Demountable camper group

After two and a half months and 4000 miles as a motorhome my Defender 130 returned to being a pickup truck today. No rest though, as we collected 1.6 Tonnes of building sand for my patio build - what a versatile vehicle and what a brilliant concept demountables are.

TrueDink wrote:Welcome to another Northstar owner.

I was feeling quite lonely as I think I was the only one on here for a while.

I'm an ex-Northstar owner and can empathise with you. Ours took us all over Europe - Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, France, Andorra, Portugal and Spain - not neccesarily in that order LOL

Was yours same model?
I wonder how they compare on weight with things like Tischer and bimobil though actually Bimobil might be a bit different seeing as they shed the whole tub anyway

maybe a karroser then

zildjian wrote:Was yours same model?
I wonder how they compare on weight with things like Tischer and bimobil though actually Bimobil might be a bit different seeing as they shed the whole tub anyway

maybe a karroser then

mine was a 750DL model. made for the supercab or kingcab trucks. I think its about 6 inches longer in the main body section, and probably a little heavier. In truth it was a little heavy for my truck and the load sensing spring in the rear gets bamboozled by the airbags in to thinking there is not much of a load on board. This causes the front brakes to do most of the work and during our Switzerland trip in 2011 we wore a set of pads down to the metal and had to Pay a German Ford garage nearly 300 euros to replace the pads, ouch.

The manufacturer claims 680kg for the 750DL, but it felt like it weighed as much as 1.2 tonnes of roadstone. I never put it on a weighbridge so that is only hearsay, an intelligent(ish) guess. LOL

I think mine is 650K empty, which seems pretty ambitious TBH although not yet got around to putting it over a weigh bridge
Expect loaded up with water extra LB
Food and the usual range of supplies its a lot nearer 900K

I think at the start of my first month trip I went a bit overboard with the packing so mine was probably close to the tonne mark. I felt quite a difference on the way home.

I too keep intending to put mine on the scales - should have done so today before demounting. My truck weighed in at 2.25 Tonnes empty on the scales today and 3.8 Tonnes loaded with sand. Looking at the back wheels there was certainly more weight with the sand than with the camper on but, to be honest, it seems to make little difference to the performance of the truck whether she's empty or loaded.
With the camper on, the front suspension rises by about 40mm due to the way the load is carried. This means I lower my front tyre pressures to 25 lbs whereas I run the back ones at 55 lbs which gives a similar bulge to the tyres back and front. Despite this sounding a bit odd the truck handles really well both on and off road. When running higher front tyre pressures I also tend to lock up the fronts under hard breaking.
Other than above I've not suffered any braking issues on or off tarmac despite doing some rather steep descents!! On some steep ascents off road I have to lock the centre diff or the front wheels loose traction. It does feel as if they are hardly touching the ground at all when the suspension rises and all I can see is the bonnet!

So do you have air assist installed?
because you might find it helps by pitching the vehicle nose-down again
only mention it as many of us found it not only corrects the road height/headlamp beam but improved comfort in leaps and bounds

Martin sent me these......

I did try air lift springs inside my rear coils but had problems with retaining them. I now use 430 lbs +40mm rear springs which work really well (but the ride is a bit hard when empty). I had 2.5 Tonnes (yes, rather overloaded as the 130 is rated to 1.5 Tonnes) of soil in the back earlier this year and there was still 15mm below the bumpstops!

So empty we are a bit tail up and with the camper on (on level ground) we sit fairly level. On ascents steeper than 1 in 3 thats when the front suspension lifts and the steering goes a bit light!!