RichardAllen

A recent thread on here noted that thieves were less likely to steal a vehicle with stickers on it, presumably because that made the vehicle stand out a bit and the thieves would have to remove the stickers early on. So the next question is: does anyone know of good places to get free stickers ? I do not mind too much driving around advertising someone's stuff, so long as I like the kit and it does not cost me anything. Britpart stickers anyone ? Regards Richard

I am looking at a 2 vehicle expedition, both Defender 300TDi's. Amongst a number of security measures, I want to be able to use Land Rover's built-in system of alarm ecu, immobiliser and key fob. However, I am wary of electrical failures, so I want to take spares and therefore need some means of programming the security system. I will have a laptop (and spare) so the question is what is the easiest / cheapest setup to get ? Nanocom ? Rovacom ? Other please specify ? I have looked on the interweb, but no surprise, information on programming the security system is pretty scarce. I appreciate that this is a very sensitive area, especially as Defenders are now being stolen so much, so any help via pm would be very gratefully received. Thanks in advance Regards Richard

Nick his keys then.

I got an email from the seller today. He has done his research and pulled the items from sale. I would guess the views on here, to which I drew his attention, would have contributed to such a really decent decision. It's an example it would be good to others on eBay and indeed elsewhere follow. Perhaps we should use the authority this forum undoubtredly has on technical Land Rovber matters, to influence some of the less well advised eBay sales we see, or pehaps that would be going too far. Regards Richard

A couple of month's later after my accident and I decided to finish the job of cutting up my old trailer yesterday. Now somewhat nervous with PPE from head to toe, I started off with a small angle grinder which made slow progress and I did not feel at all at ease on the job. Time for a cup of tea and time to apply some thought to the problem. I worked out that by knocking out the wooden panels I would be left with a simple frame. I then put my chopsaw onto a Workmate and used the weight of the frame plus the chopsaw vice to keep things in place and quickly chopped the frame into manageable chunks, with no drama at all. Pity I did not think of that approach in the first place. Thanks for all the support. Regards Richard

I am very interested in how they would go inside. My 90 rear has 4 water jerrycans, a kitchen, a large fridge, 2 seats, 2 kids and loads of toys and stuff in it, so all the tents, bedding and clothes go in these boxes on the roof. My next step is a 110 where I will use these inside if they fit well. Regards Richard

I had a response: the seller is having second thoughts, is making enquiries, and will pull the sale if he feels they are dangerous. Richard

I have now; that site escaped my researches which cannot clearly have been that exhaustive. While Keep Ireland Open seems to be more for walkers and what in England (UK?) is Right to Roam it paints a bleak picture; oddly being worst in the West and not so bad in the East. However my experience in the West was OK, and Gromit's view (if I underestand correctly), is the the East is more difficult for 4x4's.

Thanks Fridge. I forgot to mention that they are stackable-ish, which means they have small square feet which locate into the square recesses you can see on the lid in the photo. However there is no means of locking them together unless you used you own ratchet straps bungees or similar.

51 deg 50.7044 mins N 10 deg 13.7911 mins W

We were around the peninsulars of the far south-west: Ring of Kerry, Dursey, Sheep's Head and Mizen Head. I only saw one specific "No 4x4's" sign, which was on a beach - fair enough. I did see another sign "No Hunting No Camping" on a gate across a track into the mountains which looked very inviting, but the gate was padlocked anyway, so again - fair enough. I would guess that the overall pace of life and scarce population in the West allows some leeway for us, so long as it is not abused and all users are courteous with each other. Long may it be so, as my lawyer friend is about to buy a house down there, so we will be visiting regularly I hope. Regards Richard

