7. Motorcycle Trailers - More Comfort

Sleeping in a box trailer is not a luxurious experience, but there are things that can make life a bit more comfortable. One of the biggest problems was that the roof of the trailer was made from translucent glass fibre. This has several problems. In cold weather, the fibre glass is so thin that it does not retain heat and in the early hours of the morning it can get very chilly. At the opposite end of the scale, on a hot and sunny day the sun can enter through the roof and heat up the trailer like an oven and with no air vent in the ceiling, the heat cannot escape. Also, being translucent, the light can pass straight through it and during the summer it can get light at 5:00am and wake you up. 

So I felt it was time to look at this problem. So  I came up with a plan. I decided to try and buy a second hand skylight from a caravan, fit it in the roof and then insulate the roof. This would cure all three problems. I managed to find a skylight on Ebay and proceeded to cut a large hole in the glass fibre roof. It was then a case of getting some industrial roof insulation and cutting it to fit between the metal spars on the ceiling.





The next problem was to hold up the insulation. This was easily done using strips of aluminium, fastened to the metal spars. I now have a trailer that's warm when it's cold, cool when it's sunny and with the addition of a ceiling vent with a built in blackout blind.

If you look carefully at the finished picture, you can just see the finishing touch. An oscillating fan mounted on the ceiling for those hot summer nights.



The next addition to comfort was to look at the entertainment. Up until now, a small radio has been the only way of filling a night on my own. I decided that what I needed was a Television. So I purchased a 12V television and fixed it to the wall on a removable bracket. I then needed an aerial and a way of connecting the two.







I mounted the aerial on a telescopic pole from a disco lighting stand and clamped that to the gas bottle box on the front "A" frame. The pole is stored in one of the side hoppers for transport.
















I then fitted an aerial connection box on the side of the trailer and an aerial signal booster under the sink inside the trailer. I can now watch TV to my hearts content when tucked up in the trailer.





As I said at the beginning of this blog "Sleeping in a box trailer is not a luxurious experience, but there are things that can make life a bit more comfortable". Well the next thing that has frustrated me, when camping in the trailer is keeping the milk cool on a hot summers day. I do like a cup of coffee and milk in my coffee is essential. However on a hot summers day a pint of milk will not even last for a full day and when I wake up in the morning it's gone off. 

So I decided to try and figure out a way of adding a small fridge to my trailer. Firstly it had to be gas powered, as a 12v fridge would just drain the battery very quickly. So I started looking on Ebay and soon found this one. It's actually gas and 12v DC and 230v AC. So after successfully bidding, I had to fetch it from Birmingham.

Once in was in my possession, it soon became apparent that there was no room for it inside the trailer. So I started looking at alternative locations for it and finally came up with the idea of putting it inside the awning (Gazebo). 


The next obstacle was to get gas to it, and because it cannot be permanently installed, the gas feed has to be removable.

Running a copper gas pipe from the gas box, at the front of the trailer to the back, near the door was easy and so was fitting a "shut off" tap inside the gas box. But finding a connector that would allow me to connect and disconnect a rubber pipe from the fridge was not. 

I finally found a gas quick connector at a ships chandler and then had to find a way of mounting it on the trailer. 
 This was achieved by using weatherproof 13A socket box. I removed the electrics and made an aluminium mounting plate for the gas socket. I then mounted the box onto the side of the trailer.

Now I can transport the fridge in my car, then place it inside the awning. I then run the rubber pipe under the awning wall and plug it into the socket box. 

On this picture you can just see it nestling against the back awning wall adjacent to the trailer door.  Sorted, I now have cold milk and can keep food fresh for the duration of a rally.

  On the next blog, a bit more storage and new rear light mountings.


You can contact me on hopcroftscoot@gmail.com

Copyright 12.01.20 all rights reserved.

