viewing a dandy

Im off this afternoon to see a dandy delta that i seen on gumtree its not to far away and its worth a look,the owner said its a 92 model winterised has awning [not original dandy],and looking for £750,Is this good value for money thanks Scott

If it's in good condition and is a fully winterised 92 Delta then yes, it's not a bad price.

tartanterror wrote:Im off this afternoon to see a dandy delta that i seen on gumtree its not to far away and its worth a look,the owner said its a 92 model winterised has awning [not original dandy],and looking for £750,Is this good value for money thanks Scott

Would that be this one [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

I had mentioned that one in your say hello thread as one to look at, but because you might have been better off looking at ones you were not going to buy at first to get a feel for Dandys. I thought that a Delta would be too small for you. See page 2 of [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] to recall what I was saying.

If you and your girls can fit in the Delta all well and good. Don't know how easy/hard the awning will be.
If the general conditions good. £750 sounds a bargain especially as he has replaced the suspension.
Just the general checks on PVC and floor being solid. See Mikes list for checking over a Dandy.
Finally check he didn't fit unbraked suspension when fitting the new units?
If you PM me I'd send you my phone no for if you have any questions while viewing. What day are you going?
Best of luck.

Kevin.

Sorry you said this afternoon for viewing. D'oh

Just back from viewing dandy and i would just like to say a big thankyou to tow itch ,without his advice i would have bought a dandy that would have had to have alot of work done to it,so thanks again for all your help Scott.

Oh dear what was wrong with that one?

The chassis around two of the leg steadys was rotten i wouldnt have thought to look their everything else was fine,but it also made up my mind that i definitley want a dandy just not that one ,and ive learned alittle bit about fault finding

i know you cant tell from pics any chassis or underlying issues but i thought this looked like a good first buy

We had a bit of rust around the leg steadies and one of the welds broke but on further inspection it was just a bit of surface rust and all is well again.

This wasnt surface rust it broke away in my hand

I'm just baffled why anyone would spend on new suspension and brakes if the chassis is rotten. I would have expected them to notice something like that when doing the other work. New suspension isn't cheap even done yourself.

He bought it off ebay the previous owner did the work he showed me the receipts maybe that was why he sold it on

Lets hope the right Dandy comes along soon now you have your heart set on one

Your Dandy will turn up, you've done the right thing and not fall for the first one you've seen.

Kevin, you reason for editing is very honest,

cazz wrote:Your Dandy will turn up, you've done the right thing and not fall for the first one you've seen

Yes we made that mistake with Minnie, I was so keen to get a dandy after waiting so long, I bought the first one I saw. She turned out not to be to bad apart from relatively easily fixed stuff but I will admit that was just luck!

Take your time the right one will find you

Dear All

That will teach me to go jumping in with my size 9's.
I offered my phone no to Tartanterror (TT) as I guessed this was the first or second Dandy he had looked at.
My thoughts been that you only really get to see the picture after viewing 3 or 4 so it's always better to have a voice on the other end of the phone.
Turns out it was TT's first viewing.
I thought being a relatively new (20 year) Dandy it would be simple. Either there would be PVC or floor issues or everything would be great.
Don't know what possessed me to mention checking the frame at the brackets for the bed supports, I honestly thought that would only be a problem on older Dandys. Yet I had herd that it could be an early problem area for rust.
I have realised the downside of offering advice. I might well have never said the line I did and I would have been feeling pretty guilty at this point.
Now thinking things over I'm not sure of the quality of the advice I have given anyway.
Helen if you have suffered from this problem. Was your rusted area just in isolation to the brackets? Do you have any knowledge if there is a tendency for just this area to suffer?
You just had the bracket area welded up? This sounds like just a small job. I was envisaging a much larger job of frame rail replacement on one or two rails and if you get to this point you might as well do frame replacement because your going to have to lift off the body because of the heat created.
Now I haven't seen the Dandy in question but if it's just the front rail it becomes a much smaller problem. I do weld to to hobby level and I think I can see how I would approach the front rail. I'd clean and patch the hole. Then make all secure with a cut down piece of 3mm angle plate that had cut outs in the bottom section to allow for the "A" frame. All should be possible in situ.
If any of you have seen this sort of problem do you know if everything goes at once or if this is just a favourite area?
T Terror you appraised the frame, do you think it might be localised or did you see signs of widespread rust. other than surface rust.
The best person to speak to for information on the frames would be Ian at Riva [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] Though your in Scotland and not likely to be going down to Wigan for repair work Ian will give you open and honest advice on the frame. He will have repaired more frames than anyone else and most probably made this Dandy in the first place.

Im glad you gave me the advice you did,both bed supports at the front were gone and there had also been an attempt at wielding one of them that needed doing again.Iwouldnt even thought of looking for this problem.Getting to wigan isnt a problem im in the north west often (i pick the kids up from haydock)

If it was just the bed leg support brackets and not the chassiss that would be an easy fix for a mate with a welder, or a local garage. It wouldn't cost a fortune either. You could use it as a lever to try and get the price down too. Was the rest of the chassiss OK? Did you see it up? What was the rest of it like?

The bracket on mine broke away, the problem was minor and the rust localised. It was a very simple welding job that John did and it has lasted years, a quick rub down and a bit of Hammerite paint ...... job done. One of the reasons we put on simple brackets on the beds to hold the legs in place just in case movement caused it as you will notice if you don't have these that the legs tend to work outwards a bit and you can simply push them back but I did think this may cause a bit more stress to the other brackets.

TT

So from your recollections was it just the brackets, the brackets and the first tube or more widespread.

If it's simple stuff hopefully you can sort the welding locally.

If your devoid of mates who burn you might still have a source of cheap welding.

I don't live too far from Haydock, but it would be a few weeks I need to sort some of my own stuff and I'll need to borrow my mates MIG. Don't think my arc welder would go down too well on the thickness of tubes used on the Dandy!

I dont think it was just the brackets the rust went back about 2 feet and was breaking away in my hand,i know that im going to get surface rust on a twenty year old unit but this was pretty severe.When i pointed it out to the seller he said that he hadnt noticed it and that he had sold one previously because it had the same problem.

This thread had me a little worried about ours so I just questioned John about the minor repair he did and then sent him outside to inspect and all is well with no sign of rust. I suppose in the end it comes down to how a Dandy has been stored or how well it's been looked after over the years.