Dave W

Speed limits and insurance are the main reasons. As a van it's restricted to 60MPH on dual carriageways and 50MPH on single carriageways. As a camper van it has the same speed limits as a car. For insurance, insurance as a camper van is much cheaper through specialist insurers that will only insure camper vans and not commercial vans. The insurer I am with at the moment gave me a really good deal but one of the conditions of the insurance is that I have 6 months to convert it and get it changed to a camper van with DVLA at the end of the conversion process. Yep, seen a few people report that previously although I believe there has been a change of mind from DVLA on that in recent months. Not a problem for mine as it has windows all round and a pop top.

In the UK there are specific requirements for a vehicle to be reclassified as a camper van. I guess there will be something similar in Ireland. FWIW in the UK you need a bed (minimum dimensions are required), a seat and dining area (with a fixed table that may be detachable for storage), a sink, a stove or microwave for cooking and some form of wardrobe/storage fixed to the vehicle and some form of water storage. Full details of what is required for a UK vehicle is here... https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/522756/converting-a-vehicle-into-a-motorhome.pdf Just about to submit an application to DVLA for my conversion as it happens. As I say, I would guess that there's something similar in Ireland to meet their requirements.

I have a 12 year old T5 that I'm converting into a camper van. I've never been a fan of VW or had any real interest in them but we wanted a camper van and the T5 is the best option for that size although, as a result, they also keep their value which is both a good and bad thing. I have to say though that, especially when compared with the Land Rovers of a similar age, the VW is really well put together and of a much higher quality which for a commercial van should be a surprise you'd have thought ! I'll be honest, I\d expected a van to be pretty "agricultural", built to suit a purpose rather than put together with any real attention to detail. When I'm working underneath it there's not a sign of rust, despite it spending the last 5 years of it's life in Blackpool. When you pull off a protective cover on the underside you find factory paintwork, unblemished and coated with some form of protective wax coating. The wiring and connectors are completely untouched by corrosion, I can pull off a rear tail light unit and, despite it being completely external to the vehicle, the connector and the light unit are corrosion free. When I stripped the interior I didn't know what to expect under the sheets of ply and flooring, expecting to find areas of rusted floor where water had seeped in and pooled with no escape. What I actually found was a body and interior that was pretty much just as it left the factory, not a rust spot or blemish in site. It's not perfect but when comparing it with other 12 year old and newer vehicles I've had with a Land Rover badge on it it's so much better it's been a real eye opener to the difference that attention to detail and, perhaps better workmanship, can make to the longevity of a vehicle. They have their issues and just like our beloved green oval vehicles, if you read the vehicle specific forums and the horror stories that abound there are a number that are common problems. Some of which they share with Land Rover vehicles... 5 cylinder turbo diesel, highly tuned, has a propensity to warp exhaust manifolds especially when remapped, sound familiar at all ??? The VVT is nice though, surprised more people haven't tried to fit them to Defender TD5s. I've said before (before I owned a VW) that VW were unfairly targeted over the emissions and pointed out that Land Rover and probably every manufacturer had been doing similar tricks for years, it's what good engineers do when you set an unrealistic test as a required target for a specific set of circumstances. You aim to pass the test not necessarily meet the goal behind the test. Hell, even our school system is obsessed with that these days, teaching kids to pass a specific test whilst not necessarily teaching them anything outside passing a test.

Commercial vehicles are exempt from the post '98 CE requirement.

Not sure about the eBay stuff, not tried that. I normally get mine from the local agricultural tyre repair place, they sell it by the bag in both car and motorbike sizes. Probably around 50 strips for less than a tenner.

He died in November last year. I'm sure there will be a topic on here from the time.

A normal seal puller tool will do the job or, if you haven't got one of them it can normally be levered out using a screwdriver, spanner or small pry bar. There's plenty of room to get in around the pinion and get your levering tool between the pinion bearing and the back of the seal. Some people just over think these things !

