I bought what seemed to be a nice wisp 350/2 we were told of damage around the front window and internal water damage associated with the water ingress.
We bought it friday evening and didnt get back home till nearly midnight, was at work sat morning and had a poke about saturday evening testing electrics,gas,etc.
Got started properly with seeing how far the water damage went by pulling back a little section of the sticky vinyl and putting my finger through the rotten board behind, the damage is quite extensive so this is going to be my log of the restoration or how to completely f*%k a caravan lol!
27/04/2015
Priced up materials from work and its nowhere near as expensive as i thought, thanks to everyone at burton roofing stockton.
Put some cheap dehumidifiers in there to try and pull some water out.
Ordered a stanley fatmax stapler and a pop rivet gun from ebay, so nearly set to actually get started 😀
Ive been looking at other repair blogs and forum posts and think that taking the front grp panel out completely and replacing all the timbers across the front is not as stupid an idea as my wife seemed to think lol.
had another little poke around the side wall and some of the timbers didnt seem rotten just very wet, so im going to strip the panels away in the next few days and see how bad the damage really is and work out the plan of attack!
As i said this may well turn out how to completely f#*k an elddis wisp 350/2!
28/05/2015
Got some supplies from work thanks again to everyone at burton roofing stockton.
Started stripping away rotten ply and noticed the floor was wet :(
Some good news though, the window frame in the side panel is fine so doesnt need rebuilding :)
So tommorrow im going to get an electric heater, take the floor lining up and dry the floor and whats left of the side panel out and see what we are left with, hopefully the floor is just wet and not rotten and can be saved with a good dose of ronseal wet rot hardener.
02/05/2015
Had a few days of contemplation and started back at it today.
Removed the battery box, and removed the frame it screws into,stripped more rotten wood out, including some of the floor which could mean taking the lower side panel off too but we will see about that.
Also treating the salvageable areas with ronseal wet rot wood hardener…
Then started to rebuild the frame on the side panel…
04/05/2015
Well guys, today is the day the front comes off!
ive found a bit of rot in the bulkheads support timbers so one of those is getting replaced aswell as the repairs i originally had planned…pics to follow.
Wish me luck…im going in!
well the grp front is laid out in the back garden, and everything is tarped n duct taped up at the moment cos its chucking down again (at least the hailstone stopped)
but hopefully things will get started again asap
i just hope it all goes back together as planned lol
Hi mike-n-sam
Good luck with your rebuild we have a 1992 whisp 350/2 I think all whisps suffer the same problems. The abs above our windows had a lot of cracks in which caused a lot of probs. Very similar damage to yours except ours is the 3 window model. I had to replace window frame,cross member above window,frame round batt.box & front corner of floor. Also some of frame at the back of van behind sink. I repaired ours over winter 2013,at first I thought I would never get it back together again but buy completing one area at a time it started to take shape again. Our van is now dry & probably stronger than when it was first built.
We love our whisp & with awning on it as everything we want.
Good luck
Kev
The more I read on here the more I realise all vans are prone to similar problems, either shoddy build or lack of maintenance, either way if water can find a way in it will, I have a 1986 cotswold windrush which was a well built van but due to lack of maintenance by previous owners I have a big task to undertake to deal with leaks and then to ensure it's leak free, so far I have dealt with dammage due to water ingress so now to make sure no more gets in.
thanks for the replies guys.
kev, sounds exactly the same damage as ours, so far ive...
cobbled together a new jockey wheel
fixed a broken bathroom skylight
replaced floor struts,insulation and ply in front bulkhead and under battery box
it didnt seem like id ever get to the point where things were going back in!
Still lots to do but its starting to take shape :D
mike
Glad to hear its going the right way now, all being well you will soon be setting her up on a nice campsite in glorious sunshine (we can hope about sun).
Kev
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Topic: Elddis wisp 350/2 1995 restoration log
