Project Ocelot

[CrzyEng]

I've been wanting to post this for a while now and finally have a bit of down time. Hopefully over the next few posts I cans hare how we took an old Sprite Swift and renovated it while making a bit more suited for camping off grid.

Initially I wasn't very keen on getting a caravan to be honest. We had been camping the last few years with a series of dome tents and could pack everything in the back of the hilux load bin. Problem came however with sleeping arrangements where we were getting tired of leaky air mattresses, narrow stretchers and thin foam mattresses.

SWAMBO had been watching the campervan restorations on youtube and showed me how people were changing their old vans and caravans.

So we started looking for a caravan around July 2021.

Some of the main requirements for us were:
1. As lightweight as possible. At that stage our hilux was limited to a tow capacity of 1200kg and we needed something to fit in that range.
2. Small enough for the two of us but big enough we could sit in during an extended stay if the weather was bad.
3. An older solid axle model with leaf springs or coil springs. I was looking at uprating the van for some light offroad use and found that some of the older model vans would have really solid chassis/axle combinations.
4. Should not have the bed pop out beds like the oryx or imaginevan as the dark canvas was a bit depressing.
5. Caravan should still be registered and roadworthy. On advice from a friend who deals everyday with vehicle registrations, getting an unregistered/expired vehicle licence through the traffic department in JHb was an absolute heartache with at least a year waiting period.

Finally we found this old swift through facebook. The owner had bought it as a restoration project but urgently needed cash to get his car fixed.

Here is what we brought home to start working on, which once we got into the bodywork was really just a chassis and licence disk.

[spicydave]

All this funny project names will activate the OCD in @iandvl ....

[spicydave]

I've been wanting to post this for a while now and finally have a bit of down time. Hopefully over the next few posts I cans hare how we took an old Sprite Swift and renovated it while making a bit more suited for camping off grid.

Initially I wasn't very keen on getting a caravan to be honest. We had been camping the last few years with a series of dome tents and could pack everything in the back of the hilux load bin. Problem came however with sleeping arrangements where we were getting tired of leaky air mattresses, narrow stretchers and thin foam mattresses.

SWAMBO had been watching the campervan restorations on youtube and showed me how people were changing their old vans and caravans.

So we started looking for a caravan around July 2021.

Some of the main requirements for us were:
1. As lightweight as possible. At that stage our hilux was limited to a tow capacity of 1200kg and we needed something to fit in that range.
2. Small enough for the two of us but big enough we could sit in during an extended stay if the weather was bad.
3. An older solid axle model with leaf springs or coil springs. I was looking at uprating the van for some light offroad use and found that some of the older model vans would have really solid chassis/axle combinations.
4. Should not have the bed pop out beds like the oryx or imaginevan as the dark canvas was a bit depressing.
5. Caravan should still be registered and roadworthy. On advice from a friend who deals everyday with vehicle registrations, getting an unregistered/expired vehicle licence through the traffic department in JHb was an absolute heartache with at least a year waiting period.

Finally we found this old swift through facebook. The owner had bought it as a restoration project but urgently needed cash to get his car fixed.

Here is what we brought home to start working on, which once we got into the bodywork was really just a chassis and licence disk.

I really hope this wagon was a freebie ....

Looking at all the silicone you have a chassis ....

[Sakkie7]

I've been wanting to post this for a while now and finally have a bit of down time. Hopefully over the next few posts I cans hare how we took an old Sprite Swift and renovated it while making a bit more suited for camping off grid.

Initially I wasn't very keen on getting a caravan to be honest. We had been camping the last few years with a series of dome tents and could pack everything in the back of the hilux load bin. Problem came however with sleeping arrangements where we were getting tired of leaky air mattresses, narrow stretchers and thin foam mattresses.

SWAMBO had been watching the campervan restorations on youtube and showed me how people were changing their old vans and caravans.

So we started looking for a caravan around July 2021.

Some of the main requirements for us were:
1. As lightweight as possible. At that stage our hilux was limited to a tow capacity of 1200kg and we needed something to fit in that range.
2. Small enough for the two of us but big enough we could sit in during an extended stay if the weather was bad.
3. An older solid axle model with leaf springs or coil springs. I was looking at uprating the van for some light offroad use and found that some of the older model vans would have really solid chassis/axle combinations.
4. Should not have the bed pop out beds like the oryx or imaginevan as the dark canvas was a bit depressing.
5. Caravan should still be registered and roadworthy. On advice from a friend who deals everyday with vehicle registrations, getting an unregistered/expired vehicle licence through the traffic department in JHb was an absolute heartache with at least a year waiting period.

Finally we found this old swift through facebook. The owner had bought it as a restoration project but urgently needed cash to get his car fixed.

