Anyone used a Gaz 66 for travel??
 

Looking at use,ing a Gaz 66 truck for a few trips out and about and the hopefully Iceland and further.
Has anyone used or had experience of or even thought of use,ing the same truck.
With price,s in the region off £5000 I think its a lot of truck for not a lot of cash and also a very good size..

amazing vehicles goes any where but think they may be under powered and have very bad fuel compsumption
mark

I Knew about the fuel so had allready looked into engine swaps, just wanted to no if anyone had driven them for any long distance? .
Also general problems , after all most of these trucks have been in military storage for years!.

Don't know about Gaz's but have old Unimog and it works fine. Other than fuel, you might want to consider things such as Tyres. Cheap truck is not so cheap if you find that tyres have got flat spots or general deterioration due to be parked up for long periods and you have to change all fo them. A set of 4 tyres for my 404 Unimog cost me just shy of £1200. Other than that, lots of the military trucks are basic but strong engineering and in theory, if you give it a good service should be fine.

You may also want to consider what sort of time you have available - eg if you only get a week to two weeks on average for travel, a Gaz is not the sort of vehicle which you can quickly haul down through Europe to get to North Africa for example. It will probably be really good if you are taking longer period off for extended travel. Other aspect is trying to do long distance in them is quite tiring so again great if you are just going to potter along

russian trucks
 

There is an excellent uk website for all russian/military vehicles including gaz66

ZIL131.COM Russian truck forum

The Gaz 66-40 which is the latest model has a 4 cyl diesel@123hp, vs. 4 cyl petrol in the older models. According to Jane's Military Vehicles the 66-40 does 15L/100km which isn't too bad for a 2.3-ton capacity truck. But top speed is only 90kph and tires are 12.00R18, a bit scarce in western Europe.
They all come with CTIS.

Charlie

Hi all

diesel figures surprising would you bother changing engine, if you did any ideas what you would replace it with

Mark

Have had a good look at a few now the v8 zmz engine thats fitted is rated at 135bhp low comp ,so crap fuel is not a problem! this unit is very much like a ford 303in .
I was thinking about chevy 5.7 with auto box maybe th400 the transfer box is remote so its not to hard to couple upto.
Only problem is the winch is pto off the manual box so this would have to go and make way for an electric winch this would also be lighter.
Chevy should be good for 325bhp in mild tune and give more mpg over the Russian unit and no heavy,er...
But I think we should give the motor a try first before dismissin it!!

Putting a far more powerful engine in may well lead to a whole host of problems. For example on the old Unimogs, whilst the engines are not that powerful, other components are engineered to match them. If you put an engine in that is putting out 2 1/2 times the power, other components are likely to start breaking. Not a problem when you using it as a toy to play but far more of an issue if you are going to start doing serious travel in it. Along the same lines, the engine may be capable of pushing the vehicle along at motorway speeds but the rest of the vehicle is unlikely to be engineered to handle it.

I agree. I think 15L/100km is OK for a vehicle of that weight. I would only change motors if the original was no good or if it had a petrol motor, and then I'd use something similar to the original like a Perkins Phaser 4cyl.
Who sells them?

Charlie

A small warning.

Many Russian military vehicles were not designed to last long distances. Instead they were designed to last from Russia to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean...

If you plan to drive a lot be prepared to do a lot of maintenance aswell.

I am no expert on trucks (or anything else) but Russia to the atlantic coast is quite a long way on my globe.....

Well we all have different ideas about what is a long distance and I should have said soviet union instead of russia.

I just measured in google earth from Belarus to the coast in France approx 2000 km as the bird flies. Maybe 5000 km on road if you go the shortest possible route?

Some of the russian trucks I have seen didn't even have oil drain plugs because they were never designed to last long enough to need one. Please note that I'm not saying that all russian trucks are like this these days, but something to bear in mind anyway.

:thumbdown: What allot off bull.

I have been driving my Gaz-66 all over Europe, and in heavy terrain.
It's an old design but why change a winning concept
There is over 1-million produced

Well I haven't seen your truck, but I have seen some russian trucks in my life. Glad to hear that yours is working tho.:thumbup1: