Weighed It After Upgrading (1 Viewer)

Lenny HB

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Oct 18, 2007
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I was going to post on the other thread, but it went a bit OT with Jim's marquee & tyres.:LOL:

Van upgraded by SV Tech hopefully one day DVLA will send me the new V5.
I was unable to upgrade the rear axle without fitting air assist a bit Ouch on an Al-Ko twice the price so left that for now. Axle weight still the same at 1850 & 2000kg Gross up to 3850kg.

Last night loaded up the van with virtually worst case, everything likely to have on a 3/4 week trip even filled the fridge with food & bottles.
45% Fuel
100% Gas
100% Water + 2 x 20Lt containers full of water in the garage.

Took it up to the local weighbridge, it is a dynamic drive over one, results vary so average of several passes used:
Front 1600kg,
Rear 2008kg.

Repeated with 1 x 20Lt container removed from garage:
Front 1610kg
Rear 1960kg

Placed 20Lt container under table in the van roughly centre of the axles increase of 10kg on each axle:
Front 1620Kg
Rear 1970kg

We rarely run with both of the extra water containers full & if the fuel tank was full we would probably be another 20kg lighter at the rear end conversely if it was only 25% full would probably be 10kg heaver. The 20 Lt containers were to the front of the garage and had an effect on the rear axle of 2½ times their weight!

Had a look in the garage a French boule set 2.9kg, my emergency tools 3.3kg, total 6.2 kg moving these up to the front of the van will take 15kg off the rear axle, if I take the batteries off the bikes another 15kg (weigh 5kg but further back in garage) a few other bits can be moved up front so we can live with the rear axle at 2000kg & without the extra water containers full we would be at least 80kg under.
We are very limited on what we can put in the front of the van as Hymer decided to use the large under seat box to install the combi, also the 100Lt water tank is behind the rear axle, German engineers should know better.
 
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DBK

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If your garage is well to the rear of your back wheels removing say 10 kg from the garage might reduce the load on the rear axle by say 12 kg, not a lot of gain but every little helps!

I'm going to upgrade mine when we get back to the UK but fortunately it doesn't require any hardware changes.
 
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Lenny HB

Lenny HB

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Oct 18, 2007
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If your garage is well to the rear of your back wheels removing say 10 kg from the garage might reduce the load on the rear axle by say 12 kg, not a lot of gain but every little helps!

I'm going to upgrade mine when we get back to the UK but fortunately it doesn't require any hardware changes.
I did say in my post that removing items from the front of the garage reduced the axle loading by 2½ times the weight, taking a 20kg container out reduced axle load by 48 kg.

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Bailey58

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That's interesting Lenny. Been a lot of posts on this subject lately and we were contemplating going to 3700 after adding a tow bar and rack to take the two ebikes. Apart from only a third of a tank of diesel which lightened the front by I guess 4okg, we were weighed in at 3480 recently fully loaded for the road and both us and the dog on board. I did notice the extra weight on the rear lightened the front enough to cause the wheels to spin a bit on take off. Like you I was put off by the extra cost of air suspension on the Al-Ko and the 5 new tyres an uprate to 3850 would demand. We're still sitting on the fence at the moment as the wife is not too confident on her bike anyway so may not be bothered taking them. Anyone want a new 26" 36v and a second hand 24v wife size? :)
 
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Lenny HB

Lenny HB

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Oct 18, 2007
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On the coast in West Sussex
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That's interesting Lenny. Been a lot of posts on this subject lately and we were contemplating going to 3700 after adding a tow bar and rack to take the two ebikes. Apart from only a third of a tank of diesel which lightened the front by I guess 4okg, we were weighed in at 3480 recently fully loaded for the road and both us and the dog on board. I did notice the extra weight on the rear lightened the front enough to cause the wheels to spin a bit on take off. Like you I was put off by the extra cost of air suspension on the Al-Ko and the 5 new tyres an uprate to 3850 would demand. We're still sitting on the fence at the moment as the wife is not too confident on her bike anyway so may not be bothered taking them. Anyone want a new 26" 36v and a second hand 24v wife size? :)
I made the mistake of changing the tyres before I found out the Al-Ko chassis was limited to 2000kg. Had a lot of trouble finding a bike for the wife with a small enough frame as all the decent e-bikes have 28" wheels, she is only 4'10".
 

DBK

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I did say in my post that removing items from the front of the garage reduced the axle loading by 2½ times the weight, taking a 20kg container out reduced axle load by 48 kg.
Sorry, missed that bit but I think your readings are the result of weighbridge errors. There is no way it could reduce the rear axle loading by two and a half times.

You could calculate the average ratio, it is the distance from the garage to the front axle divided by the distance from the rear axle to the front (wheelbase) ignoring variations in ride height which would have a negligible impact anyway.

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Lenny HB

Lenny HB

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Oct 18, 2007
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On the coast in West Sussex
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Since 2008 & many years tugging
Went over the weighbridge several times with the same result, I've just used SV tecs calculator that makes a difference of only 27kg. So how do you get an accurate weight?

I'll have to try and get it on a plate weighbridge.
 

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