Thread: Caravaning with kids

20 to 25yrs ago there was no such thing as an offroad van, so most vans were built to last, now days there are on road and off road vans, on road vans are just built for on road use and as such would not last very long off road, off road are just too bloody expensive to justify the amount of time your off road and you just can't take them some places and they A LOT.

Buy an old van in good nick, do some minor mods (ie) offroad springs, maybe slightly larger wheels, an off road hitch and away you go.

Baz.

The are not overly difficult to work with, except that most of them are built from the "outside in", meaning furniture is stapled/screw in place from the outside before the outside aluminium skin is attached. So dont try to remove funiture from the inside.

However for a face lift... it's not that hard to remove the inner ply and replace it. Just need a good staple gun, high speed router for the cut outs and access to a suppler with a range of trim plastic. Maybe your local repairer will sell you some. Infact it's a good idea to see what condition the wooden frame (or ali) is in.

If your planning off-road adventures and are prepared to take it easy, you dont need all the 'off-road' gumpf. And old van with a good strong chassis, screw & glue funiture (not staple), vents sensible covered to prevent dust ingress (dont cover up fridge vent completely in hot weather), and with the vans loaded sensibly inside... you wont have any problems. True off-road conditions dont generally hurt vans because your normally moving at around walking pace. Dirt road corrigations kill vans and it kills cosmetic off-road vans too.

My parents are caravanners, and years ago my Dad was given some advice by an old hand at caravanning. Buy the van that suits you and not the one that will suit your whole family. I know my parents didn't follow this advice and ended up buying a van that fitted the 6 of us. Only a small number of years later, all us kids had moved out of home and Mum and Dad were stuck with a van that didn't suit them. If they had bought a van that would have suited for the future and stuck us kids in a tent, they would may still have had their original van.

Cheers

Kieren

You need a boot with good ventilation and strong securing chains.

Have a look at the Viscount Grand Tourer Pop Top 14 fotters or so circa 1984 + they are great caravans well built and you can get them for about $ 6000.
Some of them have a double bed at the back and bunks at the front.
They are easy to modify to your needs.
I will fit the axel under the springs (fit stronger springs) and bigger wheels.
Cheers

I doubt I will be towing a caravan through any serious off roading. I mainly want a new van for the price of an old one!! I will have to keep looking around, seems to be heaps for sale. Early 90's ones seem to look fairly modern and a good base to build on.

thanks for the replies so far.

If on-road vans are taken on corrugated roads, is there a "weakest link"?

Spring hangers and/or furniture. It all depends on the quality of construction, paricularly the chassis on the cosmetic off-roaders. Stapled interiors on a flimsie chassis wont last long when abused on corrigated roads. If its and ali frame you can usual tell how much abuse it's had by looking at the interior rivets. If they have a worn shinny patch around where they seat (even just 1mm) that means that the chassis is flexing badly. I'm not suggesting ali is better/worse than wood by the way.