Unimogadventures - Our build and travel thread
- Thread starter Iain_U1250
- Start date
piratexpress1369a
Explorer
Thanks.for that. ..will the 22. 5 give the same height as your old tires
Sorry to hear of your tyre troubles.. Have you considered keeping a couple at home? At least then when in Aus you know where to get some. I do hear the temptation to go to more available tyres, but IMHO if doing 'real' offroad work (like it appears you do) then I'd steer away from 22.5s.. The tyres are rock hard, they don't flex at all even when deflated and the bead lip on the rim is tiny..
Obviously it's your truck, put on it what you think best suits your needs. It's just to me, seems kinda a waste to build up such a beautiful mog (which I'm not sure I've complement you on yet) then stick highway tyres on it...
Obviously it's your truck, put on it what you think best suits your needs. It's just to me, seems kinda a waste to build up such a beautiful mog (which I'm not sure I've complement you on yet) then stick highway tyres on it...
charlieaarons
Explorer
I'd like to reiterate my advice to stay with 365/80R20 XZLs. I further recommend a set of Hutchinson aluminium wheels with beadlocks. These allow very low pressure without the horrors of de-beading in a mudhole, and field removal of tire without tire irons.
By comparison 385/65R22.5s will be very stiff and debead easily at lower pressures.
Charlie
By comparison 385/65R22.5s will be very stiff and debead easily at lower pressures.
Charlie
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Iain_U1250
Explorer
Thanks Charlie, driving with the XZLs is way better than the Continental MPT81s. I don't think you get Hutchinsons in 6 studs. I have some internal bead locks for my tyres, which I did not re-fit as the tubes had been damaged when the tyres split. I will look at all options before I make any changes, it is purely availability of the 365/80R20 that is a pain. I've had to wait 3 weeks for the two extra tyres to make up the set. I would not be happy waiting 3 more more weeks in Halls Creek if I had not been able to fix the one I had.
I now have a proper set of tyre irons, which make taking the tyre off relatively easy, about a 20 minute job as opposed to two hours. I couple of tubes, some large internal patches and I think I will be OK for most things. The XZLs seem a much tougher tyre, sidewalls seem quite a bit thicker than the MPT81 and at leas these ones are only 9 months old.
I now have a proper set of tyre irons, which make taking the tyre off relatively easy, about a 20 minute job as opposed to two hours. I couple of tubes, some large internal patches and I think I will be OK for most things. The XZLs seem a much tougher tyre, sidewalls seem quite a bit thicker than the MPT81 and at leas these ones are only 9 months old.
charlieaarons
Explorer
Check www.hutchinson-truckwheels.de
Hellgeth has 6 hole wheels for your vehicle with beadlocks. Also look at wartimefinds.com tire page. Brand new 365 XZLs for US$500. Even with shipping it might be good. They also some 6 hole bolttogether (steel) wheels, I don't know if they would work for your vehicle.
Charlie
Hellgeth has 6 hole wheels for your vehicle with beadlocks. Also look at wartimefinds.com tire page. Brand new 365 XZLs for US$500. Even with shipping it might be good. They also some 6 hole bolttogether (steel) wheels, I don't know if they would work for your vehicle.
Charlie
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Iain_U1250
Explorer
We now have a new set of XZLs on the truck, and will be keeping the best MPT81 casing as a spare as we are thinking about heading up the Canning Stock Route on the way home.
Iain_U1250
Explorer
Iain_U1250
Explorer
Canning Stock Route
It took us 10 days to do the 1400km from Newman to Halls Creek via the Talawana Track and the Canning Stock Route. Average speed was 22kph and fuel consumption was 28lt/100km. Considering we did 300km on the first day, and 200km on the last day, the rest of the track was pretty slow going. On one section we only did 80km driving from sunrise to sunset. We carried an extra 90lt of diesel on the roof in jerry cans, and arrived at Halls Creek with more than 100lt left in our two fuel tanks.