My Other Blogs:
1961 BSA A10 Super Rocket Motorcycle:
http://60sclassicmotorbikes.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/before.html

1961 Ariel Arrow Super Sport Motorcycle :
http://60sclassicmotorbikes.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/1961-aerial-golden-arrow-restoration.html

Miniature Land Rover Defender:
http://miniaturelandrover.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/1-miniature-land-rover-defender-idea.html?view=timeslide

1971 VW Karmann Ghia Convertible Car:
http://karmannghiarestoration.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/1-karmann-ghia-retoration-project.htm

6. Motorcycle Trailers - Storage

As I mentioned on my previous blog, storage is now becoming a big problem . It's amazing how much kit you accumulate once you start doing rallies. When I first started, I just rode to the show on my bike and parked it. Now years later, I turn up with a trailer with two bikes in it, and stay over for four nights, sleeping in the trailer. Now I have a gazebo, side curtains, ground sheet, carpet, sun umbrella, pegs, mallet etc. All of this takes up considerable room and it's time to find and answer.

So I took a look at the trailer and noticed that the box sat inside the wheel arches. It occurred to me that there was a lot of wasted room directly above the wheel arches. So I measured the largest item to be stored, which was the gazebo, and found that it would fit in this space. So I set about designing some aluminium side hoppers for both sides of the trailer.

It then occurred to me that this was an ideal chance to improve my kitchen area inside the trailer. Currently it had two problems. 1. I had originally designed it with the wash basin on the wrong side, as the side wall of the trailer stops you getting your face directly over it. 2. The small camping gas ring that I had fitted ran on small canisters of gas, which ran out very quickly. I decided that the answer was to design a front hopper too, that would fit on top of the trailer's "A" frame. This would allow me to carry a full size Butane gas bottle and I could then fit a proper gas ring that runs on Butane. 

I then had a bad idea! If I made the hopper large enough, I could also fit a full size car battery in there and dispose of the small motorcycle battery that currently provides power for my interior lights etc. It did not occur to me at the time that putting electrics and gas in the same hopper was a dangerous idea. So if you are reading this don't do it.   

So here you can see the side hoppers in place complete with piano hinged lids , locks and catches. Two of these have provided adequate space for the gazebo and all of the other items and they have not increased the overall width of the trailer. You can also spot, on the front corner of the hopper, a vertical light green strip. This is actually LED tape and lights up white and is connected to the trailer side lights. Also at the top and to the left of the LED strip, you can also spot a yellow LED repeater, which is connected to the trailer indicators.

So here is the completed front hopper, fixed to the "A" frame, again with a piano hinge and locks and catches.

Now I could make the new work surface and fit the new gas ring and move the wash basin over. Also at this point I decided that, as I now have a full sized car battery providing the power, I could now fit an electric water pump and proper tap and dispose of the hand pumped one that I had originally fitted.

Another simple addition was a small extractor fan to remove the fumes from the gas ring.





And a simple cover on the outside to stop the rain blowing in.


My trailer was now becoming quite comfy but also quite heavy, and this led me to the next decision.

The problem was that when I got to rallies, quite often the motorcycle section was positioned up against a wall or a hedge and in order for the trailer to be set up with the door towards the bikes and away from the hedge, the tow bar had to be at the hedge end and you can't tow up to a hedge at right angles. Also swinging around and pushing the trailer into place was not easy on grass particularly if the pitch is on a slope or damp. I found that I had to enlist the help of two or three other exhibitors to help me position the trailer. So I had to come up with an answer.

The answer came from my son-in-law, who runs some vintage horse boxes set up to sell coffee from them. In order to position his horse boxes he has "Motor Movers" fitted. Now these are expensive and cost him £800 each. But for a business it was worth it. But for a hobby this price was too steep for me. The answer came on Ebay. I found an old set of motor movers for sale for a caravan and managed to get them for £150.00. Now I had to get them to fit. The problem with a caravan is that the motors clamp to chassis members under the van and these have quite a bit of ground clearance. My trailer only has metal chassis members on the very outer edges and they are low to the ground.  I took the trailer and my motor movers to my friend Colin, at Unit 2 Services, Ilkeston, Derbyshire, and he suggested that we throw away all of the original mounting kit and make some new steel brackets that would hold the motors as high up as possible and then fix them to the chassis. Well, as you can see, it worked a treat. Now the only thing left was to wire them, however motor-movers demand a great deal of current and I was now sure that my car battery would not do the job. And this leads to the final modification.

