December 2004
I started on the frontside, the lower tubes and the tubes on belt
height will be 25cm more to the front, so I can built an embedded
drawbar in it, just like in the new touring caravans. These tubes are
now made and assembled. The frame of the bottom is now 30 cm longer (
the peak goes on ).
The upper part of the frontside, becomes much more diagonal because of
this, which makes it more aerodynamic, but I cant assemble the original
windows in the front anymore because they won't fit. So there will be
no windows in the front, just like the old Pucks.
My intention is to built a bed in the front, so we don't want windows
in there, for this we have two windows at each side which can be
opened. Because of the fact that the construction is below the belt and
becomes 25cm longer, the room inside in the front is longer so there is
enough room for a bed with a mattress of 140*200, which is on the exact
same place of the old furniture. The inside length will remain
unchanged.
The sketch up here show excactly on what the effect is on the space by
using the embedded gasbottle cabinet.
The gasbottle cabinet.can
be opened by a shutter which works as a door. The shutter is being hung
up by two hinges.
At this moment we already have put in 36m of tubes (20*20), and I
ordered 24m more.
The new tubes in the bottom had to be welded to the bottom, this is
going to be very hard if the frame is only 20cm of the floor. To be
able to do this job, I had to put the frame outside and then turn it 90
degrees, but if I would do that the roof would fall of. That's when
I've decided that it was better to take the roof off. To do this I'v
put the caravan in a carport ( yes I have more than one ), and then
hang the roof against the ceiling.
With the caravan on it's side I could weld the bottom part without any
problems.
When the frame was standing outside like this, I thought it was wise to
clean the bottom part aswell, and to put it in minium (red lead),
because when it isn't on its side it's very hard to reach, and
otherwise the blank metal would be completely covered in tar when
stripping the old tubes.
The still existing part of the frame was covered with a layer of
tarry coating, which had to come off completely. When removing this
with a steel wire spinning-top in the grinder, the substance becomes
soft and is immediatly rubbed in the pores of the rusty metal, with all
the disadvantages for the upcoming minium to put on. I think we need a
lot of solutable substance to remove this substance. That is also the
reason why I've already put the new metal in minium.
