A Month Later...

It's now exactly a month since I updated you all about my Sprite ("Jennifer"). Progress has been slow as I've been on holiday for 10 days and had a few work commitments. Not to mention we've had a lot of rain which has halted progress! Nonetheless, I've slowly pressed on and can proudly say that I've been able to put some paint on instead of stripping it off! The chassis is now really looking smart. I hope by my next update I'll have finished painting the whole chassis.

If you missed part one of the restoration (collecting the caravan), CLICK HERE
If you missed part two of the restoration (removing the interior), CLICK HERE
If you missed part three of the restoration, CLICK HERE

*CLICK ON THE IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM*

First job was to put the whole caravan on Axle Stands. It was easy enough to do be required some fine adjustment to get the caravan level on my slightly sloping driveway. My top tip to anyone doing this is to place the hydraulic jack behind the axle slightly and ensure that the axle stands themselves are placed near to the axle and level with each other so they support the weight equally.

So far on this project, the most French words were used while removing the wheel arch covers. The tiny phillips head screws had been tampered with and the top screw head on each screw was completely de-threaded. A lot of persistence with an adjustable wrench eventually paid off. Removing these allows me to remove the wheels easier - which presents a whole other new problem: the wheel nuts are stuck! I broke a socket wrench trying to get them off! I've got two much bigger wrenches and have been putting WD40 on the wheel nuts all week, hopefully later this weekend I'll have the chance to get the wheels off.

First on my list is fixing up the chassis. Having removed the hitch assembly and brake linkage earlier, I was able to sand off the old paint so the new paint would have a smoother finish.

I used Hammerite Straight To Metal white gloss paint. It's quite thick but dries smooth. It's also guaranteed against rust for eight years! Great stuff, but stand by with the turps, I'm still washing it off my hands and arms and also out of my hair!

The caravan looks a million times better already! The new paint looks really smart and I'm very pleased with the outcome. I've painted the chassis underneath the caravan as far back as the axle, and will be continuing with the rest in the next couple of weeks.

What a difference a lick of paint makes!

Can't wait to continue with working on the caravan, hopefully by my next update I'll have something a bit more exciting to show you all!