Eightpot

I've used Numax and found them excellent - can be used as a starter or deep cycle. Ideally use two, one for starting, the second for aux stuff, and that way they are matched in terms of output, charging and can be swapped over. Think you can buy them on the x-eng shop?

Is the Isuzu top mount I/C any better than the disco intercooler?? not sure you'd find it an improvement, especially as it would be closer to a hot engine as well.

I reckon twin shocks would be ok on an the back of an overlandy type thing for unmetaled road and corrugations - would definately help keep the heat down, but with one heavy duty - shock and the second one much softer acting as a helper - even just a standard woodhead. Think this particular design would create to much stress on a single chassis point though over prolonged periods with lots of weight in the back. Don't spose thats what they've designed em for anyway though.

I had some standard Terrafirmas fitted on a Defender I took to Libya once - gave them an absolute thrashing, and although they didn't last the trip out, they stayed intact. Had some fitted on the front of my Rangie in Capetown and they did well under a lighter load, and are still working fine, but I'll only fit Koni Heavy Trak of maybe OME in future as they totally work.

Friends of mine drove to Japan recently, missed out China by going through Mongolia and Russia. Details on http://www.anenjo.be/index.php?q=node/8 You need a Carnet to travel to many countries as it acts as a guarantee that if you fail to take the vehicle out of the country you are visiting, any import duty will be paid. The RAC acts as import duty gaurantors in the UK, and if you google RAC Carnet you will find all you need to know, and can check wich countries the Carnet covers. If the car is registered in another country, you need to speak with the local Carnet authority. You must pay a deposit on the Carnet, and this can be very high depending on the countries you are visiting - sometimes it's best to take a very good older car. Don't see why a D4 wouldn't get you there, it wouldn't be my choice though as I wouldn't trust the electronics and I wouldn't know what the hell to do if the engine or suspension had problems. Nor would most mechanics outside central Europe. As long as there's more than one car and you take a good rope, you'll make it somewhere though.

Yes, we're back in the UK now, the car arrived at Southampton on Thursday, so just assessing the long string of jobs that needs doing before it can go back on the road. It's been out of the country for over a year so can't be driven anyway till it's MOT'd etc. I did about another 5000 miles after I initially found this crack, so it's done pretty well - in fact it only split like this in the last 20 miles after I loaded the back up with half a ton of fuel, hardwood furniture, oil and souvenirs on the way to Mombassa docks. I ideally want to change the spring seats as they are only 6" rangie ones, and with the weight of the car I think 110 seats will give me the spring options I need - hadn't thought about just doing one side of the spring seat, but I really want to take the whole thing off, hence my thoughts about nailing a nice wide solid plate across the chassis, on to good solid steel, and then welding new seats to that. My only worry was that it might cause too much stiffness and make new cracks, or be inclined to peel away from the chassis under load.

I've got a bit of a problem on my Rangies rear spring seat (see pic) Due in part to a bit of rust, and a lot of stress, one side of the spring seat has split away from the chassis. On the photo you can see where a garage (in Namibia) attempted, poorly, to repair a crack that had formed vertically near the side of the spring seat, and have put a bit of plate over, which only seemed to be attached by a few gobs of weld. The chassis is good (for a 30 year old one) but there is a bit of rust by the spring seat, so I can't hammer it back and repair or just put a new spring seat on. My thoughts are to grind the spring seat off, clean up the whole area, then make a 'fish plate' a bit like this <=> maybe with a fold over top and bottom, seam welded, and plug weld through it to the chassis behind. Then weld a new spring seat onto this. I can't do a chassis swap as it's not a normal rangie (see avatar), has a stretched chassis, and I don't have the facilities to dismantle it. Plus the rest of the chassis seems pretty well aside from this bit. Anyone tried a similar repair, or think it won't be strong enough??

Any 'standard' front spring will do, and I believe they use a heavy duty rear spring, which is what I have fitted to mine (they are only a little stiffer than standard). Normal woodhead shocks all round, or whatever takes your fancy.

