So, those advocating a Sankey, what do people think of this one?

camping trailer with roof tent on eBay, also, Land Rover, Car Parts, Cars, Parts Vehicles (end time 15-Aug-08 17:41:54 BST)

Comments appreciated ....

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Ollie

www.jollyfollies.com

Land's End to Sydney 2009

Ollie

was this what you were looking at?

Reasonable price at oment.

off road camping trailer and roof tent on eBay, also Trailer Tents, Tents, Camping, Sporting Goods (end time 14-Aug-08 20:56:24 BST)

Although not sure of the build quality from the photos

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ChrisC

Yes, that was the original one I was looking at. I have been annoying my wife about a trailer since billing and she has been annoying me about a myway roof tent.

This seemed the perfect comprimise

Think it's about to go out of my financial league soon anyhow, which will save all this 'considering' ...

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Ollie

www.jollyfollies.com

Land's End to Sydney 2009

Hi Mark

Sound like this swimming nonsense is a hassle. Here I just had to step out the door today to achieve the same effect.... Homesick yet?

Did you have the same track on it as Miranda?
No - Years of towing different wheelbases taught me this is a fallacy. Seriously, it would be useful, but it is not essential. Our trailer has a LandRover discovery wheel base and rims, so is not too far off that of Miranda. Just embarasing though...
Did you ever need to lower the tyre pressures?
Yes, in sand and when I had only one spring. I'd drop it down to 15 psi with no bad events...
Were the tyres the same size as on Miranda?
No - They are all 15inch, but the trailer had 235s while the car had 285s...
Could you see enough of the rear corners when reversing?
Yes - Our rear window of the car was mostly clear as all the stuff was in the trailer, and the Desert Wolf has 2 handy poles at its rear corners which make it a doddle to reverse. But as you know, once you can reverse an invisible trailer, all other trailers are easy...
Any maintenance to it?
Yes, tightened the brakes up once , and I washed it a few times, and replaced the springs.
You had a broken spring I think, how did you overcome that?
I cut a piece of wood off my handy jack block, and lowered the trailer body onto that jammed between the axle and chassis, and held it in place with duct tape. Drove through some real rough country like this for 1000km before finding a suitable set of replacement springs. A great company making great Trailers -Zebra Trailers in Windhoek.
I notice you now say "ours now has 8mm thick leaf springs".
Zebra trailers sold me a set of 8mm springs.
All the new Desert Wolf trailers have the same springs. In fact I met Hennie, the guy who makes Desert Wolf trailers and I gave him 4 recommendations. He took me to their new range of trailers and all 4, plus some others I hadnt even noticed, were already incorporated. Constantly evolving... Great kit!!!
Did you get yours from the dealer in the UK?
I bought it second hand in the UK
What made you decide on that model and not the Cub or Lynx or whatever?
It was the only second hand trailer available in the UK at that time... I'd like to say I did research and all that, I was just lucky. The Lynx is a good size for a family.
And finally - can you reveal roughly the cost of a basic one of these things as there are no prices on the web site?
In UK terms - you could buy a pretty decent non-stainless trailer for 2 to 3 thousand pounds, and if you wanted the whole hog (lots of nice extras and toys to play with) you could spend £20 000!!!! Sorry, that is not very helpful.
I cant remember the price of this one Photo Galary 2 but it was damn cheap... Well made, with good components...

Have fun shopping...
Cheers for now
Graham

Ollie, the ebay link you posted to the sankey based trailer looks quite neat and tidy but its quite a lot of money. Probably depends on whether you need all the elements, particularly fridge and roof tent or whether you already have. On a break down on costs, you can pick up a good condition sankey for between about £200 - £350, nato tow hook £30, couple of wheels and tyres matching your LR wheels and tyres, may be another £250 (means you can have common spares rather than carrying extra for trailer or risking running different tyres in the event of a puncture), second hand roof tent in good condition £500 - £650, fridge - can't tell from the advert whether its a proper offroad fridge such as an Engel or whether its a cheaper less robust caravaning fridge. If it is an Engel or similar, then probably worth another £300 - £400. So looking at somewhere between £1280 - £1680 before you get to costs of servicing trailer, brakes, springs etc and building body. Also has factor that whilst you can get the bits, may take some time and driving around. So you probably aren't saving much if any money unless you compromise on some of the above, already have some of it or get lucky on some of the prices then you will probably spend similar money putting it all together.

Other concern I would have would be height of trailer as referenced in the question asked below the advert. Having roof tent weight up top on that extra height may start giving stability problems even at speed on the road, given its quite a short trailer. Even without the weight up higher, my one can start moving around quite a lot depending on load and road conditions. Don't get the same problem with a larger car trailer etc.

