Hello everyone, my name is Andrew and I live in the midlands, about as far as it is possible to get from any seaside in the UK.
I hope I can find some information to help me restore a 1981 Puck I have recently acquired. I have been caravanning and therefore by necessity working on them since 1975, I have for example converted a 2 berth Safari to a 4 berth, I have converted a German motorhome from LHD to RHD,  and fixed various faults that dealers couldn't. So I am not going to ask why some gas is red and some is blue. I have written a few articles for MMM (Motorhome Motorcaravan Monthly) which would apply to caravans as well. I am retired having spent 35 years in electronics / telecomms and ten years as a registered gas 'engineer'. That's a joke, gas is far easier than modern telecomms. I fix boilers and having electronics knowledge is very useful in that sphere.
I got this Puck half-dismantled with no furniture in it and half the floor missing. It did come with all the bits that the previous owner had removed (other than the floor!) so it's a bit of a jigsaw puzzle knowing where the bits should go. I think I know, apart from one or two mysterious bits of wood. However I would love it if someone could point me to a wiring diagram. I have seen the very old typewritten owners 'manual' on another forum but that doesn't help much. Mine has a fridge, and I have worked out how to get the wiring to that OK. Because the original chassis members were rusty I have bent and welded in new ones, the curved ones at the corners. The rest of the chassis is absolutely fine, it just needed a scrub and new paint. I fitted a new floor, and am now doing the electrics. It would have to have modern electrics to be safe so I have fitted a consumer unit, a UK 13A socket, a battery charger and a leisure battery at the bottom of the wardrobe area.
The most puzzling think about this Puck which I think is different to any picture I have seen is that it has two extra 7 pin sockets. It seems to have had three at the front, and it has one at the back. The back one is to power the lights on a luggage box which a previous owner has made a frame for. The frame is attached to the rear chassis and legs slot into it and carry the luggage box, which has a proper set of lights so it needs plugging in to the rear 7 pin socket. I have renewed that of course. A Very Strange Thing (capitals intended) at the front is that there are three 7 pin sockets. Not what I would expect on a 1981 Caravan which would be one 12S plug and one 12N plug on cables going to the caravan electrics. My fun job at the moment is to try to work out why there are / were (one is just a 7 core cable dangling, not connected to anything at the front) three sockets. I guess they are sockets so that a car can park adjacent to the caravan and plug itself in via the socket but it seems a bit odd that every time the owner wanted to tow it somewhere they would have to get two cables with plugs at each end to connect it to the car. I don't suppose that is how they were built is it?
It has two luggage lockers under the floor that run across the caravan. One is in front of the axle and the other is behind. There are the poles for the awning in there. The previous owner seems to have been a bit of an engineer because all these additional boxes, the gas one at the front, the two under the floor and the dismountable 'rucksack' one at the back are superbly well made and fixed to the body and chassis. They are all made of the same pattern aluminium as the body, and have the same channel with the black insert in it.
One reason I bought this Puck is that I have always liked their steel frames, and they are not the straight sided 'angel cake' block that most caravans are. When I saw that it had the original curtains, upholstery and floor vinyl I thought this is worth restoring. The canvas around the pop top is in perfect condition, not even faded. It has an original gas / 12v / 230v fridge which must have been a costly extra I would have thought. I'll get that going. It also has the original dual 12v / 230v internal lights at each end, and they work. They have their crystal clear diamond embossed covers, and each one has a european 230v socket at the bottom. Lovely things they are, but I expect a million miles away from any current safety standard.
Does anyone know the following?:
Any idea why it would have had three 7 pin sockets mounted at the front?
Can anyone tell me where the 3 way gas manifold should bolt to? It has a (I think home made but excellent quality) box at the front where obviously the gas bottle lives but I can't work out the gas pipe route for the fridge. It does have one green steel gas pipe going from the gas locker at the front, through the front wall in the middle but once inside it bends twice and I can't see how it would connect to either the gas hob or the fridge. I do have the three way gas manifold with three red knobs for isolating appliances but there is no clue as to where it should be fitted.