Hello to all from a newbie (in every sense of the word) WelshRed

Hi,

Just discovered this forum this weekend so decided to join and introduce myself.

I am in my mid thirties, married with two young daughters aged 7 & 2.

We are about to get our 1st camper on the Road (hopefully this coming week just in time for the summer holidays), it is a 1973 (registered 1974) Late bay.

We have spent the last 2 years restoring the camper to it's former glory and dare I say improved on it somewhat.

We initially wanted to modestly restore the camper before selling it and using the money towards a 2nd camper that we would keep.

The problem though was I hate seeing a half job so when things needed repairing/restoring/replacing I did it properly when possible meaning the project budget sky rocketed and about 6 to 8 months in we realised we needed more time and money to do it right so decided to just keep this one and do it up as best we could with the help of my friend who is an engineer and owns his own body shop.

Once the camper is on the road the restoration cost will be over £15k and I hope that when people see the pictures to get some positive comments as we feel we've done a good job on the camper despite this being our 1st project with no previous experience and no useful knowledge on how to go about such a project.

I don't know anything about cars let alone classic cars like campers so the last two years has been steep learning curve, my only involvement with the restoration in reality was as the cash cow ordering parts as and when they were needed. That said all of the major decisions where mine and my wife's with my friend giving me advice from his own knowledge of campers and doing them up previously for other customers.

I will add pictures later as I want to get the camper out of the workshop 1st and take some final snaps of it prior to it's 1st use but I would love to get feedback from everyone when the pictures are up.

Anyway for now that's it, I hope to learn a lot from fellow campers on here and who knows maybe our paths with cross on the open road someday.

WelshRed

 

Welcome aboard, theyre a friendly lot on here. As for advice well you will get that by the bucketfull when you need it....just ask. )

 

hello and welcome
bek

 

Welcome taffy ...enjoy your stay.

 

Welcome aboard, looking forward to the pics!!!

 

Hello Welsh Red
Welcome from another newbie. You're already one step ahead of me in that you actually have a bus ! Have a good read of the forum as there is loads of stuff here and some of the 'regulars' have some great banter going back and forwards.
Lofty

 

Hi,

Thanks for the messages already, I think I'll create a thread in the "show us your ride" forum when I have my images ready
Maybe later this evening as I am working on them now.

WelshRed

 

welcome matey.

 

Hi Everyone,

I have started a thread for my restoration project and I've added images of my camper as it was (poor thing) when I bought it. I will keep adding photos of my project when I can but for now anyone interested please follow the link...

http://thelatebay.com/index.php?topic=14712.new#new

WelshRed

 

Hello & welcome to the forum, we love pics so can't wait to check your other thread

 

We have a shortlist of names for our camper, would love some input from everyone...

Bluebell - Our van is Blue
Skye - See above
Cali - Coz the wife likes it
Gino - As in Gino "Di Campo" of the telly!!! See what we did there!!!

Not saying that's the final shortlist but out of those do you have a favourite?

WelshRed

 

Hi,

Lots of pictures up now of my project, will try to add more but it will probably be tomorrow at least now...

http://thelatebay.com/index.php?topic=14712.new#new


WelshRed

 

Hello and Welcome from The Colonial Contingent

 

Welcome aboard, i'm more of a newbie than you,we only have ours for a little over 2 1/2 months :- , & still trying figure out stuff, but yours is looking good!

 

Hello & welcome.

 

Hello and welcome

 

welcome to the land of TLB

 

Hello and look forward to meeting you all