes still need to be cut out in this photo.

Now comes the teadious job of construction the wall frames, the one good thig about this part is that at the end of the day you can see what you have done.

Each main stud of 35 x 22 is halved and housed into the hardwood floor joists.
Once the stud is cut in neatly it is then glued with waterproof glue and nailed into position and later screwed to the hardwood.
Once the stud is fixed in position I needed to make sure that it was square ( or plumb ) to the floor from the side as well as inside, so that once the glue dries it will be in its correct position.
All of the main studs in position, I can now start to frame up the walls for the windows and fit the noggings to carry the internal and external sheets. Remembering to position the noggings to carry any sheet joins or if the walls need any fixtures screwed to them later on. The window frames and noggings are glued and nailed into position and then screwed, with the main frame joints halved.
Because this caravan has wind up windows which take up alot of wall space it is hard to position wall bracing, but I was able to get some in under the windows.
The finished side walls ready to start the front and back.

Well another day in the Shed, but I have heard that a bad day in the shed is better than a good day at work.

By this stage I had started to pull apart the old Glen so that I could see how it was put together and to start to remove some of the things that will be reused, I found a rear curved section that hadnt rotten away so I removed it to use as a template to make the front and back curved sections. They were cluey back in the 1940's as the front and back have the same radius of 12" only the top cuts are different as the back wall has more of a slope on it, how easy is that.
Using the original curve as a template I marked out the 6 curves that I need on a peice of 16 mm marine ply. I then glued this ontop of another piece of 16 mm ply to make up 32 mm which is close enough to the floor joist size. They were then all cut out using a jig saw.
Clamping the 4 rear sections together I then ran over them with a belt sander to make sure they were all uniform.
I then had to align the 2 front and 2 back corner curved sections as thay had to have the same height from the floor joist as well as the same distance out fron the adjoining stud.
The curved sections halved into the floor joist.
Showing the curved front wall junction, all the joints were halved, glued, nailed and screwed.
The section where the top nogging meets the back wall.
All of the wall frames finished, except for some blocking for bracing and fittings etc.

Now that the wall frames are completed I now need to work on stripping the old roof so that I can reuse the steam bent timbers. To start I had to strip the inside of every thing that was going to be reused.
Once this was done I simply went around the inside edges of the roof and slowly lifted it up with a wrecking bar. When the roof was clear of the nails holding it I then pushed the roof forward and to the ground, being careful that nothing snapped.
With the roof section on the ground I then stripped the aluminium angles and the old masonite and plywood to be left with just the timber frames.
It is important to note here that on any van the curved main roof timbers should be formed from either steam bent timber or laminating ply together to form a curve and not from cutting the timber part way through as I have done later on for the curved blocking, which only hold the edges of the sheets and is not structural.
I then started to prepare for lining of the roof which had to be done in stages so that the masonite sheet edges would be supported, but firstly I had to "wet down" the Masonite 24 hours before I needed to use it. This relaxes the sheets so that once they are fixed in position and dry they shrink back slightly which keeps the sheet in tension.

The sheets are laid on a flat surface face down and the back is wet just enough to cover the sheet.
The water is then broomed in to the sheet to make sure it is covered. They then need to be stacked flat in the shade, with the sheets stacked back to back.
CAUTION. The run off water from the sheets will stain concrete and timber so be sure to hose the water away before it dries.
While I was waiting for the masonite I carried out a couple of repairs on the roof timbers, which were in pritty good condition considering the rest of the van.

To start on the roof I used the lantern roof frames to scribe the arch of the roof on the wall frames, then checked these measurements against the original walls to make sure I had the same shape.The wall studs were cut to length and the side lower sections of the lantern roof had to be lined with masonite before they were fixed to the frame.
With the two side sections in place, I then had to install the top lantern roof section, this is where the acurate measurements paid off as the 3 roof sections had to be the same width as the van. The lantern roof sides were then lined inside to give the arch strength to support its self.
The next step was to line the top section of the Lantern roof but before this could be done I had to block down the sides of the roof to support the sides of the roof sheet.
With the blocking done I then fixed the sheet to the lantern roof, this would have been better as a 2 man job as I struggled to do it myself. To start nailing of the curved roof section I had to start at the front of the sheet and then nail down each side about 300 mm at a time to ensure that the sheet was tight against the timber.
Lantern roof looking back.
Lantern roof looking forward.