You're normally only allowed to have a spare wheel and wheel brace inside the car, and externally it has to be bare - no roofracks or rooftents. Otherwise it all gets nicked.

KSA and I believe Oman have a right hand drive restriction, but saying that, I know people that have done it recently in a RHD car with no problem or questions asked. (If you are going through KSA and are taking your missus, you also need to be married or she'll have to walk behind the car) Your route down will probably be taking you through Syria, Jordan and Egypt though, where there are no restrictions.

I would suggest that shipping your car to SA and back will make a 3 week trip very pricey indeed. 700 quid sounds awfully cheap to ship to Durban - check that that is not just the actual shipping bit, as you also need to pay for agents, clearance, devanning, customs and a bunch of other stuff. If the price is for ro-ro, then be aware that you can only ship completely empty cars. I would suggest that shipping to Durban, and back via Walvis Bay will cost between 2500-3000 easily - I have just payed 2100 to ship back from Mombassa. Have you checked out some of the rental firms - some will allow you to pick up in Durban or Johannesburg and drop off in Windhoek, so you can drop it off there and fly back without drama. A friend of mine used British 4x4 in J'burg who did a good service and provided everything from rooftent down to a GPS. it would also save you a few days of messing around waiting for your car to be cleared from port, and also arranging for it to be loaded back into a container - you could lose nearly a week. Oh, and then you will also need to buy a Carnet de Passage to temporarily import your car into SA, Namibia and Botswana, or you will be charged import duty.

I've been running my RRC Ambulance on 235/85 for a while and they've worked well with raised suspension. Ran Cooper STT till I wore them down, and now on KL71's which I've been very impressed with

Haven't done a direct comparison of the turbos myself as yet, but I read it on a tech description somewhere - apparantly it is the same turbo used on the 3.1?? Either way, I found the intercooled engine was a different beast fom the 'normal' one, especially with a couple of tweeks. I noticed probably a 40% increase (with TD5 I/C, 3" straight through exhaust, pump tweek and better manifold) - feels like about 135bhp and stacks of torque. In case it's ever useful to anyone, I noted that a couple of bits from the trooper style engine are useful for a conversion - the oil filter housing is a much better fit, and also the bunch of bananas inlet manifold sits lower down and seems to offer better airflow than the one on the frontera.

You might also consider the 4 speed LT95 gearbox - the gearstick should sit in about the right place I think?? as it's further forward than the long bellhousing R380. Easy enough to get the conversion plate if you keep an eye on ebay. The Isuzu/LT95 is a nice setup, especially if you use tall tyres. Just a note on the 2.8 4Jb1T - if you can find one from a Vauxhall/Opel Frontera or Isuzu Wizard, they are quite a bit more powerful than the type found in pick-up trucks/Troopers (bigger turbo, two stage injectors)- I've used both types and the difference was huge. A nice big intercooler really helps as well.

I've just driven from UK to Capetown with Koni Heavy Trak, and they are as good as the day I put them on. In fact, one particularly bad rock strewn corrugated excuse for a road was so rough that the rear shock punched a large hole straight through the lower shock mount on the axle - the shock was dragged, driven on and battered with rocks for 15 mins before I realised, but after getting the axle welded up, the shock was reused with no damage.

I don't know for certain, but does the wire from the ignition switch not just suppy the trigger for the relay, and the main feed to the relay>plugs come from the pole on the starter motor? Thats how I have mine set up, but I have a diesel conversion and put the relay on myself, so not factory, however the wiring loom that came with it (from 200tdi disco)seemed to support my theory. On my old 2.5NA, the ignition switch fed the glow plugs directly, taking it's feed from the starter motor pole - necessary as there was no timer relay, and you just hold the key over for as long as you need before firing up - but it seemed a poor design to me, and in fact caused a massive dash fire when the switch came a little loose once and the glow plug terminal grounded out on the steering column

Picture attached - I have an Isuzu engine fitted, so bit easier as the turbo and manifold are on different sides, but it should be easy enough to make up a pipe to bring the intake side of the intercooler over to the right spot if it's for a TDi There are some good usable mounting points on the side of the intercooler, so just make up a couple of brackets to drop it into - oh and you need to trim the sides of the rad mounting frame a tad to let the pipes pass through easily. Also quite easy to mount the rad centrally, just need to make a hole for the rad filler cap.

