bishbosh

Surely the local contact stresses where the splines interlace will cause a localised yielding that propagates until failure occurs. That is what seems to have happened in the photos Nige has posted. Of course, there may even be an element of fatigue in the splines that accelerates the failure...........

Err, I think (and I may be wrong, it has been known ) that the tie road (or track rod) has RH threads at both ends on the standard RR bar as the adjuster is built into the bar...... The first time I bought LH threads was when I fitted a Sumo bar that uses the TRE's for tracking.

Was that before I after you had me dragged backwards through that bank at Slindon.... I think that'll be the way I'll be heading unless I can get some seriously cheap spares at Sodbury.... we shall see.

Interesting idea....... althoug I don't like the idea of indicators inboard of the lights - just doesn't seem right but it would make them relatively safe.......... I wondier if there's room.... Now that's just daft..... or is it, maybe some forward facing surface mount units like they put on artic truck roofs....

Teeny problem with that Diff me old fruit - Lesmond drives a truck cab!!!

As long as it isn't baby blue all over who cares...!!! Just kidding Les - you are going to get a V8 now aren't you?

Mine's 15" For all the reasons you quote - useable space (fuel tank and spare take up loads of room) and keeping the rear lights. Hey Nick - (Rogue Vogue) - where did you get your fuel filler from? Particularly theinclined mount to let into the bodywork? I need one to fix a slow filling problem I have.

OK, so there I was in the garage looking for my panel fettling stick and I came across an old mud flap lying about in a corner. The panel work was required as I managed to smash both my indicator / sidelight clusters at Bampton and in the process separated the wing skin from the front bit wotsit. (aren't pop rivets marvelous! ) Anyhow, I digress - this is not the first time I have smashed the light clusters on the rangie and I now have to wait for Old Sodbury to (hopefully) pick up some spares on the cheap. I had been mulling over putting an ali skin over the hole left by the rangie lights and sticking on some Landy ones as they're cheaper to replace but decided against it would still leave me with lights that were vulnerable. The mud flap gave me the idea to fit a piece of stiff rubber around the corner and fit some low profile light units like these into the rubber perhaps with an ali backing strip: That way, if ( more like when the way I drive! ) I clout them the rubber would give and prevent the lights smashing. I know it's not exactly going to look like it came out of the show room, but it could remove a fair bit of buggeration in the future. Does anyone know if I'd have problems at the MOT? They're not directional lights like the headlights but I don't know if there are any peculiar rules requiring them to be fitted to "rigid" bodywork? When you've all stopped laughing you can tell me what you think!

My surname's Bishop and I'm often called "Bish" (amongst other things! ) from there it degenerates to Bish -bosh - simple really! As for the "loads of dosh" moniker I haven't a clue where that came from , certainly isn't true (unless SWMBO isn't telling me something... )

One of the best ways of strengthening your track rod is to provide some restraint at midpoint to effectively halve the length over which it is bent (not precisely true for the pedants out there, but you get the idea!! ) The QT diff guard does just that and when coupled with a Sumo bar or similar provides a pretty robust solution. As stated before, solid bar is stronger than tube for the same OD and I would advocate sticking to a circular cross section to maintain strength in all directions - don't forget the track rod can take some pretty large axial loads in compression so an asymetric section will leave you open to buckling about the minor axes.

I have had Trac Edges, Goodyear MTRs and now Macho's on my Rangie. My comments are as follows: Trac Edges - hard wearing, reasonably quiet on road, only average off road. No on road "moments" at all (even in several Montreal winters!) Goodyear MTR - very quiet on road. So much as to be un noticeable over road bias tyres IMHO with no behavioural problems. Probably explains why they were so poor off road. Clogged easily in mud and seemed very prone to cutting up. Durawall sidewall technology wasn't up to much as I cut one of my sidewalls deeply in a pretty innocuous situation. I reckon they are more of an aggressive AT than a real MT. Greenway Machos - Excellent off road - self clean brilliantly and keep on gripping (especially with lots of loud pedal to clean the tread! B) ) I followed 35" Simex all round Slindon and only really struggled in deep ruts. (I run 235 x 85 on the RR) On road they seem fine although as the Rangie is lifted without castor correction I tend to drive like a bit of a grannie these days to make sure I only use one lane at a time!! Not due to the tyres, it was the same with the MTR's. If you drive like you stole it then you may have some interesting moments, but I have done several long road trips in wet and dry with no problems at all. IMHO for less than £50 a corner fitted, there is little out there to challenge it.