I can recommend the Koni Heavy Track, we fitted them on the front and rear of our 90 prior to our trip around Australia. We drove our very heavily loaded 90 16000 miles on a mix of tarmac and dirt roads including miles and miles and miles of washboard unsurfaced routes and a couple of desert crossings. I was so impressed with the way they worked and the way they stood up to the punishment that I bought a set for my competition vehicle when we got home. 3 years later we're still running the 90 on those same shock absorbers without any issues. Bear in mind you don't need the raid version that cost a fortune, just the heavy track version that cost around £80-£90 a pair. The only other brand I would consider would be the Bilsteins (assuming you don't want to go into coiler territory). They do have a tendency to be a bit harsh though.

Thanks for the heads up, been meaning to buy another 200 piece set for a couple of years and never got around to it, couldn't resist with another £40 off the "normal" half price offer. Just snuck in before the 8pm cutoff

The thing is that if you measure the current going into the first battery from the alternator and the second battery is connected then you're actually seeing the combined current going into both batteries. The only way to figure out how it's split between the two is to measure the current going through the solenoid/switch and that will give you the proportion of the current that is going into the second battery. If you have a volt meter, put the negative probe on the positive of the second battery and the positive probe on the positive of the first battery. Start the engine and, with the switch/solenoid open you should see a voltage of somewhere around 2 volts. When you close the switch/solenoid you should see that drop to 0 volts. If it does then it's connecting OK, if it doesn't then you have a high resistance connection so move the negative probe to each side of the solenoid terminal until you get 0 volts. If you get a different reading at each solenoid terminal then the solenoid is faulty, you should only see a 40mV drop at the most across the solenoid and that would be at 200 or more amps flowing through it. You can also simply measure the voltage across each battery and compare them but the advantage of the above method is that it's more likely to show up a high resistance connection.

Are you getting any voltage change on the second battery when the solenoid is activated and the engine running ? Where are you measuring the current ?

Forgot to add, when I fit these solenoids I always leave a bit of slack in the battery wires so that, should the need arise, the solenoid can be bypassed simply by moving a cable from one terminal to the other. I've never had one fail but if it does and you're in the middle of nowhere you never know when simply connecting the two batteries together will get you out of a bind.

Yes, so to add in a second battery you just need a solenoid between the positive of the main battery and the positive of the second and you then trigger that by whatever means you want. I use an Albright HD solenoid between the batteries on mine and trigger it via an off-on-on switch where off isolates the two batteries, first on position is automatic triggered by the voltage on the first battery being above 13 volts and the second on position means it comes on with the ignition, allowing the auxiliary battery to help start the vehicle if required. The Albright solenoids are waterproof, extremely reliable and can carry a winch current - on my competition motor I use the HD versions to isolate both winches either via a switch on the dash or if I operate the kill switch for the engine. This is the HD version... https://www.devon4x4.com/albright-su280-isolator-250a.html This is the not so HD version which is fine for most uses... https://www.devon4x4.com/albright-hd-battery-isolator.html

That would depend a lot on which engine you have but normally the charge goes directly form the alternator to the battery, normally via the starter motor terminal. It's not normally connected with the ignition in any way.

I assumed, wrongly, it was Land Rover based I would still go down the route that it should be registered as a cargo carrying vehicle and the camper "pod" is simply cargo so it doesn't matter if it's present or not as it has no effect on the vehicle classification then. I can't see any reason to differentiate between having a camping pod on the back versus any other load you might be carrying.

You can get it reclassified as a motor home if you meet the requirements. It doesn't effect the class (N1/M1) but for vans that would otherwise have to drive at the lower speed limits it allows them to drive at car speed limits. I'm in the process of converting my VW van into a camper van and as soon as I meet the requirements I'll be applying to have it registered as a motor home so I can legally drive it faster. It also means you can get cheaper insurance as motor homes are generally cheaper to insure than a panel van. The requirements are all laid out on the DVLA web site, 2 hob cooker, sink, bed, seating area with fixed table are the main ones. Converting a vehicle into a motorhome - Gov.uk That said for a Land Rover, where you're already exempt from the N1 speed limits due to it's 4x4 classification, there's little to be gained by having it registered as a motor home. Having a demountable camper doesn't change the vehicle any more than putting a pallet in the back would, it's basically just "cargo".

