Fuso FG not made for off-road

[dhackney]

Ron and Michel asked me to take a look at Michel's truck when I returned from South America back in April.

I inspected the truck and prepared this assessment and recommendations: http://www.hackneys.com/mitsu/docs/fusofgskfinspection.pdf

Michel asked me to refrain from sharing or posting it here until he decided what to do about the truck, etc., so I respected his wishes.

Since the repair is now complete, I am now sharing it in the hopes that it will shed some light on the situation and assist others building on the FG platform.

As to the OP, I disagree that the FG is not made for off-road, as the Ozzies have so indisputably demonstrated.

In Michel's case, his builder had no experience (just like me) and followed the same design we were using (3 point pivot). The outcome was just like ours, but thankfully got fixed before the catastrophic chassis failure we experienced.

For building an expedition vehicle on an FG the key is to distribute the weight along the longitudinal length of the frame.

On a personal integrity note: Of everyone involved in this situation, Ron Lucero is absolutely beyond reproach. You would need to go a very, very long ways to find a person working in a retail vehicle operation, at any level, from janitor to CEO, with his level of integrity and honesty.

 

[haven]

Thanks, Doug, that was an enlightening report. It will inform
anyone who is thinking about building a custom camper.

I know you spent time visiting with Carl Hunter, whose Fuso FG
was built with a similar 3-point mount. In Carl's case, the pivot
is in the front, and the two fixed mounts are in the rear. In the
photos I have, the rear mount appears to be positioned above
the rear hanger for the rear spring. The front pivot sits on
the frame crossmember (not even on the frame!), above the transmission.
That's before the frame steps down.

Did you see any evidence of frame damage with Carl's rig?
If there was no visible damage, do you think the light weight
of Carl's camper could be the explanation? Or were the mounting
points located on strong parts of the frame?

Chip Haven

ps. Please tell us what you have decided to do about your Fuso!
Repair, replace, return to motorcycles?

 

[dzzz]

Thanks to both Michel and Doug for letting us into the problems of both vehicles. I know if I had this sort of problem the last thing I would want is a public discussion.

 

[kerry]

Thanks to both Michel and Doug for letting us into the problems of both vehicles. I know if I had this sort of problem the last thing I would want is a public discussion.

X2. Public discussion of these kinds of problems can be awkward. I have some questions about Doug's recommendations and the subframe that was added but I don't know if now is the time and place to ask them. Opinions on whether such discussion is appropriate?

 

[dhackney]

Thanks, Doug, that was an enlightening report. It will inform anyone who is thinking about building a custom camper.

Thanks Chip. As with all the material I have posted on our build site www.hackneys.com/mitsu and here on ExPo, my goal is to leave behind a record of our "open source" project so others can learn what we did right and what we did wrong.

I know you spent time visiting with Carl Hunter, whose Fuso FG was built with a similar 3-point mount. In Carl's case, the pivot is in the front, and the two fixed mounts are in the rear. In the
photos I have, the rear mount appears to be positioned above
the rear hanger for the rear spring. The front pivot sits on
the frame crossmember (not even on the frame!), above the transmission.
That's before the frame steps down.

Did you see any evidence of frame damage with Carl's rig?
If there was no visible damage, do you think the light weight
of Carl's camper could be the explanation? Or were the mounting
points located on strong parts of the frame?

There are photos of Carl & Mary's Fuso on our build site here: http://www.hackneys.com/mitsu/index-samples.htm BTW, that Fuso went around the world and then spent a year in South America.

I did not see any overt evidence of damage to the frame/chassis on Carl & Mary's Fuso.

I attribute that to:
1. Very light payload.
2. Pivoting at the front. As John has pointed out and other have observed, when you find damage, it is usually at the front mounting area. We were precluded from pivoting at the front because we needed to match the camper berth area to the garage. I think Michel's builder's made an unfortunate choice to pivot his at the rear, although I assume they were just copying other designs.

ps. Please tell us what you have decided to do about your Fuso! Repair, replace, return to motorcycles?

I will be providing an update soon on those topics on our expedition thread. I will also post the repair info in a new thread in this topic area.

 

[FusoFG]

Doug,

You recommended that Michael install frame reinforcements on the step down per the Body Builder Manual.

I have an old Fuso Body Builder manual that recommends plug welding the hole in the step down if there is "excessive input" from the body.

What reinforcements are you referring to?

Tom

 

[dhackney]

What reinforcements are you referring to?

Tom,

The L stiffener here: http://www.hackneys.com/mitsu/docs/fusoframeFGreinforcement.pdf

Doug

 

[haven]

Michel got his camper back today. He plans to post a
final report about the repair on his blog, maybe tonight.

edit: the report, with lots of photos, has been posted
http://michelszulckrzyzanowski.blogspot.com/2009/06/rebuilding-fuso-szulc-6.html

In keeping with Michel's wishes, please don't post copies
of Michel's photos here. View them on his blog site.

Chip Haven

 

[dzzz]

Michel got his camper back today. He plans to post a
final report about the repair on his blog, maybe tonight.

edit: the report, with lots of photos, has been posted
http://michelszulckrzyzanowski.blogspot.com/2009/06/rebuilding-fuso-szulc-6.html

In keeping with Michel's wishes, please don't post copies
of Michel's photos here. View them on his blog site.

Chip Haven

I must say it's a good looking sub frame. Hopefully that counts for something?

 

[mog]

"But the spaces between the subframe and the truck chassis were still there.
Sheets of paper can be put through as the images show"

Hats off to the subframe builder. A previously bend and twisted frame, a stepped frame, a time constrained 'supervised' build, metal to metal with no crush spacer, and only a sheet of paper gap between the subframe and frame... WOW! Outstanding! Hopefully everything goes well now, and MSK can continue pioneering his travels and photos and not pioneering the designing, building, repairing, and rebuilding his truck. I think we all have learned a lot. Thanks.