RichardAllen

The 65A on my 1997 300TDi 90 alternator failed in France recently and was replaced through the AA Europe with a different one of unknown provenance, though they told me it was a Denso one. It fits (apart from the heatshield), has the 49mm pulley and produces electricity. It also has a cooling fan inside the casing. I recall my old one had a fan between the pulley and the alternator casing. I did not get to keep the old one as the Frnech garage said the deal with the AA was they could keep it for reconditioning. I don't trust this French one much so last week bought a OEM Denso one (DAN 005 MS 104212-4403) which came without fan or pulley. It appears not to have a fan inside the casing. I can get another pulley (STC3202), but do I also need a fan ? If so where can I get one ? All help gratefully received. Regards Richard

I have a 1997 90 300TDi CSW. It has developed a problem which blows Fuse 17 for the brake lights and reversing light. The circuit works fine when the vehicle is stationary, but Fuse 17 blows regularly on a journey. The wiring is standard, with a trailer socket, and I have the standard 15 Amp fuse and standard lamps. I therefore suspect that a 12v wire is intermittently shorting to earth. Is this a good diagnosis ? If so, are there any well known areas of the wiring loom where people have had this happen before, so I can check them first ? All help gratefully received Regards Richard

Winched a stuck 110 up a steep snow/ice covered lane, then winched up the Bentley Turbo that the 110 was trying to rescue. They got home Christmas and I lost a shovel. Regards Richard

I have just come back from a 3 week trip where the only problem on my 300TDi was an alternator failure. So I want to take a spare one next time, but have little space. Is there any reason not to stow the spare one under the bonnet, possibly on a little fabricated bracket bolted to the engine where the aircon unit would go if I had one ? All help gratefully received Regards Richard

My 300TDi 90 has done about 120k miles. I believe it has the original clutch, and am sure that it has had an easy life for the last 60k I have had it. Is there any neat way to tell how much life the clutch is likely to have left in it. Or, if I want to go away for a long trip do I just put in a new one anyway ? All help gratefully received. Regards Richard

Further research this evening on the Thatcham website would indicate that my LR original alarm and immobiliser is already Cat 1. I have requested clarification from the insurers As to insurers, a couple of small claims a couple of minor speeding tickets, a modified Landy and you would be amazed how many specialist insurers don't want to take your money these days. For me this has been a real pain, and since the premium has gone up 8x in 4 years (when the claims and convictions took place) it is now really expensive - and I am over 50 and of previously reasonable character ! Regards Richard

I have a 300TDi Defender 90 with the standard Land Rover immobiliser spider. My insurers now require a Thatcham Cat 2 immobiliser and tell me that the Land Rover one is not good enough. Given the level of Defender thefts, I have no problem doing this as one of a number of security upgrades. However, does anyone know of a Thatcham CAT 2A immobiliser which will fit inside the standard Land Rover immobiliser housing rivetted metal box (Part No AMR 5607) ? All help gratefully received Regards Richard Mods: Please transfer this to the Defender forum if necessary, I have put it here as I don't know whether or not the problem may affect other vehicles with a 300TDi engine

I did check the airbeam air valves and the look like standard BSP fittings, but I am not certain of this. And yes getting down to 5 psi to pump up an airbeam without bursting it may be a challenge. The problem I have with the fold-out type roof tents (apart from high-up weight and price) is that there are 4 of us, so we need two tents. JasonG110 solves this by having one on the truck and another on the trailer. For the moment, I am trying to avoid the trailer route, though Jason's logic is persuasive. The airbeam concept is I believe tried and tested with things like army temprorary hospitals etc, but as applied by Vango it is, in my view unproven. It will be interesting to see as time progresses how well they come out in reviews. The larger ones have already shown some problems, but I have not seen an in-the-field review for the Velocity 400, the one that would suit us. Regards Richard

Jason, Just in case you thought of having an inclinometer app on the iPhone attached to your dash, don't bother. I have tried them all off road and found none of them any use at all. A pity really, because with a bit of thought to the damping one or two of them could be made slightly better than completely useless. Regards Richard

