Track Trailer Forum

How adventurous are you? Aside from going off-track in the desert there aren't too many places I wouldn't go alone with an EPIRP and satellite phone.

My big suggestion it to plan your trip around the weather - if you get to the Kimberley too early everything will still be closed. If you get there too late it will be hot and dry (meaning you miss out on all the lovely gorges). It's going to end up being a balancing act because you can't be in two or three places at once.

When we had a 10 week trip we focused on the parts that were impossible to do in a normal holiday. Coming from Sydney that meant Perth to the Kimberley. We've got friends who did a lap and spent too much time going up the east coast, places they could easily do in a normal holiday. They then skipped most of North West Australia because it was too hot and dry - their loss.

Quote from: geoff_mck on July 30, 2021, 01:24:11 AM
Maybe go for a drive over some speed humps or bumpy roads? Try some relatively hard breaking (safely).

Or find a deserted area and do some hard right turns to move everything across to the left - just not so hard that you roll something over!

Quote from: d2dave on July 08, 2021, 12:19:21 PM
I don't quite understand what you are saying. Are you suggesting adjusting it with weight on it, which would not be possible?

The whole idea  is to have it at the shortest setting when it is raised. Then when lowered it can be lengthened to then remove Tvan from vehicle.

You wind it up and down with load on it (obviously). You can't do the "big" adjustment with any weight on it - this is a handle on the side.

If it is too low (ie wound all the way out and you still can't get it on the car) you need to jack the Tvan hitch up to extend the jockey wheel. Ditto for making it shorter - though I guess you could put the car on ramps to raise the car up so it can hitch on.

The problem is that all the adjustment needs to happen when there is weight on the jockey wheel and it isn't possible to adjust it with weight on it (aside from winding it up/down).

Hopefully that makes sense.

If you have it on the car (ie no weight on jockey wheel) you can adjust it but that doesn't help when you have it on a tall car and want to move it to a short car - you still have to use a jack.

Once it is set up for the car you don't need a jack - only when moving it between cars of different heights.

I hire out Tvan's which is why I got it - some customer's cars are high, some are low.

Quote from: d2dave on July 08, 2021, 12:25:18 PM
So what you are saying is that the gears that are strong enough to lift and hold three quarters of a ton, can be damaged with a bit of arm pressure?

Sort of doesn't sound right, but not having one to look at and try, I don't really know

Perhaps it doesn't sound right but my mechanic broke the gears when he kept winding after it was all the way "up". I've never done it but it is geared pretty low and once it goes all the way up there is no "give" in the system.

One thing - you will probably still need a jack to adjust the height of the jockey wheel. You can probably raise it by putting wood under the jockey wheel but adjusting it to be lower is difficult without a jack to hold the weight.

ARK one works well. Just be careful when winding it up - the gears aren't all that strong and if you keep winding once it is "up" you will strip the gears.

Quote from: Bartz on May 24, 2021, 10:39:30 PM
... read a few reviews that made sense saying when the weather is foul or the mozzies are plentiful that indoor cooking is a blessing

Quote from: Bartz on May 24, 2021, 10:39:30 PM
in reality the most use would be for regular weekends getting lost in the bush

Are you planning on going bush for a weekend when it's raining? While the kids are small they can sleep under the main bed in the Tvan, leaving the tent area free to set up a table, etc. Their heads go at the back end of the Tvan, bodies under the bed. Depending on how tall they get they might be ok there till they are 8 or 10.

If you put up an awning (either full Tvan one or more easily one of the "car" awnings that bolt onto the side of the Tvan) you can cook under cover.  You can even cook undercover using the supplied triangle sail awning - it just doesn't provide much cover other than for the kitchen. Neither is a help with mozzies though - perhaps sacrifice the cook to them while everyone else hides inside or go somewhere else!

If you have bunks in the Tvan there isn't a heap of space inside for people to sit around. I'm not sure how the Ultimate fairs in that regard. We've spent cold nights in the Tvan with the heater on with 5 of us but typically we'll set up a laptop on the bunks and sit/lie on the bed watching it.

