Hollywood500

It depends what you’re going to use it for most, if you’re going to mainly be transporting Land Rovers over a decent distance (for me anything over 30-40 miles) then a decent sized transporter trailer would be best. No point in getting something so universal it’s carp at all jobs. I started with a 16foot dropside tandem but it was a pain in the arse to load, pain in the arse to strap vehicles to and didn’t necessarily feel the safest or the most relaxing to tow. After considering what my main requirements actually are I’ve since swapped to an 18ft Bateson tilt bed tri axle and it’s the best thing I’ve done. It’s happy at speed and max weight, and is a lot easier to strap vehicles to. Ironically I’ve not struggled without the dropsides, you just learn to get good with the straps! Tri axles for me give a bit of extra reassurance if a tyre were to go especially when loaded right up, but they do like to push the tow vehicle around a bit in corners so a decent sized tow vehicle comes in handy. Just 6 sets of everything to replace unfortunately.

I’m just about to list my 1949 TED20 for sale - bought back in feb with the intention of a light resto and then a summer of shows but I just haven’t got round to doing anything with it other than sorting it out mechanically when I first got it. As others have said they are very basic and if you want to do any proper work you want something like a 135 really. If you just want the ‘original’ tractor as a toy and ornament then you can’t beat a grey fergie! Only pic I’ve got of mine is when I first picked it up looking a bit sad

Well over 250,000 miles here across 4 different vehicles all tuned by Alive with not a single issue that was related to the tuning or added stress caused by the tuning. Wouldn’t hesitate to have any and every vehicle I own optimised by them, improvements in driveability alone are more than worth it and the mpg improvement especially over the miles I do soon pay for the work.

I do a bit moving these boxes around and they aren’t fun to shift, hard work on the truck at speed due to the wind drag as mentioned above. If you are set on going down the box route I’d pay consideration to some aero type mods for the front just to help it along or you may find it to be just too hard work on the road at speed. This was my setup for a run to Southampton today, trailer just under a ton empty and the box with fridge around 700kgs. Downwards trip with the box on was 14mpg at 55mph and wouldn’t pull 6th gear. Any higher speed just felt like too much strain as you were really thrashing it to hold speed, absolutely no issue off the mark upto 40mph then you felt the drag. My D3 is a manual and played with by Alive so isn’t short on go, normally sees 21/22mpg at 60mph+ loaded to max capacity with a more aerodynamic load.

It seems I may be the only one with this opinion but to me a 2 poster is far more versatile than a 4 poster. Gives a lot more access to the vehicle especially suspension and brakes as leaning into the wheel wells over the bed of a 4 poster always did my back in. I think you really need to consider what work you are realistically going to be doing the most on what vehicles and plan around that. A 4 poster would be lovely for transmission jobs on defenders day in day out but if what you actually end up doing more than anything is lifting bodies off Discovery 3s/4s or brakes on your friends hatchbacks (who are going to come out of the woodwork when you have a nice workspace with lift 😂) then a 4 poster is going to be as welcome as a fart in a space suit.

The vehicle application exhaust silencers have a condensate hole in the bottom which was probably a large contributor, the marine application exhausts are usually a one piece affair with no drains and you’re meant to use exhaust paste at any joints. Speaking as a Webasto and Eberspacher dealer, please please please always use a good working carbon monoxide alarm if you’re going to sleep with the things.