Jump to content

dazmit

Honorary Life Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    142

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    2

 Content Type 

Posts posted by dazmit

  2. Prado Towing

    in Public Forum

    Posted

    Put it this way - some people are prepared to tow vans which are above the legal limit of the tow vehicle !!!

    My advise is to go the van you want and resign to upgrading tow vehicles. Our original van design was a 15'6" int pop top, ended up with a 16'6" tandem full van with raised chassis, offroad coupling, twin spares, compressor fridge etc and couldn't be happier, I would have wanted to upgrade the single axle , gas fridge version within 1 year I reckon.

    Our van goes 2.89 T fully loaded for 3 of us (4 water tanks) as I checked on a weigbridge for your info.

    Cheers

    Darryl

  3. Prado Towing

    in Public Forum

    Posted

    Hi

    Mmmm - only 300kg for load is a bit light on in my opinion, if you are going to Free camp then you would want at least 3 X 60 l water tanks (180kg), generator maybe (20kg), cooking equip, hoses, leads, camp oven, clothes ,food, beer / wine. I would be allowing at least 500kg load and that would be traveling light for most people.

    You might possibly get away with a 15'6" internal single axle XC which would prob weigh about 2 tonne - but you would still have to careful when packing it up.

    There are at least 2 of us who had Kedron's on order and had to sell our much loved Prado's (90 series) and bought 100 series TD's. I did tow our Kedron twice with the Prado with no water in the tanks (2.5 tonne) and although the Turbo diesel engine did a great job once up & running the manual needed clutch slip to get away from slight hills and once i got the Cruiser I realised how much the van was pushing the Prado around.

    I'm wrapped in our current setup despite the extra costs of changing tow vehicles. :biggrin:

    Sorry to tell you the bad news but better to know what you are up for upfront unlike myself at the time.

    Cheers

  4. Teewah Beach Trip / Info

    in Public Forum

    Posted

    Hi All

    It must be my turn to payback Chris & Val for making me jealous of their travels so I've added a few pics of our latest trip in my photo album. :biggrin:

    http://www.kedronownersgroup.com/photos/th...ls.php?album=56

    We had a Boys trip last week-end up Teewah Beach Cooloola Nat park North of Tewantin with my Dad, son Mitch and myself having a great long week-end.

    Weather was beautiful as can be seen from the pics but not many fish about.

    I can report that access track Cutting #2 is hard packed and the Beach is great up to approx 2.5 hours either side of high tide. :thumbsup:

    cheers

    Darryl

  5. The Plenty Highway

    in Public Forum

    Posted

    Hi Trevor & June

    We were on the Plenty last May with our Cross Country and had no dramas at all. Sat on 70 - 80 Km/Hr for most of it with van tyres lowered to 25 Psi. They were grading some sections but most of it hadn't been done.

    We stopped in to Tobermorey Station for the night and fueled up but that is now closed unfortunately.

    Drive to the conditions is all I can say as I had heard reports of the Tanami & Plenty being shocking last year and we thought they were quite good - I think some people's idea of shocking is if it is rougher than bitumen !!

    Enjoy it. :thumbsup:

    Cheers

    Darryl

  12. Hi From New Member

    in Public Forum

    Posted

    Hi Mark

    With regards to the rear protection bars of the TE it depends where you want to go.

    Our intended use was to cover the Gibb River Road, Plenty Hwy, Tanami Track etc and we went for a Cross country with 4" raised chassis like the ATV (back in 2004) , ATV axles and Hyland coupling - ie picked the main bits of a ATV and saved a few thousand dollars by not having a ATV badge.

    Last year we took it over a small part of the Gibb, Tamed the Tanami, Made the Mereenie loop road (the roughest of all the roads we went on) and Pounded over the plenty and the van didn't suffer any problems at all and i didn't baby it, I was running 26 psi in the tyres though. :thumbsup:

    If you are looking at remote stuff like in the Gall Boys DVD's then bear in mind a bit over 3 tonne of van is a lot to pull through creek banks and the like plus they have a few support vehicles to help pull them through etc. Since we usually travel on our own and don't have support vehicles then we don't go looking for the hard tracks to drag the van through.

    Just my 2 bob's worth :biggrin:

    cheers

    Darryl

  13. Hi From New Member

    in Public Forum

    Posted

    Hi Mark

    The latest Kedron brochure has a 17'6" internal layout with double bunks running across the back of the van near the door.

    This could easily be made into triple bunks as the bottom bunk of the twin layout is approx 400mm off the floor with cupboards underneath. I've seen other van layouts where the bottom bunk is virtually on the floor and this gives room for 3 bunks.

    To fit this into a 17'6" layout you won't have a internal shower / toilet but you can use an external shower and a porti potti inside.

    Another way to maximise internal space and cupboards is to opt for single beds instead of a double bed. You gain 300mm of bench space etc since 300mm is wasted space to allow you to get around a double bed or you end up with a 300 mm shorter van to have the same living space as a double bed model. Also with single beds you have overhead cupboards running over the length of the bed which you can't have with a double bed and you have lots of external hatches to gain access to under the single beds.

    As you can probably tell we have single beds and would have them again if building a new van. We only have 1 son who is 8 so use a big club lounge for his bed / our lounge.

