I guess this should be posted in another section but I would like to give a big shout out to a local business who work of the premises that nothing is too hard.
Back story.... Several years ago we modified a camper with a prestressed chassis amongst many mods so we could take it where ever we needed. We have a report with a family that owns several stations in the outback and on those stations are many 100 year old opal mines. So when we go fossicking, we completely off grid in the middle of nowhere for several weeks. This worked well for us til we got to the stage of dealing with canvas got a bit too much. Specially with over night stops in the rain.
So we came to the point of either quitting the life style or go on a alternative tangent. With a friend that owns a caravan sales yard we decided on an early Coromal pop top with a particular layout mainly because when the old gentleman was alive the main aluminum frames were mig welded. Also we didn't want a newer style laminated body for several reasons. So, eventually we found the right van and proceeded with modifications. Right up to the point of a new chassis, frame and suspension. Like all vans, they can only be lifted by the existing chassis and seeing that the new chassis needed to be mated with the old, lifting the van up a running the new chassis under was out of the question. The alternative was to build the chassis piecemeal from underneath, and so, as I'm passed to point of lifting and welding on my back I drew up CAD drawings (retired manufacturing engineer) for what I wanted.
Then the game started. We approached six different caravan builders/repair businesses. All said, "yeah, bring the van down" and when I did and pulled out the CAD drawings, you could see the shutters come down in their eyes. Two said yes they could do it, but they were busy and had a three month lead time. When the time arrived, they both said that they couldn't (read wouldn't) do the job. So we were really stuck. Really, it was a straight forward job, cut of the old stuff and weld in the new.. That being out of the question, we went looking fro a fabrication shop. Very scarce now and they all just wanted a simple job with a quick turn over at maximum return. Until we were directed to a fabrication shop in Jimboomba... Made a phone call, sent down photos that day. Next day got a call, "yes, not a problem to do it" with an approx quote. Took the van down, next day got a photo, van set up on stands, all the old gear cut off.. Now, one of the biggest bugs was that the wheel arches need to but cut out. Every van place said either it couldn't be done or all the outer and inner sheet needed to be removed. These guys said it wasn't a problem, undid the bottom of the outer sheet, cut out the existing frame and tigged in a new frame... The wheel arches were rolled in one length which was a very compound shape, then cut and welded the arch actually fit around the original wall frame. I made two trips down to discuss different aspects and two weeks we went down and picked up the van. Every thing had been done exactly to the CAD drawings....
As a matter of fact, many things were done over and above what I had expected... So, two weeks work after we spent over six months of getting the run around..
A big thank you to PTR Fabrications at Jimboomba.. Cannot recommend them enough..
