Dandy 6 - The evolution

Right guys thought i would start a thread and keep updating as i do bits and bobs. Here is the story so far

I purchased a 1979ish Dandy 6 Blind off eBay for the princely sum of £261, after a few weeks of clashing diarys i finaly went to pick up the dandy on 6th of June, initially excited but a tale of woe from the seller that somehow water had ingressed into the dandy between them taking out of storage in March(when they took the pics for the ebay sale) and when i picked it up causing the interior to become water marked quite badly, a few mins of wrangling about the state it was in and the seller remembers they have an original awning and poles that they have never used in the loft. So i agree to purchase anyway as the awning was a big PLUS.

Heres the Dandys pics as advertised on eBay

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Dandy coming home

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Sooo where to start, well on first assessment

I have a plastic bodied dandy, originally grey and has been painted badly in a cream emulsion type paint that hasnt keyed well with the original plastic. 

At some point in time one of the owners attempted to put external access to the under seat storage area but changed there mind and re-attached the attempted doors. Bad repair consisting of rivets and gaffa tape, weather tight but looks awfull.

Most of the corner plastic trim is damaged way beyond repair. I would guess this is one of the areas of water ingress.

Lower plastic angle is fitted badly due to corrosion on lower sections.

Interior fabric is all beyond usable.

Nasty chipboard number plate holder and rear lights are in serious need of some attention. 

May seem a doom and gloom story so far but there are also many plus points

Was supplied with 3x nearly new 12" tyres(and rims obviously), Original awning & Poles, excellent running gear, hubs, brakes etc all in excellent condition, 

And here the story starts, so here is the evolution of my dandy 6, initial plans are to carry out essential repairs and general tarting up, between working 12hr continental shifts, being a single dad with 50% custody of my kids and being a GMB Senior shop steward, coupled with the fact the dandy is at my girlfriends house and not mine, my free time is tight, as is money. 

Aim to have the dandy at a usable state by 10th Aug

Week 1-

In work pretty much all week, got chance to erect the dandy and have a better probe into jobs, also had a root around the house for fabrics to use on the interior. As always you realise its a bigger job than you thought hehe

Week 2-

Still not a lot of free time and weather isnt the best for working on the Dandy as it can only stay up whilst im there, no option to leave it up overnight and work on it. 
Only things i could really do was order bits for the dandy and rejuvenate the awning as it was extremely dirty from years of use and storage(much dirtier than the dandy), also had a lot of tyre marks on as previous owners elected to store the spare wheel on top of the awning under the dandy cover whilst not in use

Pics pre-clean

This is the inside of the PVC
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Outside of the PVC
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After lots hot water, some heavy duty catering grade detergent, and a few hours of elbow grease

Still cant get the tyre marks out and the top and side where just too big to do to a A1 standard but A1 would show up the dandy as the clean of thats a long way off hehe

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Front panel came out much better, being smaller and more managable

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Week 3-

5 days off, 4 days of heavy rain and high winds  but today, clear blue skies   

Operation dandy in full swing, job for the day, pick up wood for jobs, and start jobs proper hehe

So today's job by the time i got through the days chores which took till 2pm

Replace the rotten end bed panel and repair dodgy repairs to the end panel frame(fixed double bed end)

All went pretty well considering its the first bit of tinkering on the dandy also a few other things ive not done for a while(not drilled out rivets in 18 years, not cut wood neatly in over 4 years, not ever worked at my girlfriends house so arrangements first couple of times will be hit and miss with tools and working areas)

Pictoral proof:

Old rotten wood
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Lovely new 3.6mm Red Plywood panel and repaired frame (sorry forgot to take before and after pics of frame, but the frame was broken on 3 corners and has had multiple botched repairs including awful welding, the repairs i removed where corner brackets fitted with wood screws)

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Back on the dandy just needs a lick of paint
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Hopefully future posts wont be as EPIC as i will try to post as i go, but back in work now for a 60hr week 2x12hr day then 3x12hr night stretch so you wont be seeing any new pics till at-least midweek next week

Oh and finally note to myself in future - when drilling out rivets and they spin, don't hold the other side with your fingers 


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Looking good so far Kev. Keep up the good work.

Yes looking like a great start will follow with interest.

mike

Oh I hope you don't have any more injuries along the way ....... keep a box of plasters inside the Dandy just in case

Great start, looking forward to seeing it progress

love the pictorials and the great write ups looking forward to the next episode

Looking good.  
Bet you won't be holding a spinning rivet again in a hurry. 
We had to do the bed ends on our 6 too. Isn't it great how easy Dandy's are to work on, it will soon be looking great.

