Sirocco

Hi All, Thought this was the best place to ask my plethora of questions regarding the fabrication of my Sankey based trailer. As the title I purchased GB Mud's (Chris) trailer around this time last year where its been sat at my parents place until recently (has to get rid of the IIa Lightweight 1st!). see link: Chris's Trailer build my questions are basically structural and design adding to what Chris started. As a bit of background we have done a fair bit of travelling in our 90 and feel it is suitable for our needs (2 people) we are planning a trip across Europe/Caucasus/Central Asia/Russia/Mongolia/Siberia and ship to Australia. so need the extra payload (rather than space) the trailer will be kept light with a payload around maximum 350-400kg. The trailer will need to be robust, simple, easy to fix and cope with extreme cold/heat. This thread is not aimed to be a build thread like Jason'sthread here just somewhere to ask questions and get ideas from people. I will post up pictures though I know what works and I know what I want (kit wise) for our trip so this thread wont get bogged down on the merits/pitfalls of roof tents, gas stoves, spare wheels etc. so, what do I want the trailer to do? Carry spares/fluids, camp chairs/table, full galley for cooking inc small sink, 50-60L water tank with pump and filter. Maggiolina RTT on top and possibly the Hannibal Awning. We carry this stuff in the 90 so its just a matter of transfering it to the trailer and only having clothes/food/fridge in the 90. ------------------------------------------------------------ At the moment I am just painting up the chassis, fitted 3 new KM2's taking of the Grivelly catches (****e) fitting overcentre catches (all SS) etc. The next stage will be building the racking for the rear and roof rack for the RTT. The rear will just incorporate a sliding draw system for some 600x400mm boxes (I want to use boxes where possible so everything is removable, should it need to be removed for cleaning, un-bogging trailer etc.) so I am looking at box section steel welded together and bolted through the steel floor of the trailer body. what size and thickness should I be using? I was thinking 25mmx25mmx2mm. Probably the most important design and structural integrity lies in the roof rack. Mounted to this will be the 60kg RTT and a folding table (10kg). Possibly waffle boards (16kg) but I have not thought too much about this. For this rack I was thinking 40mm box section 3mm thick? I think 50mm may be too big, but am I wrong? design wise I was going to run 2 lengths across the length of the roof with 3-4 sections running across these with gussets/support welded. Probably wise to have a few 3mm thick tabs with reinforcement underneath bolted through the trailer skin. other options were tabs/supports running over the edge and bolted on the vertical side of the trailer to help spread the stress. on a slightly different note, I have a bunch of bolt holes that need filling. whats the best way to do it? weld it up? what technique would you use to do this? just weld and flat back or am I missing something. Appologies for the long post, but I really need the best advice on this as I cant have the whole thing falling apart in the Siberian Tiaga I will be running other ideas past you all as things progress. thanks for reading. some photo's attached, others are on our FB page here G

Glad you made it out in 1 piece. In West Africa recently (Mali/Bamako) a backstreet mechanic and his boys dropped the 90L tank off our Land Cruiser washed it out with some detergent and set about brazing up the holes standard affair in Africa

Jason, I would be interested to see where you found the small print. I cant seem to get much info on TF springs. currently running mrdiums on the 90 but going for HD when i get around to it as the spring rate will suit my 90/sankey more. maybe it was just the 110 springs? the 90 hd's have a higher spring rate. also, no problems here with lift. little vibration on over-run from time to time but not noticable. G

try infinity exhausts here in bristol. the fitted a SS section on my 90 and make everything from parts/custom. they may have what you need sat in a box in the workshop. give them a ring. G

Superpro make separate bushes for the shocks, try them. I recently had a similar thing with bushes for my OME shocks, but I managed to use my old terrafirma ones in the end by drilling them a little larger and getting new locating cups from my indi dealer. I emails D44 and they were helpfull. They had polybushes that would fit also. OME would take 3 months to get from Aus to here! G

Scared me then Chris! I thought the bobblies had their way Thanks for the heads up. G

Come on Ralph, keep up! Its clear if you look at the links in the thread G

I dont know why your all debating it. I just looked at the winning bidder and the sellers ID... exactly the same G

my wheel is just like you describe I quite like it. give it a whirl and see how you get on G

Morning Steve, yes that was my thought process after reading what was said on the Aus forum. hmmm... So it looks like I should do something about it then Yes it is Pete. We travelled a bit together in Morocco and were meant to go to West Africa earlier this year, but he couldn't get the time in the end, shame it was a good trip! G