But if you want to sit inside and cook when it is raining you might need something bigger than both.

My father has an ultimate. It suits them because there are only 2 of them and they want to cook inside. We've got a Tvan with 5 of us and love it.

If you want to cook inside an Ultimate is good. If you want to cook outside a Tvan is great.

The Tvan is better to pack up, especially in wet weather (no wet canvas on the bed, some protection from the rain while packing up, water runs inside the Ultimate as you pack up once the canvas flaps are pulled inside)

Quote from: Mortensen on March 28, 2021, 09:33:59 AMalso found that a relay switch had overheated for some reason.

Do you mean one of the circuit breakers? The only relay I know of in there switches the loads off.

We were using Memory Map - it is easy to buy the maps. I haven't used it for a while but the biggest problem was you needed to manually download the maps and put them on your device before you left otherwise it would only show the bits it had downloaded. Otherwise it was simple to use and had a good selection of maps.

Back in 2017/8/9 we found the same problem with ExplorOz - it had too many roads on it in outback areas (eg NE of Alice Springs) and it was hard to pick a route. The lack of roads on something like a HEMA map was helpful if you're going to major places. Perhaps ExplorOz has changed - we haven't been able to get away to remote areas where it makes a difference since.

We added a hook in the side of the passenger side jerry can holder (near the water tank taps) to hold the bag while we are camped. We put a rubbish bag on the Tvan spare wheel if we're going away for a while - the same type you would hang off the back of a car. You have to stand on the checkerplate on the drawbar to load it but it's out of the way.

I don't have any but I think you need to mention what model/year Tvan you have as they have changed a bit over time.

I changed the arms in the field a number of years ago (I hire Tvans, it was abuse from the hirer not Track's fault).

I'd recommend:
- jacking up & putting the chassis on stands to hold the weight
- put a jack under the axle (at the back) and removing the wheel
- remove the shock absorber
- slowly lower the jack and the spring will come out
- change bushes

From memory no one part was super heavy but it's kinda awkward getting it all back together.

You'll need to do a wheel alignment afterwards as well.

We did something like that with our Mk4. We tee'd into the waterpipe in the drivers side wheel well and bought a pipe up to the front box where we put a kitchen stop-cock valve with a click hose fitting. We then hang the Joolca on the front box door and connect the gas using the kitchen gas hose (we added the same quick release coupling to the Joolca).

I would suggest protecting the pipe somehow - I ran mine inside an aluminium extrusion I had lying around. If it goes from the wheel well along the outside of the chassis then along under the front box it will get pelted with stones (my extrusion is a bit battered...).

The whole thing fits into a Front Runner box which is a perfect fit into our front box.

Another tip is to get some cheap click hose fittings and fill the ends with glue (we used hot-melt glue because it was easy). When we are finished we cap off the Joolca inlet/outlet which stops the water dripping out later on. We also join the two ends of the inlet hose together using a coupler and use a coupler/another blocked fitting for the hot water spray. The aim is to reduce the amount of water the system leaks when it's not being used.

A friend had a problem with their Mk5 not charging from solar or the car (240V was ok). Their batteries went flat every time they went away for the weekend. The dealer checked it out and blamed their fridge for high power consumption - something that was unrelated to the real issue (not charging from the car or solar).

I spent hours looking at it. It would charge for 30 seconds from the car (according to the Victron) then the charge current would drop to zero and the charger would say the battery was full.

The problem turned out to be a faulty circuit breaker between the DC-DC charger and the battery - after a few seconds of charging it would go high-resistance (not open circuit) and drop about 1.5V. This lead the charger to think the battery was full and stop charging.

People have given other suggestions - follow them up as well. If you have the same problem as my friends you will see the DC-DC charger charging for a few seconds before it thinks the battery is full and it stops. I can't remember which circuit breaker it was in the panel - Track Trailer could probably help out - but you could check the voltage drop across it when it should be charging (ie across the terminals). The voltage drop should be close to zero.

I'm happy to chat or take a look if that helps - I'm on the lower north shore in Sydney.