Wednesday 29 August 2012

The Wolf's at the Door

Following on from http://landroverkaty.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/boing-part1.html where I replaced the rear springs and shocks on Katy, there was an improvement in the body roll, but not as much as I had hoped. This is really important to me in terms of safety so it's gone ahead of some of the other plans in terms of priority

Having been to Eastnor and had many people's good advice I took the plunge today and ordered a set of Wolf Wheels (ANR4583) These are tubeless rims (my tyres are actually tubeless, but my current wheel;s are not)

Because of a good offset, these will be about 2 inches wider across the rear axle and consistent front to rear so no more issues with that and only 1 spare wheel to carry from now on which will reduce the weight we're carrying up top 



Whilst I was there I bought longer Studs (FRC7577) which should be delivered with them


There is quite a bit of debate on the Land Rover forums on whether you need these longer studs or not in order to pass an MOT, and there is a very good summary of the difference that the wheels make and the amount of stud showing with different wheels here on the Landroverexpedition.com website.

My decision has been that despite the extra cost, I would like the extra certainty. I only have 4 wheels on the ground and to me the running gear is the most import aspect of any vehicle.


I've also inquired about a set of uprated Anti Roll bars  which will be here shortly afterwards if plans come to fruition, more about them to follow

I thought I'd bought a cheap Land Rover  !

Tuesday 28 August 2012

Eastnor 2012

We had our first outing to a Land Rover Show this weekend - it coincided with my 50th birthday which makes me twice as old as Katy this year.

Arriving on Friday Night we set-up the camp-site. The weather was not good so there were loads of the members of the SWLRC running around putting tents in the rain up whilst we put the kettle on which was great for us (we did feel quite a bit guilty)

The stand was left until the Saturday morning because of the rain, and even then it was further delayed by the complexities of fetching "lost" and late members of the club onto site. Luckily the team sprang into action and with extensive use of mobile phones and a lot of arm waving we managed to get everyone together


Given the rain of the day it wasn't much of an event to wander around and take pictures, but we did have a pleasant surprise when Ian from the 127 Ambulance club popped over with his recently rebuilt pulse ambulance which was quite a treat for those who managed to get out to see it despite the rain (which you can see on these pictures)




Compared to Katy the  Pulse is quite a beast. it looks quite a lot more aggressive and it is a whopping 20cm (8 inches) wider across the body which does have the possible advantage of putting beds across the body instead of along it if you were to do a camper conversion, but according to Ian is a problem on some narrower roads


Sunday was quite a bit nicer and the club stand started to resemble a nicer place to be (apart from the mud underfoot)

On a walk around I was pleased to bum pinto some more 127 owners (well they called themseleves the
Land Rover Special Vehicles and Defender 130 Club) and they sold very nice jam indeed.

They had another of the 127 variants on show  and in this picture you can see a Locormotors (left) nest to a Pulse). The Locormotors like the Marshalls has a sloping front, but it also has the flat roof.

From what I have been told they were made by simply taking a pickup and adding a new body behind, and if you dril into the corners behing the seats you can hit the curved windows which are still in place 



We had quite a line-up on the SWLRC stand as you can see from the pictures below. From the nice 90 next to Katy, then a Freelander and closest is Nick's old Land Rover Special Vehicles radio truck now in a fetching red colour


Katy being the largest on the stand proved to be a useful flagpole


OK, the place was a complete mud bath, but it was still a lot of fun and we learned a lot

Wednesday 15 August 2012

Working for a Living

Katy is retired. Not so for many Land Rovers. I recently had a trip to the Ffos y Fran opencast site to do some fossil collecting

The onsite 90's were nice, but 


We were chauferred around in style.. The Quary Managers personal 110. We were told there would be ructions if we got it dirty inside :-)


As for big boys toys


You can see the scale here


The tyres on the little one are abot £8,000 per tyre... as for it's big brother I didn't ask

The geological wite up is going to appear in my website as soon as I get it written