OH NO - WEIGHT ISSUES!
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- Опубліковано 24 сер 2024
- G'day G'day,
Well, It's happened to me. Something I've always been on top of and previously and made sure we were all good. Obviously when purchasing a new or used vehicle there is some getting to know that goes on. After owning the previous Hilux for many many years and knowing it back the front and how much things weigh etc etc. Purchasing this already kitted out vehicle saved us a alot of time and money. However, due to the vehicles history and upgrades I didn't even consider weight. Here's the story and what we had to do to overcome the issue and get us back under GVM.
Hopefully this will make people aware of the pitfalls of throwing everything onto a vehicle. Happy to answer any questions that I didn't cover here in this video. It rented some space in my head for a while before we chose to cut out thousands of dollars worth of fabrication work. But anyway... is what it is and life goes on!
www.trueblueoverland.theprintbar.com
#trueblueoverland #adventure #camping #4x4 #travelaustralia
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It’s very surprising how many dual can owners don’t realise the weight issue. I had the same issue my self coming back from a holiday having the lux weighed and coming in 350kgs overweight. Again a heavy well built canopy. So realising that the roof top was sold off and a weight resuction was program was in force. I still want to travel so I opted for an off road camper trailer build. So I’m in the middle of that right now. Thank you for the video highlighting this issue. Ps if you are picked up by transport and weighed, you are fined and you are not moving until that Ute is underweight, which means leaving your shit on the side of the road!! So as a side note to others watching, check your weights, remember you can be underweight over all but way over on the rear axle!! Great video.
Cheers mate. Yeah it's definitely an issue. Being lighter is better in my opinion. So that's what we are trying for. If I could rewind the clock. We'd prob not have ended up with this ute. But at the time... we were in Brisbane for a 9 weeks. This was all set up and ready to go, so I didn't have to do any modifications or fit outs myself.
Previously it towed a caravan so yeah silly me never considered weight. Especially when we were well under in our previous vehicle, the old luxy. Steep learning curve. Just grateful we didn't spend the money on the canopy and that made it easy to chop things out of it.
Towing a lightweight trailer is a good idea. We don't have much stress about what's behind us in our trailer. It's been nearly everywhere we've pointed it and has more chance of that than a caravan. One day we might get into a van though. But it'll be a small one..
How true that the engineer said a GVM upgrade does not pass the engineering sniff test but is just a bit of paper. We tow a 3.5 ton offroad van and in the caravan world the GVM conversation is ongoing. We have a suspension upgrade done by the previous owner but it was done before today's GVM upgrade hype, it does the job but not certified having a new compliance plate. A new set of coils and shocks and calling it a GVM certified upgrade does not make the wheel bearings or axle load increase so the car is out of spec anyhow. People are just sucked in by marketing having their setups totally overkill and as we travel there are 1,000s of dual cabs massively overloaded but it goes to show that there people that never think about the engineering side of it. I had a set of draws in the rear of my 200 series that weight up near 100kg and threw them out and used some plywood to make something basic without draws and finished losing more than 130kg. Even electrical systems costing 20k plus are marketing hype as well and if I built another rear battery setup the way to go is a portable power bank something like a Bluetti having no need for a individual inverter etc. In the caravan community most are massively overloaded and people have every corner of their vans packed with everything they never use and then there is up to 350kg ball weight on top of that again. Thanks that was a good video.
@@zoezoe610 thanks for watching mate. Yeah, we have no interest in being a heavy vehicle so we'll continue to lose some weight where we can to take the loads off the vehicle in attempt to save some money on servicing the parts under stress.
The industry is massive, there is a tonne of hype.
On the 12v system you speak of. When the yanks started doing the bluetti type 12v systems a few years ago, I was like yep. That's it. If we got into a ute other than this one that required a 12v system. I was 100% going down that road. So easy, so simple, no BS. Just run some wires to charge it and your done. Maybe make up somewhere for it to sit. But portability also is key. Some places require you to camp away from your car. Another reason why these are great.
But anyway. I'm glad I had the conversation with the engineering mob. He was great, gave me just over an hour of his time and didn't try and sell me anything or sway me to chassis brace or anything. Just was straight up. His opinion on the government approved gvm upgrades were basically as you said an expensive bit of paper and they were to throw our current suspension setup worth far more in the bin. So yeah... glad we went down the road of cutting stuff out and rearranging a few things. We still have room to lighten the load. But we didn't spend the money on the canopy so it was easier in that regard. If we weren't living on the road I possibly would have taken it off, sold it and went with a lighter setup. But don't have the luxury of a big shed full of tools anymore. Haha.
