Thread: Progress on My Unimog

We have finished our 22,000km trip around the top end of Australia in our Unimog. It has been great and the truck has performed fantastically.

We left Brisbane in early April, travelling up the Coast to Yepoon, then across to Lawn Hill. After a few days we headed out to Lorella Springs for a few days, then across to Mataranka. We made our way up to Litchfield, Darwin, then back down through Kakadu. Heading across to WA via Gregory NP and Keep River NP, then on to the Bungle Bungles. Back to Kununarra for a few days before some more difficult 4wd track taking the long way round to Wyndam, then down the Kurunji track to the Pentecost River.

Tyre problems left us stuck overnight on the side of the road south of Halls Creek before limping back to Kununarra for a week waiting for three new very expensive Mog tyres.

We then headed off down the Gibb River Road, up to Mitchell Plateau and all the gorges in between. Then off to Derby and Broome before heading up to Quandong and James Price Point for a week or so of relaxing on the beach.

Then down to Exmouth to swim with the Whalesharks (stopping on Port Hedland to collect two more tyres) before heading off to Karijini.

It was there that we decided to change plans, and instead of taking the Talawana Track to Alice Springs, we decided to head up the Canning Stock Route back north, it was just too cold in Alice.

Ten days on the Canning was fantastic, and the truck performed great in the sand. We met some great people on the track, and some really rude idiots intent on destroying the track as well.

Then back north to Kununarra, Katherine and Mataranka. We then hit the bad weather, and drove across to Townsville in the rain, then down the coast, finally getting good weather again in Airlie Beach. Then if was off to Yepoon, fora few day on a boat amongst the island, before finally heading home.

Here is a short picture gallery of our trip.

Just some dashcam footage of our last day on our trip

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tq45w2LExSo[/ame]

Don't you just love that country up there!
Thanks for the reminder what it was like.

Cheers,
Russ

Great photos.

What caused your tyre troubles? Stakings?

It was old age, the tyres were three years old when we bought them, and it took me 6 years to build it, to the tyres were around9 years old. They were so brittle, that when I was taking them off the wheels, parts of the edges were cracking off. Talking to Continental, and Michelin state managers, they both said that 5 years is a tyres useful lifespan, you might get a year or two more out of them, but if you are using them off road at reduced pressure, then you are causing too much flex. There was no physical damage on either tyre.

Both rear tyres failed with a small crack in the sidewall. The first after about 200km of low speed work, when I ran them at 35PSI. We were on the "Kurunji Track" about 800m from the Gibb River Road. I thought I had staked it, as it was on the outside of the tyre, but I could not see any damage.

The second happened 500km later, south of Halls Creek on a tar road when we were running at 50PSI. Exactly the same small split in the sidewall. This one was on the inside of the tyre.

Great read, awesome build. Very inspiring to say the least.

I wish you both lots of happy and safe travels in the Mog.

Cheers,
Andrew

I've decided to fit a bigger fuel tank to our truck, so after much hunting around in the wreckers I got this 190lt tank. It should have a usable capacity of around 180lt ( the dimensions give a total volume of 205lt) so this will bring our usable fuel capacity up to around 340lt. This should bring our off-road range to around 1200km and our road range to 1600km.



We tracked out fuel consumption over almost 19,000km and it averaged out at 22.1lt /100km, with a best consumption of 17.7lt/100km on the Bruce Highway with a nice tail wind and a worst of 28.4lt/100km on the Canning Stock Route.



Whislt this is a bit more than our Defender, the truck weighs around 8 tons, so not too bad.

I have relocated the air tanks to high up under the camper box.



I am having a large tool box made to fit in the space where they used to be, and it is big enough to hold 4 jerry cans if necessary, but it means all the heavy tools and things can be located down lower in the truck and frees up the side compartment of other things.

I have also had some new rear springs made. These are 20% stiffer than the old ones, and give me a 50mm increase in the bump stop clearance when loaded. A we have increased the GVM of the truck from 7500kg to 8000kg, we might as well make use of the extra capacity.



I finally got around to updating our travel map. The routes highlighted in red show where we have been with either the Unimog or our Defender. Still got a lot more places to go

Originally Posted by Iain_B

Still got a lot more places to go

You missed a bit on the SE corner - allow at least 6 months for the best bit.

Cheers


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