Clem said:
I think I answered on that thread ....
Youre issues with an early Devon are two, mostly ...
One is the fact that the flat roofs fitted to earlies leak, and will/can damage the interiors and thus the body and chassis
Two is that they are almost life long UK vans, and unless they have already been restored, or are rare minters than they will suffer from the problems accosiated with UK vans ie. rust!
If its early, it wont be a panel conversion, nor a later cheaper/inferior interior. The interiors got worse the later the type and the early ones are very nice, imo.
Id price a solid rhd erarly Devon at least as much as an equivalent Westy.
totally agree with all of that.
The quality of the Devon conversion was very high, i would put the quality as high as a westy conversion with the obvious exception of the poptop. They are prone to leak due to the style of the roof and its inner outer seal over the period of their life. If your buying one check for water damage on the wood below the back left and right corners of the popup. It is easy to fix and i'm in the middle of doing that. I usually call the style of devon poptop on earlies a 'bellow' or 'concertina' as this is how the poptop wall appears.
The workmanship of the earlybays in the wood and fixings including the quality of the wood used was excellent, normally japanese oak faced veneer, laterbays used cheaper laminated chipboard . A well looked after one should have no peeling, no water damage, the upper locker and side wardrobe should have the original white melamine doors and black handles, these should also have a tannoy 8 speed fan with the control box mounted on the locker facing forward and the fan in the centre of the upper locker. There should be a storage unit above the engine bay with two pull out drawers and a drop down front. You should have two tables with four long legs and two short. The sink unit varies from conversion, but should have a whale pump with sink and at least 2 water drums. Minters will have the cool box intact and unsplit, if you open the drawer above you could pour a small amount of water that soaked into the coolbox lining and evaporated to chill the contents.
When you open the door there should be a lining to hold two bottles some eggs and bar on the door for small jars and the inner lining was smooth.
The fold away bunks are fairly robust and can easily hold two small adults or two kids with several arrangments for the bedding, an upper or lower double bed setting. One of the tables will fit four legs so it can be used outside the bus free standing.
The swingout cooker should have a twin burner hob with grill, there should be a folding aluminium cowl and a grill pan with detachable handle and the hinge was fixed to the bulkhead to allow cooking outside the living space.
As clem said ive never seen any early devon conversions from panel vans? overall its my favorite conversion becasue of the compactness and versatility of the interior, the beds do take a little longer to set up but were only talking a minute or so, the space inside is excellent especially when cooking and if the pop top is properly treated and good selas used you wont have a problem with leaks.
Check the history section under 'devon', theres a manual showing the various interiors.
Regarding the resale value, i would put any mint devon up there with a similar westy, the fact that most of all devons are RHD and have been in the UK would add to the value, as its harder to find a rust free mint example.
welcome to earlybay
