Our 1970 Dormobile

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Thanks for the suggestions guys. Biarritz sounds like it could be interesting...

dubscum said:
nice to see you enjoying your bus and not be afraid to take it over seas. good luck!
Yeah dude, I bought it use and the more I use it, the happier I am.

retro said:
loving the old photos, makes me wonder whether in 30 years people will look at our pictures and think haha look at the funky clothes :mrgreen:

hope you took your crabbing net to walberswick 8)

new road trip looks like fun :mrgreen:

Counting down the days till we hit the road. hanging out for it. 8)
 
toastiemaker said:
(Reg SYE 393R if anyone knows how to track them down).

VEHICLE ENQUIRY Services Provided By DVLA:

The enquiry is complete
The vehicle details for SYE 393R are:

Date of Liability 01 11 1995
Date of First Registration 27 07 1977
Year of Manufacture 1970
Cylinder Capacity (cc) 1600CC
CO2 Emissions Not Available
Fuel Type Petrol
Export Marker Not Applicable
Vehicle Status Unlicensed
Vehicle Colour GREEN
Vehicle Type Approval

Vehicle Excise Duty Rate for vehicle
6 Months Rate £112.75
12 Months Rate £205.00

So it was last taxed in 1995 so its either lurking somewhere or its been scrapped and DVLA not been informed.

toastiemaker said:
I just wish the bed was a bit wider.

You can widen the bed in a Dormy quite easily. Have a look here http://forum.earlybay.com/viewtopic.php?t=1204" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Nice van you have :)

I hope you enjoy your holiday over here (I'm about 2 hours east of Bordeaux and 20 mins from "Vintage Autohous" VW specialists http://vintage-autohaus.skynetblogs.be/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; - great place if you need anything while in these parts.
 
We'll be in Normandy and Brittany from 1-8 to 14-8. First few days spent here:
http://www.campinglebrevedent.com/fr/presentation.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
before we head off to Mont St Michel and off down to the Atlantic coast.
 
gninnam said:
Looks like a good one.

Make sure you visit Nimes - a fantastic old Roman city with some great architecture - was there 2 years ago and would go back again.

Keep us posted on your journey if possible and enjoy ;)

About half an hour to the north o Nimes is the market town of Uzes - fantastic market, lovely bars and restaurants and home to the Haribo factory!
 
blogdroed said:
About half an hour to the north o Nimes is the market town of Uzes - fantastic market, lovely bars and restaurants and home to the Haribo factory!

Well worth a visit is the Haribo factory - a really nice museum ;)
 
Just back from the bus stopover.
Great to meet several earlybayers. Had an excellent time. Just a pity about the result, oh and the filthy hangover!
Here are some pics. Enjoy.

The early vs late bay line up. Notice how lovely and straight our line is.
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Well it's been a while, I've been busy organising the road trip.
It's going to be a mixture of France Passion, free Aires and camping. All the south coast is going to be camping so we can relax and take it easy.

To to be in for the best chance of a trouble free journey I thought I'd take the bus in for an MOT and a service. While on the rolling road the rear brakes ended up shiting themselves when they were testing an emergency brake.
A catastrophic failure is a bit of an understatement. :evil:

Anyway, they've been re-built and we've got the pass. Just in time for our holiday on Thursday.

18 days on the road. Can't wait!! 8)

Wish me luck.

I'm hoping I can post pics up regularly while we're away.
 
hey dude, good luck with the road trip bet you can't wait! sorry about the busstop over hang over i think i contributed to that :lol: your bus looks even better in the metal, the red canvas sets the interior off a treat 8) :D
 
dubscum said:
hey dude, good luck with the road trip bet you can't wait! sorry about the busstop over hang over i think i contributed to that :lol: your bus looks even better in the metal, the red canvas sets the interior off a treat 8) :D

Cheers mate, that was the filthiest hangover I've had in a very very long time. Well worth though, had a wicked time. Will have to the same at the next show!