We have just done a fortnight camping in a pretty wet Ireland. As we had two kids with us most of our stuff has to go on the roof of the 90. I am keen that things are boxed and organised, so looked at boxes around the 100 litre mark. Wolff boxes which I know are popular with overlanders, are smaller and a bit expensive. I also looked into several other options from people such as Solent Plastics and Peli cases. But was always looking at over £100 per case, (and Peli cases a good deal more still). All a bit much since I need 4. I ended up using 4 of these: B&Q Core Storage Chest Grey Large at £30 a go, as seen on: http://www.diy.com/diy/jsp/bq/nav.jsp?action=detail&fh_secondid=9796473&fh_view_size=150&fh_location=%2f%2fcatalog01%2fen_GB&fh_search=storage+chest&fh_eds=%c3%9f&fh_refview=search&ts=1282312051747&isSearch=true If they are not packed too densely you can put one onto a 90 roofrack unaided and tie it down with a single ratchet strap. They are reasonably robust, perhaps not up to expedition standards, but certainly OK for some time away with small children. I was pretty dubious about how weather-proof they would be, so I taped up the handle holes with gaffer tape, a kept most stuff in bags inside. However, we had a number of nights of heavy rain when they were packed on the roof-rack, and two all-day wet motorway trips and nothing inside got at all wet. The minus points are that they are not particularly secure, though they do have a hole for a padlock. The shape inside is a bit odd, but easy to fill well with squashy camping stuff. I would not use them regularly for seating but they did stand up to our occasional use. I have not tried them outside UK temperatures or anywhere very dusty. So if you need a cheap topbox, I would recommend taking at look. Needless to say, I have no connection with B&Q. I would also advise checking all of them in the store before buying, as I found some on the shelf with holes in and some which would not close tightly. I hope this is of some help. Regards Richard

I have just been away for a fortnight with the my 90 camping in South-West Ireland and managed to fit in some gentle lanes along the way. I did some research before leaving, including joining a irish off-road biker's club (what motorcycle do you have ? A Defender), but made no progress in working out whether Ireland has an equivalent of a green lane. So I waited until we were staying with an irish lawyer friend before going off-road. I was navigating using the Irish Ordnance Survey 1:50,000 on OziExplorer on an in-car laptop with GPS. I found the following which I hope will be useful to others: 1. The maps were pretty accurate, as good as the UK OS ones at that scale, save that for main roads, much new building has been done and the maps are a bit out of date. 2. Roads marked in yellow are equivalent to our minor roads, these were all accurately marked. 3. Roads marked in grey were rough tarmac roads, sometimes in poor condition, but passable by the average normal family road car such as a BMW X5 or Porsche Cayenne:o . In the mountains, it was often unclear whether or not the road was really the drive to someone's house, or not. However, they were accurately marked and we had no trouble driving them. 4. Roads marked in thin black dashes are rough tracks or footpath and accurately marked, these are what we took to be greenlanes 5. Paths marked in red dashes are specific long distance footpath routes, we only tried these where they coincided with a black dashed track. We tried a few of the tracks/footpaths marked in black dashes. It was not clear even to my lawyer friend whether we have any right of way or not. However, there was no signage either way and his view was that no one would worry if we were sensible. So we applied the normal rules, especially driving slowly, closing gates behind us, stopping for all other users and being very courteous to everyone we met, and had a great time, with no mishaps. It was clear that no one had driven the tracks we went down in a long time. There were, therefore, no ruts but no easy guidance either. Many of them were narrow with low rocks and had ditches on one or both sides, well disguised by long grass/bracken etc, so it was very easy to slip into a ditch. Fortunately, when this happened, proper and timely application of power got us out without making a mess of the track for eveyone else. I would also add that it was generally wet, and the lanes were grass-covered. We were therefore very careful on the steep slopes to maintain momentum and traction when they got slippery. Overall, there was nothing we came across to trouble a 90 with anti-roll bars and a driver who has done a good course and had some practice. The people we met seemed to enjoy the novelty of seeing a Jeep (as they seem to call all 4x4's) out in the wilds and were interested in whether we were able to get through or not. So we had no difficulty with people, but then they had not come across some of the hooligans we see. I can recommend Ireland if you want to bumble along enjoying the scenery. If you want to tear around the place churning up mud and getting stuck, then I am disappointed that you are reading this thread and would ask that you stick to pay sites. Regards Richard

