Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[david_rachel]

What you say is all true Cameron; except for one point. The furniture is screwed from the outside of the caravan to the respective frames. Structural repair and furniture repair usually means the outer panels have to come off. The aluminium side panels can only be removed after removing the fibreglass front and rear panels.

It's really unlikely that the roof will need to come off and sometimes the aluminium side panels can be removed by slightly lifting an end panel. Either way, the awning rails and side trims have to come off first.

As per my blog, I've now done two Carlight restorations - to do the work properly is not for the faint hearted. It is extremely involved and massively labour intensive and that's the complication. However I would suggest that any decent diy-er with a can do attitude would be able to do the work.

Again, have a look at my blog; if you can understand what I've written then you'll understand how Carlights are built and then the procedures for restoration seem logical.
_________________
David Rachel
1972 Triumph 2.5PI Est Royal Blue
1968 MG 1300 Sal Connaught Green
1978 Carlight Casetta
http://carlightrestoration.blogspot.co.uk
1995 Lada Riva 1.5 Est Red

[Cameron]

I had a feeling they were built like that David. Our Continental is just a wreck. It was a cheap impulse eBay buy and was fully towable so we thought it couldn't be that bad. How wrong could you be?! Damp in all four corners, rot beneath some windows, damage to furniture, collapsed roof in the kitchen... but it's an interesting model: officially a 1967 model on the chassis plate, but it shows up on the Carlight records as being ordered in 1965 and numbers on the furniture have 65 and 66 written on the drawers and cupboards etc...

A possibility that I'd like to think would work out for us is a 1977 plastic window Continental has been offered to us. It has damp, damage to the front fibreglass panel, a few broken windows but a very good interior. We thought we could combine the 1977 interior with what's left of our 1965/7 one and create a really good 1967 Continental with glass windows. I've been doing some measuring up, and all the furniture seems to be the same and the exterior panelling. But some plastic windows on the side seem a little bigger than the glass ones. We'll have to see I guess. But that might be the best option, combine two wrecks to create a really good one.

[david_rachel]

We'll obviously talk about it in France at the European Classic Caravan Rally (for those reading who don't know what ECCR is!) but that's essentially what I did Cameron - it's a pretty good idea, and you can make/beg/borrow/steal anything that you haven't got between two vans.

Just last week I sent a chap in Devon some locker catches that I had spare - maybe he'll send me a bottle of red, but I didn't ask
_________________
David Rachel
1972 Triumph 2.5PI Est Royal Blue
1968 MG 1300 Sal Connaught Green
1978 Carlight Casetta
http://carlightrestoration.blogspot.co.uk
1995 Lada Riva 1.5 Est Red

[rsjmum]

Sonny the Cat - When was she refurbished by the previous owners?