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Light Overland Vehicle Tech Tech issues, tips and hints, prepping for travel
Under 3500kg vehicles, e.g. Land Cruiser, Land Rover, Subaru etc.
Photo by Lois Pryce, schoolkids in Algeria

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Old 3 Jul 2010
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Whatever you buy just make sure that you have an appropriate hitch for use off bitumen roads. The ball style hitches are fine for general trailers on road but will cause the back end of your LR to fall off after a few hundred kms of badly corrugated dirt road.

There is really a load of manufacturers who claim to make offroad camper trailers - a lot of them are just standard trailers with big wheels and tyres. The designed ones tend to have coil sprung independant suspension - the others tend to have a cargo trailer solid axle. Cross braced corners and very few unbraced butt welds. Look also for appropriate hitch weights - I've seen a few Toyos running around with badly overloaded hitches which can break spings or tow bars. Hitch height is important to make sure that the trailer runs level otherwise the weight is transferred onto the LR hitch.

Look for a trailer that has common wheel/tyre size to the LR - will save carrying yet another set of spare tyres.

Buy a cheap set of spring scales to get weight distribution right - attach to the trailer hitch and then load upto about 75% of the LR hitch maximum or trailer maximum whichever is the lower. You may have to play around with that figure when driving on corrugated roads to get stable driving.

Over ride brakes can also cause problems on dirt roads - theres fors and againsts - you can lock them out easily in very rough stuff - they can come on when you dont want them too - they lock up on steep descents - etc etc. Electric brakes are more reliable nowadays but can still cause some problems.

You've got plenty of time so look around a lot. Bear in mind that prices will start to rise towards Spring. Look at the transport authoty's website in the State you are in for details about purchasing a trailer - rego, safety certs, REVS check (nothing owing to a finance co).
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