Thanks again for tuning in and your comments.
@@TimRumble Cheers.
Hey mate well said, I like you have a well built alloy canopy. All that is inside is a a carpeted plywood floor and headboard. I screwed down some tracked tie down points which secure my camping box's, fridge and gear.
Wish I had a dollar for every person that says "why havnt you fitted it our with drawers and shelves??"
The box's come out and all that remains is the 12v mounted to the headboard and a lithium battery. It's as light as it can be when not travelling.
Keep up the good work. Cheers
Thanks mate. Appreciate it.
Yeah it's nice to have all the draws and things. I was getting quite used to them. Especially the slide out table. But ultimately it's not an essential. So anything not essential for us anyway will be gone. Hanging onto the rear trundle draw at this point. It's about another 80kgs we can get rid of. But don't need to at this point. Especially as we are going to lose about 60kgs further changing the dead agms to lithium.
I'm finding the trundle draw quite handy.
I have two nephews, both with Hilux dual cab 4x4 trayback utes with rooftop tents and front winches in their bull bars. One is 4 years old, the other is 6 years old. Both were over their rear axle weight and both were just under on their front axle weight. More or less, they both did what you have done; painful as it was, they both thought their utes rode better once they reduced their rear axle weight to under their maximum legal limit.
We ran an extended cab chassis with a trayback Isuzu D-Max with a camper on the rear, it was borderline close on the front axle and depending on whether we were full of fuel (long range tank) and water, the rear axle would also be borderline. We bought a 4x4 truck and weight issues are but a distant memory these days; best thing we've done.
Yeah wow.
It doesn't take much to get there.
Our previous old luxy had marginally less GVM, however the build weight of the car was far less than these newer ones. So we were under by a couple of hundred then.
But anyway yeah... went thru it all 10 times over. Would consider a 4x4 truck if I had the mulah.
Our trailer loaded came in at 1400kg and yeah sacrificing the draws and fridge slide and transferring some gear around between trailer and vehicle has done the trick for now. Still gotta replace those buggered agm batteries with lithium too. So we'll be lighter again. But it's been a hard lesson. Lucky it's just the two of us and not a tribe of kids aswell.
Cool ep and great work loosing 300kg off your lovely luxy. I get our set up weighted all the time we have a old 1990- 1HZ - 80 series and we tow a 1983 wind up Jayco van thats been striped out and rebuilt so it's only 900kg loaded. the 80 got a 10% GVM upgrade to 3256kg we run a Alloy Bull bar and no draws and a 95lt upright fridge and 50lt chest fridge with no slides with lithium batteries.. with our gear in the 4wd and fam of 6. The 80 is around 3150 kg it's great knowing we are legal,
@@craigtomkinson2837 yeah that's sounds awesome mate. The old 80s are a mighty beast.
You've done well mate! Love the honesty. The hilux looks mint.
Cheers mate. Appreciate it.
Glad to see you are getting through the issue.
This is a huge problem through out the industry, there is a lot of deception from canopy builders in regards to weight and how they are built. Most of the high end canopies are massively over built with 3 to 5 mm alloy as a sails pitch but in reality it's a badly designed canopy if that's how they get there strength, just because it's alloy doesn't make it light. OTS used to build a steel and composite canopy at 200 kg including 80l watertank, 2 undertray tool boxes and roof bars
A similar setup from a Cairns based mob came in at over 409kg for a full alloy setup so please do your research and don't just trust what you are told at a show.
Less is always more in the long run.
I build touring rigs for 12 years for a living and the main stream industry is all smoke and mirrors.
Good luck in the future and happy camping 😊
@@broccattley8919 thanks mate appreciate the comments. Ours is overbuilt big time. All 3mm and 5mm ally.
At the time of consideration of what to do. I did make some enquiries to a few companies selling canopies. None of them were straight up on weight. Typical answer was "it all depends mate" so I'd ask no what's thr weight with nothing in it. "Well your not going to have nothing in it"
Bloody hell. Most I got was between 200-300kgs. One mob were claiming they were at 150kgs. But yeah the cost of them all ranged too from $5k-15k without much inside. So because we didn't pay for what was already on our ute. We were happy remove some things.