I decided to have two more hoppers made, one to house a "leisure battery" and the other just to balance up the look of the trailer, and fit these at the front of the trailer on each side under the original hoppers. This allowed me to install a much bigger battery and also remove the original battery from the gas bottle hopper. Another plus was that I could now carry two gas bottles in the front hopper and it was now much safer.

Well the result was brilliant and I can now move the whole trailer, when disconnected from the car, into any position I like just using a hand held remote control.

More to come as the trailer continues to evolve.

You can contact me on hopcroftscoot@gmail.com

Copyright 28.056.19 all rights reserved.

My Other Blogs:
1961 BSA A10 Super Rocket Motorcycle:
http://60sclassicmotorbikes.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/before.html

1961 Ariel Arrow Super Sport Motorcycle :
http://60sclassicmotorbikes.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/1961-aerial-golden-arrow-restoration.html

Miniature Land Rover Defender:
http://miniaturelandrover.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/1-miniature-land-rover-defender-idea.html?view=timeslide

1971 VW Karmann Ghia Convertible Car:
http://karmannghiarestoration.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/1-karmann-ghia-retoration-project.htm

5. Motorcycle Trailers - Bed Time

As I mentioned on my previous blog, the sleeping accommodation in my motorcycle box trailer could definitely do with some improvement. Up to this point I had been using an old camp bed, which was very uncomfortable (you could feel the springs through the mattress) and too short (my feet stuck over the end. Also the pillows would tend to drop over the end, and onto the toilet, during the night. Also once packed away and folded, I had to hang it on hooks, on the wall, directly above the bike on that side, when the bikes were loaded. Despite strapping it in place, I was always worried that the bed may jump the hooks, when the trailer went over a bump and leave it hanging on the strap. So it was time for a more permanent and more comfortable solution.

I needed a bed that would fold away, was long enough and that I could hang high on the wall, when not in use, so that a bike could fit underneath it. This required a design in two parts as, in order for the bed to be long enough, it had to reach under the overhead area that was occupied by the roller shutter. If I made the bed in one piece, then I would not be able to push it high up the wall to store it as it would hit the roller shutter.

So taking the biggest part of the bed first, two vertical runners were made, using Unistrut. Plates were welded to the Unistrut for fixing it to the trailer wall and 5mm thick strips of steel were slid inside the runners. The bed was to be fixed to the sliding strips of steel and the bottom section of the sliding steel strip would form the back legs for the bed.













 The next job was to weld the bed hinge plates to the sliding steel strips, which stuck out between the two sides of the Unistrut

 Now the frame could be made for the bed itself and bolted to the two hinge plates. Steel plates were then made, that the bed frame could hook over at the top, when folded away. You will note the holes in the steel frame to try and save as much weight as possible. The front legs were then fitted to the frame. These were made of angle-iron and pivot at the top to fold away.

I then made the wooden base out of 12mm plywood and cut holes in that too, again to save weight.

It was now time to turn my attention to the foot extension on the bed. This could not push up the wall, like the main bed, due to the roller shutter overhead. So a folding frame was made that simply hinges up and fastens to the wall. An additional leg was also added to this extension for stability. At this point I measured the main bed frame and ordered a 50mm thick, vinyl covered pad for the main bed. This particular material can breath allowing cool air to pass through it. I already had a pad suitable for the foot extension. I know it's a different colour but, as it's under the bedding, I didn't feel that it mattered.

Now to stop the pillows falling off the end of the bed, I made a headboard out of 12mm ply and hinged it to the wooden bottom base, so that it could fold under the mattress when packed away. As a final touch, I added a hinged "U" section of aluminium to hold the headboard vertical when in use.





Well there it is. It works and it's comfortable, long enough and folds away beautiful.

As you may be aware, I'm now packing quite a lot of equipment including a gazebo, side curtains, a ground sheet and (as you can see from the photo above) a carpet. The problem of where to put all this stuff when the bikes are in the trailer is the next thing to be solved. Up to this point I've been hanging them from the ceiling bars with ratchet straps. But that's not ideal. It's difficult to load and I don't like all of that weight hanging over my bikes. So the next blog is the storage solution.

