new fuso on the way ; )

[whatcharterboat]

they are actually too large on my screen.

Yeah. Leon. I think 1000pixels wide is about as much as you can go. I think I read somewhere that they should be about 800 wide by 600 high. Yours are 1780 wide. So see if you can downsize them in your online gallery before you post the URL in the yellow mountain icon window.

If that makes sense. Haha.

 

[Tony LEE]

Sorry, I was being a little facetious - or perhaps sarcastic. Ironic covers it - apparently not well appreciated in some cultures. Comes with not having a fast connection and unlimited data transfer. All photos are interesting but for instance 3 views of a tyre in such detail that you can count the dust specks - generally repeated three times as three others hit the quote post button without editing and some of the threads become an exercise in tedium.

As whatcharterboat said, 800 x 600 is just about right.

 

[lehel1]

tires and gear change ?

hey john and all

thanks for the tire pressure info john. 75 up front and 80 psi in the rear worked great empty. the rear tire pressure will have to be increased when i carry a load, the tires ran hotter than i would like at 80. but the front worked well both empty and loaded ; ) i'll be trying 110 or so in the rear when loaded next trip, which is ussually close to 14k lbs gvw.

i'm extremely happy that the increased tire gearing seems to not be as much an issue i was worried about or told about after changing to the 19.5's. the mountains i climb in my ussual shopping trips is pretty much a very long 6% grade up and down. the truck is handled this fine ; ) also the new camper box will be considerably lighter than the loads i carry for our store so its appears to be a great match so far.

i broke out the gps and have some numbers on the change in the speedometer reading. just let me know what info you need from me, i'd like to order the mechanical gear to correct mine.
the speedo difference turned out to be right at 5mph slow at 60 mph actual with the new tires.
overall the truck is coming out nicely, we finally got our camper quote and our new camper build is being started this next week, exciting.
at this end we're starting the build for the motorcycle rake for the rear.

well, thats it for now
cheers lehel and laura

p.s. the plastic strip i wanted to use to replace the under the door strip hasn't worked out to plan. any idea's on the best way to trim down the stock cover ???? i'm thinking a dremel tool, not sure how the plastic will react or clean up after the cut ??

 

[DEFENDERBEAM]

I just did it with a 4" grinding wheel, and it came out clean.

 

[whatcharterboat]

thanks for the tire pressure info john. 75 up front and 80 psi in the rear worked great empty. the rear tire pressure will have to be increased when i carry a load, the tires ran hotter than i would like at 80. but the front worked well both empty and loaded ; ) i'll be trying 110 or so in the rear when loaded next trip, which is ussually close to 14k lbs gvw.

Lehel, Like I said that would be a good starting place. 75 / 80 was what our engineer worked out on paper for max GVM . Some of the guys here are running similar size tyres at 65 PSI all round at almost 6ton GVM and down from there depending on the conditions but if your monitoring temps it sounds like you'll figure out what's best for you and the conditions. If you plan to run empty /full/ off/ on road /sand / corrugations / rock/ hwy get your self a good onboard compressor. I hope to do a thread in a day or 2 about one of the truck we built 18 months ago. One of the first 19.5" SRW conversions we did. Relates to this closely. You'll see.

I'm extremely happy that the increased tire gearing seems to not be as much an issue i was worried about or told about after changing to the 19.5's. the mountains i climb in my ussual shopping trips is pretty much a very long 6% grade up and down. the truck is handled this fine ; ) also the new camper box will be considerably lighter than the loads i carry for our store so its appears to be a great match so far.

Don't you find that it 's actually better? I do. They just seem perfect with that diameter wheel. Whenever I drive one with standard wheels they just rev their head off and go no where. I've driven them with much, much bigger wheels too (Michelin XML's) and they get really good fuel consumption and still feel good on the hills. Bet it's a lot hillier where you are though.

i broke out the gps and have some numbers on the change in the speedometer reading. just let me know what info you need from me, i'd like to order the mechanical gear to correct mine.
the speedo difference turned out to be right at 5mph slow at 60 mph actual with the new tires.

Hey, no worries, I'll send you a PM.

