Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[davidymd]

My name is David Berwick, I thought i would put up a quick post to introduce myself and my business. I have started a business called Classic Camper Spares which revolves around buying old vans from the 50's to the 70's which are past restoring and stripping them down for any useable parts.

It all started 5 or 6 years ago when I bought a Mercedes 206D camper van. The next 5 years was spent in constant pursuit of parts to keep her on the road. I knew that there were vans rusting away in fields with the parts i needed but noone seemed to be taking them off. In the end I decided to do it myself. To date I have amassed some useful parts for the Mercedes 206 & 306, Austin J2 and Bedford CA. I hope to be getting in a Bedford CF and a Sherpa soon.

If you need any parts or have a classic van that is slowly rusting away please do call me on 01736 798424 or email me at david@classiccamperspares.co.uk, even if I don't have the parts you need i'll see what I can do to find them.

David
www.classiccamperspares.co.uk

[buzzy bee]

Hi

So what classics do you have/had? Would love to see some pictures! hehe

Welcome allong!

Cheers

Dave

[davidymd]

Hi Dave,
if you have a look at the website there is a gallery section there. Gives you a bit of an idea of what we have been working on and some of the vans we have supplied parts for.
David

[Rick]

[davidymd]

Sorry, Rick. Didn't mean to give it the big advert. Was just trying to give some background.

I'll do installment one which is Nellie, our 1975 Mercedes 206D, which we bought and pulled out of a field in kent back in 2003. She was in a bad way with siezed brakes, cracking tyres, lots of rust and to give you some idea a window fell out on the drive home.

I have to take my hat off to Kate, who is now my wife (she married me even after this episode), who got a phone call from me when she was in london on business saying "Can you just pop down to Kent and drive back the camper i've just bought". Bear in mind we live in West Cornwall. When she got to Exeter I got a phone call saying that the brakes didn't feel right. I said carry on as long as she can and if need be i'll go and meet her. When the van turned up, it turned out that the brake pad had come off the shoe and stuck to the drum! Meaning under braking one pad was spinning round and hitting the other. I have never accused her of over exaggerating a problem since!

We tried to be sensible on the renovation. First things first, brakes and suspension got replaced, followed by Gas and electrics and the window rubbers. Finally happy that the basic van was now safe we turned our thoughts to the camper interior which was in a bad state as the skylight had been leaking for many years. Roof lining and skylight replaced, along with quite a few mechanics that had worn. The usual array of track rod ends and shackle bushes. Finally, 2years ago, we had managed to get the van into a reasonable condition, she was safe, the interior was looking good and the mechanics were all up to spec. I even started to believe that she wouldn't break down every time we took her out! As we were getting married that year, we decided to ask guests to contribute to the enormous bodywork and respray job that we were about to embark on, rather than getting 15 toasters. They really came up trumps and we dropped her off to the paintman that winter to sort out all the rust and give her a respray.

To cut a long story short, below you can see a photo of what she looks like today.



By the way, a warning to all about to respray their vans. The paint swatch always looks darker than it turns out! Although on reflection we quite like this 70's colour