how do I restore an old carlight?

We often have owners phone us up for advice on how to restore an older Carlight Caravan they own or are thinking of buying.

Many would-be restorers who may have years of experience with restoring old cars but who have not tackled a caravan before often seem anxious to remove as much furniture from inside the caravan as possible in order to repair the sides and then replace the furniture. 9 times out of 10 this will lead to unnecessary expense, a lot of heartache, and, eventually to the restoration project being abandoned.

We believe the only way to successfully tackle any repair job that requires work to the sides is from the outside of the caravan.

Do not be tempted to remove any furniture until the sides are repaired; then if any furniture units are damaged these can be repaired and replaced at this stage. The aluminum is left off the sides of the caravan whilst the furniture repairs are going on this way the furniture can be screwed back from the outside and any extra wires etc can be threaded through the side frame work. So before you consider any restoration project ask yourself; do you have enough sheltered area to store the caravan in whilst the aluminum side panels are removed? If not you will have a very difficult challenge ahead.

Another question often asked is can we send a plan showing where the timber framework lies, the answer is invariably no, as often no drawings were made, the jigs would be adapted from earlier models and there was no reason to draw the resulting jig layout. However as you can see from the photograph below quite an elaborate framework is used.

This particular photograph was taken of a display we built for an exhibition to show a partially constructed caravan and to show just how much work goes on “under the skin”, many joints being carefully halved then glued and screwed.

The following is an earlier shot of one of our classic caravans being built. As you can see there is very little difference between the various models, the main points to note are that you will normally find a ‘window rail’: A horizontal timber running over the head of the windows, and one or two ‘waist rails’, again running horizontally, this time along the centre of the caravans. Then there are various vertical members. Determining the position of these is not difficult once you realise that anything fixed on the outside of the caravan, like the aluminum mouldings etc, will need a corresponding timber below them and that at any ply joints or at most junctions of the furniture and walls you will usually find a vertical timber member.

So if you do have a restoration project always start from the outside in, if there is a problem with damage or deterioration to the sides remove the aluminum side panels, and if needed the front and back panels as well, and then repair the side plywood and framework, only at that stage tackle repairs to the furniture.

In closing it is worth remembering that in the classic vans and the early Commander models the wiring was run through the sides of the caravan; The framework being drilled to accommodate it, (in later models most of the wiring harness runs inside the caravan and is neatly boxed in).

So be very careful if drilling any extra holes or fitting any extra equipment if you don’t know what is behind, you might be drilling through a cable!