Since we started our club we've had only one proposal to change the rules regarding eligibility and that was originally to do with tyre patterns and that was expanded during the proposal process to include tyre sizes. A number of us had been competing in Ireland for a number of years and noticed that the use of 35 inch Simex and similar, often larger, tyres was making it impossible for anyone without that size of tyres to move around the sites. even the marshals for the competition were using 35 inch Simex so when we turned up for the second year on 32 inch tyres we were pretty much stuffed as most of the tracks were impassable. We'd also seen similar effects on one of the UK sites we were using at the time which was being overused for pay and play between our annual trial there. Despite the land owners best efforts to keep plowing up and levelling the ruts that were being caused we were struggling to get vehicles around the site and didn't want to get involved in an "arms race" of tyre sizes. In the end, when the proposal went to the AGM, it was discussed at length and a unanimous decision led to the proposal being dropped for a number of reasons although it was decided that we should monitor all the sites we still use and reconsider if our use of them is not sustainable in the long term due to either over aggressive tyres or large tyres. As has already been mentioned here, the trials competitions in particular tend to penalise large tyres anyway and none of the sites we now use have pay and play on them so currently none of the sites we use have seen any deterioration. I strongly believe that, government interference aside, for the uk off road scene to continue all users and organisers need to consider the impact they are having on the land and what they can do to help the land owner manage the land and keep the sport sustainable.

Essentially the ALRC are trying to allow their clubs to do now what the none ALRC LR clubs have been doing for 20 years, just not as inclusive and still irrelevant to the future of UK off roading. Perhaps I should point out that the Yorkshire Off Road Club are holding a trial this weekend (and once every month) and have done for just under 20 years now where any marque and model are welcome and we don't care what engine, gearbox, mods, axles or even tyre sizes you're running. As long as your vehicle can comply with MSA trials regulations and is driven to the site you can compete. You don't even need to have a winch or roll cage to compete in our challenge events. The vast majority of the vehicles competing are Land Rovers and none of us that drive them have ever felt that we can't compete on equal terms with other marques. We only have 4 classes, 2 for leaf sprung and 2 for coil sprung and nobody worries about what modifications the other competitors in their class may or may not have, we just enjoy the competition and the craic regardless of who made what part or how many rivets are holding a particular body panel on. The future of UK off roading isn't just Land Rover, Land Rover themselves have put the block on that one so if we want a thriving UK off road scene we can't put on Land Rover blinkers and exclude the other marques.

Sounds familiar, I've not once regretted leaving the ARC although we had to form our own club as, at the time, there wasn't a good alternative for trials, especially RTV style events. I have spoken to the MSA about the scrutineering problem (cross country committee primarily) and I know there's been some internal discussion about either fast tracking or dropping some of the requirements to be come an MSA Scrutineer, particularly for cross country. Not sure what, if anything, will come out of it though... the MSA moves in mysterious ways ! There have been a number of suggestions that the MSA require an MSA accredited scrutineer to be used for a number of events (challenge at least) but it's always had to be shelved simply because there aren't enough to come close to covering all the events. They've also had problems trying to get current scrutineers to agree to train new ones and that, added with the current requirement to scrutineer events outside your particular area of motor sport has been a stumbling block. We have a couple of people who would be prime candidates for MSA Scrutineers (mechanics who are qualified MOT testers with years of experience scrutineering in cross country and competing in cross country and rally) but neither of them want to put the time into attending events that they have no interest in so they can then scrutineer at cross country events. Maybe they should ask the clubs to put forward suitably qualified candidates and put them through a testing process rather than having to go through a mini apprenticeship. Then set up a cross country scrutineer training scheme that uses this new scrutineers to train up new ones. It wouldn't fix the problem for all areas of motor sport but at least cross country would pave the way and maybe other areas could follow suit.