Hi Graham,
Thanks for answering all those questions, it's given me plenty of info to think about.
If you remember with our old trailers it was said you should turn the wheels round when going into sand/mud to match the tracks. I never used to bother anyway, just seemed like extra work to do.

The old broken spring and block of wood trick - used that a time or two as well.
Thanks again, must go and water the lawn.

Hi

My brother hired a trailer tent to use at the lrc of south africa 60th aniversary bash. The first night the heavens opened and all the bedding got wet .The said trailer was a Conqueror type that the lid forms part of the tent. The weak point that let the rain in was the hinge area that joins the roof to the box. A word of caution African gear is made for their climate not ours also beware of the quality often the first to make a product sets the standard good or bad. I would try towing a heavy trailor to see how you get on with it before you buy one.

Charlie

Hi,

Against all advice we took a Sankey trailer to Morocco last year. It worked just fine. They are built like the proverbial brick out house and although it spent a good part of the journey air borne it suffered no breakages. The same could not be said for it's contents though Those leaf springs don't exactly provide a nice smooth ride. I did anticipate that though so no big deal.
Down sides were the usual hassle encountered in tight areas with a trailer, on occasion requiring us to unhitch it.
In soft sand it never actually caused us to get stuck but it certainly required committed driving. Low 2nd and around 4000rpm. It was behind a LWB diesel G Wagen with only 113bhp though. If we had attempted large dunes there is no way it would have coped.

On balance it was the correct decision for us, taking away the requirement for a roof rack and all the associated problems of weight up on the roof. (a particular personal dislike of mine).
It also meant that the interior of the car was free of clutter.
Catering was nice and easy as you have a ready made table by using the tailgate and I partitioned ours so that all the bedding/clothes etc were up front whilst the cooking and spares etc were at the back.

All in including the purchase, bits and pieces and spare wheel bearings it cost about £400

Hopefully here are some picture links:
http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/c...e/DSCF0089.jpg
http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/c...e/DSCF0046.jpg
http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/c...e/DSCF0043.jpg
http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/c...e/DSCF0048.jpg

Ideally I would not take a trailer or use a roof rack. Travel light I guess but that depends on how many passengers and what gender I guess

It has to be said sankeys are fantastic value for money ,
try to get a mark three, that has better lights and disk brakes .
maybe the way to go is use the mark three chassis and running gear with a tailor made lightweight body ?
I considered using a sankey with hood sticks fitted and a good tilt , then fit a carannex , thats trailer , tent and admin area in one go .
Twodogs

These are quite cheap from Anchor Supplies -
Trailers
With drum brakes - 295 UKP
With disc brakes - 375 UKP
Or 175 UKP for a 1 ton
Or in Scotland from 175 UKP -
Trailers - - The Gun Bus Co,

Also there is a handbook but I don't know if it is complete -
http://www.landrover.ee/est/files/manuals/cars/trailer/TRAILER_3-4%20TON_2%20WH-SANKEY%20Technical%20Handbood%20(Dec%201971).pdf

lol , that sales picture on the gun bus site is amazing , I bet the plod pulled him up .
The manual is for the older narrow track sankey not the wide track ,
Twodogs

That would be an ideal way... get a sankey chassis (i don't know if the disc braked versions are better than the drum...my drums are adjusted up OK and it pulls up fine), but remove the tub and get an aluminium one made up.

The steel bodies are pretty heavy, and rust out a lot in the corners, so you could save some money in getting a not-quite-perfect one, then shell out lots more money on a custom ali body! :-)

or still, pull the old tub metal off, and fit one of them 1000 Liter polypropolene containers.
So light and so very strong.

Graham has done his homework, we decided on the Conqueror Compact for it's size and layout, we drove through Sudan without convoy and it was a breeze. It's done perfectly on numerous trips to Namibia, Botswana and Mozambique. We are now in Italy and since leaving Cape Town we only had to adjust the brakes and grease the coupler.

With 2 kids in the car it just makes traveling so much easier, another advantage is that when camped you can do your day excursions without having to take the roof top tent down.

Here is a few pics:

In the Sudan



When camped:



BTW, we have one carnet for vehicle and trailer, no problem, even for Egypt

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Jean Visser

http://ons4.reproroom.com

Hi jean,
Nice image of the Toyota pulling the trailer.
Did you find it harder to pull in the sand?
Could you feel it was behind you when you were on the tarmac, or was it not noticible until you hit the soft stuff.?

The other Graham !