Hello and Kind Regards to all.
Now, I am not going to be hogging the site, but this is the slow time of the year so I have the time to load some Help Documents and issues that people have requested. I won’t always be this active on the
Forum…. And thank you all for all of your support and friendly and thank you type kind emails sent to me… Nice to know the input and work is appreciated.
This Posting is to openly advise people of a new intermediate sized suspension we invented a little while back. We start putting on a 50% larger suspension, that is nearly unbreakable with 4 tonne stubs and bearings, and 50% larger suspension a-frames, really required from 20’ and up.... We normally put it on at 19’ as well with spring packs to suit. Now we have the same suspension with a custom lighter spring pack, available for people with a loaded up 18' as in major gear, that takes the fully loaded ATM up to 3500kg instead of 3000 kg. We are now recommending it for people that are going to live in their vans, long term travel, with any increase on the basic 3 + 3 + 3, that is three 120 watt Solar Panels, 3 – 100 AH batteries, 3 water tanks, plus most of the other optional equipment..…
Application? Now Friends, if any of you are too heavy with your 18’ with 4,5,or 6 water tanks, don’t fill them all until you hit your last Outpost of civilization, that is why they have valves in a manifold in the cargo hold for easy access to select which ones to fill. Fill them at the last outpost, as who cares what you weigh in the proper bush… If you have a brick BBQ on board, unload it., (just joking). Or, if you find you do want to travel heavy, consider an upgrade on your suspension. For those in planning, note: We offer more gear in options than anyone else in Australia…. If you take a lot of gear it can add up to weight. But we do weigh them with all that gear on board. The last two 18’ vans we weighed this week, one was 2260 Tare a bit lighter on gear, and one was 2420 that was really loaded up. Now that still leaves a considerable margin, for those that travel with normal loads, particularly those in part time travel. But for those that might be considering full time travel as a lifestyle, there is a tendency to keep on collecting “things” and the weight can crawl up over time.. If you want to carry more, fix the problem with the larger suspension.
Those in Planning for an 18', if you want to live in your van and take a lot of gear; yes you should consider the suspension upgrade…
Those who already have an 18’, if you are overweight, take one of the three choices, unload and or travel with only some tanks full until you get to the last outpost, or upgrade your suspension accordingly… This is in the spirit of a Friend trying to look after you, and would suggest you consider taking it that way…
Now why did we not put larger suspension in on these peoples vans years ago? Well it was not available until we invented it… AND, if you put too heavy a suspension under something like an 18’, as in the case of the next size up that used to be the larger suspension, if they don’t really load it up it will shake the van to pieces… Now don’t think this has not happened. In trying to do the right thing by people we have done this and had it backfire.. NOTE: For instance, did this for one person that said he was going to fill all 19 lockers in his van and did not. His van rode too hard, breaking things, and we actually had to lighten the suspension back down again! It can go both ways… The truth is that we can only guess how much people are going to take… If we allow for too much cargo capacity, and the people do not load up the van, that is a problem in itself.. We do the best we can. If you need more help, let us know.
I am in a hurry, forgive any misspellings or typos,
Merry Christmas to all,
And Happy Trails in the words of Roy Rogers,
stg
