From Green to White and back to Green and Green and Pink and White

Sometimes you have to just stand back and take a look

That was the best way to look at Katy this morning as the winter weather has not been kind

The trouble is the quality of her paintwork, it's matt, and flaky and is a perfect home for the slimiest of algae

So out with the pressure washer and up on the roof (no point in starting at the bottom is there) and from there on inch by inch i washed the green slime off.

You would think that's where the white comes in and it does for a few minutes, but then the really poor state of the paintwork comes in to play and the layers below start appearing as sections of white are literally blasted off to reveal a multitude of layers beneath.

Dark NATO Green in places
Light NATO undercoat where that also flakes off
White where we've reached some of the UN layer
Pink where some form of modern undercoat was used as some form of barrier paint

It's all going to have to come off some time for a proper respray

Thanks to all the readers

I just spotted in the traffic log for this site

Page Views all time history 44,000

I hope people find it useful and interesting

Regards
Andy

Ice Cold in Cardiff

OK we'll it's not really, but it is time for my annual round up, but this year I quite admit that it's been a bit boring

The reason - simply work a change in the ownership of the company I work for, and changes in responsibilities meant that I really needed to focus on that for a while so plans got put on hold

Incredibly this meant that I have spare parts here ready to be fitted since November 2012 and I still don't have them out of their boxes

OK so what have we done ..

Actually there has been little maintenance because of the lack of use, but i was not happy with the brakes even though they passed and MOT and therefore in February, with Help from Steve I changed the brake adjuster on one of the rear wheels

I took out the fridge I had fitted in June and isolated the electrics that were causing me problems

In July we dressed up and also dressed Katy up for the SWLRC Road run. I like the idea of putting these markings back on when she has a respray even if just ghosted in. Also that month we managed to get away for a week and had nice views through the new skylight and a nice time camping at Chatsworth House campsite, and visiting the house where we met a kindred spirit

Since then I've fitted some bonnet security in September before using her to visit the 2014 Hidden Earth Caving Conference where we managed to cause quite some chaos

Since then in early December I managed to meet up with an active service Pulse ambulance in the Brecon Beacons

For Christmas I had some more Land Rover information and amongst them was another copy of a picture that I have seen before, but this time in colour.

In the book  Modern Military Land Rovers: In Colour, 1971-1994 by James Taylor & Bob Morrison there is a copy of a picture that I had only seen in Black and white as reported in January 2013 this time it is clearly printed and it it possible to see a number of details not visible in the B&W copy

From this I can now be sure that Katy had a window on the drivers side and that the panel that has been riveted on that side is clearly a new panel added during the conversion to  a camper as the camper window is a lot smaller than the original window would have been

So finally summary. Not much of a successful year, in terms of adventures, however plans are being made for more fun next year

And the Ice Cold in Alex reference 

I had not seen it for many years, but  this classic British WWII film was on again over Christmas

I had not realised that the ambulance in that Film is called Katy They apparently mounted a body off an Austin K2/Y ( Officially "Ambulance 4x2) and stuck it on a Canadian Military Pattern 4x4 chassis so it would be more capable during filming in the sandy conditions. These Austin Ambulances were known as Katies which is fairly obvious reading the K2/Y definition

Nice to know the name has some heritage as an ambulance. Harry Andrews claims in that film "Katy weighs two tons!" whereas the actual weight of the K2 exceeded three tons. Nice to know ours is a bit lighter


If you want to see the actual Ambulance used in that film it's in the hands of the Ambulance Heritage Society

As this is a Land Rover Blog this screen-grab I have found from the film shows a classic continuity error that a Series I Land Rover is parked up in the closing few seconds of the film. In the foreground is Anthony Quayle - a Lancastrian of Manx Heritage playing a German posing as a South African ...

If you want to see the Land Rover in moving pictures look at the last 15 seconds of this (about 7:13) HERE

Its been too Long

It's been way too long since I had a Katy adventure and even longer since I wrote about it 

The reason - work, more work, oh and work! so today as things were going well and the team had everything under control and didn't need me I took a day off (well most of it had calls and emails to make) 

So a day to explore my 3 favourite things (after the wife of course) 

1. Land Rovers

We found the RAMC parked up .. asleep they were (bless) so we didn't wake them. We were spotted taking this picture by one of the army guys in another picture, but as soon as he saw what I was driving he was really cool about it and wanted to inspect my "old bus". Not up to Army standards of maintenance sorry 

A few minutes later when we were parked up for me to put my boots on the ambulance came up to see us and I had a wonderful chat with the driver who was really appreciative of the efforts to keep one of their old vehicles on the road.

The extra 8" width and over cab storage combined with the "Wolf" air vents in the wings do make quite an impression compared to the rounded look to Katy. I hate to say it, but the Army do a better job of cleaning their vehicles

2. Walking up a decent hill 

A really nice start to the walk which went quite well until I hit the cloud base. Actually I went up into it for a while, before dropping back down for these pictures

3, Photography 

Enough said. Just enjoy some pictures sorry no Land Rovers in the rest

Cracking Scenery Gromit !

if you want to see more of these hills they are here 

Caving Conference

Sometimes Katy is just a camper van

Sometimes she misbehaves, sometimes I make bad decisions

I have excepted this from a letter I had published in Decent Magazine 

Hidden Earth was quite an adventure this year which started well in Cardiff, but a faulty headlight caused us to stop in the services and then the Landy failed to start again so we had to sort out the electrics (good old British Engineering) and  arrived really late just as the Bar closed L

Having found somewhere quiet to park (more later) we had a wonderful restful night and were up early to start enjoying the event properly and how enjoyable a conference it was this year. 

...

Regarding unfortunate turns of events we found that our quiet parking place on Friday was next to the Stomp on Saturday, so no point in going early to bed and we were “forced” to hang around in the bar until closing time. 

Still best regards to the BEC who got a “BEC get everywhere” sticker right on the top whilst we were sleeping (I think). Just one thing I plan a re-spray, so can someone send me another to put back when I’ve done that.

...

And finally I’d like to thank all who worked on conference to give us such a nice weekend and also to those who had to get out of the way when we left and had to watch my 3 point turn in a large Land Rover ambulance in a cramped car park. 

We’d decided to head off in the daylight given the fun on the way up and I know caused quite some entertainment 

Security upgrade

Many people have told me that having the bonnet just held closed by 2 springs was not a good idea so I drilled through the bonnet and inner wings and fitted 2 key operated bonnet catches

OK they are not fancy, but a visible and practical deterrent

Undercover Land Rovers

When I went with the SWLRC to Gaydon last year we saw lots of strangely coloured vehicles 

Out today I spotted one near home 

all the driver (who did not want to be in the pictures) would say is "I am German and I can tell you nothing about this car"

Definitely taped on body kit in the pictures

it is clearly vinyl wrapped, but definitively some of the body kit was held on with with duck tape and then vinyl over the top some of it was coming loose which I think is why he had stopped