    Kedron usually have around 12 vans at the Brisbane show in June and they have put a bunk bed layout in before but you could give them a call at the factory and ask if they will have any this year.

    With 3 children it would be easy to add a lot of weight in luggage etc so it might be wise to either keep it fairly short or consider a lighter ATV which is still plenty strong enough to do all the main offroad tracks / roads.

    Cheers

    Darryl

  14. What Holds Your Cabinet Work Together?

    in Public Forum

    Posted

    Hi Zolle ??

    I understand that the joints are glued as well - out of curiosity what sort of joints are you expecting ??

    We have a 2004 Cross Country and have had no problems with it and certainly no cabinet problems.

    We took it on the Tanami, Mereenie Loop road and Plenty highway last year and was sitting on 70 - 80 km/hr for most of it so I didn't baby it - no dramas whatsoever but I was running 25 psi in van tyres. :thumbsup:

    Kimbo has a 2006 or 2007 TopEnder and belted it around the Qld Gulf Country last year without any probs, will be interesting what others have to say.

    Cheers

    Darryl

  15. Imbil Gathering

    in Public Forum

    Posted

    Just got back from another top gathering with a great bunch of people. Hat's off to Webby & Jacky Jacky for coming up with a very nice location. The Rattler Cafe down the road does a great big brekky & thickshakes :thumbsup:

    heard a little whisper this morning that David & Jane may not have remembered much of last night and could have had a bit of headache this morning :drunk: - unconfirmed of course

    Cheers

    Darryl

  17. Fluorescent Lighting

    in Public Forum

    Posted

    Hi

    A good idea would be to use one of those little 12V test lights (looks like a little screwdriver and has a lead and a clip coming out of the end) - you can then check if there is 12V at the light with the switches on.

    Since all fluros aren't working it sounds like a feed wire could be broken - try having at look at the switch plate where all the light switches are mounted - could be a broken wire in there.

    cheers

    Darryl

  18. New Photos Posted

    in Public Forum

    Posted

    Hi Chris & Val

    Looks like a great spot , I'll have to get the details off of you at Imbil since we are intending to travel the Great Ocean Road as part of our Vic High Country trip.

    How did you manage to order perfect weather too ??

    Cheers

    Darryl :biggrin:

  20. Nissan modifications

    in Public Forum

    Posted

    Hi Bill & Jan

    I'm sure Blackie will reply, however I know his is a manual, so already has the 3.2 tonne tow limit. I'm not sure though whether he was able to get his tow capacity upgraded due to engine swap so that would be interesting.

    I was also under the impression that the auto 3l Patrol only had the 2.5 T tow limit due to the auto gearbox - not sure how it would handle a lot more grunt then.

    I think you will find there could be a few factory turbo diesel 100 series being traded for the 200 series in the next 12 months or more so they could be worth looking out for and prob end up the same or cheaper changeover than a engine swap and you end up with all the benefits of a LandCruiser :thumbsup: :biggrin:

    Cheers

    Darryl

  21. Invertors

    in Public Forum

    Posted

    Yep I agree with Rosco - petrol fumes and electrical sparks aren't a good mix. The boot is a good spot.

    with regards to sizing a breadmaker will generally use approx 900W in bake mode, the rest of the cycle is approx 100W. Therefore if you want to run a breadmaker you will require a 1000W inverter otherwise a 600W one will be plenty for computer, printer etc.

    As Rosco said go for the pure sine type.

    Cheers

    Darryl

  22. 200 Series Fuel Figures

    in Public Forum

    Posted

    Hi David

    Glad you like the 200 but please no more reports on how great they are as i'm trying to forget my drive with Kimbo's as I'm not allowed to update :sad:

    With regards to idleing down , yes I always let mine idle down, even around town I let it cool down for 15 seconds or so. When I fitted the 3" exhaust I fitted a EGT (Exhaust Gas Temp) gauge and it's great as I use that to tell me how long to let it idle down for and also when to back off going up Cunninghams gap.

    When towing and cruising along the highway and then pulling into a roadhouse it can take the time I put 100l or so of fuel in for the EGT to show an acceptable level to switch off so certainly allow a lot longer when towing.

    cheers

    Darryl

  25. Battery Performance

    in Public Forum

    Posted

    Hi

    I see it as a combination of a couple of things.

    1. The Engel run as a Freezer is very power hungry as the compressor does not cycle but runs continously. From memory i think they draw 7.0 amps.

    2. As others have mentioned when in high temperatures the panels efficiency seems to drop off.

    One of the best solutions is to run a 2nd fridge as a fridge and not a freezer because remember you are running two fridges and in higher ambients the Vitro will use more power due to more frequent compressor run times.

    I know Kimbo runs a engel as a drinks fridge off the aux batt in his Cruiser but connects the aux batt to van when stationary so the Solar charges that batt as well.

    I have run a Waeco off my Cruiser aux batt as a freezer and connected it to the van to charge the Cruiser batt but it is difficult to keep all the batts fully charged (3 batts & 3 panels) even without high ambient temps due to the power hungry Freezer.

    Cheers

    Darryl

    Ps Kimbo said "What he said" "Oh what a feeling 200" :laugh:

×
×
  • Create New...