1970 Viscount Caravan refit!

After all the trauma of camper trailers, which you can read about here if you haven't already- i was on the hunt for a caravan!

it was 2020 and things were changing rapidly, Firstly Caravan prices were soaring and availability was scarce due to Covid, Secondly Lithium batteries were finally becoming somewhat affordable- Still expensive but affordable!

After looking at what stock was available 2nd hand, i couldn't find a caravan that ticked all the boxes, so started looking outside of the box a little.

Now being an owner and restorer of classic cars- i'm not afraid of old vehicles, This lead me to to look older, and after a lot of research i found that the Viscount Caravans made in the 70s in Australia were an all Aluminium Frame, over a steel chassis with Aluminium Cladded exterior- This meant that if you found one that was rotted out it was generally not structural and just internal cosmetics that needed tidying up.

After a lot of looking around i found an add offering a 17ft Viscount caravan in great condition, I drove 3hrs from home to take a look and met a farmer with a bunch of old caravans in a field- The caravan in question was in excellent condition but not the layout i wanted, and not wanting to rip apart a great classic i passed on the deal, but as i was driving out a twin axle 24ft caravan caught my eye, So back to the farmer to see if it was for sale.

Long Story short after a bit of back and forward i was the owner of a 1970 Twin Axle 24ft Viscount Ambassador needing a fair bit of TLC- I paid the farmer, Hitched up the Caravan and made it 10 minutes down the road before the trailer coupling fell off due to corroded bolts! Luckily i had the safety chains on so with a backyard fix i limped to a hardware store, replaced the bolts and continued on home!

The van needed quite a bit of work but the price was right! so i set to work, Modifying the Bed to extend it to accommodate myself, Removing kitchens, Wallboards, Counter tops etc and rebuilding to a higher standard, Replacing Axles and brakes and when it finally came to it- Installing a robust Lithium electric system fit for true off grid living!

At this stage i had a fair amount of knowledge of 12v Electrics but Lithium was knew to me, So i sort out the help of the Solar King himself- My dad who had been touring Australia full time in his Motorhome (which you can read more about here)

The first step was understanding the load on the electrics, I wanted to all the comforts of home available to me in this Caravan, So i added up what items i wanted to use:

Air Fryer

12v fans

Bean to cup coffee machine

Laptop Charging

Fridge

and potentially- an air conditioner (it gets hot in Central Australia!)

Remember i said Lithium had just become affordable- But the options were limited, I opted for 3 x 135ah Lifepo4 Batteries linked in Series giving a total of 405ah of usable capacity.

To charge this back up i fitted a 40a 240v mains charger, and opted to not fit DC2DC charging.

For solar i fitted 2 x 445w panels to the roof of the Caravan, and hooked them up to individual 40a MPPT Solar Charge Controllers, Giving a total solar input of 890 watts, This sore a peak charge rate of around 80amps per hr in optimum conditions,

Monitoring came via a Renogy Smart shunt with Monitor,

and 240v duties were fed from 2 inverters,

1x 1000w inverter to power the 240v fridge (yes 240v- See here why i choose this option every time) and other smaller charging loads, a

1 x 3000w inverter to power heavy loads, fitted with a remote switch to put on when needed.

At this point cooking and hot were served by portable gas options.

We toured Australia for 6 months almost entirely off-grid in this Caravan, full time and on some of the roughest off road conditions you can imagine, But thats another story!

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The system performed exceptionally throughout and it wasnt until we reached the centre that we had some minor issues- At temperatures above 40c the Solar charge controllers started shutting down, So i had to fit ventilation fans to the storage area to cool them down

I fitted an air conditioner to relieve some of the heat, As temperatures weren't dropping below 30c until 2am in the evening! this obviously added a decent load to the system but everything kept ticking along just fine and once finished that system was sold with the Caravan, Before coming to the UK and starting my next build- Which of course, you can see here!