New member - charlwyn

Thanks for the welcome.

Yes I am the Charlwyn owner and can give a report since back then. The van is still with us and has had some minor repairs and a repaint since it was last mentioned here.

I have received some further history of the van from the builder who is (now in his 80's) my mothers uncle. He found all his receipts chq. buttts and so on from all the suppliers at the time, such as supalite, who supplied the side plywood profiles.

It has had a couple of outings in the last few years and is residing under cover at home at the moment. I noticed apost showing jones dolly adverts from back in the day and they must be pre 1961 (when our van was built). I'm told the hutchison was inferior in that it was not easy to reverse. The Jones' simply reverses as normal as it pivots like a castor.

Our family grew last year and I am eyeing off an alternative van. If anyone is interseted in the Charlwyn I will entertain offers. I am toying with removing the dolly wheel and electric brakes. And or swapping it for a conventional overide hitch and mechanical brakes if people prefer.

I have included some recent pics. I may have a new van to talk about here shortly... will really miss my dolly wheel..
Van was also featured in Caravan & Motorhome June 2007 for those who read it.

I'm not quitting vanning, I just need to stretch this one to fit more people in. When you see those American RV's it seems we were only really mucking around over here.

It is good to see the forum going strong.

David

Hi Charlwyn,

Great to have you on board the great V V adventure, and great also to have an update on your van.

Re posting your photos - you need to this via an on-line photo hosting website called Photobucket. There is a step by step guide on how to do it at the following location on the forum:

vintagecaravans.proboards30.com/index.cgi?board=photo&action=display&thread=1176

If you've followed Jim's instructions on the above thread, and are having trouble sorting it out, feel free to PM (personal message) or email me with your phone number and I'll give you are ring and see if I can talk you through the process. (You can PM me or email me by pressing the little icons immediately below my avatar [the Don badge] in the section to the left had side of this post.)

Apologies if I am telling you stuff you already know!!

Don Ricardo

Hi Charlwyn.That`s one helluva jockey wheel set up!! And so too your van. cheers gordon

"Helped take the weight off the bum of a very light car.. even with the V8 in the front."

You'd reckon stabilliser bars would have been easier ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

Daggsey

Hi All..... ;D

"Helped take the weight off the bum of a very light car.. even with the V8 in the front."

You'd reckon stabilliser bars would have been easier

Daggsey ;D

Ooooowwwwwwwwwwwwaaa Daggsey........ Quick, quick.... put the lid back on the tin before the worms get out.

My thoughts when i first seen the well engineered Jones hitch /dolly wheel set up... ( especially on a big van behind a little car) was that it would cause the rear of the car to move around when you encounted those "W"s, or are they "M"s mounds and grooves in the bitumen caused by heavy vehicles .
If you change lanes the dolly wheel would tend to want to "run in the groove" of the road causing all sorts of weird stuff to happen to either the steering of the car ....... ... or the tracking of the van.

The grooves in the road can cause problems for cars without a van on the back ... let alone with one on .
Its probably only a problem in NSW with our crap roads

Obviously "Keeping it up with the Joneses" is a good thing.
;D
Reddo

Any takers ?

PM me if you are interested before I consider other advertising.

David