Sadly neither of my Land Rovers can take part in ALRC events under the current regulations and I'm still not sure if one of them is allowed to compete under "class Q". One of them definitely isn't but the other is under the spirit of the regulation but not in the way it is written. Sorry if that's being difficult, again, but i don't throw away money at club membership only to find that your interpretation isn't the same as the local scrutineer's interpretation. I've trialled both of them at events this year outside the ALRC without any issues and they are both Land Rover Defenders. I looked at an "inter club" event that an ALRC club was organising but they couldn't confirm what regulations they were running under and I basically would have to find out when I turned up if I could compete or not. Your "history" of the ARC/ALRC is a bit naive as you missed out what happened before the current regulations were put in place. Relocation cones and cranked trailing arms, among many other modifications, were not only allowed but they were allowed in standard classes too. I, like many others, was forced to leave the ALRC because of the changes that made our Land Rovers no longer comply to regulations. At that time a number of clubs left the ARC over the issue and many others, including ours, were formed so we could continue to compete in our Land Rovers as they were rather than spending money and time to make them "more Land Rover". Most of those who were forced out were RTV competitors by the way, the "party line" from the ALRC being that we could continue to compete if we did CCVs but not RTVs. It was all to do with the complete rewrite of the regulations which, up to then, had focussed on what you couldn't do so, if it wasn't "not allowed" it was allowed. The regulations were all changed so that any modification not specifically allowed in the regulations was no longer allowed. CCVs and Comp. Safari competitors got away with it because of the log book system but RTV had no "grandfather rights" so vehicles were banned overnight. At the time we (as an ALRC club) pushed for a special class that would allow the vehicles to continue to compete but it was basically as welcome as a turd in a swimming pool. One member of the ALRC committee actually said "If you don't like the rules then leave", so we did. So, essentially you agree it's badly worded and needs rewriting, that's progress at least. It's not up to me to write regulations for a national club, that club should not need outside help if it considers itself worthy of being such a thing. I'm simply "being difficult" by pointing out the difference between what you say it means and what it actually says because I have no idea if my vehicles comply or not and I'm not sure if the local ALRC scrutineer will interpret it in the way you have. I admire your enthusiasm in promoting the ALRC but you should learn to be less defensive and take a step back. Your sole input on "the future of UK off roading" has been to suggest that the ALRC introducing a regulation that might allow vehicles they banned 20 years ago from competing (taking your very loose interpretation of the new regulation). I don't see that as much of a step forward, just a case of trying to fix the mistakes of the past. Fair enough, with a bit of rewording it would be a step forward for the ALRC but not for the UK off road community as a whole. There are many UK events held each month by clubs outside the ALRC, many of which have much larger entries than the ALRC events simply because they are inclusive rather than exclusive. i just don't see how an insular, inward looking, club like the ALRC could put itself forward as the future of uk off roading when the majority of off road 4x4s now and in the future don't have a Land Rover badge on them anywhere. The ALRC can claim to be the biggest Land Rover marque club by way of it's weird membership structure but realistically that's not likely to be the majority of competitors in the future, I'm not even sure it could be said that it's the majority of the competitors now. I'm not even sure that the ALRC can claim to represent the majority of Land Rover clubs in the UK. At one time "The National" was featured in the magazines and was as much a part of the annual calendar as, say, Billing. These days I couldn't even tell you where it was held because, outside the ALRC community it's pretty much a none event. So much so that we've even stopped avoiding having events on the same weekend because it actually makes no difference to our turnouts these days. There are 5 clubs that run monthly off road trials in our area, only one of them is an ALRC club and they normally have the lowest turnout of all the clubs so only represent, at most, 20% of the competitors in this area and I'm not including in that the specialist clubs like NORC that mainly run comp. safaris with the occasional trial.

