Ed Poore

@FridgeFreezer Jon you should make the rear bit demountable in that case then

I think they have similar rules (if not more extreme) than Australia. Steph and Leigh (Grizzly 'N' Bear) posted a video about the prep they had to do when they were thinking of shipping their camper back to Australia before COVID put a halt to it. If I remember correctly the entire vehicle and camper had to be empty so they had to fit what they could into luggage to fly out with them. Whole thing had to be cleaned and inspected, timber can also be a bit of an issue.

Rust is normally fine for a galvaniser as their acid dips take care of that (obviously something that's a complete rust bucket is a no go but light rusting is fine), it's paint and other dirt they can't abide. Cost wise I think the last thing I had galvanised was ~34p / kilo but that was through a local trailer fab company at cost. They send an artic of trailers at least once a week to be galvanised so I can drop off anything of any size on by Tuesday 9am and it'll be back on Thursday. It's a beautiful setup because I don't need to wait for small items to be grouped together it all just gets lumped in with the trailers. [edit]I've had a series bulkhead galvanised and never suffered with distortion issues but did as others have gone and braced across the footwells. No rippling in the large panels that I remember either[/edit].

Just bolt them in then I'm assuming that your seat belts are attached to the truck cab itself, in which case any fixing of the seats only really needs to take the weight of the seat because you're being held in by the seatbelt in the event of a crash. Fundamentally you're going to be limited by the seat box being made of aluminium more than anything else. On my L322 seats I simply relocated the captive plates that were there for the Defender seats into an appropriate location for the seats. The only thing you could do is make up some larger spreader plates to go inside the seat box (in fact I might have done this, I can't actually remember!). I'd be inclined to get them bolted in and try a few drives - I thought the same thing about the L322 seats but I just bolted (well mostly ) the seats in and did a couple of local drives to see how it feels. I actually found that tilting them flat / forwards was actually less comfortable than slightly reclined back - but that's probably down to the fact that my seat squabs are almost twice the thickness than anything on a Defender seat. I'd refer back to point 3 - find a comfortable position first, the drivers buttons will just be wiring at the end of the day so once you've got the position sorted then you can relocate the buttons if you feel it necessary. If they're not easily removable then it might be worth removing the door card just for some test runs to see how it feels. I found that I could just squeeze the control box for the Range Rover seats in - to adjust with the door shut I have to ram my little finger down between the door card and the seat but I can do it. After 5 years I still haven't got around to relocating them anywhere else. Do you actually? In all seriousness how often do you go into the battery box - I realise being a truck cab you don't have as much storage space so probably more often than me. I found with the L322 seats I could lift them up high enough that I can squeeze my arm underneath the squab and gain access for stuff if I needed to. As I relocated the four captive bolts if I do want to do anything significant it's easy enough to whip off the seat with a whizzy gun and be done with it. I have wondered about some 1/4 turn latches instead of the bolts but I suspect they'll be too bulky. I'd also question whether you've got enough space to tilt back / forwards the seats to be useful in a truck-cab. I seriously doubt I could do that even with Defender seats in the 6x6 which is a truck cab also. Some points to consider: Battery - shove an Anderson connector onto it and call it job done - that way if you've got a flat battery you can jump start it relatively easily. Storage - what about cutting a hole in the side of the seat box (or front) for easier access.

@darthdickyyou've done this a lot recently.

Always game, what are you actually trying to achieve apart from bolting some seats in?

@MikeAK I suspect that the 16A @ 200-250V is the continuous rating whilst the 20A @ 250V is a maximum rating. Or if you're truly silly and need more there are 500A and 800A connectors available. Not all in one but have a search for PowerLock. I've had to deal with a 125A connector and the cable was so thick, heavy and stiff when my friend was trying to plug it in it got away from him and almost knocked him out as it flipped back and hit him.

Likewise I keep telling myself I'm upgrading to a ~300hp V8 so I can overtake dangerously slow drivers when towing up in Scotland...

It's on the cards...

Ooo interesting. Been thinking it would be really nice if I could open the back window in the 6x6, particularly on hotter days - they might be just the ticket. I like the benefit of the full width but then again being a pick-up / flat-bed I'll probably have stuff against the back anyway.

Not tried https://www.lrworkshop.com/ then? I find that one very useful - particularly if you create an account and it does a price comparison for various sites. Suppose the JLR one does the P38

Wasn't going to say it but...

