FridgeFreezer

Flippin' eck - going from your sig you're half way to having an MV for each day of the month! :clap:

Rubbish! Only joking, very smart. I hate bodywork with a passion so anyone who can make a good job of it gets my vote.

It looks a lot like they've taken very good care of it, then again I am a stranger to originality so chances are they've totally ruined it:???

I'd recommend getting over to http://www.LR4x4.com and asking about there, a lot of very helpful & knowledgeable people on there. I'm on there too, but you can't have everything :rofl: Fun fact: Lightweights are heavier than normal Land Rovers, they are only lighter when you dismantle them for transport.

Paul - I think you're a little confused Land Rovers have (relatively) low capacity electrical systems as they do not have any of the electronic luxuries of "normal" cars. 35-50 amp alternators are common (compare with 90A for a Ford Mondeo and 140A for a BMW with all the gadgets). Winches are usually powered from a mechanical power take-off, either directly or via a hydraulic system. Aftermarket electrical winches are just that - aftermarket. All the guys who run electric winches in competition have 2 or 3 batteries, bigger alternators (and sometimes multliple alternators), split charge systems, 12 & 24v systems, etc. with twin-motor winches drawing upwards of 1000A on full load (which no alternator will keep up with for very long). It's entirely possible to overload a LR alternator by bolting on a few extra spotlights. Happily it's usually relatively easy to make a bigger alternator fit, but you do need to uprate the charge wire & any associated wiring to avoid melting it.

Well since no-one else has replied I'll stick my totally ignorant oar in and say the best bet is to phone the DVLA, HMRC, VOSA and the VCA and explain it to them and ask what they need to see. The answers I've had from them about a '70s truck were: DVLA: Just write whatever you can be bothered to on the V55/5. HMRC: If it's coming from inside the EU we very much doubt there'd be anything to pay. VOSA: As long as it has the rating plate on it somewhere, just put it in for the relevant MOT. VCA: It's too old for us to care about. If it's armour it may be a bit trickier, maybe make sure you emphasize things like "deactivated" or "no longer in service" - with all these agencies they will revert to certain answers once out of their comfort zone so you need to steer the conversation slightly through the minefield of their ignorance. If possible, get the names of people you speak to, or even better record the conversations.

VWP sell blade fuse holders which almost directly replace the horrid glass ones, I can highly recommend that as an upgrade. As for a stereo - always fit a fuse! Preferably as close to the battery/source feed as possible, or find a spare slot in the main fusebox. TonyB is right though, you'll need a hell of a stereo to drown out a Land Rover, and the first time it gets muddy or wet you may let the smoke out of it anyway, or the buttons will stop working, or the CD drive will be full of dust... The most effective stereo install I've seen was a mate's Camel 110 which had a head unit inside the centre cubby box and then slim household column speakers cable-tied to the top of the rollcage bar in the boot. They tucked in nicely out of harm's way and because there were 4 of them they really kicked out the jams. Until he sunk it windscreen deep and blew the head unit up of course. Roll cages also give you somewhere to hang the glitterball.

I know nuffink about nuffink - but if you want discrete lighting then LED's can be fitted into all sorts of places taking very little space and using very tiny wires. You can truck them inside existing lights or hide them behind grilles, in panel gaps, behind glass, all sorts really. Either individual LED's or "proper" automotive / emergency vehicle lighting units.

As per this thread I'm on the hunt for something to raise the gearing on a potential purchase. Ideally as an inline unit in the propshaft between engine & box. A friend suggested copying Charlie Boomfield's Merlin-engined Rover SD1 and using a Leyland splitter. I've googled 'till I'm cross-eyed but apart from lots of pictures of coaches I can't find any info on these splitters other than "they were fitted to a lot of Leyland stuff" such as Hippos:readbook: The info that I'm after is: - What does one of these things look like? - What are the ratios? - Will it live behind a 17l diesel? - Where might I find one and are spares available? All help greatly appreciated.

Another idea that cropped up today is a Leyland "aux box" as fitted to Leopard coaches and, if the internet is to be believed, a lot of other Leyland trucks. Also as used by Charlie Broomfield on his Merlin-engined Rover SD1 to up the rpm/drop the torque. Can't find any info on the actual boxes (only that they exist) so does anyone know more?

Hence my suggestion of gutting the solar lamps - an LED is a very small thing to find a home for, you could probably mount he solar gubbins externally and shove the LED on some flyleads into the existing lamp cluster.