You can contact me on hopcroftscoot@gmail.com

Copyright 03.07.18 all rights reserved.

My Other Blogs:
1961 BSA A10 Super Rocket Motorcycle:
http://60sclassicmotorbikes.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/before.html

1961 Ariel Arrow Super Sport Motorcycle :
http://60sclassicmotorbikes.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/1961-aerial-golden-arrow-restoration.html

Miniature Land Rover Defender:
http://miniaturelandrover.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/1-miniature-land-rover-defender-idea.html?view=timeslide

1971 VW Karmann Ghia Convertible Car:
http://karmannghiarestoration.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/1-karmann-ghia-retoration-project.htm

4. Motorcycle Trailers - The box interior

It's time to look at the interior of the box trailer. My idea is that I will be able to take two bikes of my choice to vintage rallies and, once the bikes are out of the trailer, I want to be able to live in the trailer while I am there. This means I'm going to need some basic amenities, but first it's time for a clean up. So I removed the internal partitioning and all of the old wiring and sockets, stripping it back to a bare interior. That done, I then gave the whole interior a good scrub with a strong detergent and water, followed by two coats of white vinyl silk emulsion paint.

Next it was time for the design. Using a 3D drawing package I planned the interior with a "chequer-plate" floor and the first vertical 350mm of the front wall. Next was space for a portable toilet in the front left corner and a small work surface in the right front corner. This work surface to contain a sink and a small gas hob. This area to be backed by a stainless steel splash back.

Although not shown on this drawing, I also had the idea to add some top cupboards on the front wall. The idea was to make the cupboards out of thin plywood and then get some small cupboard doors from a caravan scrap yard.

So here was the result. Chequer-plate floor and front plate, Work surface in place with a sink and hand pumped tap and a small camping gas hob.

The toilet fitted neatly in the corner with a shower curtain and rail, to create a private area and the top cupboards in place with their doors along with a small cutlery draw, under the work surface, that I picked up from the scrap yard at the same time.

What you can't see is that inside the left cupboard is a 12v motorcycle battery, charged from the car. This provides me with enough power to light the LED strips down each side of the roof and a small shorter strip over the work surface area.

The water and waste pipes run through the front wall and join to a twin caravan water/waste connector mounted on the front "A" frame. This enables me to put a water barrel and waste hopper outside the trailer.

It was now time to try two bikes in the trailer and ensure that my measurements were correct and that they fit. As you can see from the photo, the BSA was not finished at this point but it still allowed me to check the fit.

You can see here how critical the measurements were. The BSA headlamp has to just fit under the work surface, so that the door will shut at the back.

The next stage was the addition of an old camping bed that I had, a small camping table and a small pedal bin and I was ready for the first rally.

Well everything worked OK for the first rally but two things really needed attention. Firstly the bed was really uncomfortable and secondly I didn't like the idea of my bikes being outside whilst I was asleep, even though they were chained up.

So this set me thinking about solutions. Firstly, the bikes. Got to get the priorities right. With my previous two converted caravans I had put my bike inside the awning at night (Out of sight-out of mind). Now trailers don't come with awnings, but I had an idea. If I got a "Pop-up" gazebo with side curtains, I could place it up against the back of the trailer to extend the living space and provide me with an awning for the bikes.

So it was back to the drawing board. I designed a replacement back curtain with a central aperture the size of the trailer rear door. Around the edge of this aperture, on the back, was heavy duty Velcro with more Velcro straps around the sides and top to fasten it to the gazebo frame and eyes in the bottom edge for rubber ties and tent pegs.

I then had to fix the other half of the heavy duty Velcro around the outside edge of the door frame on the trailer and the job was done.





Here it is in place and, as you can see, plenty of room for two bikes in the evening (chained to the trailer of course) and comfortable living room during the day.







As you can see, whilst I was having the back curtain made, I also splashed out on a fitted ground sheet, just to finish off the job nicely.







Well there we are, the first rally with two bikes and an awning and a nice sunny weekend. Who could ask for more.

