Chris Abel
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Posts posted by Chris Abel
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Winch choice is horses for courses. Diesel vs Petrol, ARB's vs Detroits, soft springs vs hard springs..... Life would be very boring if everyone did the same things.
From everything I've seen I think electric winches have still got a fair bit of life left in them. I hope so, at least, otherwise my truck will be out of date before its even finished
I got a copy of the Croatia 2007 Trophy in the post yesterday and obviously that was the first thing i watched when i got home!
Anyway there were quite a few trucks using mechanical winches and i have to say they were awesome on the long pulls! There was one orange truck on mog axles with tractor tyres that had one of these mechanical winches, i was surprised that he was nearly stalling his engine at one point (I’m guessing the winch was too highly geared) and he resorted to using the additional 8274 on the front.Has anyone used a mechanical winch successfully on the uk challenge scene?
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Been watching LR4x4 forum for a while but never got around to writing. I only saw a few pictures of me but none with the new winches in action, perhaps we were too quick for the camera shutter speed?
The winches are great and if i can't break them that says alot, noone however noticed the new plasma wasn't standard! Its got a breaking strain of nearly 12tons! and plenty of it.
Before I get a barrage of questions we are considering selling them but need to see what prices we can get for the bits to make them competitive.
All this talk about hydro winches.....
The top 5 at the weekend all had 8274's and the top 3 were gigglepin twin motors, ive yet to be convinced.
However the new winch does look nice, but does it perform as well as it looks? I did notice the rope, ive seen that before on a 110 in france 2 weeks ago, who's the rope made by?
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was it this section chris http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=rqP9D7QysVY hope the link works not to good at this
Thats it!
I did not want to run the risk of rolling the truck in the water, we abandoned that punch and went and found a few more easier ones. 
Rob Tunner's truck was going well on that special considering it was his first time out getting used to the truck, i think with a bit more time behind the wheel he will be hard to beat with the 4 wheel steer on the tight specials.
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I bet you wished you had an 8274 at the weekend
Where did the drum crack? did it brake anything else when it broke, if not cant you just weld it up?
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Big thanks to the AWDC and marshals for organising a great weekend, the layout of the punches were spot on. Thanks to challenger 4x4 for supplying us with Hot drinks and shelter from the rain over the weekend. It was the first time for me at Slab so i had no idea of what to expect, I was a bit sceptical as to how well the truck would perform with the latest addition of mods along with the fact that Adrian and i were Trying out a new set of +40% gear ratio's for the Gigglepin twin-motor top housing. However it all worked in our favour, the truck and winches performed faultlessly all day.
Can’t remember the number of the punch, but did anyone get the one that involved driving through 4ft of water on a 45degree angle? I bottled it halfway when the water was halfway up the steering wheel and winched back out!
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As others have said the standard 4.6 is a superb motor - very quick at no load. The XP is also superb; they pull well, are cheap enough and easily available. I've got 7.8 hp motors to go on my winches but I'll go back to XP's if I have any issues.
It wont take long for those 7.8's to fry themselves! thats when / if you get the truck out the shed
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I'll be there all weekend, apparently I've got to take pictures of you lot so try not to swear at me too much when you're waist deep in bog water...
Hope you got one of those waterproof camera's, you might need it
I haven't touched the truck since i cleaned it after france, i was going to make a new dash and rewire but ended up putting up fencing for horses all weekend
Might get out into the workshop tonight and fit some rubber arches, 6" of bogger poking out past the bodywork is not a good thing in the mud
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Whats happend to Chris & Nick Bolt? I thought they would be back again this year.
Ive cleaned my truck, just got to strip the old wiring loom out and make a new one other than that im ready
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Some of the military wolf XD's have twin alternators, run off a serpentine belt using a mixture of AC and specific pullies. the belt is quite narrow (can't remember if it's 5 or 7 groove) and they work fine.
i fitted a similar system to my 300Tdi 90, using a 130amp alternator, with a pretty small pulley (only because that;s what i had kicking around) and it never suffered from slip at all.
obviously the 200 uses a V belt, but i also ran twin alternators on my old 200 and that worked fine as well.
If you're really worried, you could graft on the twin pullies like the military 2.5 diesels and the series 3's used.
The most obvious option is to change the 200tdi's V pullys to 300 tdi multi groove and modify the belt tensioner to fit. but its quite alot of work and if i can get away with running a 80 amp 24V alternator on a 13mm V belt that would be far easier!
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I want to fit a 80amp 24v alternator to my 200 tdi and running off the aircon belt, I know that the standard alternator uses 10mm belts and can't cope with 100 amp 12v alternators under heavy load, obviously the wider and deeper 13mm aircon belt can take the extra load but how much extra load can be put on a 13mm belt?
If i were to increase the diameter of the alternator pully it will increase the belt contact area which would allow more power to be transfered without slipping.
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has your co-driver got enough room?