What are you going to tackle next.

Firstly apologies for the length of time between posts, but a combination of real life, bad and good weather (good weather to nice to work on dandy/bad weather to wet to work on dandy  ), Goodwood FOS and work commitments (long list hehe)

Secondly i appologise for my lack of before and after photos, always remember afterwards but you can see from the first pics i posted to a little degree.

So i will start where i left off, i replaced the end panel as water ingress has rotted it beyond repair.

Next step Exterior

de-gaffa tape the dandy and replace broken plastic angle sections on all corners and the bottom panel trims, also figire a way to attach as there is a fair bit of rot on the lower section of frame.

Step 1 - Procure materials :

• 1 x 2.4m 25mm x 25mm aluminum angle from a local diy store £8
  
• 2 x 4m 25mm 25mm plastic angle from local plastic specialist £7
  
• Lots of rivets approx £4
  
• Scrap metal aquired from various sources £0.00
  
• Some free plastic sheeting from dad £0.00
  
• 2.5l Sandtex Exterior gloss from diy clearance shop £2
  
• Silicon Sealant - price negligible as everyone has this lying round just incase
  
• Lots of Elbow Grease
  

Step 2 - Apply motivation and Elbow Grease

• So here the tale commences, after finding much more rot than i was happy with i devised a few imaginative ways of bodging - sorry fixing the lower sections of trim to the the Six without them flapping around everywhere as they were when i bought the Six. I did various fixes from small sections of metal to complete sections, not a restoration by any means but the frame is too far gone for a full blown resto. Mainly used sections of galvanized cable tray cannibalised to rivet to the existing good metal then the plastic sides and trim to in turn.
  
  
• A nice easy job however that has a massive affect on the appearance of the Six was removing the old broken plastic/gaffa taped corner trims and replacing them with much more substantial Aluminium Angle section.
  
  
• Last but by no means least was removing the bodged failed locker doors and gaffa tape. This was a bit bigger than i expected. After removing the old plastic patch panels i found that most the wooden framework was not fit for purpose and in some places wasn't even fixed, so made what was there good and cut out some new sheets from some white 2mm plastic off cuts. Then went about re fixing them and adding new trim to the bottom sections.
  

Like i said earlier severe lack of before and progress photos make this a little hard to understand but heres the results, still needs to be painted and still need to work on the lights mounting but its now watertight and not a piece of gaffa tape in sight

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Now onto the Interior

So the water ingress had not only rotted the end panel it had also detroyed the interior with mold on 75% of the cushion coverings, also over time panels had been damaged so here goes with the interior so far.

Step 1 - Procure all materials required, mostly free upcycling except for small amounts of timber

Step 2 - Prioritise what is achievable in a 2 day window before we go away, so painting the whole interior and none essential(well some of it) repair work to units/panels is out the window.

Step 3 - Get my ass into GEAR

So over the last 2 days we have

• Painted the end panel and applied decals
  
• Replaced the end panel from the door side bench with hardboard - Yet to paint and apply trim
  
• Boxed in the very unsightly wheel arch as my Six doesnt have a wardrobe and put a removable shelf on the top. All allowing the units to still be stored between the fixed unit and wheel arch when folded
  
• Carpeted the Six from some old carpet a friend had (including some of the seat trims)
  
• Recovered the seats with old duvet covers
  
• Bought and altered 2 sets of Mocha curtains from argos clearance with some vouchers i won in a competition £12 in total for the 2 end beds as dividers (no pics yet)
  
• Replaced the 2 broken plastic wall vents with pressed aluminium ones
  
• Countless other little jobs that were unexpected
  

And Pics of work so far

Wheel arch boxing in from above

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Wheel arch and repair to seat panel

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Without table

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With table

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Other Shots

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And thats about it for the moment

Next steps is a 6 day trip to the welsh seaside(with 3 teenagers) and the first erection of the awning.

Next steps after that

• Stop the water ingress when the dandy is stationary(combination of crap cover and the way its being folded down)
  
• Remodel Kitchen and paint dandy walls
  

Hope i haven't waffled too much, will try and leave less time between posts but not guaranteeing it

Feeling Dandy

P.S a big thanks to my gorgeous girlfriend Sonia for all her help

It's looking really good ........ well done