The next blog, it's time to tackle the sleeping accommodation.

You can contact me on hopcroftscoot@gmail.com

Copyright 01.06.18 all rights reserved.

My Other Blogs:
1961 BSA A10 Super Rocket Motorcycle:
http://60sclassicmotorbikes.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/before.html

1961 Ariel Arrow Super Sport Motorcycle :
http://60sclassicmotorbikes.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/1961-aerial-golden-arrow-restoration.html

Miniature Land Rover Defender:
http://miniaturelandrover.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/1-miniature-land-rover-defender-idea.html?view=timeslide

1971 VW Karmann Ghia Convertible Car:
http://karmannghiarestoration.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/1-karmann-ghia-retoration-project.htm

3. Motorcycle Trailers - The Box

As I mentioned in my last blog, I was now well in to renovating a BSA A10 Super Rocket and was already trying to figure out how I could get two bikes to a vintage rally and still stay overnight. What I really wanted to do was to display the Lambretta and the BSA A10 side by side in a "Mods & Rockers" display at rallies.

After quite a bit of consideration, I realised that, despite suggesting that she would go with me to rallies, my wife had preferred to visit the rallies and go home at night. This meant that I really didn't need sleeping accommodation for two people. So I started looking for a box trailer large enough to take two bikes. The idea being that I could do the opposite with the trailer that I had done to the caravans.  In other words instead of converting a caravan to a trailer, I would now convert a trailer into a caravan.

After quite a bit of searching on the Internet, I finally found one on Ebay and made a bid on it and won.I had to drive to Chelmsford in Essex to fetch it. A 280 mile round trip. Upon inspection, the trailer itself looked quite solid, although the hand brake didn't work and, when I got it hooked up to the car, I found that the rear lights didn't work either. Fortunately the indicators did. Well I didn't expect it to be perfect and the price I won it for was half the price of others on the Internet, so I went ahead with the purchase.

The next problem was getting it home, in the dark with no lights. I decided to find the nearest Halfords, in the hope that it was just failed lamps and swap them. Halfords was only about 4 miles away and they were willing to change the lamps, which they tried, but the problem was not lamps. So I settled for buying some bicycle battery rear lamps and fixing them to the back of the trailer with cable ties and commenced the 140 mile trip home.

Now having spent quite a few years towing caravans, I was quite used to the sensation in the car as you apply the brakes and feel the caravan brakes come on a fraction of a second later. I noticed that this sensation was not there. In fact I seemed to be getting no braking effect from the trailer at all. So I was pretty sure that I would need to overhaul the brakes when I got it back to the workshop before putting expensive vintage bikes in it.

Well the bicycle lamps worked well enough for me to get home and get the trailer into my workshop, where I could finally get a good look at it. I was informed that a previous owner had used it as a mobile dog grooming parlour, which explained why there was a outdoor water tap fitted on the outside along with internal divisions and mains wiring. But first I needed to look at the lights and brakes.

Proper inspection revealed that the main 6 core cable, connecting the trailer to the car, was virtually severed under the trailer leaving only the indicator cables intact. Fortunately my business keeps that cable in stock, so I decided to replace the whole cable and after an hour on my back, under the trailer, the new cable was fitted and the lights now worked.

So the next thing for attention was the brakes and that held a big surprise. This Trailer is rated at 711kg load capacity. Consequently it was fitted with brakes to all four wheels to prevent the trailer pushing the car forward during braking.When I removed the brake drums I found that there were "NO BRAKES". Someone had removed all four brakes completely and, by the look of the brake drums, they had been missing for some time.

I was very angry. This was potentially lethal. I had experienced a caravan brake failure on my first small caravan and it pushed me across a junction with only the weight of one bike inside. This trailer with the weight of two bikes inside could kill me. I contacted the seller, who at first was very reluctant to help but, after the exchange of a few strong letters, agreed to pay towards the missing parts.

Now it was time to try and find out what was missing. Caravans and trailers have a strange
mechanical braking system which is connected to the front coupling. As the car brakes the trailer slides forward compressing the coupling under inertia and this action pulls on cables which activate the brakes. However when the car is reversing this also compresses the coupling and there is a strange mechanical system in the brake drum that senses the reverse action of the wheels and kicks off the brakes enabling you to reverse.

