GU Ute Failure

Hi Bag Boy, unfortunately this is a bit of a common problem and I have 'heard' of a few failures although never seen one. To this end, when I bought my Cab Chassis last year I had fish plates welded to the chassis rails at the base of the spring mounts, had the tops of the spring towers plated and had a beam welded across both spring top pplates, effectivley locking them together. I did this pre-emptively as Brad Newham from ARB Gawler would not upgrade my suspension until I had these mods done! Brad has had to bush-weld a few of these GU failures in the past apparently.

Another EO member, Errol, had some pics on how he modified his - hope he will respond to your email soon.

I had a specialist chassis place do mine. It took a week, but they took the tray off did the mods and refitted the tray; they even resprayed the whole chassis with that bitumised black goop, too. The end result cost around $800 but now have a ton of confidence as I too carry a camper on the back of mine, have 400kg springs and air-bags (although they still haven't had to be used to level the truck).

Best of luck.

Does happen commonly on the coil cabs - especially with a camper - drive it onto a weighbridge fully loaded, and you may be surprised that its over the 3150kg GVM. The towers need to be reinforced - two friends with Nissans have had it done while the vehicle was new. I think the work was done by Alltrac in Adelaide. Here are some photos while the tray was off:
!MPG:27!
!MPG:28!

I Do Not Believe Any of This - Nissan making a dud vehicle, never.

Nup! thats just defamatory libel and you all should be ashamed of yourselves.

Shame, shame, shame, shame.

Hi guys
I had a similar problem last year, also carry a slide on camper. I made up a 100x 50mm rhs ,welded a flat plate on each end , cut out holes for airbag line, relocated fuel and brake lines and bolted bar to rails on the tray. Has worked very well for me and also made one for a mate with same with no problems. Sorry didnt take pictures but can provide specs if anyone wants them. It can also be done without having to relocate fuel lines ,just use a smaller plate to sit on inside of towers

The common denominator in all the failures is putting in too heavy a duty spring in. Instead of the spring compressing, the tower being weaker bends up. A mate was having probs with ARB rear springs sagging due to the weight of everything (kaymar rear bar and carriers etc) and the youg fella at ARB was about to put in springs from the ute and said no because of the above mentioned reason.

Leroy

It happens to the wagons too crushing the fuel and brake lines against the floor, an acquaintance had a very expensive repair a long way from home.