I don't think either applies, it's just a regulation that states that the vehicle must be manufactured entirely from Land Rover parts and I don't see how you can make that also meet MSA specs, let alone ALRC roll cage regs given that Land Rover have never supplied a vehicle with either. Badly written, unclear regulations are a PITA. It also states that the drivetrain must be "retained" from the original Land Rover which, given that the drive train would normally include all items in the drive train - gearbox, transfer box, prop shafts, diffs, half shafts, drive flanges, pretty much rules out locking diffs, Ashcroft shafts etc... Your interpretation of the regulation doesn't match what it actually says in the regulation, sorry if you think I'm being difficult by pointing this out. Look at it this way if you can't understand what I'm getting at. A "class Q" vehicle that you have allowed to compete that isn't entirely made of Land Rover parts has a massive accident at one of your events resulting in a fatality. As a scrutineer you are called to give a police statement to the effect that the vehicle was fully compliant with the regulations and was legitimately taking part in the event. Are you, hand on heart, going to be able to say that a vehicle that has none Land Rover diffs or bodywork or even a roll cage complies with the regulation as written down or are you just going to say that you allowed it to compete because it's in the spirit of the regulations as it was intended and not in the way it's written ? Good luck with explaining that to a judge at an inquest. It's not just the ALRC, the MSA are just as guilty, especially the cross country committee. IMV if you are going to introduce a regulation it needs to be termed in a way that makes it simple to scrutineer with a straight forward black and white meaning. Grey areas should be actively avoided not intentionally introduced. That way anyone should be able to look at the regulations and understand what they mean. A good example of that is that you "published" the regulation on this forum and were immediately asked about diffs, tyres and so on... why were you asked those questions ? Because the regulation is either badly written or you are interpreting it incorrectly. Sorry if you think that's me being difficult, I just hate badly worded regulations and people who interpret them as meaning something they don't actually say. I just put a load of regulation changes through the MSA to try and get rid of similar badly worded and, in some cases, impossible to comply with regulations. Some of the changes went through OK, some were ignored and others were changed in such a way that they actually made less sense than the original and made them more difficult to comply with. The ALRC are not alone in having badly worded regulations and one of the reasons is that people like you seem to think that requesting regulations that say what they mean is "being difficult". I still don't see what this has to do with the future of off roading in the UK though. I agree 100% and it's also the simplest, cheapest, most accessible form of motor sport apart from, perhaps, car trials. It's completely inclusive, allowing vehicles of any age and marque to compete side by side and a standard production vehicle can be as competitive as a "sorted" off road vehicle. In our club we have pretty much every marque and model competing at sometime or another with every stage of preparation from full blown challenge specials to Discovery 4s. The driver that wins most of our trials drives a very standard 300TDi 90. Of all the forms of cross country motor sport it is, IMV, the most sustainable because it can adapt to cope with new marques, models and vehicle as well as being relatively low impact on the environment.

Not sure about the relevance of a post about an ALRC regulation unless you're suggesting that the future of UK off roading means the ALRC responding to a 25+ year old problem with their regs and then missing the mark completely ? if "Class Q" is the best they can come up with then it's a real disappointment but not exactly unexpected TBH. Not quite sure how that regulation/class allows anything to compete given that Land Rover don't manufacture MSA or even ALRC roll cages, nor do they make tray backs as far as i am aware. Either it's a badly worded regulation or they've basically excluded every vehicle more than a couple of years old. "A vehicle manufactured from Land Rover parts in accordance with MSA Regulations." Good luck trying to comply with that one... So, is class Q really the future of UK off roading ? I don't think so, no.

I stopped buying magazines many years ago for a number of reasons... The editorial content is not something that an "old hand" Land Rover enthusiast would find of interest. It's aimed more at "new" owners and as a result of this most of the editorial has a very limited life. Everyone will, eventually, get through that new and shiny stage and get less and less of interest. The magazines have rarely, if ever, found the right balance between advertising, editorial and advertorial. LRO, back in it's heyday was the biggest subscription magazine in the UK (that's across ALL magazines, not just car magazines) and probably Europe. It could rely on a solid income from it's subscriptions and, as a result, could also keep a relatively high editorial percentage. When EMAP bought up LRO, precisely because of it's huge subscriber base, they struggled to maintain what they had bought and slipped into their "cookie cutter" publishing model with career EMAP journalists taking over from experienced Land Rover enthusiasts. The subsequent launch of a number of rival magazines, none of which had a good subscriber base so were advertising heavy, diluted the market even further and all the magazines ended up in an advertising revenue war which was bad news for everyone, including the readers. As the magazines undercut each other to attract the advertisers some of those advertisers were buying up whole sections of the magazine on their own. I think I am right in saying that all the magazines started to take the view that advertisers were more important than readers. In many case this means that bad reviews of advertiser's products would be pulled even when it was commonly known among the "educated readership" and the reporters that those advertisers were pushing shoddy merchandise and ripping off the readers who were buying the magazine. I have had a number of conversations along these lines with magazine owners, editors and reporters in the past and none of them could deny it. After all, just because a company was shipping goods that were potentially dangerous, blatant ripoffs of other people's designs and the directors were operating in, shall we say, grey areas of the law... that's no reason to stop them from buying an 8 page advertising slot or devoting half or more of the advertorials to their products. Now that the offering of magazines has slimmed down somewhat, sadly the subscription vs advertising revenue streams has already swung so far towards advertising that the publishers no longer see a way out of it. That brings me onto the final "elephant in the room", the internet. I had discussions with two of the largest magazines many years ago (10+ years ago) about ways that they could move their publications from print only to print and web and neither of them were able to either grasp what was coming or had any real interest in it. I wasn't selling anything, it was just an informal discussion over a beer or two based on my experience in other publishing companies that were making that same transition. Publishers are even launching new publications now without putting in place any form of internet base despite the fact that the publishers that have made the transition have shown both increased subscription revenues and advertising revenues. They have also had the opportunity to focus on their editorial content more because advertising in online publishing is additional to the editorial not an alternative and that is a key point that seems to be missed by the current Land River magazines. So, if the remaining magazines want to rebuild their reputation and readership, the first part is simple... cut back on the reliance on advertising revenue, it is a poison chalice and will kill you off in the end if you get addicted to it. After all, falling readership numbers means falling advertising revenue and that, in turn means more pages of advertising to make up for the loss... it's a vicious cycle. There are plenty of things going on out in the Land Rover sphere, try sending reporters out to gather first hand reports and, when they do, don't carve their 6 page articles up into 2 pages so you can squeeze in more advertising pages. If it's too late to build your printed product in that way then try leveraging the good stuff into an internet based product and build on it.