Well, as you can see, everything was missing. Furthermore inspection of the actuating cables, joining the brakes to the coupling, also revealed that all four cable were either broken or seized. So the end result was a very large shopping list to be ordered and fitted.

The new parts arrived and I then set about trying to work out how they fitted and I must
admit I got it wrong the first time. Firstly I got the wrong size brake shoes and secondly I got the reverse mechanism in backwards on one side, when I forgot to take into account that the direction of rotation is different on each side.

Anyway after a fair bit of trial and error I finally got the brakes to work correctly and with new cables and all four brake drums skimmed, the trailer now brakes brilliantly.

More on the next blog as I start on the interior.

 You can contact me on hopcroftscoot@gmail.com

Copyright 26.01.18 all rights reserved.

My Other Blogs:
1961 BSA A10 Super Rocket Motorcycle:
http://60sclassicmotorbikes.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/before.html

1961 Ariel Arrow Super Sport Motorcycle :
http://60sclassicmotorbikes.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/1961-aerial-golden-arrow-restoration.html

Miniature Land Rover Defender:
http://miniaturelandrover.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/1-miniature-land-rover-defender-idea.html?view=timeslide

1971 VW Karmann Ghia Convertible Car:
http://karmannghiarestoration.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/1-karmann-ghia-retoration-project.htm

2. Motorcycle Trailers - Caravan #2

Some years after converting my first caravan to a motorcycle trailer, my wife said to me "why don't you get a bigger caravan and then I could stay with you at the rallies?" And so the search for a suitable caravan commenced.

The first problem was to find one with the right configuration to enable it to be converted. It must have access at the back (no kitchen etc. in the way) and it must have enough space between the seats to accommodate the width of the scooter. So we started going around caravan sales sites with a tape measure to find the right one.   

Eventually we found this lovely Elddis Tornado and what luxury. Central heating, a shower, hot and cold water and a proper cooker.  The top plan shows it in the day configuration and the lower plan with the two double beds set up.

Now although this caravan has a shower/toilet at the back, I could see that I could still get a bike in at the side of it and then roll it forward until the bike was over the axle, to distribute the weight.

The caravan sales site was asking too much money for the Elddis Tornado, but at least I now knew which model I needed. So I went back to the Internet and found this one, at the right price, on Ebay. I went to Leicester to fetch it and the man who owned it seemed to be appalled when I told him that I intended to cut it up. Never the less, he sold it to me and I towed it home.

The next step was to take it to my friends workshop for the conversion. Colin of Unit Two Services, at Ilkeston, Derbyshire, was fantastic when it came to working out how to do the conversion and I cannot claim the credit for the actual metalwork which he manufactured for me.

The first job was to remove the rear bottom panel that contained the rear lights and number plate etc.  Once removed, I had to strip out all of the furniture in the rear of the caravan. This exposed the water pipes for the shower, which would have to be re-routed down through the floorboards and under the caravan to give a clear path in for the bike.

The next job was the most frightening. It was time to cut the big hole in the back. The size of it was measured and marked on the back with a felt tip pen and then Colin set about it with a jigsaw. There was no going back now!

The section that had been cut out was saved to be used later as the door and the next stage was to strengthen the hole to give the caravan back its rigidity. Now I had learnt for my first caravan conversion that steel frames were too heavy and the rear door on my old van really took some lifting. So this one was to be all aluminium. Colin made a frame to sandwich the rear wall inside and out in the shape of a "U" and then welded all corners to make it one solid frame. It was then drilled all around and small tubes were inserted through the rear wall, in the drilled holes, to prevent the rear wall squashing as the fixing screws are tightened. As you may know, caravan walls have a thin aluminium inner and outer skin with only polystyrene between them.

 Some pre-painted aluminium was bought and used to replace the rear bottom fibreglass panel that had been removed. These are the panels that you can see in blue on the photo. The blue colour is a protective film that will be removed later.

