Sam was a lovely dog that just liked to be near people & receive the occasional pat or scratch.
The pool was fantastic... especially in the hot days we had.
Friends, Greg 'n' Gail are more or less residents of WA now & spend a lot of their time moving from one house sitting to another with their rather older style, but unknown manufacturer, of van that is an absolute delight inside. It's a 23 footer & being towed with 4 cyl, diesel, Land Rover which is, apparently, fine on the flat land but lacks the necessary grunt of power on the hilly stuff. So Greg is considering upgrading the Tug to something with a bit more punch... like my 200 series TTD Cruiser!
As we are both heading to the south coastal area for Christmas - via Caversham van park - where we are now, it seemed like a good opportunity for Greg to hook up his van to my Cruiser to get an idea of it's performance & handling with the van on the back.
Last week Greg visited a van builder/repairer he's known for years to borrow an adapter for the 7 pin round female plug on his van to the flat 12 pin female plug on my tug. No problems, his mate gave him the adapter ... but it wasn't till we returned to the house that we realised the adapter was also female !!!
No dramas, I found a male 12 pin flat plug in my tool box but with the incorrect fitting for his van so Greg decided to remove the flat plug from the one I found & also remove the round 7 pin on his van then rewire the flat 12 pin onto his van lead..... follow? All went well but it took us a few attempts to get the right wires onto the correct pins. His van being so old the wire colours are completely different from today's version.That accomplished we then decided to leave Gidgigannup on Wednesday & head down to Caversham whilst Greg 'n' Gail spent 2 days tidying up the property for the owners return on Friday afternoon. We then realised that after rewiring the plug on Greg's van it would no longer fit the plug on his car!!!
OK. Change to plan B. We would still leave on Wednesday but return on Friday morning at 9 ish to hook the Cruiser to his van for the trip down to Caversham.
This morning we left Caversham at 0830 & about 10mins away from our destination I suddenly thought that I had not included the WDH bars (HR) - they were sitting in their usual spot in the front boot of our van! Greg used the Ezi Hitch system which will not fit on my tug! Quick phone call to G 'n' G then turn around & back to Caversham, pick up the WDH bars & turn around again for the run back to Gidgi. Arrived at 1010.
Hooked up & as we drove out of the property it became very evident that the HR block on my car was set too high for the van... it looked like a large slippery dip!!!
Unhooked the van & dropped the block down to the lowest setting & reloaded the van to the tug... still high at the front but not quite as bad - will have to do.
The girls had already left in Greg's Land Rover so we just took our time heading down there - via the weigh bridge - to finally get an actual weight of his van.
Hitched to the car - 2790 kg
Unhitched - 2670 kg
Ball weight - 120 kg
He's upgraded the original axles with 3500 kg ones so no problems with carrying the weight & the local RTA has approved & registered the van accordingly... but the ball weight seems to be a bit on the light side to me... I would prefer to have something in the region of 200kg.
Anyway, he's now happy to have recorded the weights & loved the tow with the Cruiser, so much so that we will now tow it down the south coast on Tuesday for them - or rather he will tow it with my tug whilst we follow in his Land Rover... should be a good trip.
Will get some pics of his van & load them up here... some of you may be familiar with the manufacturer.
Hooroo for now...
