David_LLAMA4x4

Or save even more money by using OEM bushes and not wasting time and money on any brand of poly!!!! Just the opinion of a very biased person who dislikes every brand of poly bush he has yet set eyes on!!! IMHO they do not work properly ( offroad ) and knacker the other bits they come into contact with. David

I'll jave a dig for his number - nice stuff, fueltanks aswell, made as the originals rather than any new. improved type that isn;t right for the job. David

Can't find his number right now but a chap called Andrew Morris from Derby makes new ones as per the original drawings about £500 I think.... David

People write on these forums what is topical to them.... I suppose as much of my 4x4 is work rather than play this will be reflected in my experiences. Can I also make clear that I am a LR enthusiast who happens to own a computer. I am not a computer freak who happens to own a LR!! If this means that sometimes I drift away from PC etiquette then I apologise to thoose it offends but maintain it was by the nature of what I write, not an effort to wind up those more concerned with their PC than their LR. Having re-read the original post I need to make it clear that the one incident I write of specifically was just the push to write, not the whole event. I am not having a go personally at anyone involved with Max traction, more the practice of these silly claims. The one related reply so far has taken the argument the right way though by expanding it to other incidents involving other businesses. David

Just read with a slight chuckle but also with a little niggle an article in the LRM that came out just this weekend.... Ir is the one about the fitting of the Max traction kit that refers to 'their new shocks' that are specifically valved for them and brought in to them direct from the States. So, as in the title, why do companies do this? Is it to make themselves sound more impressive? Is it to hide the origin of their product for fear of the customer going direct? Why do they do it 'cause thay always end up looking silly in the end.... The shocks are my new Rough Country ones. They are valved specifically for Land Rover vehicles at my request not that of any other, and they were delivered direct to them from the States via Mid Wales!! I openly admit that the suspension bracketry is mainly from Gwyn Lewis, the packers I sell are from Mill Services, etc. I see no need to hide these facts. I sell at the same price as them so there is no need to go direct to them for a better buy.... Likewise i can tell you the names of all the traders who sell my hoses and now Shock absorbers.... I don't really know why I moan as the sale will come to me anyway but why can;t we ( the trade ) all sort this out? I sell their stuff at their price, they sell my stuff at the same price as me and we live off the profit we give each other as trade discount without all this silly ' exclusive to me' pants which just comes back to bite you on the bum!! And if Editors were actually aware of their market place and products might they be able to edit these silly calims out of our hobby / job? Just a pointless rant really but it is a topic that just annoys me! David

Why has this appeared twice??? David

Mill Services manufacture the spacers I sell - and i supply the hoses and shocks he sells, so it works out nicely. It does concern me slightly that so few people who fit them don't address the length of the rear shocks though: Unless the springs you have on have seriously 'settled' then to add another 2" does mean you have very little droop left in the shock from its normal extension at normal ride height. This potentially very dangerous - as the body rolls around a long bend ( or a short sharp one ) if there is not enough droop left in the length of the shock to let it the weight of the rolling body will start to lift weight off the inside wheels and the car will skate sideways off the road and land on its roof in a lovely little orchard next to a quaint cottage ( ask Paul in our crowd of froends ). The rest of the weekend will then be spent waiting for your daughter to be let out of hospital! Spacers are a very good, quick lift. AND probably far more reliable than a set of bright coloured springs that don't really work properly. BUT they are really part of the job and not the whole job in themselves David

Mill Services manufacture the spacers I sell - and i supply the hoses and shocks he sells, so it works out nicely. It does concern me slightly that so few people who fit them don't address the length of the rear shocks though: Unless the springs you have on have seriously 'settled' then to add another 2" does mean you have very little droop left in the shock from its normal extension at normal ride height. This potentially very dangerous - as the body rolls around a long bend ( or a short sharp one ) if there is not enough droop left in the length of the shock to let it the weight of the rolling body will start to lift weight off the inside wheels and the car will skate sideways off the road and land on its roof in a lovely little orchard next to a quaint cottage ( ask Paul in our crowd of froends ). The rest of the weekend will then be spent waiting for your daughter to be let out of hospital! Spacers are a very good, quick lift. AND probably far more reliable than a set of bright coloured springs that don't really work properly. BUT they are really part of the job and not the whole job in themselves David

