J Kelly

Thanks for that info Neville, I may be able to let you know about the rego as mine is due in March. Regards, JK.

Hi Neville, Thanks for responding, I was hoping you would. When I phoned QT yesterday I only got a very sketchy response with no details on how to tie up inspections if you were interstate at the time of reg renewal. How much do QT rip you off for registering a 4000k van? It is good to hear that you are still happy with your Hitch-Ezy now that you have been using it for quite a while - How does it handle bull dust ingression and red dirt ? The last time I spoke with Tom at Kedron he told me that he had installed quite a few but had not yet received any feedback. Laurie, when speaking with QT yesterday they informed me that all vans over 3500k required the annual inspection; but I did not think to ask them if there was any cost benefit in regestering the van at 3900 rather than the 4000. As you quite rightly point out it is better to keep the money in my pocket rather than give it to QT - my wallet has already been well depleted this week . Regards, JK.

After deciding to upgrade my tow tug (Silverado), I am trying to weigh up the pro's & con's of having the Kedrons GVM upgraded to 4000kg. I would be very interested to hear from members who have already been down this road and in particular complications if any with Qld registration. As part of the upgrade the tow hitch has to be upgraded and would like to hear opinions of the hitches. I am aware of previous discussions and the majority seem to be in favour of the 6T McHitch but has anyone fitted one of the new platinum series? It would also be interesting to have some reports from those who have fitted the Hitch-Ezy. There also seems to be opinions as to whether a weight distribution hitch should be used, so a consensus here would also be of great interest. Thanks & regards, JK.

Yep your right Neville, can't even copy my own spreadsheet Chairs, table, mt jerricans and jack go in the back of the troopy! Regards, jk.

As a guideline for keeping my loading weights down I stripped the van out and weighed all of the necessities that we need to carry on an average trip. I committed the weights to a spread sheet which allowed me to get a running load as I proceeded. Finally I came up with a list that will allow my loading to come within the prescribed GVM, provided that the Tare was done accuratley at time of delivery. Caravan Loading Schedule Tare 2905....... GVM 3500 Load 552...... Allowable 595....... (available for allocation 43)] water in HWS 20 water (2 part tanks) 150 gas 40 jerricans 10 fuel 0 deisel in heater 5 Front Boot ant flap kit 12 hoses 5 BBQ 9 gas bottle 10 ext leads 7 water pump 6 Side boot Honda generator 21 chainsaw 10 LH Side boot chairs 10 sullage 5 table 8 camp oven 6 LH shovel 2 buckets etc 8 mt jerricans 9 Under Bed jack 17 shade panels 16 floor panels 10 wine 11 TV dish 12 Kitchen pots/pans 6 sundries 10 pantry 12 tin food 14 draw contents 30 Clothing JK 30 PK 30 linen/bedding 25 bathroom 20 Fridge (contents will have to come within the 43kg spare) It would be interesting to see how my loading compares with others. Regards, JK.

Hi Chris, do you order the window strips directly from Dometic ?? Regards, JK.

H'mmm don't know where my attachment went to! JK.

Hi Laurie, the saga drags on, I've had some interesting emails with David Hunt today on buying a Silverado. Like you I also want to get right off road with my tug as I do a spot of gold prospecting as a hobby and I can't see myself taking the Chevy into places that I currently get the troopy. My head is really starting to spin while I look at the options. I have also stipped the T/E out and rewieghed and similarly have a 100K+ that I can't find. Kedron assure me that the vans are tared with the spares mounted and 2 empty gas bottles in place. I am starting to doubt the accuracy of our weighbridge here but I don't have an alternative option. My tare is 3905 which allows me a load of 595k ... I weighed most of the stuff that I normally carry plus made maximum allowances for clothing etc and logged them on to a spread sheet (attached, I hope). With this minimum loading I have 43k left as a margin but I did not make any allowance for the fridge contrents and assume that this would be all of the 43k left. I can transfer some of the load into the troopy but when I do my annual trip to the cape country it is fully loaded with extra equipment needed for long bush camps. Regards, JK.

Thanks for the good luck offer Richard, yes I also rang Qld transport and got the same no go response; so unless I want to spend $123k plus on a new Chevy or something I guess we will have to work a bit harder on getting the weigh down in the T/E . Might just get some helium balloons and hang off the back! Regards, JK.

Congratulations Chris, it is good of you to volunteer your time as a moderator to KOG, often a thankless task but I am sure you will have complete support from the members. Regards, JK.

Hi Laurie, thanks for the response; this is probably why Phil at Creative Conversions said that they are waiting on new legislation from Qld Govt. Looks as though an upgrade will have to go on the wish list for a while yet. Regards, JK.

Hi all, has anyone on the forum had any luck increasing the towing capacity of their tug. My tow vehicle is a v8 Troopy with a Lovells gvm upgrade to 3900kg. when the upgrade was done Lovells told me that their licence did not inclue the ability to upgrade the tow capacity. I have since talked to Creative Conversions at Brendale with no success as they are waiting on some new legistation to allow them to do it. A further call to Lindsey Stone in Townsville met with a similar respone but Linsey did tell me that CVM does not exist for light vehicles which is a bit of a help as I can load the troopy to it's full capacity. I then spoke with Tom at Kedron and he mentioned that someone had had their tow capacity successfully raise by someone in Townsville but was unable to recall the name of the firm that did the job. Any information that you can pass on will be greatly appreciated. Regards, JK.