I think you need to attend different events... It's certainly the case that there has been a move towards specialised vehicles in some areas and within some clubs but there are still a lot of events out there being run just as you describe with a mix of vehicle marques and a mix of vehicle modifications, many of them carried out by the owners. You just need to get out there and dig out your local clubs, not the local branches of national clubs. The MSA issue more permits for cross country (off road) competitions than for any other form of motorsport in the UK, there are lots of different competitions across the country on every weekend. Some areas are better than others though, around here there are a selection of clubs, each offering different levels and styles of events. You need to decide what it is you actually want to do and get out there and do it. There are many branches to the sport and some are more accessible than others, being competitive isn't just down to the vehicle unless you're looking at high speed events where budget is king and that's a battle you'll never win unless you find an event organiser that keeps a lid on it. I prefer trials simply because it's the driver that plays the biggest role in being competitive and it is easily accessible at any level. Looking into a crystal ball somewhat... I actually think that the sport is moving back to "grass roots". Both in challenge and comp. safari we suffered a lot from people with huge budgets having vehicles built for them and then persuading UK event organisers that they should adapt their events to make it challenging for the more specialist vehicles. This resulted in a loss of accessible, entry level motor sport events of those types as the organisers seemed to want to compete with each other to see who could put on the most "extreme" event, which basically meant which event was most likely to leave you rebuilding your vehicle after every event. Once all the events had ramped themselves up to cater for the extreme vehicles those competitors got bored anyway and headed off to European events or USA influenced events. This left a big hole because the UK events no longer had anyone to take their place, because they'd cut off the grass roots competitors, so after much bitching about "no competitors" many of them ground to a halt. This has happened in both challenge and comp. safari, it happened in comp. safari first where you used to have Hill Rallies with 100s of entries ranging from custom built buggies to relatively standard vehicles with a roll cage thrown on. Hill Rallies and comps are just starting to recover from the mass exodus that left them with no entries, challenge is still in the very early stages of recovery, pardon the pun !

I've used twin Laser LED "bars" mounted on top of the front bumper below the headlights. They work really well both on and off road, so much so that, on road, we sometimes turn them off because they are so bright on high beam that when you dip the lights (and the bars turn off) it's almost like being plunged into darkness. We have an off-on-on switch on the dash that has them off all the time, on with high beam (required for road use) and on all the time (for off road use). On my competition motor I'm still using roof mounted lights. I don't get any bonnet or windscreen flare/reflection from them because they are mounted towards the back of the cab rather than near the front as many people seem to mount them. The roof blocks any direct line from the lights to the bonnet or windscreen, leaving both in shadow. The lights also fold down over the back of the cab so are folded down when not in use to avoid damage from trees.