The track is very narrow for most of the way, but since our U1250's outside of tyre to outside of tyre measurement is 2000mm, only 60mm wider than a Nissan Patrol or Land Cruiser, we fitted into the same wheel tracks as everyone else. A bigger truck would have one side off in the bush in some places and would find about 1/3 track very difficult. We have heard of some bigger trucks destroying three tyres on the track, mainly sidewall damage from the Mulga bush, the wood is very hard and sharp. Our new XZL tyres survived with any damage whatsoever. We had a spare MPT81 casing on the roof, and have left that at "Reedo's"in Halls Creek as we will be on the bitumen for the rest of the trip home 90% of the time. If we do take a second spare, it will be a new XZL, but I can't think of anywhere else in Australia where will need to take one. We ran the front tyres at 25PSI and the rears at 35PSI.
After the endless corrugations, the clay pans and salt lakes where like heaven.
We unfortunately followed a bunch of idiots who thought that the best way to get up a sand dune was to take a big run up and bounce their way to the top, after two or three goes they would make it up but they made massive holes which made us wallow a bit too much for comfort if we went up faster than a crawl. I would drive up in third or fourth gear, stop when it got to the deep holes and put it into low range, then crawl up the rest of the dune slowly. This smoothed out the big holes for the people following.
It was a fantastic trip, hard going for most of the way with some very technical section requiring a lot of concentration and choosing the right line, especially when we were leaning over at 25 Degrees.
There are a couple of restored wells, where you can get water, but we didn't need any. We still had about 60lt left at the end of the track.
for the most part, the wells are just ruins, or just a marker where the well used to be.
We had a bit of a traffic jam at one spot, when we met up with 5 vehicles from the Outback Spirit tour group, and another group of three vehicles, we were well and truly parked in, but we just went for a walk up into the hills and by the time we got back, everyone had gone.
We met four groups going south, and were passed by the Tour Group and the track destroying idiots (three times, as they started late, took so long to cross the dunes and stopped early). We eventually just waited at one well for two hours to give them enough head start so we would not catch them. There was a lot more traffic on the CSR than on the Anne Beadell road we did a few years earlier in our Land Rover.
When the track was straight, is was very badly corrugated, so by the time we got to the Tanamai Road turn off, we were pretty happy.
The Tanamai was pretty corrugated by most standards, and we heard a lot of commment on the UHF radio about the "bad sections ahead "but we thought is was great by comparison and doing 80kph vs 10kph made a big difference.
It took us 10 days to do the 1400km from Newman to Halls Creek via the Talawana Track and the Canning Stock Route. Average speed was 22kph and fuel consumption was 28lt/100km. Considering we did 300km on the first day, and 200km on the last day, the rest of the track was pretty slow going. On one section we only did 80km driving from sunrise to sunset. We carried an extra 90lt of diesel on the roof in jerry cans, and arrived at Halls Creek with more than 100lt left in our two fuel tanks.
The track is very narrow for most of the way, but since our U1250's outside of tyre to outside of tyre measurement is 2000mm, only 60mm wider than a Nissan Patrol or Land Cruiser, we fitted into the same wheel tracks as everyone else. A bigger truck would have one side off in the bush in some places and would find about 1/3 track very difficult. We have heard of some bigger trucks destroying three tyres on the track, mainly sidewall damage from the Mulga bush, the wood is very hard and sharp. Our new XZL tyres survived with any damage whatsoever. We had a spare MPT81 casing on the roof, and have left that at "Reedo's"in Halls Creek as we will be on the bitumen for the rest of the trip home 90% of the time. If we do take a second spare, it will be a new XZL, but I can't think of anywhere else in Australia where will need to take one. We ran the front tyres at 25PSI and the rears at 35PSI.
After the endless corrugations, the clay pans and salt lakes where like heaven.
We unfortunately followed a bunch of idiots who thought that the best way to get up a sand dune was to take a big run up and bounce their way to the top, after two or three goes they would make it up but they made massive holes which made us wallow a bit too much for comfort if we went up faster than a crawl. I would drive up in third or fourth gear, stop when it got to the deep holes and put it into low range, then crawl up the rest of the dune slowly. This smoothed out the big holes for the people following.