That sucks that the industry is misleading and has a she'll be right about weight as it becomes dangerous to the vehicle owner and others on the road, the gvm upgrades are used far to much, its is wrong as it makes Ute's dangerous to drive as all the extra weight is at the rear and are a bandwidth solution.
I sold my business a couple of years back in the industry as I really started to hate where it was going and decided not to be a part of it, it's created dangerous expectations but videos like this will hopefully help educate the public.
It’s so easy to go over weight with most 4x4 not just dual cabs. And so common too as you said. Thats why we had to change up the triton for a new ranger and go for a big GVM/GCM upgrade. Mostly for the rear axle weight actually but we still have to be careful specially when towing. We weren’t over with the triton but I knew we would be with what we want to do this year.
I also check my weights way too often lol.
@@AdventuringPals haha... I hear ya. We won't be adding anything else. And havnt done for a while. Just a battery change and she's all good. Got a couple of hundred left in the trailer but again... no need to add... we can probably take out to be honest. There's a couple of things we don't use too often if at all.
Glad you’ve been able to find a solution to the problematic issues you faced.
@@coversadventurecapers2838 twas quite the headache. But managed to sort it and we're happy with the outcome. Lost some fancy fit outs but meh... was a bit too fancy for us anyway. Haha.
@@TimRumble less things to break and to worry about 😉. Plate welding the chassis is also something to consider with a duel cab even with being under weight. As they can fatigue behind the cab area due to hitting stuff the wrong way out in the outback.
Yep . GVM upgrades are one thing , but weight DISTRIBUTION is far more important . All the Heavy stuff should be between the axles .
Dual cabs always struggle in this respect .
@@johncunningham4820 yep absolutely. It's pretty eye opening seeing the difference in distribution.
I am about to build my own tray for my NP300, and weight is in mind. Those trundle drawers are handy but so heavy. Then put all your tools in, and there is 100-150kgs, so I'm just going to put a small drawer in canopy on top of axle to fit tools. I tow a van also
@@Brennomac83 it all adds up so quickly. Especially in these duel cabs.
Make sure you get the rear spring top plates upgraded. Superior do them. I've repaired so many of these. I recommend them to all NP300 and dodgy Rams drivers
Somewhat late now for you but Pedders do a rear disc brake conversion to replace the drums.
@@saltydog9599 yeah, she's already been upgraded with them.
😊
Even consider swapping the steel rims out for some alloy ones. New 7 seater patrols and land cruisers are almost over gvm with passengers. What’s your gvm currently with the upgrade?
@@gregdogg10 yeah I have considered that. Only that the steel wheels are great in the outback. I've seen so many shredded alloys in our short time on the road.
The gvm with the current upgrade is 3060kg.
Some camper trailers have a 150 kg ball weight most people don’t think 🤔 about that when considering the car 🚗 weight
@@kisbushcraftdownunder yeah exactly. We've had ours weighed. Came in just under 140kgs. Some of these vans getting pulled around are over 300kgs. Also the height and level of the trailer or van is important too.
Hey Tim do not forget to add the tow ball weight to your gym🤔
@@jeofflemon5561 thanks mate. And yeah that's in the calculations.
Fridge drawer maybe for space
We did look at them. But yeah went with the new everkool series of fridges. Again..
After much procrastination and research.
I got the Ironman GVM upgrade done to mine and it only increases the rear axle to 1810kg from 1600.
We've discussed with Iron Man regarding their max upgrade. We were quoted near $6k for the work and it was hard to pull the trigger as they simply bin all our existing suspension that's worth in excess of $7k.
After speaking to the engineer regarding options. He advised to try and drop weight or replace the canopy with a lighter one. He did suggest cutting out all the internal draws/fit out as he could see it was overbuilt. But thought that would decrease the value if we were to sell it and help purchase another. We didn't care as we bought the car like this. So yeah I got hacking. These canopies were apparently $20k+ how ours was kitted out. But way too heavy and too long for a dual cab.
The rear axle upgrade is funny one. They don't do anything to it when doing the gvm upgrade. Same engineer said luckily hiluxes and Toyota's in general are less prone to chassis damage like other makes. It was suggested our suspension would be fine, even mixed with an upgraded rear axle and chassis brace would be sufficient to increase gvm without future issues. But still the law makers don't recognise that and would struggle to get approved. But it would mean a stronger rear axle, making those loads on diff, axle, wheel bearings etc less of an issue.
