OKA, Australian Treasure or To Hard Basket?

Thanks

Any suggestions.
I own a 1975 Coaster and have re-built most of it. I don't mind admitting that it is beyond a nessesasity to spend so many hours with it. It's an obsession I know.

I was not overly surprised by your general comments but the "to the kilometer costings" is an eye opener.

Maybe a much newer Coaster 4by would be more sensible, seeing as I am very familiar with the basics of it already.

I do want a big 4by as we like to stand up in it, but not nessesarily a motor home as all my gear is in 65 litre crates and can be loaded and unloaded in 15 minutes. That's pretty good considering I have accomadation to house 16.

It WAS a bus but now has 2 seats only. It is regestered as a van.

I would'nt knok back 4 seats but would use them rarely.

Any suggestions??

Thankyou.

I spoke to an OKA salesman at the Perth 4WD show back in the early nineties when OKAs were still being built, and asked him about the engine - why not a 6 cyl diesel like the 5.9 Cummins and he said the 4 cyl had more torque??

Peter

These were made to do a specific job,not be a suburban racing car.
I own an Fseries with a 351 straight gas engine which theoretically has better than 400 hp but if you come across me on the road you would probably think it has a two cylinder engine.
If you are a bored millionaire get one of the 7.3 ltr engines,injectors are only $2750.00 each, bottom radiator hose @ $800.00 etc

Yea was talkin to dude at BJ Diesel about the injectors for them a while back... he told me that, I laughed, then he showed me the bill for a COMPLETE SET..

Cabbage, the OKA when fully laden - and as a heavy duty commercial vehicle that was it's intended purpose - I found to be woefully underpowered. I once had to drive for ages in first crawler gear on sand east of Esperance because it did not have the grunt to snap second as the ratio's were too widely spaced for the available grunt. On road was not much better with hills becoming very, very boring indeed. I didn't even contemplate hooking a trailer up to the thing. Empty, they may be OK, but what's the point of that?

At the time (1995) when I drove the OKA my personal vehicle was a tired, stock standard, ex-mining HJ75 4.0l diesel with 300,000 hard km's on the clock so I was most certainly comparing apples with apples in the performance stakes.

Either way, the customers voted with their cheque books. This is a shame because the OKA could have been a good bit of gear. Just my opinion.

Truckster, I reckon thats bloody ridiculous but I think its called progress.

V8,
I can relate to that sort of thing, used to work for Kennelly Transport
way back, you want to try convincing an AB Inter with a 160 cummins that it doesn't take 2 weeks to get to Goldsworthy from Adelaide and that its not really 38 ton on the trailer

hey v8 you wouldnt know anything about the oka tourbus I would see around thomas river would you? or is there another tour operater with one that does the same area?

Davoe, not involved in the tour industry at all, just rented the OKA for a couple of weeks for a job in '95. BTW have a beer at the Feddy for me (now the Foundry's closed), I miss Kal - it's a fun place.

Cabbage, I know what you mean. I drove an ex army 6 x 6 Inter with a very heavy Detroit 12v71 compressor set up on the back at Telfer (45' plus every day). No power steer or A/C - a complete pig to drive but it looked cool. The most 'uninspiring truck' award goes to an overloaded Volvo F7 cement spreader I had the misfortune to pilot for a while.

there was a FULLY kitted out canter that used to feature in western 4wd called mitsy. I believe it was for sale on the vks website?