I tried installing a TD5 rad in my rangie when I converted to diesel - wasn't succesfull at all and I ended up buying a TDi rad. With the right hoses and expansion tank no doubt it could be got to work ok, but to be honest I much prefer the TDi rad - a lot stronger than the alloy TD5 one and it does the same job. I did fit the TD5 intercooler though, if you modify the mount points for a TDi rad so the rad sits in the centre of the frame, the intercooler hoses pass either side nicely.

credit where due... I had a MOT done at my local Nationwide (Kidderminster) and it failed on a few bits. When I took it back for re-test, they appologised profusely and said that the tester, who was new, had missed some fail points - rear radius arm to axle bushes, headlight allignment and also the fix I did to a rear lamp not working wasn't working on the re-test (there was a bad earth). The tester had since been sacked. The manager voluntarily refunded not only my originl test fee, but also said they would press in new radius arm bushes, allign the headlamps and fix the earth problem free of charge - that afternoon! And sure enough they did. Above and beyond I thought.

Had two cooper STT's destroyed in the same way due to small punctures (or I suspect dried out 'sticky plug' repairs), which let the tyre deflate a little, then they got so hot they blew the sidewalls out big stylee - they were so hot I couldn't touch them.

Used a Sumicom car computer with Liliput touchscreen, and ran centrafuse and Garmin MobilePC (ace)(Maplin were selling software plus dongle for 50 quid). I found a pice of freeware through one of the car pc forums which modified the dislplay slightly keeping the audio player controls visible in a top bar so you could change track/volume etc while running Garmin. Sadly the HD died a bit after taking a battering on North African roads, so when we get back I'll try again using a solid state pc.

I've destroyed two Cooper STT's so far in Africa, and down the East coast, tyres have been difficult to get hold of unless you are willing to pay close on $500 dollars each for a good brand (was quoted more for Cooper/BFG), or $180 for chinese ones. tyres are real expensive here, and many of the roads are beyond bad, especially in Kenya. If you can spare the room, it's not a bad idea to take a sixth tyre, and when you're on your trip keep an eye on tyre pressures and damage. it's also worth trying to get hold of some proper puncture repair patches to take with you - in Africa garages and tyre places tend to just use the sticky tyre plugs (ok for a get you home, but they don't last).

you can make one up using normal female spade connectors and a 12v cigarette lighter plug and lead - just connect the spade connectors directly to the terminals on the fridge - you will need to work out which terminal is pos and neg, can't remember offhand but I've done this before when I forgot the lead on a camping trip. Not sure if the standard lead has a filter/voltage smoothing function, seems to look like it, so maybe only do this if you are using a seperate leisure battery, though I would have thought a fridge motor could handle a few volts in either direction anyway without harm?

cheers Les, seems it's in the box itself so hopefully an easy adjustment then. ta : )

Hello all - appologies for posting here but I'm in Jordan at the mo and could use some info before we head off for Egypt - I don't think from memory that this is covered in haynes, and I don't have any other reference with me, but I have developed a clonk in the steering box, and there is slight play in the output shaft to the drop arm - getting a bit of steering shake also - play can be seen when turning the wheel. Is there a way of adjusting this out, or is more work required? Car is reasonably low mileage, so normal wear and tear isn't high on my list of suspicions, but theres a definate observable movement in the output... otherwise, does anyone know if this will continue without much drama for a few thou or is it likely to degrade quickly? cheers : )