'the Colonel' my SWB Mini camper
Posted: Mon May 21, 2012 3:47 pm
Many of you know that I am a Carawagon fanatic. In the early 70's I led an ill-fated expedition with an American oilman and his dysfunctional family in two Carawagons from Dakar to Timbuktu, then in the early 80's I did a double Algerian Sahara crossing travelling in a 1968 Carawagon with my Dutch girlfriend Elly and Marcus a Swiss 'Weinbauer' who financed the trip. In the mid 90's I bought the Carawagon that Steve 'White Knight' Walker now owns (for £825!!) and in 2006 prompted by Mick 'Jabbawocky' Outhwaite I acquired the ex-Lady Sopwith Pilkington Carawagon that I sold last year. I also heard about a Carawagon MOT failure for sale in Stockport and managed to grab an original awning for a tenner. I mentioned it to Big Dave on this forum and he is now the proud owner of ‘Elizabeth’. Similarly a couple of years ago my attention was drawn to a Carawagon stored in a barn near Halifax which is now the property of Patrick ‘Peaceand’ Sanderson. And last year I took some of the guys down to the edge of the Sahara in 3 Carawagons and a Dormobile.
So it’s clear I have an obsession with the marque but despite all this, when Robin created the Land Rover Classic Camper site, I didn’t really qualify as a member as my newly acquired 88 was a bog standard soft-top. So I set about converting it.
I did not want to cut out the rear bulkhead and luckily discovered that the top of the front bulkhead/dash was about the same height as the top of the rear one and there was just about enough headroom so a board running the length of the vehicle from the rear of the tub to the dashboard was the answer. This was fabricated in two pieces, one section filled the rear tub and the front section slid under the first on runners. The width of this is critical as it has to slide between the passenger seatbelt mounting bracket bolted to the rear bulkhead and also clear the edge of the driver’s seatback. This is fine as the bed was only contemplated as a single! Then the rear board was cut into 3 pieces. The one on the left, viewed from the rear, was fixed in situ and the two pieces on the right were cut to allow access to stuff stored underneath – and to allow me to sit in the off-side rear corner of the tub in inclement weather when food preparation and cooking needed to be done inside. The two pieces on the right are secured in place by turnbuckles mounted underneath on the left hand edge of each section whilst the right hand edges rest on a right-angled piece of aluminium strip mounted along the edge of the tub. Battens screwed along the length of the left hand edge of each board slots underneath the aluminium strip and secure the two boards in place. The rear boards are designed in such a way that they do not rest on the hardtop bottom edge but on an extension of the tub itself so that they remain in place when the hardtop is removed and the hood and sticks fitted. For security the removable boards cannot be lifted out whilst the tailgate is up – and locked. For privacy, curtains cover the windows, at present only pegged in place but they do the job. There is a dual bulb-ed interior light which is fine for reading in bed.
The setup works well in practice with only a couple of minor irritations – firstly you have to undress outside the vehicle unless you are either young and agile or old and a contortionist. I found that this is not a pleasant experience when winter camping in the Yorkshire Dales. Secondly with limited space you have to get out of bed to turnover – only kidding, I made that up. In fact the bed is close on 7 feet long, 18” wide at its narrowest at the front but over 3’ wide at the back. This extra width makes a useful space for specs, phone, bedtime cocoa etc. The ensemble is completed with a p..pot but in order to use it successfully I had to perfect the art of p..ing horizontally, a skill soon acquired through practice!
The conversion, patents pending, was executed for the main part by Martyn ‘V8’ Cranney who also supplied the 5/8” plywood for the base, I just got in the way. Thanks Martyn.
Cheers
John H
‘the Colonel’ SWB Mini camper
Some pics here, not in the right order and ignore the ones at the end featuring my Rapido which has now gone:
http://s1152.photobucket.com/albums/p48 ... =slideshow
So it’s clear I have an obsession with the marque but despite all this, when Robin created the Land Rover Classic Camper site, I didn’t really qualify as a member as my newly acquired 88 was a bog standard soft-top. So I set about converting it.
I did not want to cut out the rear bulkhead and luckily discovered that the top of the front bulkhead/dash was about the same height as the top of the rear one and there was just about enough headroom so a board running the length of the vehicle from the rear of the tub to the dashboard was the answer. This was fabricated in two pieces, one section filled the rear tub and the front section slid under the first on runners. The width of this is critical as it has to slide between the passenger seatbelt mounting bracket bolted to the rear bulkhead and also clear the edge of the driver’s seatback. This is fine as the bed was only contemplated as a single! Then the rear board was cut into 3 pieces. The one on the left, viewed from the rear, was fixed in situ and the two pieces on the right were cut to allow access to stuff stored underneath – and to allow me to sit in the off-side rear corner of the tub in inclement weather when food preparation and cooking needed to be done inside. The two pieces on the right are secured in place by turnbuckles mounted underneath on the left hand edge of each section whilst the right hand edges rest on a right-angled piece of aluminium strip mounted along the edge of the tub. Battens screwed along the length of the left hand edge of each board slots underneath the aluminium strip and secure the two boards in place. The rear boards are designed in such a way that they do not rest on the hardtop bottom edge but on an extension of the tub itself so that they remain in place when the hardtop is removed and the hood and sticks fitted. For security the removable boards cannot be lifted out whilst the tailgate is up – and locked. For privacy, curtains cover the windows, at present only pegged in place but they do the job. There is a dual bulb-ed interior light which is fine for reading in bed.
The setup works well in practice with only a couple of minor irritations – firstly you have to undress outside the vehicle unless you are either young and agile or old and a contortionist. I found that this is not a pleasant experience when winter camping in the Yorkshire Dales. Secondly with limited space you have to get out of bed to turnover – only kidding, I made that up. In fact the bed is close on 7 feet long, 18” wide at its narrowest at the front but over 3’ wide at the back. This extra width makes a useful space for specs, phone, bedtime cocoa etc. The ensemble is completed with a p..pot but in order to use it successfully I had to perfect the art of p..ing horizontally, a skill soon acquired through practice!
The conversion, patents pending, was executed for the main part by Martyn ‘V8’ Cranney who also supplied the 5/8” plywood for the base, I just got in the way. Thanks Martyn.
Cheers
John H
‘the Colonel’ SWB Mini camper
Some pics here, not in the right order and ignore the ones at the end featuring my Rapido which has now gone:
http://s1152.photobucket.com/albums/p48 ... =slideshow