It was a fantastic trip, hard going for most of the way with some very technical section requiring a lot of concentration and choosing the right line, especially when we were leaning over at 25 Degrees.
There are a couple of restored wells, where you can get water, but we didn't need any. We still had about 60lt left at the end of the track.
for the most part, the wells are just ruins, or just a marker where the well used to be.
We had a bit of a traffic jam at one spot, when we met up with 5 vehicles from the Outback Spirit tour group, and another group of three vehicles, we were well and truly parked in, but we just went for a walk up into the hills and by the time we got back, everyone had gone.
We met four groups going south, and were passed by the Tour Group and the track destroying idiots (three times, as they started late, took so long to cross the dunes and stopped early). We eventually just waited at one well for two hours to give them enough head start so we would not catch them. There was a lot more traffic on the CSR than on the Anne Beadell road we did a few years earlier in our Land Rover.
When the track was straight, is was very badly corrugated, so by the time we got to the Tanamai Road turn off, we were pretty happy.
The Tanamai was pretty corrugated by most standards, and we heard a lot of commment on the UHF radio about the "bad sections ahead "but we thought is was great by comparison and doing 80kph vs 10kph made a big difference.
piratexpress1369a
Explorer
Glad the tires worked out well for you
..sounds like you are getting better fuel economy then you thought
Sent from my SM-G903W using Tapatalk
..sounds like you are getting better fuel economy then you thought
Sent from my SM-G903W using Tapatalk
Iain_U1250
Explorer
Much better fuel economy, we thought we would be around the 30-35lt/100km but when we got to the last day and I had just switched over to the main tank the day before we knew that we could push on to Halls Creek without buying more at the Community at Billiluna. I suppose chugging along at 1500rpm in the sand doesn't use much more fuel than cruising at 100kph on tar.
BjarniThor
New member
Hi Ian
I would like to ask you about the aluminium cladding material used on your camper.
What is the sheet thickness used? Additionally, what alloy type (specifications) is used?
I wonder if the use of high strength alloys (something like aircraft sheet metal) could make the use of thinner sheets for weight saving possible.
Although increased cost might possibly make it not so feasible.
Did you do some study on this matter, comparing different types and thickness of alloys, cost etc. ?
I would like to ask you about the aluminium cladding material used on your camper.
What is the sheet thickness used? Additionally, what alloy type (specifications) is used?
I wonder if the use of high strength alloys (something like aircraft sheet metal) could make the use of thinner sheets for weight saving possible.
Although increased cost might possibly make it not so feasible.
Did you do some study on this matter, comparing different types and thickness of alloys, cost etc. ?
Iain_U1250
Explorer
I used 2mm aluminium, glued on with Sikaflex 252. The "armour" on the front leading edges and bottom of the truck is 3mm 5 bar tread plate. It was a long time ago, but I did ask about various aluminium alloys and but the price more than doubled, and the weight saving in reality would be very little given that the total amount of aluminium sheeting I bought was less than 120kg.
I asked the sheet metal shop who would be doing all the folding and bending what would be the best grade and got what they recommended. They were quite specific about what grade could be bent without cracking, especially since I needed some long lengths bent 90 Deg. I got what they recommended. I will have to look for the invoice from about 6 years ago to find the specification but I believe it is MF5251 H34 for the 2mm sheet and MF5052 H114. The tread plate was very difficult to bend in the 2.4m long sections I needed, as the tread bars add an extra 2mm of thickness to the 3mm plate.
After 30,000km and pushing through some pretty rough terrain and lots of trees, the cladding has stood up better than I expected with only one small dent on the truck. The 3mm tread plate on the leading edges was well worth the effort, as there are some big scratches in it, but no dents. The bar work I have over the cab of the truck I would consider a necessity, as that takes most of the impact load, they are made from 3mm Gr350Mpa steel tube. I didn't see one overhanging branch about 100mm thick and hit it at about 30kph, and snapped the whole tree off near the ground, the impact took the paint off the bars, and made a small dent just behind the treadplate on the top corner of the truck.
