Ex Mining Truck Purchase

[Witchdoctor Oz]

Hi Team,
Looking at purchasing a 4x4 truck & found a few ex mining trucks for reasonable money, to me.
Is ex mining or tour a bad track to go down or is it better to spend more money & buy new.
Coming from a 4x4 Ute back ground I am very apprehensive when buying an older used 4x4.
I have no experience with truck so any help would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers
David

 

[engineer]

Don't buy anything ex Fraser Island......

 

[whatcharterboat]

Coming from a 4x4 Ute back ground I am very apprehensive when buying an older used 4x4.
I have no experience with truck so any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hi David. Mate, if we keep getting new Aussies to the forum at this rate, maybe we should start our own. (Anyone think of a name? Seriously, PM me) Anyway, IMO it really depends on the operation the used trucks come from. Just because they are from a commercial background isn't always a bad thing. Then again, I heard about some really low kay mine trucks this week for around $6k each. I first thought "wow, I'll take 2 !!" , then after asking a few questions, they needed new cabs and chassis and for some lame reason the comp plates were missing. All I would have been buying was the running gear. You see , they'd come from a really corrosive mine site up in the Bowen Basin. Probably worse than the beach.

Anything that's been on the beach has usually had a rough life but they get attention everyday so it's more the corrosion dramas than engine wear as an example. (And when I say corrosion dramas I don't just mean rust on the chassis. It's brakes, springs, wheels, cables, wiring, etc. BTW they don't seem to ever suffer from rust in the cabs, weird) Some of the buses that do extended tours really suffer from the corrugations each trip, but again they are often well serviced. ENGINEER here on the forum would be one of the best guys in the country to ask about this . Ex Government trucks seem to be the best , depending on the service they saw. Fgcrazy's crewcab is a perfect example of that >> ex NSW Corrective Services so it probably just pottered around a prison with the gardeners in the back. Really low kays, very well treated and he got it for a good price. It drives like new.

My friend Dave the rally driver, has just bought an ex NSW railways 637 crewcab. Very good buy. He bought the truck sight unseen, which was a bit of a gamble but after seeing it last week, I'd definitely say he got a great truck. Again very good price.

Mines on the other hand tend to really kill them . Same with construction companies. If a truck is needed for a contract , they tend to write it off over that contract period so they may not really be thinking resale. So be careful .

Dave , one more thing I guarantee you, once you've had a Canter or NPS and it's well sorted , you won't go back to a Cruiser/Patrol/Hilux/whatever.

 

[whatcharterboat]

Don't buy anything ex Fraser Island......

Ah Chocko , you beat me to it.

 

[BIGdaddy]

do you guys get an anti-Aussie vibe from this site?

I personally love having you around cuz the American southwest, from what I've seen, is a lot like your "outback". I get a lot of great desert camping/overland travel tips from you guys.

Cheers!

-Brian

 

[whatcharterboat]

do you guys get an anti-Aussie vibe from this site?

Never. Not once. The complete opposite.

 

[Witchdoctor Oz]

Thanks very much for the direction with purchase.
As for joining the team, I have a number of mates that are over the Tojo, Nissan, and Mazda thing & are all very keen to move up to a real 4x4. The information that most members are sharing is awesome, wish I found the site earlier.

Cheers

 

[1Engine]

Hi I bought a 2002 NPS300 that had spent some time on a mine site.
I am still getting the red dirt out of my truck 2 years later.
I paid $34K it had 128000km & has a 1 tonne palfinger, 8kVa welder/ generator & a 15cfm petrol driven compressor.
I will need to paint it in the next 2-3 years
I would never buy one sight unseen.
Anything that has been on coal I would stay away from as the sulphur in the coal environment has turned to Sulphuric acid & attacks everything. It is the areas between spring leaves, body panels that are most susceptible to corrosion.
I just look at it this way - that when you buy anything from mine etc be prepared to have an emergency fund.
As Chocko said stay away from Ex Frazer units.
As per the tourist units, if they have come from a reputable operator, they are well maintained it is just that they have a few miles on them - unless you are going to use it as an everyday rig putting 25K+/yr otherwise then look at low mileage units.

