Pictorials of bits and pieces of caravan work.

My father bought a 2nd hand caravan in the mid 80's which he had on-site at various caravan parks over the years with the ultimate goal of doing the "Grey Nomad" trip once he retired. Unfortunately Mum has alzheimer's and this made the trip impossible, so the caravan sat for close to decade, with my brother using it a couple of times but not doing any maintenance to it.

We don't know much about the caravan, its a 23 foot Opal and estimate it must have been built sometime in the early 80's and it was definitely built on the cheap side.

When we bought the Disco in late 2007 we finally had a vehicle we could tow it with, but the caravan was in pretty poor shape by this stage.
I have slowly over the last couple of years done work on it before each trip, i have documented some of the work and hope this might be useful for anyone who is fixing up a van.

I work in IT so have only limited handyman skills so don't take anything I have done as gospel, its just the way that I did it.


Stage 1
All the Pic's of stage 1 can be found here.


Repairing water damage to the internal walls


From top to bottom clean


Stage 2
All the Pic's of stage 2 can be found here.


Restoring the chalky external paint


Stage 3
All the Pic's of stage 3 can be found here.


Making a rear bumper with bike rack mounting point


Making up a spare wheel carrier on the draw bar


Stage 4
All the Pic's of stage 4 can be found here.


Making additional shelves for the caravan.


Stage 5
All the Pic's of stage 5 can be found here.


Repairing the cracked walls


Replacing the lino


Installing a sofa bed.


Stage 6
All the Pic's of stage 6 can be found here.


Making a hinged shelf


Building a removable stretcher bunk bed,


Sink light and sink splash back.