Allright, no need to rip the P£$%

No not change the preload, but to check it. They said it seemed fine so didn't take the time to stip the diff down and then just got on with the backlash. Because I never fitted the diff 1st I dont know if it was whining before or not. I just wanted it inspected before going through the trouble of fitting it. The price is in my other thread scary stuff. G

No because they only charged 1 hour. If they pulled it apart they said it would take 2-3 hours. Would it have been pinion preload? G

yes i hear its a dark art they checked the pinion and said it was ok and the chap I bought it off said it had new bearings installed, but I guess I will never know... balls! Have to have a think on this one, thanks for the advice G

Hi Nige, Yes, I did contemplate getting it to you guys as I have a mate in Bracknell (who knows Steve well) but they were recommended by a good landy independent garage here in Bristol so I thought nothing of it. They also had a number of Rover diffs on the shelf from customers. Is the whirr comeing from an incorrect mesh of the C&P rings? Do you think this is going to cause problems? G

follwing up from my diff thread further down, I had my truetrac (in Rover Diff) checked by Bristol Transmissions and they adjusted the backlash for me as they said it was a little excessive. Im pretty sure they looked it over and deffo spread that engineers blue stuff around. This was all fine as it confirmed my suspicions. Anyway, fitted it all back in with my original halfshafts and it all felt fine with no slack in the driveline (which was nice). Anyway, I noticed yesterday that its now whining or whirring rather which is only noticable when applying a little power at or just over 30mph. coasting I cant hear it, but a little squeeze of the throttle and it whirrs along So... I google'd around and found on the Aussy forum that: 'Don;t get excitited with the backlash and the spec, if it drove fine before, refit the same, otherwise "correcting" the backlash you may well end up with an unpleasant whine aside from the wife'. so... my question is: will this set-up now have a negative effect in anyway? and will the whine dissepate with time/mileage? should I take it back to Bristol Transmissions or just live with it? Any advice (again!) most appreciated. Cheers Gents. G

So thats the UK law, But what about when your driving on the otherside of the road? I have heard of African Cops (Mainly Senegalese in St. Louis) saying they should be the other way around and dishing out fines! I suppose I could just change the lenses? same bulb in each? Im going to take the spare fog out of the sankey also and fit a reversing lamp. Could i just put in a clear lens and change the wireing? G

ah, makes sense. Thanks for that. G

I have an open 9/16th 41nm shouldn't be a problem then, excellent. Thanks again BM. G

Well fair play to Bristol Transmission. I dropped it off at 1300 without booking it in and they were mega busy, got a call at 1530 saying it was ready for collection and would only be an hours labour So I got it back tonight and all fitted, everything back together, topped with oil etc. The last thing I need is the torque value for the nuts that hold the diff assembly to the axle casing. I did a google and only found 1 post with a value of 45nm but even that was skeptical. They didn't take much to break off so I just wound them on with my ratchet and nipped them up using loctite also. My other question is why are 2/4 of the studs longer? I dont have any deep 9/16th sockets so these were a PITA to get reasonably tight. Any help most appreciated. G

Thanks Bogmonster I think this is all getting beyond my expertise and toolset. I would really have liked to accomplished this, but have backed down and dropped it into Bristol Transmissions, they said the bashlash was 'excessive' and also noted the pinion preload is likely off to. Hopefully they will just inspect and do the backlash and it will come in at an hours labour (£75!). Wish I knew what I was looking at before parting with my £££ LESSON LEARN'T Thanks again for those who gave input, most appreciated. G

Ok, I removed my original diff tonight (from my 300tdi) and it is very much tighter than the replacement with the Truetrac fitted I was quite surprised as Im know this is the original diff on 107K miles. The play in the original is almost undetectable so I guess this is still somewhere close to the tolerances I have read about (0.1-0.17mm). I would think that the truetrac diff is out of the tolerance zone. Is there an easy way to measure this? should it be this 'slack' for any reason? Anybody know where I can take it in Bristol or nearby for setting up? Damn. I wanted it all in and set-up in the evenings this week never goes to plan does it! Any help or suggestions most appreciated Cheers, G

I believe Lemforder are OME. I have a pair waiting as replacements

I know Nige, I was going to get some up inside there also

How about the chassis of a 1996 Defender 90 that has never seen a drop of waxoil or the hot end of a MIG torch? Its got no heavy rust, but it is getting speckly with the surface stuff. A rub down, degreaser, Por15s metal ready and then the good stuff on top. After that I will just use some standard chassis black topcoat. From what I have read, more people have had good than bad results so I think it will be worth it. Its a big task that I only want to do once (well for the next 5 years at least!) I just need to find a cheaper degreaser as the Por Marine one is a little pricey. G