Chassis strength

[Big Jim]

I have read the stuff about the weak Navara rear end . Are the other trucks that much stronger or is it an unlucky coincidence . I was thinking if they were similar then I may go for a Navara as the strengthening kit is available .
How much is the kit ? Is it only available from Bimobil ?
Thanks Jim

[Peaky]

Darren from Bimobil UK has 1 kit left in stock at the moment.
I'm not sure on the price but he can be contacted via his website :-

http://www.adventureoverlanduk.com/contact-us

I bought a kit from him at the Social last June & a mate of mine welded it up to the chassis on my Navara.
It's now solid with next to no flex at all.

The competitive price of the Navara which include many extras plus the cost of the chassis upgrade cost still come in cheaper than the alternatives.
I'd go down the same route again for sure

[rubberrat]

My Chevrolet (Isuzu) has a really strong chassis, but i do keep breaking the buck fittings. They are designed to take vertical down forces, but not vertical up forces that a tall structure like a demountable camper creates.
Nothing that cant be dealt with very cheaply though.

The Navara chassis is strong under the cab then too thin at the rear, but once that strengthening kit is fitted it should be fine. Othet than this issue the Navara is a good truck.
If buying a used Navara or any other make, is quite a good project to remove the buck and clean and protect the chassis, rather like restarting the clock.

[Star Six]

I have mostly seen (here in Germany) issues with the Navara frame. But I think the main reason is the fact that the Navara is a very common truck choice.
Any frame will give you trouble when overloaded. A King Cab with 80cm or more rear overhang, the right speed and the right weight in the wrong places, will do that to your truck. It happens to big 3500 Dually Pickups, too.

We had a discussion on Navara frame rust over in our forum the other day. I have seen some scary pictures there, of less than 10 year old frames (2 different ones) with huge rust holes in them. This may or may not have been a result of offroading and no cleanup afterwards.
So be careful when you buy and rustproof asap.

[Gary W]

To be fair to Nissan the chassis do not break in normal use, even when abused off road. They only break when all the load is trying to bend the thing the wrong way! As with everything in life it would be better to treat the cause rather than the symptom.

Best wishes

Gary

[sabconsulting]

To be fair to Nissan the chassis do not break in normal use, even when abused off road. They only break when all the load is trying to bend the thing the wrong way! As with everything in life it would be better to treat the cause rather than the symptom.

Best wishes

Gary

Unfortunately this is all exacerbated by the trend for double-cab pickups.

Back in the day pickups had a single cab and an 8ft bed. Anyone loading anything heavy would push it towards the front of the load bed where it is supported by both axles.

Then people wanted to start using them as regular SUVs (I think the change in car taxation didn't help here - driving people away from regular 4x4s to pickups, driving the market for double-cabs).

If just using a double-cab as a family 4x4 with a nice canopy on the back and your shopping in the load bed then that is fine.

But if you now put your 1 ton of whatever you want to carry in the load bed - that entire load bed is now behind the rear axle, trying to bend the chassis in the wrong direction. I wonder if any pickup manufacturers re-engineered the chassis to handle bending in the other direction, or if all the chassis' are effectively still hangovers from the single-cab era where everyone expected them to bend downwards in the middle, not upwards.

Steve.

[mickjean]

When I was collecting my Tisher from the factory in Germany to be fitted to a Toyota ! they told me that they fit a strengthening kit to the Navara. I am not able to say if they sell the kit as a self-fit item.

[zildjian]

The kit I saw in June comprised four (top-bottom-2sides) that form a jacket around each chassis rail of about 900mm in length

[derestrictor]

Where would know about redesigned chassis design over the evolution of a model?

[mjb666]

I have had both an Isuzu and Mitsubishi 4x4 Double cab for my work but when i purchased my De-Mountable it came with a Mazda B2200 4x2 Single cab without an excessive overhang with the tailgate removed.

The idea was to try out the concept at the Budget entry level and if i liked it to progress onto getting one for my Double cab. I sold the Isuzu and just ran the Mazda. Five years and 25k miles extra,on the already high mileage and knowing the Mazda was heading to the scrap yard, i purchased a Nissan Navara Acenta King cab, one owner, low miles, Full history and no VAT.

This was the perfect base vehicle to look for a newer unit for, as i was hoping to sell the older combo BUT as i have been reading all the chats about chassis strengthing, air bag susspension, upgrading to 3.5 Tonne and only buying certain tyres, i'am now not sure which way to go. I had hoped just to fit the appropriate length unit straight onto the Nissan?

In fact, so concerned am i, that i have recently scrapped the Mazda and have now got another Mitsubishi L200 4x2 with my old unit.

Any suggestions from Forum Members would be great

Mike