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[Amesz00]

Righto, ill tell him this, ill see him either tonight (we go witnessing in the city), or tomorow night at the meeting.
no you wouldnt think they were brothers, ive only met pedro once (when he visited last year), but he seemed much different to wayne. both of them are definetly characters, though!

yeah it is really starting to look nice, if i may say so myself...
although i realise (with the help of my car-loving mates) that for the money i could have had a stupidly nice and scarily fast car, it wouldnt have helped me at all, as offroad and camping is where my heart lies...(well kinda..)

going for my MR (medium rigid) truck license on friday, havent been able to get it sooner as you need a car license for a year (which ill have on thursday...). ive driven it around a little, but not game to go too far- the cops here just had a massive blitz on unlicensed drivers....

but yeah, and i realise that if i was in any even slightly different circumstances then there is no way that i would be able to do what i did with this truck at my age- i try not to brag too much about it because i know what conclusions people will draw from it. but yes, i am definetly VERY blessed and i thank God for this every day.

And whats this i keep hearing, that there'll be an air locker available for the fuso at the end of this year?? thatd be cool... :drool:

 

[whatcharterboat]

And whats this i keep hearing, that there'll be an air locker available for the fuso at the end of this year?? thatd be cool...

Like I said >> Don't hold your breath!!

I've got a FG 84 LSD in bits on my work bench now. Keep thinking how hard could it be ....... Well it is .

 

[Amesz00]

righto then. how much of an upgrade is the 'nospin' rear diff? as you say, we've also found the factory LSD to be very tight. so youv got one on the bench? whats inside it? ie is it different to an LSD out of a criuser/patrol?
in the spec sheet it says "thornton type power-lock LSD". even google holds no conclusions as to what this might be.
because with a normal LSD if you lift a wheel, the LSD doesnt help.
when we went last month 4wding with a few mates, one was following me in his 80 series and said that even when one wheel was a foot off the ground, the LSD kept spinning both wheels as if it was locked.

 

[whatcharterboat]

righto then. how much of an upgrade is the 'nospin' rear diff? as you say, we've also found the factory LSD to be very tight. so youv got one on the bench? whats inside it? ie is it different to an LSD out of a criuser/patrol?
in the spec sheet it says "thornton type power-lock LSD". even google holds no conclusions as to what this might be.

Hey, lots of extra money too. I'll post some pics tomorrow of the standard LSD./ BTW the rumoured airlocker will be for the front I believe.

 

[Amesz00]

Hey, lots of extra money too. I'll post some pics tomorrow of the standard LSD./ BTW the rumoured airlocker will be for the front I believe.

yeah i figured it wouldnt be cheap. air locker for the front is what ive also read/heard. makes sense i guess because the LSD is so good.

i just took mine down this morning to get a wheel alignment/balancing. not sure if its because of this or/and because of the knobbly tyres but she was wandering and pulling all over the place. hopefully the pulling (to the right) will stop, as im pretty sure that comes from the camber on the front end (front left is negative, right is positive...)

other thing i noticed is the suspension (or lack therof...). the ride seems to be particularly rough. the big tyres probly dont help, as thier rated to 4500kg per axle. but something definetly needs to be done about this, preferably soon. although that coily setup would be awesome, its a bit outside my price range. the longer leaves i would defintetly like to do.
theres only about 1 inch between the bumpstops, so my thinking partially is that the springs are bottoming at the slightest bump. even just getting the original springs reset an inch or 2 higher with better shocks seems to make a fair difference (on our previous trucks).

 

[whatcharterboat]

air locker for the front is what ive also read/heard. makes sense i guess because the LSD is so good.

I'd have one on the rear too if I could. The rear LSD tends to tear up knobby tyres pretty quick compared to the front especially if the truck is a heavy camper. Surely an open diff for normal running with the ability to lock on demand would be a lot more forgiving on the drive train.

i just took mine down this morning to get a wheel alignment/balancing. not sure if its because of this or/and because of the knobbly tyres but she was wandering and pulling all over the place. hopefully the pulling (to the right) will stop, as im pretty sure that comes from the camber on the front end (front left is negative, right is positive...)

The camber should be setup for driving on the lefthand side of the road. This normally gets done at the dealer during the pre delivery, so I'm told anyway. We've got a really switched on mobile guy who comes down and laser aligns all our trucks after we do any suspension work. He specializes in the outback road trains so he's very good value.

Also I haven't driven on the 11.00R16's but I bet if the height of the sidewall is 110% of the width then they will move around on the road. The 100R16 's are bad enough.

other thing i noticed is the suspension (or lack therof...). the ride seems to be particularly rough. the big tyres probly dont help, as thier rated to 4500kg per axle. but something definetly needs to be done about this, preferably soon. although that coily setup would be awesome, its a bit outside my price range. the longer leaves i would defintetly like to do.
theres only about 1 inch between the bumpstops, so my thinking partially is that the springs are bottoming at the slightest bump. even just getting the original springs reset an inch or 2 higher with better shocks seems to make a fair difference (on our previous trucks).

Yep. The standard setup just plain sucks. I just drove a standard one back from Cairns on the weekend. 1600 klms door to door. Glad that's over. I will say that it had 175000 klms on the clock and does the Bloomfied track up to Cooktown 4 times a week. So it surprised me that the suspension had lasted this long.