I have emailed the seller, including a link to the earlier LR4x4 thread and asked him, very politely, to consider withdrawing them from sale, on the basis that he has so far been fortunate not to have an accident and it would be unfortunate if he then sold them to someone who has. Interesting to see if I get any response, or they do get withdrawn. Regards Richard

No one has mentioned Bosch yet. My experience with them has been good, but only for home use. Regards Richard

Marvellous. It makes me feel rather churlish being all serious about sticking an angle grinder in my leg. Regards Richard

Thanks for all your concerns and good wishes, sorry I have not been able to reply earlier. To follow-up, the angle grinder with blade still in place looks like this: The angle iron I was cutting through looks like this: - where you can just about make out that the part to the bottom right which sprang uptowards the top of the picture by about 3mm when I completed the cut. The notch made in the blade where it caught can be seen better here: Regarding the incident there are one or two more things I can add. I am right handed so I had my right hand on the dead-man's handle switch and left hand on the steadying handle. I was standing to the side, so nothing was in the direct firing line. The steadying handle was in the position that sticks out from the back of the blade, so it was horizontal when cutting, as I felt this gave best control over the cut. However, when it caught, the whole grinder shot out of my left hand. It then glanced off another part of the frame and over the side of the triler into my leg. The blade came to a stop because it became tangled up in my shorts/boxers/leg. For a split second I heard that buzzing of a stalled electric motor before letting go of the dead-man's handle switch and then working out how to get tangled shorts/boxers and grinder off, so I could check the damage. I add this not out of the need for gory detail but just to show that it was my clothing that saved me from a much deeper cut. I might also have been better off using the handle in the vertical position as it would then have been more difficult to wrench from my grasp. However, I feel I would have had less control, so a catch would have been more likely. I have used this grinder several times before. It is a beast of a tool and I have had trouble with it catching on both metal and stone slabs before (using the correct baldes of course). I am a fairly robust 6'2" 16 stone but even so find it a tool which even before the accident merited great caution. Discussions at work indicate that the right gloves would have been either ARCO SUP 25G Riggers Gloves for general use, or possible SHOWA GP-KV1 Kevlar Grip Gloves (we get most of our PPE from ARCO). The helmet with polycarbonate visor (as shown by JasonG4110 above) is generally regarded as a better choice than protective goggles. Standard overalls would have been worn which might have given a little more protection than my shorts, but not much. Chainsaw trousers are not deemed to be helpful and are not included in our PPE catalogue. The major point which did also come out, is that this job, at work, would not have been done with an angle grinder in the first place, but with an oxy-acetylene cutter, which very much backs up what Red90 said. Although I have done some training on oxy-acetylene and am comfortable with it, SWMBO was not happy so I do not have a set. Grinders at work tend to be used more for edge preparation. I very much appreciate that I was a bit unlucky in that it went into my leg whioch was to the side, rather than obviously in the way, however, and very lucky that I was not much more badly or even fatally hurt. I should also add that straight afterwards I went over to my neighbour for a lift to A&E. She is a qualified medic and patched me up with a big gauze dressing which received accolades when I got to the hospital, ("You should see what some people turn up with!"), so I shall be putting a couple of these dressing in the first aid kit alongside the ointment, plasters and anti-scald spray. I have had my leg checked out again since and they reckon the stitches will be out next week. That's if my baby daughters can stop jumping on it for a bit. Thanks again for all your concern Regards Richard