I am a bit biased to offer any advice I suppose but if you fit the 2" spacers you really need to check ( and I would suggest you will need ) some longer rear shocks or drop plates and some longer front brake hoses...... David

I supply them in all sorts of sizes from throttle cables toi pish control cables.... Length overall, requitred length of travel in which direction, what ends and what strength are the sort of criteria needed to make up a cable... How flexible will it need to be? And what environment ( heat / dirt etc ) Usual applications I supply are small for throttle / clutch getting bigger for gear change paddles... that sort of stuff David

I need to be careful that I don't put my salesman hat on jere but here are my obsevations... Not a big fan of their springs.... I would supply you OME or a mix and match of LR ones to achieve the lift. Or maybe use packers? With +2" shocks there is no need for the extended bumpstops , these shocks will compress enough to just about use the std ones. Again, depending on what springs you use the fronts will probably not dislocate with +2" shcks so no need to buy the front cones either. The brake hoses are probably only 2" longer which is not enough on the front as at full cross articulation the downside end will go down by much more than just the 2". The hoses need to ne longer than in the kit. All in all a lot of ( wrong ) kit for not much money but handpicking the individual parts you actually need might not save too much over that price but would give you a much better setup. Oh and IMHO Rough Country shocks are performing much better than the ProComp! David

I wish I could retire! bugger off up the Pyrenees and only come down for new supplies. Chance would be a fine thing - she keeps finding me jobs to do!! Must be nice to be a Wolves fan - living inthat lovely world of hope and optimism that one day you'll beat us David See you there.....

Don't need a lift but please call by the stand and say hello - I am at last able to exhibit there myself for the first time. Now I've sold it to TOR they van have the job of organing and I can enjoy the show! David

Use JIC if you can - it is altogether a bit more car and not quite such industrial size, overweight fittings.... David

Very easy to do.... I don't as such have an 'off the shelf' kit in stock but I certainly have all the bits you would need so it would be easy to put into a box...... You really only need a 13 or maybe a 16 row cooler, any bigger and the oil would never get warm.... adds to the price a bit but an inline thernostat is well worth it for a road vehicle. Look at my motorsport plumbing webpage for a clue as to the sort of stuff you might need. Don't go the crappy bit of garden hose with jubilee clips route - proper swaged hoses need not be too expensive and are simply the only wau worth considering Hope that helps a bit David

Did you do the Panhard rod bushes at the same time? Could be them How much have the new springs lifted it by without the weight of the winch - enough to show up in the propshaft? Just a couple more things to check for.... David

As long as i know sho will out until the cycle has finished I have iften used the dishwasher to clean master / slave cylinders and they come up a treat! I can also recommend the washing machine ( no detergent this time ) for all your tow ropes etc. they come out gleaming but for God's sake take all the shackles off first! A good friend now uses contract overalls for the blokes in the factory ever since the big washing machine they had aquired a drum shaped like a 50p one evening. Oh how we still tease him David

Just stick a 13 row cooler in the return from box to res. hose... and while you are on put a remote oil filter head inline as well and the components will all last longer!" Any hydraulic system that has to earn a living has a filter in the system so why not give this benefit to your steering? It is amazing how red the fluid stays without developing that ';metallic; sheen to it when a filter is used to catch all the little bits of metal in the sytem... David

It has been a long time now ( 15 years )since we sold our family business and got out of mobile crane hire but even back then the Health and Safety rules were getting harder and harder to abide by if you wanted to complete a job! Having said that a lot ( most ? ) of their rules are in place for a good reason 1 death or injury in a workplace is too many. What, I am sure, has added to these accidents is that cranes today are made to a spec and no more - the older cranes were made with a much bigger 'overlifting' factor engineered in and so did leave themselves open to abuse but ccould also stand a bit of misuse occasionally. In my day lifting was rated at a 5:1 ration ( IIRC ) and things used for lifting had to be rated for lifting ie. you couldn't put a line pull vertically and call it a lift, you had to start with a lifting device. There was some talk aswell of making any 'pull' up a more than 20 degree slope becoming a lift with all of its implications!! Making an offroad recovery legally a lift! Whilst this is an AT WORK thing you need to remember some recreational offroaders are actually at work!! The organiser of a fun day is at work. so is a person charging for instruction, and so ( slightly grey ) is a volunteer marshall who has undertaken a responsibility and a duty of care commitment. To be honest most of what we do could come under HSE juristiction if they wanted it to so the best thing we can do is keep them out of the sport by making sure we do things properl ourselves 'cos if they get involved the losing of green lanes and available sites will be irrelaveny compared to how quick they stop the fun! David