Standard LSD diff pics tomorrow hopefully. I also heard today that the airlocker won't be here this year either.

 

[Amesz00]

hmm, yeah thats a good point about front VS rear. even taking off quickly around a corner on bitumen the inside spins.
admittedly with dad's MAN (front + rear lockers) you only use the front locker very seldom- ie if something is very soft/slippery/steep/undulating then you might flick both on. but for 98% of offroading the rear suffices. sometimes its even better to use the rear locker than 4wd (the old trucks have seperate buttons, the new TGMs only can go 4wd, then rear locker, front.)

having said this, for those times when you do need the front locker, you really need it.

as for the wheel alignment and camber, well i am just about to go pick it up, so ill be able to say whether or not its much better this arfternoon.
as for the pulling to the right, i believe it was far too much, even on a left cambered road it would still go slightly to the right. also the front left camber was bad enough that you could obviously see it from the front of the vehicle.

11.00R16 metric equiv would be (if it existed) 285/100R16. so it is a very big sidewall.

at the start i was contemplating going all out and attempting to fit 12.5R20 tyres (335/80R20). these are much bigger even than 1100s or XMLs at 41.5" tall and 13.5" wide. i now realise the major works required to fit this size of tyre, even the 1100s were alot of modification.

however if one could fit this size, the rewards would be a few. for starters, selection of tyres. youv got michelin with the XZL and XL, and continental with MPT 80 and 81, and even the AC70G if you were keen. the XZL and MPT81 in this size i believe would wear quite nicely, being so big, wide, and higher rated. of course there would be other things to consider, like the gearing. on mine with 39s it is probly just sightly too high- the 255s, or around 37", are about perfect. so 42s would obviously require regearing (at a large cost).

Just some of my thinkings on the seemingly endless world of tyres...

 

[whatcharterboat]

at the start i was contemplating going all out and attempting to fit 12.5R20 tyres (335/80R20). these are much bigger even than 1100s or XMLs at 41.5" tall and 13.5" wide. i now realise the major works required to fit this size of tyre, even the 1100s were alot of modification.

however if one could fit this size, the rewards would be a few. for starters, selection of tyres. youv got michelin with the XZL and XL, and continental with MPT 80 and 81, and even the AC70G if you were keen. the XZL and MPT81 in this size i believe would wear quite nicely, being so big, wide, and higher rated. of course there would be other things to consider, like the gearing. on mine with 39s it is probly just sightly too high- the 255s, or around 37", are about perfect. so 42s would obviously require regearing (at a large cost).

Just some of my thinkings on the seemingly endless world of tyres...

Having driven a couple we've done with 16"XML's I'd have to say that would be about as big / high in the tyres as you could go. Fullstop. Even if you could gear it low enough I don't think the driveline would like it.

 

[Amesz00]

hmm yeah i guess thatd probly be the stoppers on it. itd look pretty tough though...:smiley_drive:

got her back from the wheel alignment today.
very interesting. they said that it had a little too much negative camber on the front left, right was about correct. apparently (as you also said) they are suppose to have 0.5 degree negative left and positive right, to counter the left road camber. it also had some pretty major toe-in, which was also corrected.

but come test drive time, she was still pulling right. so they got the boss to have a go (he's been in this game for 25 years, real respectable bloke). when i came in he got me to come with him for a drive. it responds differently to different roads; ie one minute you'll be driving along a normal cambered road in the left lane, he'd let go of the wheel and it would instantly climb up the camber into the right lane!
then do a u turn, go back the opposite direction, and it would track perfectly straight!
on another road, it would pull slightly left! all these roads had similar normal cambers.
one thing that they put it down to was the big knobbly balloon tyres creating a deflection with the road surface. also they noticed that the rear suspension bushes are worn; you can get a crowbar between the spring and shackle and move the spring- this would contribute to the pulling under torque (oh yeah it also pulls different if its under power or not), as the drive tries to turn the axle effectively steering the truck from the rear.

so, she goes better (straighter) than before, but only a little. still pulls right a bit. got the front wheels balanced also so theres no more shaking.

 

[Scott Brady]

Nice truck and welcome!

 

[whatcharterboat]

itd look pretty tough though...

Andrew, couldn't resist posting this. Just saw it today. Hope the pic isn't too small. 80Series on XML's from BBMotorsport.

 

[Amesz00]

thanks scott!

yeah john ive seen (heard of) that 80 before, sure looks the part! then i havent seen anything on XMLs that didnt... definetly something different though.

well i went for my MR license this morning and passed! (likely due to much praying before hand... )
not by that much though...but who cares, pass is a pass!
so this afternoon im going to give my mate (josh embury, not sure if you know the embury's or not, john) a little surprise when i rock up at his house with the truck!

 

[bobDog]

welcome and yeah we want pics

Yes .... drool ....pics....lots .....looking forward to it.:wings: Ok I read further and saw some pics. That can't be your truck! no one should have a truck that nice! i'm getting the shakes from envy!!
Show me more and I might go comatose.:costumed-smiley-007:coffeedrink:

 

[whatcharterboat]

Andrew, The pics of the LSD you asked about.

 

[Amesz00]

Thanks for the compliments bobdog!

And cheers for the pics John. would i be right in saying that this looks to be qiute a substantial setup, if compared to say a patrol diff? any obvious reasons why they are so much tighter than most LSDs?