Discoveries

Well we haven't got much further with "doing" but a bit further on with understanding a few things to do with how the van is made and what the next steps are to be.

The van's were originally designed and made in South Africa. The base and lid are of fibreglass, but as I suggested, the centre is aluminium. That is the area that the windows are set into.
The chassis is painted steel. We need to get underneath first. It all looks pretty good but with a Haynes manual in hand I shall be scrabbling beneath to get everything lubricated and greased...also make sure none of the rust gets any worse...most of that is on the side supports and isn't deep. Not really looking forward to that part.

A trip to Perthshire Caravan Company near Errol was enlightening too...looks like all our everyday needs and also some less usual ones can be found locally.
One of the first things to do will be to buy and fit the plastic that trims round the windows and to get some draught excluding typ product to seal up the windows. You can see how cracked the plastic is and how badly the water has damaged the area ...this is about the worst and can be easily repaired but it looks very sad just now.



We can get the plastic by the metre from Perthshire Caravans, we can buy new window closers too and so all I need to search for in the DIY stores is a way to increase the seal on the window as it is closed and as I say, a draught excluder type material might just be the thing. Anyone know better, let me know.
meantime please enjoy some more pictures of the damage to the sills




This last looks worse than it is I reckon. there has been no carch on this window for a long time but the really black, black is actually what oak does when it gets wet. It's the tannins. None of this is spongy rotton wood. I think the saving grace for this bit has been that the van has sat at a slant..and this has been the back end of the slant.

The clean, the check and the strip

First off we needed to get her level, then get her cleaned out and then start to strip off the "crap". What I mean is the modern bits and bobs that didn't belong...and to be honest there weren't many of those but out they came.
Then it was a case of carefully removing existing fittings and storing and marking them and stripping off the wallcoverings to reveal the damage.
I don't know if you noticed in the previous post the handle lying on the floor...well that proved to be the worst problem so far. The fact that the handle holes had been left exposed and (we think) the caravan left sitting at an angle, there had been a whole lot of water dripping in. Anyway, here's a taster.

More to come soon.

Interior

I'm not going to be clever about these, they will just be a series of photos, you will get the idea. I'll chat a bit once we get past the initial pics but this is what we got

Exterior

Ok here are some exterior pics from when we first got her

The badge...this is what makes us all feel a little glow. I have no idea why, we had no idea what a Viking Fibreline was until last week and now we all get squidgy about it...how bizarre, people keep telling us it's middle age creeping in...who cares, we like it!!

Here is the first set of conundrums and considerations. Below the bead, the substrate looks like a sort of fibreglass that is metal in colour but has a sort of plastic feel to the top layer (forget the paint I'm talking top layer of substrate). So we are assuming until told different that this is fibreglass. Above that bead sounds feels and looks like aluminium, but we keep talking to people and they keep saying "Ahhh yes, of course the fibreline was all fibreglass" so are we mad? Are we misreading the surface? There is a lot more of the original paint adhering to this area and I'll be honest, aluminium isn't a substrate that I normally work with and I keep wondering how I'd check this theory. I know if you put aluminium through the dishwasher it gets a white film on it....haven't even got a dishwasher, never mind one that will take a full size caravan. OK, silly idea.

Here's another pic and you can see under the right hand window a joint...would that happen with fibreglass? Unlikely I would think. Can you see the texture change between the 2 areas? I've perhaps made the pic too low res. The two look, feel and sound totally different.

OK, while I'm here I have a question about the jointing trim. We intend removing the trim and removing any gunk and gunge underneath...well, we keep reading about gunk and gunge under this type of jointing area...mainly newer vans. We haven't started this...just in case the van falls apart when we do this. We will check first honest. We will obviously have to try and find some rubbers that will fit the trim.

And before you dash off to look at the interior - in the next post - have a think about the windows. You can see them, they are the old aluminium ones and the rubber around the "glass" is quite cracked. I am currently just removing the mildew from the rubber and wondering how we can feed it to keep it sound in the meantime. There is water ingress from the centre window (which opens) on the front of the van but none from the 4 sealed units (the 2 curved windows and those next to them). This makes me think that even if the rubber is a little perished that it is more likely the actual window seal as opposed to the glass seal that is causing these problems.

Vikki Arrives

Well here she is - Vikki, named by James the junior restorer. She is our first tin tent...only she's not tin, she's mainly fibreglass. Vikki is a Viking Fibreline 1 from 1968, we think. We've never had a caravan never mind tried to restore a caravan but we think she could be very sweet and a lot of fun and she's in not bad nick so we are hoping we haven't taken on a crazy project.
We are desperate for help and advice so please add any comments, hints, tips and feel free to tell us if we have done a really silly thing. We have been searching everywhere for information about caravan restoration and there isn't much around so all and any help will be appreciated.
We have sent off our membership forms and money for the Viking Fibreline Club and for the Period and Classic Caravan Club and look forward to any advice from members of these clubs, we won't be rallying for a while but we can't wait to get out and start chatting to other caravanners and check out theirs...especially old ones.