G'day RussnSue, You should be well and truly into crab country by now so you can give your kayak a good workout catching them. Numbers should increase as the month wears on and into Feb. Russ, I received my reverse osmosis filter just in time for Pauline to give it to me for a Christmas present but to my suprise when I had a look at it and found that the inlet/outlet tubes were only 1/4" and thought that I must have ordered the wrong unit. I then remembered the photo of your unit on your blog and another look prompted me to look further to discover that the filter threads were 1/4 BSP so I went looking for a couple of "Gardena" snap 1/4" hose director fittings; none in the shed so off to Bunnings and found some attached to Pope Capitol sprinklers which have worked a treat. Haven't tried the system out yet as it will probably be some months before we get somewhere we need to use it and I dont want to try it and then let the unit sit for months as I am unsure of any consequences. Regards, JK.

Thanks Rod for taking the time to write on an important issue. Good to see that there is a positive response in the reply. Regards, JK.

Hi Richard, thanks for the tip on the 3M polish, I was unable to find a stockist here but did finally get our local paint shop to order it although they only do a 3M order about every 3 months (nothing happens very quickly here in Maryborough) Sue, I followed up on your suggestion and found some "mothers" aluminium polish and also a set of Kenco applicatiopn pads and am happy to say that the polish is easy to apply and buff off leaving a good finish on the pock marked aluminium on the front of the Kedron. I see what you mean about the Mothers power ball there was no way that I would part with $60 for that thing but I have bought a Black & Decker auto buff ($50) from supercheap auto which I haven't yet tried The next trick will be to try and get Pauline interested in a bit of van polishing Regards, JK

Hi Russ n Sue, we wish you well for your Eyre Penionsula trip ..... you make us homesick. Loik colin, I was interested in some more details on your reverse osmosis water filter and the photos in your blog. your idea may have well help me in solving the weight problem that I have whenever we head out for a long trip; I will ordere one today. Enjoy the crabs and fish when you get there, they are better than their northern cousins. Regards, JK.

Since my original request for help and many helpful replies, I have been hesitant in attempting to polish the chequerplate on my van as I consider that the original finish has stayed good in spite of several off road trips. A few weeks back I decided that it was time to try out the "purple polish" and settled on the shower alcove floor as a test run ..... in my opinion the polished floor did not achieve a sheen any where near that of the original or pre-polish finsh. I also consider that the polish is difficult to remove even when freshly dry which would make the job of doing the whole of the van very tedious. I will be looking to maintain the original finish now with detergent and a microfibre cloth for as long as I can. Regards, JK.

G'day Tom, .... we ran out of time before we had to head off on our trip to Albury/Adelaide so all of my good plans to have a spotless Kedron on the road went out the window. got all the stuff though so she will be able to get to work as soon as we get back home! :confused: :smile: Regards, JK.

G'day Mick, I have a similar setup to yours, a 2kw Honda and a Cormorant; and initially had some issues with the cormorant dropping out whilst I was using a standard 15 amp 15m caravan extension lead. I phoned Honda with the view to possibly upgrading my generator but the bloke told me to use a heavy duty 15 amp lead no more than 3m long. ......... I made up a 2.5m lead and now the combinagtion runs perfectly :biggrin: . Hope this helps. Regards, JK.

Thanks for the info kingy ....... I went to kedron's today and bought a bottle of 'purple' but Tom I agree the stuff looks more like pink to me too ....... must be al that ba-mia-ba and wood alcohol that they fed us in the funny farm; anyway the bride has finished mowing the block today so she can start using purple tomorrow after she comes home from the market :whip: Col, thanks for the tip on oxalic acid .... have bought a bottle of 10% and will be starting on the chasis shortly! Now ... I wonder if anyone canhelp with a remady for removing all the black mould that we are getting on the roof & gutter sealant on the roof of the van from all this wet Qld weather? Regards, JK

Thanks Tom, I am going to Kedron on Wednesday and will see if I can track down a bit more info on the pink powder. Hi Rick, I will be paying SupaCheap a visit in the morning to see if I can find the products you mentioned; although I get the feeling that it might be more pertinent for me to wait till Monday to check out repco first :biggrin: Thanks again, JK.

Hi, I am hoping that someone may be able to help me with a product or method to clean the aluminium chequerplate on the kedron. I have been trying to restore that new showroom look that was there when the topender was picked up from the factory but try as I may, this Nth Qld bulldust and mud seems to have stained the aluminium. So far the strongest chemical that I have tried is truckwash with lots of elbowgrease .... just hope that there may be some solutioons out there. Regards, JK.

Hi CCC, I had cause to be speaking with Tom at Kedron this morning and posed the question - "but I am not sure about the solar power and how to disconnect it and whether there is some order inwhich to remove the batteries?" There is no isolation switch in the circuit for the solar panels, but there is a 30A fuse in the left hand (looking into the boot area) battery box which can be disconnected. Other than that just make sure that you don't short out any of the positive wires - if this happens you will most likely blow the negative wire from the solar regulator to the negative shunt (but please don't ask me where that is). Tom suggests that with precaution not to short the wires it is straight forward to then remove and replace the batteries in any order. Hope this is of some help Regards, JK.

Hi, Sorry but I don’t know the answer to your question, but I will be very interested to know the correct proceeure. I have been looking at the wiring setup in my TopEnder for some months now and have achieved only a basic understanding. I consider the lack of a wiring diagram with the TopEnder to be one of the small shortcomings of the information Kedron give us when we take delivery of our van. Regards, JK.