Ed Poore

Windows?

Bits are now in Surrey. We very nearly forgot to transfer then from one vehicle to another but thankfully James put them somewhere obvious in the back of his 90 so spotted them this morning...

Oooo

Unless there's someone closer to @FridgeFreezer then I'm happy to either hold onto parts or if I'm passing Mike or John I can drop them off, nothing planned as yet apart from that work trip passing Basingstoke. For me it would be slightly easier if James could collect on the way south - the weekend up in the Highlands is going to be pretty full-on as I'll be driving up early doors Friday morning, buying this rifle for Dad and then heading on up. We're then heading back on Sunday with hopefully a couple of deer so minimising delays would be preferred. At least if I end up with them this weekend then they're down in Surrey at the very least.

I'll be meeting up with James this weekend coming so could bring it south and I'm not that far from either Basingstoke or Portsmouth (Farnham / Guildford area). Alternatively the Friday / weekend after I'll be heading up to the Highlands with Dad but the 110 will be much fuller. Stopping off in Lancashire briefly though on the Friday morning to pick up his new rifle from Malmo Guns. In fact on the 19th I'll be passing Basingstoke but not sure on times or whether I'll be in 110 or in a work colleagues car.

I haven't tried LED headlights but had Bi-Xenons on the Range Rover. On a clear night they were good - a very sharp pattern around the edges and uniform light coverage within the beam. However in fog (and the Hogsback near where I live is bad for getting thick fog up top) they were horrendous - the white light reflects very badly, which is why they had halogen bulbs fitted for the fog lights lower down in the bumper. I think it's the reason why French cars have used to have very yellow lights because it doesn't reflect off fog anywhere near as much. I've got the clear Wipac Crystal headlights in mine with a proper loom (I think I might have cheated and just used a plug and play Boomslang loom) and honestly had no problems at night or in fog with them with normal, decent quality, bulbs (nothing special). On high beam they throw light plenty far enough into the distance. The only point I have found is when at Seven Sisters a couple of weeks ago they don't point very high (for obvious reasons) and trying to pick up the narrow tracks off the side of the road, particular when coming down a hill was a bit more challenging. But then that's a situation for a flood light on the roof which I've been considering.

3 words. Range Rover seats 🙂. Would have been even more sedate had the sodding compressor been working and been able to use the lockers. There be a few dents on it, don't deliberately try to break it but not afraid to make it work. Think I will be building a tank guard / detachable tow bar though. Absolute pleasure having your company. Wish I had the space at home to do what you did and buy a cheap thing for stuff like this.

De nada. Commitment? That was just pottering around...

Quite happy to agree to disagree but one last view point I have is that I run KM2s so (hopefully) the most likely thing to break is surface adhesion in the case of hard packed gravel. In fact I know that on the concrete yard and roads near my parents where I was having issues with the diff lock linkages you could hear / feel / see the tyres scrubbing. My opinion (it's my opinion and I'm not forcing it on anyone) is that if the half-shafts break instead of the tyres scrubbing in that situation then it's time to move onto a more sensible vehicle as that's a pretty pathetic strength in the drive train...

I would side with @RedLineMike on this point. At no point other than entering the car park did I have the centre diff unlocked. There were only two points I had trouble making a corner, one was a hair-pin switch back in mud and trees on either side that no standard vehicle would have made it around, as it was it was a 5 point turn for me. The second was climbing out of that stream bed after we did the track with the sharp drop off that Teresa got out to take photos. But that might have been down to the fact that I was monitoring the air (or rather air leak) and had all three diffs lock so there's only really one direction that the 110 goes in when that happens and it's straight on... There you could see proper tyre scrub on the track, once the front and rear were out then there was minimal scrubbing. In the last 2 years or so I've now started locking the centre diff as a matter of course when not on tarmac (assuming I'm likely to be doing something a bit more technical than driving across a field) after thinking I'd potentially spun the centre diff dry (turns out I hadn't and the linkage was setup badly resulting in the diff not actually being disengaged despite me thinking it was). But then again apart from engine and gearbox it's now a fully Ashcroft / Nige drive train so should be up to what I normally use it for.

