Ant's Dormobile

[AntMan232]

I thought I would put up a couple of pictures, of my recently acquired Dormobile. It is in a pretty bad way, and will be needing a new chassis at some point in the next few years, but the aim is to hopefully get it running and on the road before that. I have all the specific parts, wardrobe. cooker, seats, table and roof (in fact, I have two roofs..), although the table has all but rotted away, so will be a template. It has had an interesting life, having travelled "all over the world", (unfortunately, we don't know exactly where [yet] ), been at Poole and Dorset Adventure Centre, police cadet training, mountain rescue . It isn't completely original, the original engine did 200,000 miles, and this one has done 150,000... many bits have been changed over the years, but in a way I am quite glad . I feel less worried about changing bits knowing that they have already been changed .

Ant

[RMS]

Fantastic to see another project getting started

Cheers,
Robin.

[DanC]

Lovely, nice find Ant!! Looks pretty solid, don't rush to a new chassis, I thinks Micks was more or less snapped but repaired solid now... That LPG tank is not going to improve the usability though....

[AlexB]

isn't it amazing how many have surfaced over the last 2 years or so?

Must be half a dozen or so?

[AntMan232]

Yeah, a few have been turning up. The chassis, while it hasn't snapped, really isn't great in places. I stuck a finger through the rear crossmember, for example, but I think the middle of it looks OK. The long term plan I have is to get as many of the steel bits as possible galvanised and painted up, or thoroughly derusted and painted up, so I don't have to worry . The LPG tank is one of the things that annoys me greatly; I am really happy it has been converted to LPG, because that was one of the things I was thinking of doing, but it is really in the way. Underfloor tanks were hundreds of pounds extra, so I hear, and it was being used as a daily driver, so I think cost took precedence slightly. I really want to replace it with underfloors, if I can work out how, so I can recline the seat and fit the units again...

However, that can wait until I have it running, and hopefully MOTed, because while it annoys me it (probably) works, so can wait. Out of interest, does anybody have a rough idea of how many Dormobiles are still around?

[DanC]

A lot more than we thought!!! I turned mine up last year and then it has been one after another which is great!!

[AlexB]

The generally accepted figure of Series vehicles converted is about 1000.

As to how many are on the road / exist, who knows. Phil has amassed a list of serial / reg numbers but I have never seen it - nor had any contact for a couple of years - so I don't know how many he had on it.

As Dan says, perhaps a dozen have resurfaced over the last 2 years - or more

[AntMan232]

WOOO, got it running . Yesterday I thought it needed the fuel pump looking at, but a freshly charged battery, and letting the oil drain back down have yielded success . It also appears that the middle of my chassis is probably OK, so might be able to get away with a new rear crossmember for the moment. My first experience driving an old Land Rover as well... might have to fit some seatbelts to stay in the seat!

It was worth it just for the look on my neighbours face as I rattled up past him, without a bonnet, weaving about slightly...

[RMS]

That's great news - looking forward to more pictures of your progress

Cheers,
Robin.

[AntMan232]

It even appears to have a limited edition self-flushing cooling system...