Or just go all the way from the one bracket up the radius arm and back down the chassis to the original bracket in braid - costs less than £20 per hose I suppose and means that it remains a bolt on fit with no modifications to the car. This means that if all goes pear shaped you could put a std one back on just to get you home.. QT Services have them like this for their 3 link kit.... David

Many thanks for posting the plug on the Forum for me!!! Or as posted above buy them from Tomcat with pleasure ( I supply them anyway! ). Or Gwyn Lewis, Qt Services, Innovation 4x4, Gon 2 Far, Specialist Leisure, Bullfrog 4x4, Max Traction and a whole host of others..... David

If you are prepared to cross over into the Spanish Pyrenees then I can help you with stuff - I used to work out there for a few weeks each summer running 4x4 holidayd to the val d'Aran region and still keep in touch with friends I made out there all those years ago ( before wife and kids! ). My visits there are now restricted to a couple of weeks each year with th family calling in on ( and eating / drinking with ) old friends. Brace yourself for not a word of English though apart from the few Spanish tourists from barca or the Dutch people who always speak better English than us!! David

[ Don't start me on my magazine rant for God's dake!!! They are ( mainly ) full of very empty promises verging on theft on occasion!!( OK they get out of jail free by saying that it is a contributor and not a member of staff.... They deny knowing things they know to avoid printing them and they promise all sorts but produce ltttle of it. I have had a couple of direct 'issues' with the mags and most of it boils down to the fact I don't spend enough advertising with them to get anything... I know they have to run a business and look after their clients so why not drop the 'voice of the people' laugh and admit to being a single topic Yellow Pages. I once organised a factory vist to a British Parabolic Spring company ( can you guess which one? ) and in return I was promised that ( with the factory permission ) I would be given as the contact if you wanted a set.... we even agreed pretty much on what the wording should be. When it was printed the pictures were there and the text was there but I was not mentioned at all and the contact was given as the factory number direct! What in the (LR ) World did this editor do that for?? Another one worth a giggle is when I was organiser of the British Indoor 4x4 Show at Donington Park ( now sold on to TOR mag but still agood show).. Every year I would send the press release to a magazine aimed at Land Rover Owners. Every month when it didn't appear I would phone and ask why. Every time they said that they knew nothing of it nut if I gave them some info they would do a press release... This would happen every month until it was too late.... Then evry time ( 4 or 5 years ) they would phone up asking where their PressPasses were : Each time I would have to point out that their passes were like my publicity - I knew nothing about it! David

Total agreement, throughout David

The argument will rage on about the build or buy I'm sure. There are however simple reasons to build or buy depending on ability and facility. I am glad there are people out there who do buy as it keeps me in business! And IMHO I don't sell anything on the 'Bling' front as suggested in an earlier post.... I choose to sell stuff that can actually make a difference. There are also some people out there who make great stuff out of bits they have lying around and all credit is due to them. There is a lot of stuff that is home made that simply doesn't work! Like there is a whole load of stuff out there you can buy that doesn't work! What intrigues me ( leave the mate who started the whole thing behind now ) is what brings some people to buy the carp they do? We all know that it is their right and god forbid the choice of freedom is ever taken away ( though Tony / Gordon are trying ) but what drives these people to buy stuff that simply has no use on their car? The two Escort drivers both won in their own class!! Both of them did mods to their cars that improved the performance. Now if one of them had spent £150 on a spoiler designed to not effect the airflow over car ( cosmetic ) and fitted it to a car that did not go fast enough to really have aerodynim issues... What made him buy that spoiler? Is he pretending it makes him go faster? To himself? To others? Why??? David