As promised I would post as soon as I picked up our 6 year old Caravan from the repairer, just been getting some beautification work done, some areas inside have had the decorative paneling separating from the ply. All good looks like a new one and total resealed the outside of the caravan while he was at it, 30 new screws, looks a treat. My repairer is just of North of Brisbane, switched on and a young guy who was trained in the old ways of repairing carpentry work, has fitted out luxury boats but really enjoys working on caravans and has a couple of vintage ones in there being renovated.
We weighed the Nissan Narava D40 V6 TD. kerb tare of 2360 kgs only 12 lts of fuel, alum. bull bar, side steps, driving lights, canopy, tow bar, etc. Spec sheet reads 2060 kgs.
Allowed on front axle 1530, back axle 1717 or the lesser, gross vehicle weight 3010 kgs giving us a working load of 650 kgs and a 3000 towing capacity.
To be deducted from working pay load ==
Top the tank up 70 litres of fuel, driver and passenger 220 kgs
working ball weight 200 kgs plus the new sway bars.
2nd battery,portable frig, extra food, picnic set with thermos, extra water by 25 ltrs
2 tool boxes, fishing gear, relaxing chairs (to heavy for van), computers, cameras, 4x4 gear,it soon starts to add up.
A very rough guess but honest 650 kgs.
We did weigh our caravan van loaded going away 1994 with 196 kgs on the ball since then we don't take the axe, the chairs live in the ute and there has been a few other things left behind but not much. The van has a rego tare of 1774 and a gross of 1974 kgs bingo I very happy.
The kerb weight of caravan is 1560 with 140 on the ball. no gase bottles, no water 80 litres of water, no spare or anything that was not bolted down including the bedding, completely empty it out.
Hope you all will find this encouraging or helpful. All the best see you down the track I be the one that's running very close to legal. Ralph
