3.5tonne lorries-Someone help me?

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Gracie21

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I have spotted a few little lorries.

My dad said he will lend me the money, but I really need someone to give me some pointers as to what I need to look for/what to avoid?

I have two in mind in particular, one is seriously cheap, which has me worried. The other is a lot older.

Please give me what I should look for & what I should avoid. Also if anyone is able to look at these adverts for me I will PM you with them-I'd love some help!

Thank you! *hands out summer fruits squash*
 
First thing - payload. Lorry plating of what they can carry is done before a lot of the fixtures are put into the lorry when converted/built. So if theres quite a bit of extras like living, get it weighbridge checked before thinking it will take your horse.

Hardly any 3.5ts have a sufficient legal weight payload to carry two horses. even if they are stalled for 2.

Check floor, obviously, but also the supports under the floor.

Check whether your horse has enough room to turn round, if they are going to have to do that to come out of the same ramp they go in by

If a conversion, check that the bulkhead between horse area and cab has been reinforced as otherwise in crash or emergency stop you could end up being killed by half a ton of horse coming through it. remember that will add weight as well tho.

Check head height, some are very short on this for larger horses/those with high head carriage. Renault Master types have better headroom as they are front wheel drive so floor can be lower as there doesnt need to be a driveshaft going underneath to drive the back wheels, they also have a low ramp as a result. But....no good for a rutty potholey track like we live on as the van is so low we would scrape the floor off!
 
Will be following this thread with interest!

It's quite easy to get the van weighed at a weigh bridge before you purchase. It seems the range of available payload varies consdierable on 3.5t vans (might be 700kg to 1350kgs available weight).

Could somebody tell me what to look for in terms of reinforced bulk heads. Some of the later renault masters and vauxhall movano's come with a steel bulkhead as standard. What is needed over and above this for an adequate conversion?

Thanks (sorry for hijacking the thread a little !)
 
Welshboy said:
Will be following this thread with interest!

It's quite easy to get the van weighed at a weigh bridge before you purchase. It seems the range of available payload varies consdierable on 3.5t vans (might be 700kg to 1350kgs available weight).

Could somebody tell me what to look for in terms of reinforced bulk heads. Some of the later renault masters and vauxhall movano's come with a steel bulkhead as standard. What is needed over and above this for an adequate conversion?

Thanks (sorry for hijacking the thread a little !)
Click to expand...

I would be thinking of something like steel bulk head then a number of vertical struts (scaffold pole type steel thickness/strength, firmly bolted to floor and roof preferably at anchoring points) then another sheet steet bulkhead ideally, to make a sandwich of something that stands some chance of stopping a half a ton projectile or at least slowing it. That might be the ideal rather than what is normally done tho!
 
Thank you! Have PMed you PaddyMonty :)

I am writing all this down! I will be handing a list of essential safety pointers to my dad and my boyfriend (he's a lorry driver & mechanic!) as they are obviously a little more clued up than me!

Thank you lachlanandmarcus, I am continuing to sift through lots of ads! :)
 
lachlanandmarcus said:
I would be thinking of something like steel bulk head then a number of vertical struts (scaffold pole type steel thickness/strength, firmly bolted to floor and roof preferably at anchoring points) then another sheet steet bulkhead ideally, to make a sandwich of something that stands some chance of stopping a half a ton projectile or at least slowing it. That might be the ideal rather than what is normally done tho!
Click to expand...

Thank you. Many ads say the bulkhead has been reinforced with steel box section. What exactly does this mean? Also, if I bought a nice conversion that ticked all the boxes, but I didn't feel the bulkhead reinforcement was adequate, is this something that's relativley straight forward to improve?

Thank you again :))
 
The box section would be a lot stronger than a single sheet, tho not as strong as a box with struts inside it. Depending on the thickness of the steel and how it is fixed to the body of the van, it might be adequate (and a lot better than a thin steel sheet it might originally have had).

You could add strengthening bars on the horse side of the bulkhead to beef it up if you felt it was still a bit inadequate, as trying to put them into the box section after it was installed would weaken its strength. But watch the weight impact on the payload.
 
lachlanandmarcus said:
First thing - payload. Lorry plating of what they can carry is done before a lot of the fixtures are put into the lorry when converted/built. So if theres quite a bit of extras like living, get it weighbridge checked before thinking it will take your horse.

Hardly any 3.5ts have a sufficient legal weight payload to carry two horses. even if they are stalled for 2.

Check floor, obviously, but also the supports under the floor.

Check whether your horse has enough room to turn round, if they are going to have to do that to come out of the same ramp they go in by

If a conversion, check that the bulkhead between horse area and cab has been reinforced as otherwise in crash or emergency stop you could end up being killed by half a ton of horse coming through it. remember that will add weight as well tho.

Check head height, some are very short on this for larger horses/those with high head carriage. Renault Master types have better headroom as they are front wheel drive so floor can be lower as there doesnt need to be a driveshaft going underneath to drive the back wheels, they also have a low ramp as a result. But....no good for a rutty potholey track like we live on as the van is so low we would scrape the floor off!
Click to expand...

I should add we have recently gone from a 7.5T to a 3.5T and with a limited budget we went for an oldish VW LT35, one with good horse area, not really any 'living' apart from a seat and saddle/bridle racks. Before we got it we looked at lots and lots of ads and covered just about every make model, so do PM me the ads if you want and I will feedback on whether its a make/model we looked at.
 
Have a good google search on the Make and Models you are looking at, the internet is your friend ;)

I have just bought an LT35 and did A LOT of research and ruled out loads of lorries I thought would be suitable for my horses because the cab would potentially cause problems! Although (before anyone jumps on me!) there are exceptions to every rule

for example -
LDV - no longer exists, they don't make them anymore so parts are much harder to come by and more expensive than something still being made.
Also bare in mind that the older petrols may well have been ambulances in a former life!

Transit - look for the model as the numbers indicate the weight that can be carried, and those that are single wheeled at the rear are unlikely to have the right payload.

Bedford TK - was apparently shockingly bad when they came out the factory (my dad was surprised when I found one!)

Just a few things to consider! :)
 
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