 

[lehel1]

yeah !!

hey john

can't wait to see the thread on the truck you mentioned. wondering if it had a motor driven or electrical compressor ??

i'll keep you posted on how the rear tire pressure works out, i was surprized how hot they ran when loaded this last trip. the front tires ran nice and cool. i do hope i can do a motor driven compressor, its great to have this on our unimog.

nice to hear from someone else on there veiw on the bigger tires, they do seem to be just about right gearing wize. if the truck came this way form the factory i don't think i would be giving it a second thought concerning power or hauling capacity. i'm still in my 900 mile fuel range but am looking forward to seeing if there's a good fuel mileage difference.

cheers lehel and laura

 

[whatcharterboat]

wondering if it had a motor driven or electrical compressor ??

It has a big Honda/petrol driven compressor with the tank coiled around the base. Overkill to the max. Another truck we built that is back in the workshop at the moment (so I'll take some pics) has a 240volt (our mains voltage) compressor and he runs his genset for power. (maybe 8 to 10 CFM )

There are belt driven models that bolt up to the FG available here (based on air con compressors) up to 10 CFM but we haven't fitted any yet. Others say they're great. Hopefully doing our first ones in the next few weeks.

If the tyres are running cool at 75psi try dropping them more. You'll find the ride where you are sitting over the front axle will be a lot smoother. The heavier wheels and too high air pressures can really transfer the bumps through the standard springs and shocks.

 

[kerry]

What kind of tire temperatures are you seeing? I'll start checking mine with my infrared thermometer and we can do some comparisons.

 

[lehel1]

thanks for the notes

hi all

the grinding wheel idea worked great, good to have the wheel well cover back on.

i don't have a temp reading on the tires yet, just know they felt very hot to the touch compared to the front. i have a infared temp gauge somewhere and i'll check it next trip, although i plan to run with higher pressure in the rear.

can't wait to hear of that belt driven compressor that may be available for the fg.

cheers lehel and laura

 

[lehel1]

the new camper

hello all

well, me and laura are very excited as our new camper is finally ready for pickup. to retread, we went to m&m campers located in oklahama for our build. we decided to do a cabover camper to mount on our 08 fuso with a 14' flatbed as we use this truck dual purpose, work and camper.

the pic's they send are great and we are looking forward to seeing it in person.

i'll update here soon as we arrange for pickup and our first trip which will be our extented drive home back to calif.

cheers lehel and laura

p.s. as i have not done well in loading pic's here yet, we do have some great pic's we could e-mail someone if they might load them for us

 

[ozzyfishaman]

Hi lehel and laura

I am planing to build my self another unit like this one I built for the Iveco
to suit a new Isuzu NPS 300 I have just purchased.
The chequer plate along the bottom of the camper is covering the large amount of under floor storage,which also includes the 300 ltr water tank,hot water service, house batteries,split system air con etc.
Cheers Ozzy.

 

[lehel1]

very nice looking rig ; )

hello ozzy

very nice looking rig. i saw this in another tread recently and it was great to see. to bad not much of this building going on here in the states. we had a heck of a time finding someone to do a flatbed type camper for us. we run our own buisness and we just did't have the time to build our own rig similar to our beloved unimog.

we ended up doing a more traditional rv build this go around, and great fun to work with a family run buisness like m&m.

anyhow, just planning our trip to take delivery hopefully in the next 2 weeks. i really enjoy keeping up on all you guys are up to down under with expedition campers.

a side note, we early on had plans to travel down your way to check out doing a rig there, travel abit and then ship back. but alas the economy makes thoughts like that alittle more the longterm like for now.

cheers lehel and laura

 

[lehel1]

our new camper !!

at least our try at loading them, ; )

 

[lehel1]

weight ?

well, the planned ideal weight was to be in the 4000-4500 lb's range, thats what we have set the suspension up for and are hoping for.
with our yamaha xt, kayaks and gear our goal is to be just under the GVWR of 14k overall.

we can't wait to get out there for pickup, ya ; ) cheers Lehel and laura

 

[dzzz]

I am planing to build my self another unit like this one I built for the Iveco
to suit a new Isuzu NPS 300 I have just purchased.
The chequer plate along the bottom of the camper is covering the large amount of under floor storage,which also includes the 300 ltr water tank,hot water service, house batteries,split system air con etc.
Cheers Ozzy.

Great looking setup. I like how you do the camp with the extra shade. Of course you're shading the north sun, which just isn't right.......