I'm planning to stick an IP rated box in the passengers foot well for all the relays, wiring etc, the rad's going in the back.
yeah its got enough room to sit in, you can't stretch your legs out like before. Its a bit like a defender for legroom now
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toasty!!
No need for a heater now!
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thanks for the help, i was hoping to pick something up for under a £100 but no luck yet
when i get more time i might have to make something myself Ive recently moved the radiator in my rangerover to the passenger footwell so ive got loads of joints that need sorting out properly before they go popping off when hanging from a winch rope on some stupid angle!
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Im after a pipe swaging tool for making a bead on the ends of alloy tube for intercooler and radiator pipework. 35mm and 75mm.
I used one at the Lotus factory on work experience but i cant find the tool anywhere on the internet.
Anyone know where i can get one?
Thanks
Chris
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Or you could get Mildly miffed saturday night, get up by 10 on sunday, enter the trial in your challenge motor, then enter the night challenge....
Even better idea
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Looks like a great weekend, and the challenge lot can get Mildly miffed saturday night, get up late sunday, spend all day nursing a hangover watching Trials and safari
or fixing our trucks 
I cant wait!!!
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You answered your own question there! Could be fatal if this happened in some of the situations that you get into on a challenge event
Keep up the good work Will, i know you will get it finished one day
So whats the idea with the disc brake? dont you trust the orignal?
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As we're all showing our drums off here's mine
Its for an 8074 so its key driven on the gearbox end. The end plate's going to be an 8274 one as the original was chewed and I can run a big sealed bearing using the latter. The drum brake (sorry, disk brake on the drum before someone says anything) also uses a key to hold it in place.
As Jim said, be careful with the material you choose. Mine's bar (not mild steel, though) as it makes things easier but you could do it with tube on an 8274 to save some weight.
Looks nice but is it not a bit too long with the disc brake? you will need a fu%ing big winch tray!
Will ive got to ask, when will your truck be ready? we might be using tractor beams instead of winches by the time you have finished building
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A vehicle with standard 90 gearing on 35" tires travels 410ft/min in low 1st at 2000rpm - a good 6x faster than your winch,or an engine driven type R setup.This still seams like a big mismatch in speeds.
I'm not criticising your winch,which I think looks excellent,and is obviously faster than most(electric,hydraulic,or pto) available on the market -
rather I would raise a question about the practicallity of matching winch speed to wheel speed - if it is a desirable thing,then we should be looking at lowering the gearing of our vehicles as well as increasing the speed of winches.410ft/min is too fast
for a winch in many circumstances.So,could you please produce a range of alternative transfer box low range ratios,as ashcrofts used to make,to compliment the new winch
.Does anybody still make them?Thanks, Jerry.
Hi just wondering what all the fuss is about trying to match the speed of the wheels to your winch? or is it because i don't have the problem with 7.6 ratio axles
?The only time ive found it useful is when crawling over rocks and on side slopes the rest of the time ive found if more useful to have wheel spin to clear the tread, cut down into harder ground and gain more traction to put less load on the winch / anchor point.
Maybe a crawler box is the answer to your problem?
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Lewis get your arse out into the shed! If you want to pay someone else to do the work then at least get some axles and wheels on the truck to make it a rolling chassis, you might even find that your enthusiasm improves by doing just that.
I get a real buzz out of driving a truck I’ve spent hundreds of hours working on, that feeling of achievement is great when it all works.
If you want respect do it yourself!!
Set yourself a realistic target like a challenge event and set weekly targets to achieve that date, a bit of pressure is a good thing when building a truck, it keeps you focused.
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Hi Ian
for this prototype we have chopped the MM shaft shorter for speed and used the MM toggles only all the gears are custom
Nice job, hope the testing went well today, get some video's on youtube -
I have spoke to Simon and i'm asured by him that his name stays on the list Chris.
Yeah i know, Simons a good mate, he told me all about it and what you said............................
not sure its a good idea to count your chickens before they hatch.
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Entry form........?
Oh but what is this item of which you speak ?
Are they important
you not filled in yours yet either
But your names on the list 
Are they important?
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I spoke to Colin last night and the event is now full so I’m on the reserve list, however I’ve not filled in an entry form yet.
Think I might be co-drive for Simon Wilkinson instead, but when I spoke to him last night he did not know he was entered until he saw his name on the list
I assume that everyone on the list has filled in an Entry form and paid a deposit?
Anyway there were quite a few trucks using mechanical winches and i have to say they were awesome on the long pulls! There was one orange truck on mog axles with tractor tyres that had one of these mechanical winches, i was surprised that he was nearly stalling his engine at one point (I’m guessing the winch was too highly geared) and he resorted to using the additional 8274 on the front.
I did not want to run the risk of rolling the truck in the water, we abandoned that punch and went and found a few more easier ones. 
Ultimate challenge
in Competing in Land Rovers
Posted
I went and watched on friday and followed Jim & Adrian, i have to say they were flying along working exceptionaly well together. Had a look at Stephans truck too whick looks fantastic.