Here is what we brought home to start working on, which once we got into the bodywork was really just a chassis and licence disk.

Dont let the naysayers get to you . It can be done . It is a lot of work ....But damn it is rewarding at the end of the day

Waiting on the progress report and pics

[CrzyEng]

We now have the caravan base to work from. From the restorations we saw, the teardown was usually the quickest part of the job.
To start, the floor was rotted, I almost put my foot through it while inspecting the first time. The front panel had been opened to check the condition of the frame, of which there was nothing. The rear corners of the body had rotted away.

On our way back with the van my little engineering voice told me to strap the caravan up before leaving. I didn't listen and three km down the road we were flagged down by a passing car and politely asked to go collect our pop up roof that had blown off. Unfortunately they had ridden over it and I would have to build a new pop up. Needless to say I now listen to the little engineering voice.

As I couldn't find any workshop manuals I decided to strip the inside cladding off first and stabilise what was left of the frame. Once we opened it up I decided to pretty much rebuild the entire body and use the existing frame as a template. It was important to then keep the frame as intact as possible to ensure we made the correct measurements. While tearing down I also used masking tape to change the layout with SWAMBO to suit our needs. It helped doing this as we could see what would fit where and how much space we would have.

Lastly I removed the aluminium cladding, making sure not to damage it as I had been told these sheets were no longer being made, the joys of an older vehicle.

[dbc]

Dont let the naysayers get to you . It can be done . It is a lot of work ....But damn it is rewarding at the end of the day

Waiting on the progress report and pics

Absolutely! I undertook a similar project some years ago with a CI Bakkiemate slide-on camper. It was a lot of work, took me about three and a half years, but in the end I really enjoyed the process, and the end result was what we both wanted.

Unfortunately will be up for sale shortly, but that's another story.

Sterkte - is it too late to say good luck? how far along is the project?

[Emmie L]

So ventilation was the only problem you didn't have?

Looking forward to seeing how the end product shines. And I'm very impressed that someone has the knowledge to do this.

[CrzyEng]

Thanks for the kind words guys. This project took us about a year to completion and we still have several small items to work out. Here is what we were left with after the teardown. As I said earlier all we were left with at the end of the day was the chassis. I preferred the sprite over the equivalent gypsey at the time because the sprite was an a-frame whereas the gypsy was a single beam tow frame. I just felt the a-frame would be more rigid on the rough roads.

The chassis was in good condition and just needed a clean and re-paint. After stripping the base board off I wanted to raise the suspension to make the caravan better suited to offroad towing. Stripping the chassis helped me see the suspension set up. This generation of Sprites had trailing arms with a coilover spring on the end of each arm, which suited my needs very well. In the end I was able to swap the axles around and then invert them. It lifted the chassis about 300mm from the original height and the caravan now rides at about 500mm off the ground. The only issue I had with inverting the axles was the change in brake location. I had to rotate the drum mounts through 180 degrees as well as swapping the brake mechanisms back to the correct side. Since the brakes were lower I also had to make a longer link for the tension rods to reach the brake actuators.

With the increased height the scissor stabilisers were far too short. I settled on installing offroad stabilizers on the corners.

Inverting the axle allowed me to have a solid floor across the entire caravan length and freed up space on the floor.

A big shout out to Mikem suspension for helping me out with the rebuild of the shocks. At the time the manufacturer of the Sprite shocks did not have any in stock and was not making for a while. Mikem took my old shocks and springs, refurbished the springs and then built a new coilover for me.

I also managed to get the brake drums skimmed and the shoes relined.

I'll post tomorrow how we built the body up.

[CrzyEng]

Now we get to the fun and very long part of building Ocelot up from scratch.

I replaced the base of the caravan with a marine ply board, which was then primed with an oil based primer and coated on the underside with bakkie liner. I left the top with just the primer as it made a great worktable to build on.

CI originally used 20x20mm pine for the construction of the caravan and basically stapled and glued the pieces together. the aluminium was the stapled and glued to the wooden frame. I found meranti at our local Chaimberlains cheaper than pine so went with that. The ply sheeting we got from a bulk supplier as their prices were cheaper and they were willing to deliver.

Instead of staples and glue I went with self tapping screws, glue and Sikaflex where needed. To make the caravan stronger sideways I included two 12mm ply board sheets as formers for my furniture. This gave the van rigidity while using the same material to make the cupboards from.

We started with the roof section as that was the straightest item on the original template and was the easiest to measure. I then built the pop up roof and two sidewalls. These took a bit longer as I had to measure out where the wood had rotted away and often had to guess the measurements from the aluminium cladding or work it out geometrically. To prevent the frames buckling or breaking while we handled them, I stapled and Sika'd the inner plywood sheets to the frames. We then primed all the surfaces with an oil based primer and sika'd polystyrene panels into all the spaces for thermal insulation. The original sprites have an air gap whereas we felt the polystyrene would make a much more comfortable van in summer/winter.