These guys http://www.overlandwithkids.com/ went to Oz with two adults, two kids, a 110 and a Jurgens Xplorer caravan. I think the caravan fell apart in the Ukraine. I hope to meet them one day as driving a family 12 months to Oz in a 110 without much idea how to fix it is BRAVE. Regards Richard

Thanks for the input. I spent a good couple of hours at Billing last year looking very closely at every roof tent I could find and talking to whoever I could. My conclusion is that roof tents are technologically decades behind ground tents and all pretty much the same heavy costly foldout design (excepting the Maggioline pop-up type). Where are the lightweight alloy or composite poles/frames, where are the modern lightweight waterproof materials, what about internal lantern points, storage pockets, insect-proof ventilation screens, reinforced chafing points the list goes on. I was massively underwhelmed by every roof tent I saw when considering camping with two adults and two children. I also want to be able to setup for four people, leave everything and go on day-trips. This precludes a roof tent only approach. As for ground tents having pegs, these are of course pre-requisite for their performance. Our local tent shop (attwoolls) must have 30 or 40 tents put up in their showroom. They have a system where, instead of pegs, they use tapes which they then staple to the carpet. My custom roofrack, will likewise have pegging points built in at the appropriate points to which loops and guys can be attached to secure the tent. Regards Richard

Assuming I can make a very lightweight roofrack cheaply (al tube frame with stressed peforated al sheet welded on), Myway RTT is some 3 times the weight and 3 times the money for what looks like half the capacity. As for the robustness of a Velocity 400, that it what I am hoping someone on here will try before me.

Variable weather is why I am keen on Vango - several years of very varying camping experience. I want a roof tent so we can sleep anywhere (hotel car park, layby, off-road etc), and I want a ground tent so we can leave the tent at a site to go exploring, and I don't want two tents because I want to keep weight low, and am sure with a bit of clever thinking I can have my cake and eat it. Airbeams are at http://www.vango.co....rbeam-tent.html I have had a good look at a Velocity 200 and Infinity 600 erected, and they look very well made and sturdy. The web and our local camping shop both indicate that the very large ones have to be blown up first and then the floor straps tightened, rather than the other way round. The web reports one or two punctures/leaks to the beams. For me either this is a problem which will be fixed or Vango will withdraw the range in a year or two. Right now, they are just a bit too expensive for me, but I reckon I could build an aluminium fold out roof rack for a Velocity 400 and get the family in it easily. Once I can weld aluminium that is !

For some time I have been looking for a roof tent that can be used on the ground as well as the roof. I am not keen onHannibal style tents and Maggiolina style popup's on the grounds of weight, and cost as against almost all modern ground tents. And of copurse, you cannot use them on the ground. I saw a pic of someone putting a Quechua popup tent on a Disco roofrack. Close but no cigar. I need space for two adults and two kids. From a recent purchase, I can confirm that even if you built a foldout roofrack big enough, it would be extremely difficult to erect a Quechua style 4 man popup tent on a roof, and far harder to take it down.. This leads me to Vango Airbeam. This a new style of tent where poles are replaced by tubes you pump up with air. The idea is pretty much new for consumer tents, I believe, though it has been used by the military for hospitals etc for some time. Foldout your custom roof rack, peg down the tent, blow the airbeams up with the on-board compressor and job done. OK you still need to build a custom roofrack and have some kind of on-board air, but it might just work. Has anyone tried them yet , especially as both a roof and ground tent. Regards Richard PS Compared to normal tents airbeams are currently pricy, but if the idea is any good and they take off I am sure they will come down in price a bit PPS I have no relationship with Vango other than as a satisfied customer

When I looked at the inverter for camping, the biggest regular load was a hairdryer (wife + 2 daughters !). So I got a 2kw quasi-sine one. It also runs drill, grinder, and just about manages a hot air stripper for heatshrink, though only one at a time ! Regards Richard

I got a Whitecliff Certificate. They do have BORDA instructors which was an initial attraction for me and they do a lot of utilities companies training. They noted a few times that the personal training goes well beyond the utility stuff because you have more time to learn just what your vehicle can do with more difficult driving and less time on the niceties of Provison for Use of Work Equipment Regulations There is some stuff on their website under Professional 4x4 Training I cannot speak for Whitecliff 4x4, but I am involved in providing some kinds of training for the Royal Navy Submarine Service and I am acutely aware of the implications on a company of formally certifying that someone is trained do do something, hence, I think the informal certification for private trainees. Regards Richard

That's the one.

