Andy Cunningham

Tuesday 6th – 21:30 to 00:30 Towed around 7 cars and a truck up the Owlsmoor Road.  That included a woman in a complete panic trying to get back to her 8 month old baby, and two BA staff coming home from LHR.

Wednesday 7th.  Go to work to ensure office was opened.  Came home again.  Took in-laws to Gatwick for Thursday flight.  Assisted with clearing blocked Owlsmoore Road and attempted to tow an articulated lorry.

Thursday.  Worked from home.  Evening spent 4 hrs transporting care workers for Wokingham Borough Council

Friday.  Made it to work with a colleague.  Took another colleague to hospital after falling off his bike.  Got accosted by hospital’s ambulance service and took two patients home while waiting, plus arranged contacts with local 4×4 response and an additional driver.  Then spent 4 hrs in the cold and dark helping said driver fix a diesel leak.  Towed SWMBO’s car into our street.

Saturday 9th. Out before 7am to transport care workers again.  Home at 2pm, after stopping to pull a crashed car out of a ditch.  Driver escaped with no injuries and car seemed to be sound as well.  At 16:30 at Royal Berks Hospital to transport two patients home.  Towed neighbour’s car into the street, but demoted it to second slipperiest road in Berkshire after Alexandra Road in Reading.  23:00 pickup for Southern Counties Ambulance in Wokingham!  Home at midnight and a bit.

Sunday 10th – Assessment day for new members.  Left home at 7:30am. got home at 2:30pm.  Slept for 2 hrs, then 2 hrs doing accounts for the group.   Arranged to pick up a colleague en-route to work in the morning as well.

A couple in Kent who thought they were going to have to call off their wedding because of the snow may have the kind of white wedding they wanted after all.

Karen Rawlins is now hopeful of becoming Mrs Lee, thanks to offers of help from listeners to BBC Radio Kent. They have offered to take the wedding party and guests, by 4×4 vehicles, up a single lane track which is otherwise impassable.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8420602.stm

After the electrics on the Dakar acting up again, major remediation is called for.

This means: if it carries current, isn’t part of the engine loom, and I didn’t put it there, it’s getting replaced!

Phase I – the stuff that’s broken

• Run new main power feeds from battery II and alternator to …
• Install new fuse box with relays controlled by…
• New Ignition Switch controlling main power via relays on new box.
• Re-wire hazards and indicator lights using existing wiring
• Wire new side/head light switch to existing wiring

In this phase I’ll pick up the existing wiring fore and aft for the lights.

Phase II – the rest of the existing wiring

• Wire Internal Light to Dash switch
• Feed Radio, dash sockets from new fuse board (ACC I)
• Replace wiring to front and rear lights
• Re-wire driving and rear work lights to Battery I.
• New Winch Control to front and repair front winch
• New Winch Control and power to rear and install rear winch
• Investigate and fix wiper stop problem.
• on a related note, install new washer jets and re-wire washer motor to new switch.
• Tear out anything not connected to the Engine ECU that isn’t my wiring and fix what’s broken.

Phase III – new stuff

• Install LED/strobe beacons
• Create new warning light panel to side of existing dash
• Re-wire Ignition, Oil Pressure, and Main beam switches back to new panel.
• Wire in a pair of Anderson Power Poles as ACC II to power amateur radio kit while out in the Dakar
• Install Circuit breaker in parallel with X-charge relay to allow starting from 2nd battery if isolated.
• Install warning light when second battery in circuit, and when second battery isolated when ignition on.

Yeah, lots of work.

So far I’ve got most of the bits, started to assemble the switch panel harness, fuse/relay box, and ignition switch harness.  Let’s see how this goes.

To give you an idea of the challenge, this is the space under the steering wheel right now:

And this is the space for the new switch panel:

Oo-er missus!

100′ Versatower on a trailer, shown fully upright and guyed here with the Disco to scale.   Three hours later it’s flat on the trailer and ready to take “home”.

The evidence is here

Take a look at this.

I’ve driven up that slope… it’s every bit as steep as it looks. Good fun though!

Between my activities with RAYNET and off-roading, and my love of food, I wanted to find a way to do some decent portable cooking. Better than warming stuff up on a camping stove, anyways.

The two contenders – that several people seem to debate, are the Cobb barbecue and the Cadac grill. They are different animals – and ultimately I want both for different reasons.

The Cadac is a gas bbq, with space, from the reviews, to cook burgers and sausages for eight people. You can stick a pan on it, and it comes with flat (bacon and egg) and ribbed (steaks) cooking surfaces. It’s a portable gas barbie, basically.

The Cobb is a portable oven. Charcoal fired, and popularised by the “Hairy Bikers”, it’s a good way of cooking a proper roast or similar out in the field. But it’s not something that can be used for quick grilling of steak, or really for a quick breakfast. If you want to do a roast in the field, it’s the equipment of choice.

So which did I go for?

Ultimately, the Cadac.

It’s a bit cheaper, but the selling point is that it’s really for quick cooking. Grilling a steak, cooking breakfasts, perhaps roasting some veggies. It’s the weapon of choice for the next two events.

I’d like to add a Cobb as well, but funds aren’t unlimited. So I’ll stick with the extra grill space for now.

What happens when you take a Range Rover, remove 1/3 of the wight with a fibreglass body, swap the engine for a 5.7l Chevy small block V8, and strap a brace of turbos and a custom fuel injection system on it?

And then go for a play in the snow.  Skip the first 2 minutes.

Just got back from a cracking day out with the Thames Valley 4×4 Club at Hogmoor.

It’s a fantastic site – and it was good to have a co-driver for some of the day as well.

I’d heard about this a while ago from a Land Rover trainer, but had forgotten the details.

The quick version.  Set you multi-meter to read DC voltage, put one probe in the brake fluid in the reservoir and the other to a good ground.  If it reads more than 0.3V, you need to flush the system with fresh fluid.

Found here.

The Disco shows 0.18V, so is good for checking again in another 6 months.

The Dakar shows 0.5V, so I’d better get cracking on that one (it’s the easier one to do as well – no fancy ABS system to deal with).