Finally I built the front and back panels.

We then stuck the vinyl flooring down and assembled the frames together to form the full body.

[SamM]

This is real labour of love!! Looking forward to the next episode.

[Emmie L]

How often did you work on it? Was it a weekend project or did it consume week nights too?

[F250]

Wow. What a build! This makes being on CF worth again.

[Toxxyc]

I've always considered doing this but figured it's just too much to do. Looking at you breaking it down though, it seems much more doable. Perhaps in my new place, where there's a large storeroom, I'll be able to tackle something like this.

[Heinz Modricky]

I have to ask about the name Ocelot, you got me googling. What is your thinking around this name? (I found a game character, wild cat and a mythical figure in Mayan culture.)

[CrzyEng]

Morning All

When I get back from site I'll post some more pics.

The project took us a year to complete. We worked mostly on the weekends. I was able to take time over the December break and push for the bulk of the work. It also hapenned to be the wettest December we had in a while so every weekend I would keep an eye out for the weather while working. Luckily I listened to Swambo and sealed everything with primer so no damage was done when we got a little rain on the panels.

We were very fortunate with our neighbours and they were most kind regards the noise over weekends as it was not always pleasant.

The name Ocelot came halfway through the build. SWAMBO had gone with a South American feel inside with the colours and fabrics. We then chose Ocelot as the long legged cat found in South America. If it was African it would have been a Serval (Langbeen Tierkat) but the market was already flooded with various models under that name.

I was really a labour of love. Joke is SWAMBO is looking for the next project and is considering gutting our kitchen next year April for a refit.

[iandvl]

All this funny project names will activate the OCD in @iandvl ....

*Appears in puff of smoke*

You called ?

To the OP: Nice build.

[CrzyEng]

Finally, I get some time to show you all the rest of the trimmings.

After assembly, I used the original panels to clad the caravan. This time I used Sikaflex as well as staples to hold it on. I hope I never have to take it off again. The last section of panelling was badly damaged and had various cutouts in the wrong places to me. I therefore used a flat aluminium sheet to make up the final strip, which was then bent under the floor for additional sealing. We also made up two additional pop-up spring sets as two of them were trashed. Instead of the brass bushes I went with sealed for life bearings to reduce the friction on the lifting

Once the cladding was complete, we painted the van. I first lightly sanded the surface to give the primer something to grip on. We were advised to use an etch primer, which would create a surface for the final paint to hold ever better onto as aluminium does not always bond with paints. The final coating was a two-pack epoxy, made for structural steel. I've used similar products on our project sites and it really gives a hardwearing surface that is a little more forgiving to work with than automotive paint. I wanted to stay true to the Sprite Colours of the time, but when we say the dark blue on the underside of the aluminium we looked for something closer to that colour.

[CrzyEng]

Now we get to SWAMBOs favourite, The Inside.
The original layout was really good and we generally stuck to the same concept. We made major changes to the Fridge (Included out Snomaster 80L), rear bed (Converted it to a fixed double bed) areas. The rest were pretty much as laid out originally. Swambo had a chemical toilet that had to fit in. I managed to squeeze that under the one single seat near the door. Next to that I put the battery bay, 12V fuse boxes and inverter. On the opposite side next to the fridge I put in a 220V circuit board with a changeover switch to change from Camp power to Inverter power if needed. Under the fridge are two large drawers for pots and all tinned goods. The kitchen area got a new Goldair two plate gas stove and a small sink with a hot/cold caravan tap. The plumbing there also supplies the outside shower, stored under the sink area. Under the bed on the kitchen side, I installed a Hansen Gas/Electric geyser with the control panel near the fridge. On the opposite side under the bed is a 60L water tank with a pump to give water throughout the caravan. Swambo had the seat cushoins made up for us and Strand Foam supplied us with a double foam mattress. Opposite the kitchen area is our clothing cupboard, which also houses a switch panel for all the light and 12V accessories in the van. All lights were 12V DC lights from national luna, including the reading lamps by the bed.

The inside was painted white enamel to allow us to wipe the surfaces down should we need to give it a good clean. We kept this arrangement for a few months and went camping to see what needed to be adjusted. We also decided to throw all the cupboard doors away and had canvas covers made up for all the cupboards and storage bays. These are attached with velcro onto the frames and can be removed for cleaning if needed.

The same guys that did the canvass covers also gave us the canvas pop-up surround and sidings for our small awning. They also made a large mosquito screen for the door, which has really saved us from the neat in the summer months.