Yesterday I completed Stage 3 Off-road 4x4 Driving Winching at Whitecliff Quarry in the Forest of Dean, near Gloucester. I had previously done Stages (Introduction) and Stage 2 (Advanced), and had a great day. The emphasis on the previous stages was very much on how to drive so you do not get stuck, and over the intervening two years, I have regularly gone laning in all weathers on my own in Gloucestershire, Cumbria, Surrey, Devon and Ireland with no significant troubles. Yesterday I did the driving and recovery course aimed more at people doing expeditions. Yesterday, as luck would have it, I was the only person who booked a course , so I had one-on-one instruction from Jim from 9:30am to 6pm with breaks for coffee and lunch. My choice was to use my own 90, though I could have used one of theirs. Since my last training day, I have modified my 90 a fair bit which could change the handling (2nd fuel tank, 80 litre water tank, winch and bumper, big 2nd battery etc, but no changes to standard springs and shocks) so I was keen to see how it now ran. In the morning, we did a bit of classroom work including seeing some broken drivetrain bits showing what happens when you get it very wrong, and then I was able to catch up on the more difficult driving that you can do in the quarry, but I had not really encountered while laning, After that, at my request we spent about an hour practising failed hill climbs, engine running and engine stalled, on different hills, so now I am fully comfortable with the technique whereas before, I knew how to do them but was not confident. Over lunch we went through how to calculate the effective resistance for a recovery including vehicle weight, terrain type, gradient and safety factor, and checking to see how to find rating on the gear, various rigging combinations (and some of Jim's curous knots) then it was back out to the quarry again. We did: - use of waffle boards, separately and two together - lift and push over using a hi-lift to get out of a bad cross-axle - straight line winch recovery from a very sticky pond, including full safety procedures, signalling, passenger safety and so on - I winched Jim's 90 out - angled uphill recovery using two trees as anchors, including how to estimate if the tree will be strong enough, - uphill recovery using a single tree , then over to T stakes as a ground anchor and then downhill lowering - finally a kinetic recovery from another very sticky pond - again I pulled Jim out lastly I easily drove first time up a tricky slope which had taken me 7 goes last time, all in all I had a marvellous day and feel fully confident with all the techniques we practised. I am a firm fan of doing thorough professional training to learn the right way to do things before going out, rather than having to learn purely by my own mistakes and seeing those of others. I can recommend Whitecliff without any hesitation and will certainly take all the drivers for my 1 year expedition (should it ever come off) through the full 3 Stage training I did. Thanks very much to Jim and Geraldine for an excellent day I have, of course, no connection with Whiteclif 4x4 other than as a very satisfied customer. Regards Richard

A warning I would add, is when you take the inlet pipe off, stuff it with clean rag or paper towel, and secure it opening downwards so that nothing can fall in. I had a turbo badly damaged almost certainly because it had tried to ingest a nut or small stone. Needless to say, the rag must be removed just before the inlet pipe is connected to the new turbo ! Regards Richard

I could not find this stuff with Google, do you have a link ? Regards Richard

Following a flash to help a truck overtake, I have seen people do a quick on/of with the hazards, instead of the left/right indicator.

Fit a schroder valve into the bumper, a drain cock somewhere low but not too vulnerable, then 1/2" hose from the drain cock in the bumper to the oil filler in the rocker box, pressurise the bumper with the compressor and squirt the oil in. All a bit much really, but then if I can store fluids on the outside, I can keep more spares on the inside.

That is an excellent idea - left and right hands of bumper for engine oil, A bar with EP90, one side and MTF on the other. Regards Richard

Thanks for the pic, on my 90 (300TDi) that is where the filler goes - I put in a Y filler so I could fill the second tank I have put under the back (a plastic TD5 one), so there is not much space left on the driver's side, but there is on the passenger side.

Steve How has the Dinitrol lasted two and a half years on ? Regards Richard