More of this new aluminium was used to make the bottom of the door and a matching aluminium frame was made and fitted around the door using the same method. This frame was also welded on all four corners to give the door rigidity. The door frame was designed to fit inside the wall frame with a rubber seal between the two to make it weather tight. This obviously required reducing the overall size of the door to accommodate the thickness of the two frames.

The door was then hung in place with a heavy duty stainless steel piano hinge. Well there it is in place, but there was lots more to do.

 I found some German door catches on the Internet that not only turned to lock the door but also pulled the door in as you fold the handle down, sealing the door against the rubber seal.

Two additional "hook-over" fasteners were also added to the bottom of the door to pull the bottom edge in against the seal, when closed.

The trim strips and warning triangles could then be added.

Next it was time to look at the internal furniture. I wanted the original furniture to go back in but be removable, so that when the caravan was back in "living mode" you could not tell that it had been modified. The first task was the draws and storage area under the back seat.

Firstly I removed the draws and made a new cabinet to fit around them. Then with those in place I cut the kick board in half vertically to fill the gap to the left of the draws. I then hinged and fixed the half kick board to the underside of the seat base.

The seat base was then modified to drop on to side supports and lift out when needed.

 Now came the really hard bit. The small corner seat needed to fold up against the wall but also down and open to twice its width to support the bed when in use. Also its kick board needed to fold away to make room for the bike to pass by.

On this photo you can see the small corner seat after modification in the folded position. You can also see the next stage: Floor strengthening.

As you may be aware caravan floors are made up of a thin plywood top, then 50mm (2") of polystyrene, and then another thing plywood layer. All of these layers are bonded together and form a good solid floor, but not strong enough to take a motorcycle or scooter. The decision was made to cover the floor, inside the caravan with galvanised sheet steel with a small chequer-plate area at the entrance to give grip as the bike comes up the ramp.

A ramp was then made from chequer-plate and a carrier made to hold the ramp under the caravan. This carrier is very clever as it runs the length of the caravan and provides strengthening to the underside of the caravan floor and is bolted through to the top interior steel plates.

On this photo you can see the small seat in its down position and the full view of the ramp.

Another thing that you can now see are the new rear light clusters. These were originally for trailers but fit nicely on the corners of the caravan so that no wires need to go onto the opening door.

You can also spot that the original window blind has now been fitted back onto the door.

Another small addition, that's hard to spot, is the rain channel that has been added over the door, just to add a little more weather protection.

Now, at last, I can try the scooter inside the caravan and see how it fits. Brilliant!






The next addition was four hitching points mounted in the floor, to fasten the scooter down. These stainless steel plates were cut into the floor and bolted through to large support plates on the underside of the caravan, sandwiching  the floor between them. I also made some stainless steel cover plates to drop into them when they are not in use, so that my wife's high heels do not drop into them.

The final touch was to cover the steel floor with vinyl floor covering.

These pictures were taken after the conversion and show the caravan in living-mode with a virtually invisible conversion from the inside.


Well there it is the final completed conversion project. Not only did this caravan prove excellent for rallies, my wife and I found that we actually enjoyed caravanning and took it away on several holidays. Very handy when you can also take a motorcycle or scooter.

To prove it, here it is at St. Ives in Cornwall, and what a view!

It was during the use of this caravan that I finally decided that the scooter was finished and that I needed another project. So I bought a 1961 BSA A10 Super Rocket to renovate.

So this created a new challenge. How to get two bikes to the same show and still stay overnight? And that takes us to the next project and a change of direction in the next episode.

You can contact me on hopcroftscoot@gmail.com

Copyright 26.01.18 all rights reserved.

My Other Blogs:
1961 BSA A10 Super Rocket Motorcycle:
http://60sclassicmotorbikes.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/before.html

1961 Ariel Arrow Super Sport Motorcycle :
http://60sclassicmotorbikes.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/1961-aerial-golden-arrow-restoration.html

Miniature Land Rover Defender:
http://miniaturelandrover.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/1-miniature-land-rover-defender-idea.html?view=timeslide

1971 VW Karmann Ghia Convertible Car:
http://karmannghiarestoration.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/1-karmann-ghia-retoration-project.htm