Looking forward to doing that in the 6x6 if I get the 1UZ shoehorned in there - few more ponies than a 3.9 and potential for a lot more if I completely lose my mind (well, got to find it first). So far it's cost £550 and I haven't sold off any parts of the Lexus yet, currently my hope is that apart from a few hoses and V8 radiator I won't have to buy anything else in - I've managed to accumulate a fairly large scrap pile of useful bits recently

Send them down to @miketomcat and get a carbon fibre or fibreglass one made up

Shame my godmother's husband recently passed away because he'd tell you instantly what alloy would be best and how to anneal it. Was a true encyclopedia on all things to do with metallurgy, but a self proclaimed dinosaur since there weren't many of them around.

Slightly silly suggestion but would it benefit from having some heat applied to the forma via a blow-torch? I'd have thought the latent heat capacity of the forma would retain the heat quite nicely.

Just a trademark / brand for what is basically pre-galvanised mild steel. Not sure if there's a difference between galvanising vs. zintec but it's basically the same thing.

I'm not that bad compared to some people*! I think I've only just acquired my first tool (if you exclude the JCB and 6x6) that's over a tonne. Little 8x4ft ex surface table for a workbench. Chap I bought it off recons it's about 1.2t, certainly noticed it on the JCB. *have a look at spencer427 on mig-welding or Bob (8ob). Bob's got at least 4 hydraulic presses at my last count. Just posted a picture of 4(!) 350+A welders. Anyway,you, enough derailing of Stephen's thread!

Was going to offer to try it on mine if you wanted but it sounds like you've got a suitable press locally. Mine is somewhere around the 80t mark and most definitely not made from Chinesium. The previous owner thought the frame was close to Victorian era and apart from the hydraulic fittings everything is measured in inches (the four nuts holding it together are 3" AF). It's certainly not struggled with anything I've put in it yet.

I can better that - moved the 110 once by 1" and transformed it.

I also thing caravans are probably the worst culprits, they're big and have no substantial weight to them so any cross-winds as I experienced will catch people unawares. If manufacturers didn't try to stay under the 750kg limit then I think you'd have a much more solid caravan less prone to tail wagging. Never actually towed a caravan though and not sure I ever want to.

It might breed some complacency but having done my fair share of towing there have been a few situations where if the system is as good as they say it would have been a great addition. Weight isn't actually so much of an issue - usually if you're shifting 3.5t then it tends to be fairly low down in the grand scheme of things. Towing a 2t milling machine on a 1.5t trailer from Birmingham to Pembrokeshire was sublime but the centre of gravity was pretty damn low. Moving stuff from Surrey to Wales again was usually running at about the 3.5t mark but it was all heavy stuff down low in the trailer. The worst one was towing the 110 behind the TDV8, loaded it correctly, strapped down all the wheels and also put a large strap over the front bumper and tow bar to pull the chassis down onto the bed of the trailer. But the bonnet was still level with the roof of the Range Rover. Tended to be sitting more at 50-55 than 60 all the way but coming past Swindon picked up a cross-wind whilst simultaneously hitting a really rutted bit of the M4. God the snake was bad then as the trailer was just the wrong width to avoid the lorry tracks . My sister grabbed the door in a panic because it was so sudden and violent. It all happened very quickly but a quick easing off and gentle braking didn't cure it and actually ended up accelerating up to about 70 before easing gently back off to settle it back down. I suspect in that situation any electronic system that could brake each individual wheel to cancel it out would probably have reacted quicker and been able to sort it out much faster.

I wouldn't be surprised - this was an option on the Disco 4, remember trying it out pre-launch at Gaydon. We didn't get to experience the anti-sway, difficult to simulate (safely) I guess. Did try out the hitch-assist (zoomed in on the tow-ball as you reversed closer to the trailer) and the reverse assist which showed you where the trailer was going to go as you turned the steering wheel.

I've used a spark plug socket with some electrical tape to "calibrate" it to the right diameter before. Done it by eye and also turned one down out of a scrap of steel. Friend of mine if he has a knackered gearbox cuts the input shaft off with a grinder to turn into an alignment tool.

From memory Soar-Y-Mynedd only gets slightly slippier in the wet, it's over the top of the mountain (clue is in the name). Gets fun in deep snow and ice mind. Brechfa just gets muddier in the wet, some puddles can get deepish but nothing to bother a standard vehicle. The stream / river crossings don't swell up like Strata so there's no flow issues to contend with sweeping a vehicle away.