My creative concept conversion – part 4

I took a drive to Brendale this morning (2/4/12) to have a look how the Patrol is progressing. It was most pleasing to see that it once again has wheels even if there are six of them now. It was a great opportunity to confirm the chassis size so that the canopy final length can be determined. The length will be 2100 mm which is 100 less than originally suggested but no big deal. This places the canopy slightly over the tow ball which concerned me just a little. A feature of this new set up is that it is a totally air bag arrangement and I will be able to drop the pressure and lower the height meaning that I can just fall out of the van hitch, move forward a little and reinflate. With the aid of a camera this should make hitching and unhitching a piece of cake – well I hope so! It will also be possible to just lower the bag pressure on the Lazy axle, meaning that it will have limited load bearing pressure. This feature will assist the car in areas such as beach driving and possible other 4wd drive situations, it will also reduce the drag on the tyres when driving on the bitumen. Interestingly it has been suggested that the turning circle will remain unchanged due to not moving the rear driving axle backwards which they also do on vehicles.
It was exciting to see the vehicle taking shape but with only a short week due to Easter not much will happen this week.