Andy Cunningham

Well, I’ve gone and done it and sold the Dakar.

It’s become too much of an effort to find time to give it the work it needs along with all the other things I want to do.

I don’t want to step back from off-roading completely, but the Discovery is too nice and shiny to take into the really mucky bits.

So the plan is to still do some marshalling for TV4x4, and perhaps the odd bit of green-laning and training days for 4×4 response – and to spend some of the funds from the sale of the Dakar on some upgrades for the Disco.

So, what’s the plan for upgrades?

Underbody protection.   Starting with diff guards, even this isn’t as simple as it seems.  I really like the wraparound ones from Qt Services, but their Td5 Disco ones require welding to the front diff casing.  Not an option for me.  So I went with a compromise here.  On the front diff it’s mostly the forward facing flat side of the diff that’s vulnerable, so I’ve got a basic Bearmach diff guard here and then gone with the Qt wraparound where the input side of the diff is more vulnerable.

Steering Guard.   I’ve had a second hand steering guard in the garage for a while waiting to be fitted.  Time to go for it.

Tank Guard and rear recovery point is proving to be a real problem.  I can’t find anyone doing a combined tank guard and tow hitch that is type approved, and all the approved tow hitch designs are good at doing double duty as a plough.  I can be legal or useful, it seems.    In the meantime I think a JATE ring might find it’s way under the rear rail.

Snorkel.  Safari. Easy decision.  Much prefer the look to any of the “drainpipe up the A post” designs.

Winch/front recovery point is another non-obvious decision.   Most of the winch bumpers are a bit too “cutaway” for my taste and I think destroy the nice lines of the front of the vehicle.  After all, this is supposed to be an everyday car first.   Land rover do a mounting kit that sits in front of the vehicle, but that adds another 4″ or so to the front of the car which I don’t much like either.  I think I’m going to go with the “discrete” mounting option and see what I can do to add some recovery points to the winch mount.

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:

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).

A job that I’ve neglected for a while is to replace the speedo cable on the Dakar.

Well, I say I’ve neglected it, but the truth is I replaced the broken cable soon after getting it.  And the speedo still didn’t work.  It’s finally risen up to a job worth tackling, and over the period of several days I worked out that the square drive on the end of the cable clearly hadn’t engaged properly in the mechanism on the side of the transfer box.

A post on the LR4x4 forum describes the fit better than I can.

After much exploration, not to mention removing the gear from the transfer box, I discover the problem – the end of the cable is 3mm across.  The hole in the transfter box is 2.75mm across.  I resort to using the Dremel to pare down the end of the cable, and hurrah, it fits. I just need to replace the drained out gear oil now, and all is happiness.

I still have a couple of other jobs to tackle to make the Dakar rather more pleasant to drive.

• Replace the broken wing mirror – with the poor rear visibility the wing mirrors are vital.
• Replace the worn and clunky wiper mechanism.
• Fix the dash gague lights.

Parts for the first two are en route.  The third is still at the troubleshooting stage.

Once that’s done it’s time for a complete set of fluid replacement – well not quite, as the axles were done last year, but engine oil, auto box oil, transfer box oil, and brake fluid all need doing.

One of the reasons entries here have been a bit thin over the past few weeks is the time I’ve been devoting to the Abingdon 4×4 Festival.  I volunteered as their webmaster, and spent most of the weekend either working in the photo tent printing photos for people, or out and about with a camera taking them.

Unfortunately this means I don’t have any photos for here, but I hope to have a selection on the Abingdon site soon.

There’s lots of positive feedback on the event, so I’m eagerly awiting the results of the fundraising to see how much money we’ve made this year.