[CrzyEng]

Here is a quick rundown of the fittings and fixtures. Where possible I tried to keep the original pieces. Where this was not possible I tried to replace with a metric equivalent first. Apart from the front and back windows, all the other windows were in a fair condition. The frames were useable, with some of them needing minor repairs/rebuilds before being used again. I found a long weekend with scourer pads and Everbrite solution brought all the aluminium trim back to new. I was able to get all the dull black aluminium to a nice dark finish again. The door lock was totally written off and I replaced this with a newer latch system from Campworld.

We also found a water filling nozzle for the tank as well as a new vent and plug point for the outside of the caravan along with an outside power point for the van.

All the glass windows were replaced with impact resistant acrylic. It gave some troubles during the fitting of the windows and the frames as everything had to be custom cut per frame. Replacing the front and back window rubbers proved one of the more difficult tasks as the size of rubber originally used is no longer being made and I could not afford to have someone do a custom batch for just 6m of rubber. I was however able to salvage some of the old rubber section and along with that at whatever Pro-Auto rubber could provide I was able to put the windows in. Sometimes I do still get leaks from the outside of the rubber during heavy rain storms but at the next service I'll inject some windscreen adhesive between the rubber seals and the bodywork to just close up any weep holes.

After our first camp SWAMBO asked if I could put steps in as the new van height made getting in a bit of a job. We found a retractable aluminium set that now folds back under the van when not in use.

Finally I needed a panel to cover a major hole in the wall outer wall of the van, where the original door had knocked a hole in. This was when we decided to put up a small "Ocelot" Plaque, showing the name and what the animal looked like. I found someone who was able to laser etch the picture for me. Unfortunately during the etching the heat caused the plate to warp and the wording got messed up. I was however able to trim this off and still cover the patch at our door.

[CrzyEng]

Finally, after two years here are some lessons learnt and upcoming changes.

1. While the original base was cheap, the renovations and changes quickly added to the price tag. All in I think we are sitting at about R120k, SWAMBO kept record but I'm too scared to look. Having said that, for us to buy something offroad new with the space and the open feel we have now, I would have to look at something at least R300k. This turned out to be a labour of love and is something unique that SWAMBO and I have put ourselves into.
2. She initially towed like a train on rails, but tyre wear was horrid. Inverting the axles really messed up with the alignment and both tyres were seriously toes in. I've since slotted the one axle pivot hole and brought the wheels more in line.
3. Offroad the van tows really well. We have used both a KZTE and a Pajero to tow and not had issues with roadholding. Where it does sometimes get tricky is in the thicker bush I have to keep my corners wide to avoid catching branches. We have camped at Dinokeng as well as Mabalingwe and managed to get in and out of the sites with no real hassle.
4. Finding metric equivalents was not always easy. With the older vans many components were BSP thread or imperial sized. I have managed to change the wheel studs with metric bolts, which really helps if I need spares. The other main issue was the wheel bearings are not a standard set anymore and I have to order the race and the cage separately.
5. The front and back window seals still need sealing but I have made small awnings over the windows that keep the heat out as well as the rain. This works well.
6. After testing for six months we eventually finalised the kitchen area and I installed four sets of drawers as well as a slide out spice rack. The dustbin is now kept under the sink in its own cupboard.
7. One thing we have had to change is that I have had to disable the voltmeter I installed under the seat by the battery. The blue LED light from the voltmeter was just too bright and would annoy us when trying to sleep.
8. SWAMBO found a canvas supplier and I was able to sew up a larger front awning, which now runs the full length of the van. I'm just busy sewing up the side and front panels then we will have a cost outdoor spot for long term stays.
9. I'm still trying to figure out how to make mosquito nets for the windows then we can really cool the van down in summer. Right now we open the top vents and leave the door open during the night with the mosquito screen to keep the bugs out.
10. I'm considering moving the water tank across the back of the van under the bed. This will shift the weight further to the back and take some noseweight off the towball, while making the pumping distance shorter. It will also create more useable space under the bed for items we don't always access.
11. The hot/cold tap was not really made for a system under pressure the whole time. I'm looking for a replacement that can hold up to the pressure in the line without wearing out.
12. I'll eventually replace the Lead Acid battery with a drop in Lithium one. I just want to check what the temperatures in the battery bay will be during summer.
13. I never made a mount for the spare tyre anywhere and it currently sits under the double bed. This uses up room that could be better used. I'll be moving it between chassis members near the axles as there is a convenient space just there.
14. I was going to put a nosecone on, but having used it now the nosecone will just add weight without really making a difference. I will now however have to find a way of storing the steady legs.
15. All four sets of steady legs sit in the same direction. This steadies the caravan left to right but not so much front to back. I'll be rotating two mount points 90 degrees to give the steadies a more rigid arrangement.