The picture is a bit small but the bolt heads are 9 pixels and the dimension you're after is 152 (ish) pixels so it's 16.88888888x bigger than whatever the bolt heads are. I'd assume they're metric and hence a common size? I'm sure that's no help whatsoever, but hey ho!

If you need something that is independent of the vehicle battery, can be fitted/removed easily and come on automatically what about solar garden lights? They come in different colours, don't cost much, and are self-contained. The more cunning among us could transplant the internals into something a bit more suitable / inkeeping perhaps?

I can just imagine the faint crackle of static over the timeless melody of Dizzee Rascal drifting out of the cab :idea:

One of my esteemed colleagues has pointed out that transfer boxes live after the gearbox and as such will see engine torque multiplied by the gearbox ratios (eg 250nm through a 4:1 1st gear = 1000nm, give or take) so putting one on the back of the engine before the gearbox you should be able to get away with something quite small. Suggestions from him were Mercedes G-Wagen (full synchromesh, unburstable by all accounts) and Suzuki SJ :shocked: which are well known for being almost insanely strong for a car with a bee in a biscuit tin as an engine. It's tempting to try the SJ version for the sheer perversion of bolting one behind a 17 litre V12 diesel :rofl:

This could go on a while... OK, anyone know the ratios & torque handling of one of those? :readbook: I'm much better at useless Land Rover trivia, honest! :coffee:

Only a lot :tup:: Looks like a transfer case from something a bit bigger may be the order of play though. Cheers guys.

Thanks NOS, I suspected the MJ box might not be up to it. What I could do with is a splitter from something that can be easily separated from the main box. Unfortunately I'm relatively new to all this HGV gubbins so have no familiarity with the various bits & bobbins that are out there. Although pushing the Tatra beyond its natural speed limit may be a bit cheeky, they are designed to tow 100 tonnes so I would hope that lightly loaded it would cope with a bit of extra gearing. I only really want to hit 100kph (current max is 80-85kph) to keep up with the crowd.

Bear with me, this is probably a daft idea but here goes... I'm looking at a Tatra which is a great truck but a bit slow, so trying to work out ways of upping the gearing. The idea has occurred to add a splitter between engine & gearbox (they are divorced with a propshaft in between), and rooting around eBay I've found MJ transfer cases for sale which are also divorced from the main box. A plan is forming So - can anyone tell me about the transfer case? How it works (does it have a differential, viscous coupling, or straight old dog clutch), what the ratios are for high & low range, and perhaps most importantly how strong they are. The Tatra is 250hp / 1000nm, not bad but not outlandish by modern standards. Any ideas for other ways of doing this would also be appreciated, I'm probably missing something much more sensible :???

No longer required.

I'd have thought that would be a good starting point for taking a running jump at a price. OK a replica isn't genuine, but on the plus side it may well turn out to be more practical / usable. What that translates to in +/- value is anyone's guess.

Contact details: http://www.applegate.co.uk/company/12/68/625.htm The second site is more small bits & bobs - tools, equipment, surplus gear. The main site is proper heavy scrap stuff.

Ugly can be beautiful - but let's face it, it's not exactly an Aston Martin is it? :whistle: If you are interested I think they have some or all of the bits to tug aircraft around the place. There's also a frickin' massive winch (still welded into a section of chassis from something, NATO hitch and all!) which could be handy on a wrecker. They were cutting up a couple of tanks too, no idea what they were (my skills are weak) but the more intact one had the engine still in it (looked like a turbo diesel), both had all the wheels & sprockets & tracks.

Since I was wandering round with dolly, here's some photomagraphical records of our adventures this morning: Lots of tank wheels (there are some pallets of intact/new ones visible later on, they've got stacks of them) Not sure what this is the back end of but the axles are BIG toploaders. An actual STEAM roller in need of a polish: Looks like the front half of something that was NATO green; It's got 6 wheels and it's ugly: It's got 4 wheels and is really, really ugly: Old Bedford, very ratty round the cab but looks like everything's there: A big Petrol lump out of something, it's got a Rolls Royce sticker on it. Assorted stuff including a beige Morris Marina (mmmmm) and in the background stacks of new tank wheels: Big scammel, looks in good condition (in fact looks like it drove in there): Bridge laying thing, you won't lose it in a multi-storey car park:

We looked into this in the LR club, you do have to be a little bit careful about listing the names & addresses of everyone especially if they have something rare &/or expensive parked at their house.