Author Topic: Hippo on the road!  (Read 4068 times)

Offline gooloo

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Hippo on the road!
« on: June 08, 2016, 08:47:50 PM »
Finally made it to Sydney to pickup the hippo (6x6 cargo)... Can't say enough good things about Brad at KLR. He picked it up from the auction for me, serviced it, and didn't even complain when it took me 2.5 weeks to get organised to go and pick it up

Left KLR at about 1pm and pulled into Kempsey about 6:30. My apologies to any serving ADF drivers for giving you a bad name - my departure from Sydney involved a lot of missed gears and wandering around in my lane as I got used to the width of the thing with only a drivers side mirror to work from (passenger side wobbles all over the place - seems the internal friction mechanism is busted) so much for the AFR blue slip process...

Sat on 80-90 the whole way - mostly 90. I was surprised how well it handles hills - inclines that I thought for sure I'd be losing speed and eventually have to change down it just keep on pulling - even speeding up. Drives like its on rails - even over significant ruts and bumps.... Total between fill ups was 448k's for 68 litres.... That's a LOT better than my gu patrol gets!!!

The engine noise I was prepared for.... It's definitely loud - no worse than my old mq patrol after I ripped the carpet out of it.... What I wasn't expecting was the noise from the canopy flapping around.... I'm hoping it's just been chucked on for the auction and not roped on properly. It bangs and rattles against the cab and almost sounds like it's going to smash the back window... Hopefully an easy fix

Only other items on the fix list so far are the passenger side mirror and those useless round things on the front where headlights would normally go. The last hour through roadworks into Kempsey was a pain in the proverbial as I really struggled to see the road!

Another 500k's tomorrow and I'm home... If it wasn't for the dodgy headlights I'd still be driving. Loving it  :)

Offline GGG

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Re: Hippo on the road!
« Reply #1 on: June 08, 2016, 10:07:06 PM »
Canopy flapping? Serves you right for doing 90 KPH in a tent!
Geoff.

Offline aussiegregmac

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Re: Hippo on the road!
« Reply #2 on: June 08, 2016, 10:10:29 PM »
Glad to see you are progressing well.  Be good to get home.
Headlights can be fixed with not much of a problem.
Photos once you are home would be the go.
Greg Mac.
1942 C15 Blitz RadioVan 42-CMP "The PieVan"
1960 Series2 FFW 111-515  "The Woodcutter"
1991 Perentie RFSV 51-699  "Berzerker"
1996 Perentie INF 6x6 202-189 "The Walrus"

Offline gooloo

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Re: Hippo on the road!
« Reply #3 on: June 09, 2016, 03:18:46 PM »
90 k's all the way. 1 (going) flat tyre.... It was on the front which could have ended badly if I didn't spot it. Tyre says tubeless on it.... I thought perenties ran tubes?
Didn't really look at it - just chucked the (brand new) spare on it and kept going

No heater this morning and no aircon this afternoon + the bloody noise and I'm knackered. Sorting out a whiskey for now and sitting on the verandah staring at it. Will go and play with all the switches and ropes and stuff I was too scared to play with in the middle of nowhere later

Will fire up the laptop tonight and put up some pics

Offline gooloo

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Re: Hippo on the road!
« Reply #4 on: June 09, 2016, 06:48:03 PM »
everyone has seen pics of the auction 6x6's so no point showing the same.... Everything is pretty much bog standard. And I was too busy driving to take any pics on the trip up.... but here's one from a rest area somewhere between kempsey and grafton just before I noticed the front tyre needed changing



and one from the current resting place at the bottom of the house yard.... until the shed gets built



if I had known the camo would blend so well in my yard I would have just parked it there and my wife probably wouldn't have even noticed it... could have avoided having *that* discussion  :P