 

[PKDreamers]

Hi David. Mate, if we keep getting new Aussies to the forum at this rate, maybe we should start our own. (Anyone think of a name? Seriously, PM me)


Hey John empty your inbox mate , Kel has a few ideas.



When we looked at trucks and 6 months later we got one,one big things was a service record or log book on the truck.:smiley_drive:

 

[AmericaOverland]

do you guys get an anti-Aussie vibe from this site?

Nope. You shouldn't. With me, you guys have a storied reputation with the outback out there and the trucks you have out there. I'd love to see the ratio of undeveloped land out there here in this country.

Welcome to Ex Po, mate!

 

[Overland Hadley]

do you guys get an anti-Aussie vibe from this site?

I really enjoy having you guys around. You bring a lot of good knowledge. And the vehicles you drive, well, they are the best.

 

[nick disjunkt]

Of course the state of the truck depends on the work and environment but there are some supruises to be had.

I looked at an old (early 80s) bedford MK 4x4 10tonner in a mine in Wales (UK) a few years back. I'm sure you all know about wales but it's exceptionally wet. The truck was absolutely caked in mud and so I presumed it would be rusty as hell. In fact the mud was clay and had effectively shielded the chassis from water for the years it had been on the mine site. Underneath the clay the chassis looked a 3 year old truck, not a 30 year old truck.

 

[Peter_n_Margaret]

Apart from the obvious corrosion and tough treatment issues, some ex mine vehicles also suffer badly from corrosion of the copper in the wiring looms. The copper can 'dissapear' right up inside the insulation and a complete re-wire may be the only solution to constant and random electrical failures.

Cheers,
Peter
Another Aussie.........

 

[whatcharterboat]

In fact the mud was clay and had effectively shielded the chassis from water for the years it had been on the mine site. Underneath the clay the chassis looked a 3 year old truck, not a 30 year old truck.

Well I wish I could say the same here but it was nothing like it. Took these pics recently out in Broken Hill . The vehicles all worked underground and the mud is HIGHLY corrosive and just doesn't come off. Literally like they had been sprayed with concrete. This photo shows the rear brakes on a 18 month Nissan Patrol after 4 hours of water blasting.

Every 2 weeks they come in for a service and among other things, brakes are checked and nearly always need the tailshaft brake to be replaced. Every 8 to 12 weeks they have all the brakes , coils springs, bushes, starter motor, alternator, radiator , clutch, main seals, belts, fluids, shock absorbers, replaced at a minimum. The gearboxes don't last long either. All the Canters were welded into low range as the shift cables are useless after a couple of months too. The chassis on this Nissan looked just as bad as the disc cover too. Major cracks under halfway down the box section.

And check this out. I guarantee it weighed close to 20 kilos. Absolutely solid and unabled to be cleaned in any way. Just like it was dipped in cement. Every radiator I saw on the vehicles was like this.

Usually they just use a needle gun or hammer and chisel on the bolt heads of the item they intend to replace.

And lastly > underneath a FG649. The transfer case and gearbox are both shot. Probably less than 50.000ks on it. See how the rear seal has gone and dropped the oil out. Normally you would see an oil leak in time but with all the mud everywhere, the mechanics say by the time they see signs it's too late. As I was leaving the workshop an almost brand new FG84 crewcab was being delivered on a tilt tray. It looked like it was dropped from a height or some thing was dropped on it. All the springs had collapsed and the tyres were all blown out. I didn't look back. haha.

So again be careful about buying ex mine vehicles no matter how little the odometer may say especially sight unseen say from an online auction or similar. John.

 

[Mickldo]

I did my apprenticeship at a 4wd wreckers and we occasionally used to get in ex-mines vehicles and they used to all be like John's photos above. Like John said they weld up the shift linkages to keep them in low range and the 5th gear selector was welded up too. We only used to keep the guts of the running gear and just throw the rest. Because 5th was welded up 5th gear was in perfect condition and we could use it to recondition other gearboxes with shot 5th gears.