Mimicking me - I pushed the lever, think it went in but the light only came on 6h later... Besides - have you seen the size of his tyres , admittedly not the biggest there but gives him a decent advantage compared to "standard" Land Rovers. We didn't do much slippy stuff (at least I didn't with him during the day on Saturday) but more climbs and descents. I am envious of his approach and departure angles though. It was nice to see the setup he had as a tank guard and tow hitch. Think I shall be replicated it now that I've seen something I like in the flesh. My tow-bar did it's job at protecting the tank - but I did shear a couple of bolts which made towing the Argo back to my parents a little more entertaining...

He couldn't have picked a better weekend, sunshine was out but apparently, for those not born in Wales, a little chilly. It coped well from what I saw when he followed me. He does have a little dent to straighten. In my defence I was not leading the way at that point. Although the same can't be said of a little Vitara... Best moment for me was the Cheshire cat grin and laughter coming from him as he was let loose in the Argo. Pig in mud comes to mind.

I'd second Fridge's comments. OK it was with Ashcrofts but I knackered the bearings in my LT230 earlier in the year due to lack of oil (I'd been meaning to check the level due to an occasional drip, cue 2 years later and probably about 10k miles, oops). Ordered a box from them, once the new one arrived installed it and returned the old one (the low gear had about 1/2" of forwards / backwards play in it). No questions asked refund appeared on the card a few days later.

FFS - I've got to bring the canoe as well now!

I know that's why I mentioned the outboard. Technically it should be able to maintain some movement with the tyres (tread dependent) but for our purposes we didn't really need the outboard in the highlands or Wales - hence why I plan on sticking it on my canoe!

Guess we'll be needing Mike's fibre-glassing skills to seal up holes in the floor. It did also come with an outboard which is currently at my house destined for a canoe...

You're first up Mike , we've already made fools of ourselves in front of the family. Ironically my sister (who hasn't driven the digger as much as we have) took like it like a Labrador to water. Jumped straight in and nailed it.

Only recent ones - outs is a petrol. Although both Dad and I find the controls very counter-intuitive having driven excavators a lot. If you're going to hit something and need to stop quickly you need to pull both levers back which if your going forwards means you get thrown forwards which means you release the brakes which means you hit what you were trying to miss anyway. Going backwards our instinct is to push the levers forward (away from the thing we're going to hit) which means you release the brakes and hit what you were trying to avoid anyway. Despite the inefficiencies associated with hydrostatic drives when I spoke with him last night he's sorely tempted to convert it over to hydraulics and then it's a more intuitive system and you can reverse the drive to one set of wheels. Not the Argo way because they prefer the mechanical linkages to keep efficiencies up and weight and engine size down but for his purposes would probably be more suitable.

Argocat confirmed

All paid, will definitely be seeing you on Saturday with 4 wheels, probably 12 if I can get through to the farm.

Not a bad shout - guess I'll be towing it around at the start to mix it up properly then . Got a reasonably large tank and doesn't use it at a particularly alarming rate.

To be fair the strip down takes about 10 minutes. I've done most of it just to see what was underneath the filters and so on. After all it's only a 2 cylinder 2 stroke (Kohler CH18 with spec of 62502 - whatever that means). Supposedly the Argo would have originally been fitted with a Kohler M18 engine but someone somewhere has swapped it out.

I'll confess - petrol is black magic to me, well I could work it out but I've only ever worked on diesel engines - those be simple. Fuel + Air + Compression => Bang, none of this magic sparking plug nonsense

I did wonder about a DIY one (since Dad and I both design electronics for a living). But there's something to be said for mechanical linkages when your 5 miles up a Scottish hillside with a couple of dead deer in the back and the options are: a) fix it b) walk c) phone a friend... Definitely had new fuel in it and from what I remember the last time I saw it (it's at the other end of the country from me) the filter was spotless. Not saying it isn't though. Benefit of bringing it to 7 sisters is everyone can have an opinion and tinker and I might just leave with a working Argocat . Better check Dad doesn't mind me pinching his "toy".

Umm. This particular one is road legal... It's got a Q plate and certainly lap belts in the front, roll cage and winch. If you can ignore the fact that the wiring was done by a blind hermit from cloud cukoo land (I.e. Hit or miss if the lights work). Doubt Dad's bothered sorting that stuff out yet. So want to change your mind?