Seconded. And the wotsit that shows how many replies on each thread are new since your last visit. (Pretty please.... )

I don't doubt it, but none of the other copies are as good as the winches they are based on yet they are extremely popular because of the price point.

Having read several threads on various fora about T-max and Come Up etc, I started to wonder why nobody (to my knowledge anyhow ) has tried to copy the M8274 from Warn. Considering its deified status in the Challenge arena it would seem to me to be the obvious target for a bit of blatant copying. Is it because it is less appealing to the masses due to its form factor? Surely with the number of bumpers available for it that shouldn't be a propblem. Most people are put off by the high cost. Answers on a postcard please!

I moved from photo island when it folded to image cave. No problems so far and they give you 10MB of space too.

I have a viscous centre diff and rather than needing spped to lock up, it is pretty locked up to start with - with a wheel off the ground it takes a lot of effort to turn it. I have been stuck (who me ) with the car in gear and no forward motion or throttle and a wheel on each axle is turning. Land Rover wouldn't have fitted them if they didn't work! I reckon they are great - no need to remember to lock the centre diff and no risk of it jumping out of diff lock either.

Actually, on that topic - I heard on the radio today that one of the GCSE exam boards was awarding C grades on the maths paper for a mark of 16% !!!!!! No wonder my graduates can barely count their dinner money!!

Just got to this thread. I suppose you must have done GCSE's then Si (White)? Not real exams!!! Coat on (borrowed from Nige) and running for me tin hat!

Unfortunately I shall not be attending this time round. First one I've missed and I'm not happy Enjoy and make sure you take lots of piccies!

I have Ian's (Bull Bar Cowboy's) design of twin fans switched through a two stage temp sensor mounted in the top hose. You get half speed at the lowert temp and full speed at the upper temp with manual cut off for wading. The sensors are about a tenner each and all you need is to braze a fitting up to fit into the top hose I have a word doc somewhere with the wiring diagram and description......... I'll see if I can dig it out as Ian said he was more than happy for the wealth to be shared! The fans I have came from a V6 mondeo with aircon and fit the RR radiator perfectly.

With my HUGE amount of (in)experience I would actually disagree with Tony on the "try it without" approach. I tend to err on the side of caution and put the rear locker in if I have the slightest concern (most of the time ) about not making it through / up / over the obstacle. As I see it its a case of "I've got it so might as well use it" rather than risk getting stuck (even) more frequently than I already do!!! Don't have a front locker so can't comment other than to say that most of the people I know are paranoid about trashing their CV's so rarely use the front locker anyway...

Dave at Southdown is your man. He can build you one with or without a winch mount and with whatever recovery eyes / pins you want. All for a decent price too. Examples: With no winch mount: With winch mount and a side on view to show how it doesn't affect approach angle. Alternatively, you can get an ARB bull / brush bar. Looks good and protects the front end of the vehicle well, but sticks out a mile, is expensive and has weak recovery points IMHO. There are plenty of off the shelf types available too from the guys in the mags, but IMHO they don't look as smart as the Southdown one. You could also not go far wrong talking to Devon 4x4 HERE Hope this helps, Bish.

Cripes Mark! You must have gone and bought a bone-a-fyd-e Land Rover measuring stick to get that kind of correlation between near side and off side! Go out and check it again with a B&Q tape measure! Either that or you measured the same side twice........

Thanks for the replies guys. As I get no smoke with throttle and grey smoke only on hard over run (i.e closed throttle with 3k rpm) am I right to conclude that the consensus of the panel is valve stem seals?