I thought I would share with you all details of an accident I had last weekend, with the benefit of hindsight and some professional advice. I was cutting up the frame of an old 1/2 ton trailer just to re-use some of the metal and junk the rest. While cutting through the 2" angle iron parts of the frame, approximately corresponding to where an axle would be, with a 10" Bosch angle grinder, the blade suddenly caught, threw the grinder out of the slot, glanced off another part of the frame and into my right thigh , resulting in a 6" long, 1" deep gash, a fair bit of blood, a trip to Gloucester A&E (they were brilliant) and 6 pretty heft stitches. I am currently convalescing for a few days. I work for a shipbuilder and am very safety conscious, so did an accident assessment along the lines of what we would do at work. Conclusions: 1. The blade caught because the part of the frame I was cutting was, unknown to me, in tension, like a bow. So when I completed the cut, the angle straightened itself out, catching the blade. The force of rotation and torque of the grinder threw the whole thing out, glanced off another part of the frame and my leg was then in the way. There was no obvious sign that the angle was in tension. This was the primary cause of the accident. 2. I was wearing the right personal protective equipment (PPE), including ear defenders, eye protection and safety boots except: a) I was wearing welding gloves which I thought the best hand protection; my steelwork expert told me that welding gloves must only be used for welding and that I would have had much less grip than standard working gloves, I have yet to find out exactly what our glove PPE people specify for grinding and will post again when I do. Wearing the wrong gloves definitely meant I has less grip, contributing to losing control and was the secondary cause of the accident . b) I had on thick long shorts, rather than overalls; however, since the blade caught in the shorts (and boxers) and went straight through them, as it would with overalls, this did not contribute to the injury c) I was not wearing a dust mask; while unwise even though I was working outside, this did not contribute to the injury. 3. I could probably have done the whole job, albeit more slowly, with my 4 1/2" angle grinder which would have been that much safer. I should be back at work (as a manager rather than a proper-job steelworker), later this week. All comments welcome, especially if they help avoid this happening to anyone else. Regards Richard

My stuff is fixed to the wings, and rear body, with my own fabrication for the hi-lift (something like a fitting I saw on a Camel 110). My aim is definitely to deter the casual scrote - "It's not locked, so I may as well nick it" type. Putting the kit inside is certainly viable, but a pain to do, and when rough camping especially, there is little space.

I have fitted axe, spade and pick handle to thew outside of my 90 using QuickFist clamps. Does anyone have a smart idea for some kind of lock ? I am not impressed with the hi-lift clamp solution with a hole through a large bolt and mini padlock. I am sure somebody has come up with something smarter and reasonably weatherproof. All help gratefully received. Regards Richard

I am looking into replacing my phone, and an iPhone is a possibility. Can anyone recommend a good cradle for fitting it into the vehicle which charges the phone and allows it to be used vertically or horizontally ? I am thinking to mount it near the A pillar on my right and would prefer to be able to bolt it into the dash rather than rely on a screen sucker. It would also be handy if I could ruggedise the phone a bit, maybe with an Otterbox. So if the mount could accommodate the Otterbox so much the better. Edit: And of course I need to be able to get the phone in and out easily to reduce temptation to the light-fingered fraternity All help gratefully received. Regards Richard

I was underneath looking at putting a second fuel tank under the back of my i90 TDI, as per several posts on here. "That cross-member looks a bit rusty", I thought. Two decent taps with the Mark 1 adjustment tool and most of the cross-member saw fit to fall on top of me in shards of red-brown and a cloud of dust. I consulted the technical archive once again, bought a MIG (since I had done evening classes in gas and MIG, so thought I had a clue), cut off the offending member and welded on a replacement. Unfortunately, I failed to spot the note about keeping the wiring loom out of the way and cut it in two with the angle grinder - live and learn. The truck has since passed 3 MOT's and nothing has fallen off - though I don't do any proper towing - so a toast to LR4x4 Technical Archive in general and Les Henson (may I one day shake his hand) in particular. Richard

Thanks Ron, I had not even thought about that aspect and the cost of the bits adds up very fast.

On the Europe note, I really support looking at the small print. We had our car stolen in Paris last month. Insurer's help getting me wife and two young kids home ? Car insurer - we will give you a hire car while yours is repaired - stolen ? No help. AA European Relay ? No car, no relay, no help. General travel insurance - what's a car ? We were completely without help. Hmmmm

Ron, What does "like for like" mean please. Regards Richard