We got quite used to looking for overhead branches and having the two side camera made it easy to see what we would not clear. Most of the time the bars would lift the branches over the roof, and would break quite a lot of smaller branches off, we regularly had to climb up and clear the branches that got stuck.
I asked the sheet metal shop who would be doing all the folding and bending what would be the best grade and got what they recommended. They were quite specific about what grade could be bent without cracking, especially since I needed some long lengths bent 90 Deg. I got what they recommended. I will have to look for the invoice from about 6 years ago to find the specification but I believe it is MF5251 H34 for the 2mm sheet and MF5052 H114. The tread plate was very difficult to bend in the 2.4m long sections I needed, as the tread bars add an extra 2mm of thickness to the 3mm plate.
After 30,000km and pushing through some pretty rough terrain and lots of trees, the cladding has stood up better than I expected with only one small dent on the truck. The 3mm tread plate on the leading edges was well worth the effort, as there are some big scratches in it, but no dents. The bar work I have over the cab of the truck I would consider a necessity, as that takes most of the impact load, they are made from 3mm Gr350Mpa steel tube. I didn't see one overhanging branch about 100mm thick and hit it at about 30kph, and snapped the whole tree off near the ground, the impact took the paint off the bars, and made a small dent just behind the treadplate on the top corner of the truck.
We got quite used to looking for overhead branches and having the two side camera made it easy to see what we would not clear. Most of the time the bars would lift the branches over the roof, and would break quite a lot of smaller branches off, we regularly had to climb up and clear the branches that got stuck.
BjarniThor
New member
Thanks Ian, detailed description-as always.
Iain_U1250
Explorer
A bit of an update on the modifications. First off are the new rear springs. I had these custom made by a spring manufacturer down the Gold Coast. I took the old springs in, and they measured them on a fancy press, and worked out the paring rate at the current loaded ride height with a 75mm bump stop clearance. I wanted springs that were stiffer, and had a loaded ride height of 125mm.
Two weeks later I got these springs, and after fitting them, the truck now sits with the 125mm bump stop clearance. I was told the springs are 800lb/in and the old ones were 600lb/in. I'm hoping the stiffer springs will reduce the wallowing effect as well.
Next modification is to move the air tanks from the side of the truck to underneath the back of the camper. This will free up the side for 5 jerry cans, or a bigger fuel tank. I could not get both original air tanks to fit, it was just too tight, so I bought two smaller ones, and will run them in parallel. All three of them fit in the unused space behind the rear axle.
I had to make some heavy duty brackets, re-route the exhaust pipe and will need to redo a lot of the air lines but it will be worth the effort to increase out fuel range. I will see if I can find a bigger fuel tank, then move the main tank to the passenger side, and fit the larger fuel tank on the drivers side. The goal is to increase out fuel capacity to 350-400lts. This will give us an off road range of 1200-1400km, and a road range of 1500-2000km.
Two weeks later I got these springs, and after fitting them, the truck now sits with the 125mm bump stop clearance. I was told the springs are 800lb/in and the old ones were 600lb/in. I'm hoping the stiffer springs will reduce the wallowing effect as well.
Next modification is to move the air tanks from the side of the truck to underneath the back of the camper. This will free up the side for 5 jerry cans, or a bigger fuel tank. I could not get both original air tanks to fit, it was just too tight, so I bought two smaller ones, and will run them in parallel. All three of them fit in the unused space behind the rear axle.
I had to make some heavy duty brackets, re-route the exhaust pipe and will need to redo a lot of the air lines but it will be worth the effort to increase out fuel range. I will see if I can find a bigger fuel tank, then move the main tank to the passenger side, and fit the larger fuel tank on the drivers side. The goal is to increase out fuel capacity to 350-400lts. This will give us an off road range of 1200-1400km, and a road range of 1500-2000km.
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