You put up a pic showing the new stance yet? Looks like they did a killer job on the tubs.
 
toastiemaker said:
dubscum said:
hey dude, good luck with the road trip bet you can't wait! sorry about the busstop over hang over i think i contributed to that :lol: your bus looks even better in the metal, the red canvas sets the interior off a treat 8) :D

Cheers mate, that was the filthiest hangover I've had in a very very long time. Well worth though, had a wicked time. Will have to the same at the next show!

You put up a pic showing the new stance yet? Looks like they did a killer job on the tubs.

not yet dude i'm still working on it :D
 
Part 1
Been back at work now a couple of weeks from our holiday and been so damn busy I haven't had an opportunity to post some pics up from hour holiday or (18 day wine tour as it turned out)
I'll have to post it all up in a couple of parts as we visited a lot of cool places.

On the way out it was cool to bump into Matt and Karle randomly at a service area just outside of Dover on their way to Spa.
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We had an awesome time in France and the bus ran sweet, however it wasn't with out its dramas.
On the first day just north of Reims we were slowing down coming into a toll area and the I noticed the bus was revving its nuts off! We pulled over and I noticed that the top hook off the spring on the carb that pulls the throttle cable back had snapped off. Without a spare I managed to bend over a new hook and we were off on our way. I was a bit apprehensive and worried that this was setting the scene for the rest of the holiday so you can imagine my despair when the rear tire fell off!!! Luckily we weren't going that quickly and we were back on the road after a few hours.
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Did 3 days in champagne staying at free aires next to a nice quiet canal.
This was the location for the first night
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For the 2nd & 3rd we found a spot amongst some tree which was only a few hundred yards away.
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Here are some of the mandatory champagne stops.
Moet
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Mercier
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After Champagne we drove to Charnay Macon where we stayed for free in one of our France Passion spots.
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Some pics from the area.
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From here we went to Gordes. This a great little village up in the hills about 25 miles east of Avignon. I'd been here once before and I wanted to show Mel. We wandered around, had a few beers here and there and an excellent meal at a restaurant in the center.
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Gordes at night
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Here we just stayed in the local car park with fantastic views of the town and the surrounding valley.
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We visited Avignon on our way to our camp spot by a river near Lacon Provence.
Where we made our selves at home
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I'll post up the rest in a couple of days.
 
Nice photos of your trip, thanks for posting - looking forward to seeing the rest. :)

ps. when using carparks etc for overnight camping, how did you find/cope with loos?
 
loving this thread , will hopefully be doing a eurotrip next year in our bus.

I love the dormy well cool! These buses were converted in Folkestone where we live and the bloke thats painting our Bus used to work for Dormobile , he may have even worked on your bus at some point in the late 60-70's!

What happened with your rear wheel and who did you get around it ?
 
Trikky2 said:
Nice photos of your trip, thanks for posting - looking forward to seeing the rest. :)

ps. when using carparks etc for overnight camping, how did you find/cope with loos?

no worries. plenty more photos to come when I get around to uploading them.

Most of the spots we stayed had facilities.
While in Champagne we used toilets where we could and can confirm that the top 3 champagne houses for toilets are as follows:
1. Moet
2. Tattinger
3. Mercier.

:lol:
 
toffo24 said:
loving this thread , will hopefully be doing a eurotrip next year in our bus.

I love the dormy well cool! These buses were converted in Folkestone where we live and the bloke thats painting our Bus used to work for Dormobile , he may have even worked on your bus at some point in the late 60-70's!

What happened with your rear wheel and who did you get around it ?


Nice one. Another dormie owner. Do you have a thread going?

I think the issue with the rear wheel was to do with the powder coating. I've seen it happen to a dude with a splitty and I think he even warned people about it in Camper & Commercial. When powder coating the wheels you need to make sure there is no paint on the area where the bolt holds the wheel on. Obviously I read it and didn't follow the instructions when I got my wheels powder coated...doh.
We got picked up on a transporter and a guy checked over the hub and brakes to make sure they were ok and then we were on our way again.
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I'm bloody lucky we weren't going very fast and even luckier that it didn't ruin our holiday otherwise I think Mel would have forced me to sell the bus!!!
 

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