Just subscribed as I stumbled across this video and totally agree with everything you have pointed out.
The boys in blue had a massive campaign a while ago here in WA targeting the mid north west coast Highways with roadblocks and weighing equipment to check all the retirees and weekend warriors rigs for GVM compliance with their 4WD's and Caravans/Campers .... and their were many who were defected right there where they sat, not allowed to leave until arrangements were made to have the vehicles/vans/trailers taken away on flatbed trucks or another suitable tow vehicle.
Sounds pretty harsh, but in reality, these are 5-8 tonne unguided missiles wobbling down our highways amongst the rest of the general public and definitely an accident just waiting for a place to happen.
Hopefully videos such as yours raises awareness about this issue and can help people rethink what they put into their vehicles and save themselves the same stress and waste of money as you unfortunately experienced.
Keep up the good work, gonna go watch the rest of your videos now 👍
Thanks mate. Much appreciated. I've seen quite a few loaded rigs around the traps.
I've spoken to a bloke who was 850kgs over. Wasn't phased. Unbelievable.
Silly me assumed we were sweet when we purchased this luxy. Oh well.... all learning and experience.
this is the result of buying a toy
@@thelonewolf666 😄 🤣
G'day, the weight situation is rough. Many out there with aluminium canopies loaded dual ute are over, including 79 series, hence the many owers are fitting Jamax rearends to the 79s. In recent travels to the N.T, I saw 2 dualcabs with bent/ broken rear chassis, a Hilux & a Ranger both with aluminium canopies towing camper trailers. The towall weight × 1.5 plus the weight in the canopy the rear axle and chassis has to cope with. I also had a Hilux with shake/ vibration as you had ,I removed the tyres from the rims and balanced the rims the rims were miles out, I fitted ROH rims checking the balance before fitting tyres, I rejected a few but finally had 5 that were acceptable + 1 pissed off tyre retailer! Sometime later, I went to L.C. to keep the weights legal. Safe travels.
@@iandibley8032 thanks for the comment mate. Interesting about the rims too. The tyre shop I went to was onto what your on about with unbalanced rims. They were confident in king rims. They were tested after the first couple of tyre balances we did and were found to be good. I was surprised that the tyres were bad. We've had a few sets of maxxis razr mt and have always been a great tyre and never had any issues. They were pretty great to deal with though. Just took them and replaced the entire set of 5. No issues since.
I've seen a few bent chassis getting around too. Just recently out here near Cameron Corner. Some people are in such a rush and don't drive to conditions. But yeah, have spoken to people with the dual cab with canopies and they all say they either have no idea what they weigh on the rear or they are half a tonne sometimes more over. I'm a bit OCD with it all as it's not just a weekend or monthly trip rig amymore. It's part of our home so we treat it as the most important asset besides ourselves and make sure we don't abuse it too much. Haha.
@TimRumble 100% Tim excessive speed, tyres without reduction of pressures all play a major part. I am always suspicious when I see excessive amounts of balance weights fitted indicators unevenly constructed tyres. Travel safe, mate.
@@iandibley8032 thanks mate. Appreciate it.
If it’s not you first rodeo why the hell buy a hilux that would be the worst tow vehicle ,
@@tyzon00800 haha, we're only towing 1.4t fully loaded, so that wasn't top of the priority list.
Have had some experiences with hiluxes, they've always been good. This will be my 3rd one.
Yep Hilux have always surpassed all the other options in longevity and durability. On our mine sites the hiluxes are the only ones that last. Before you go shooting from the hip, make sure get the gun all the way out before the trigger is pulled.
Does ya foot hurt ya bull nut?
I bet you drive a Great wall. If not ya should ya Muppet!
Will take a good hit
Well done losing that much weight.
Check out the Hardkorr batteries as a replacement.
Thanks mate. I've been looking into batteries. Have you been running those hardkorr units?
Our battery box will suit a few different sized ones. But itechworld do have a single 200ah or 240ah that is perfect dimensionally
@TimRumble yeah I have 100ah in my parents RAM, and 135Ah in my Grand Cherokee and a 240Ah in my TJ Wrangler.
All great batteries. Will be putting 2 more 100s in my camper trailer soon .
@@WrongTurnAdventures yeah nice. I'll look into them.
Invicta batteries
@@rusdecoitbros333 a bloke came through here recently banging on about those ones and how great they are.