"Extreme"/Offroad vehicle builders/companies

[Michele]

Hey Lewis,

I assume you have plenty of room for truck storage,and all those useful things like tools,electrixxxity and last but not least a spare car as DD?

Sooo,I think you're a lucky one!

I don't even have light in my small box.

Most of the time what puts me off from the simplest job/mod is (lack of light and room) working alone on the truck...

Call some mates when you work on the Rover,have beers ready,enjoy...

Just my thought...?

Oh,and

give yourself a kick up the Ar$e and make yourself move it forwards a bit at a time,

Nige

[dirtydiesel]

Lol, bitchy, yours is 10% attendance on a good day

Wading is relative, mine is limited by height of truck! The same height which stops me rolling over on a mole hill

Oh and of course the new hill climb - and to quote you "my diesel would not do"

I make it about 40% attendance

And if my swamp addled brain serves me correctly everytime me and johnny go off playing, your busy washing your hair or doing your nails

Hey Lewis,

I assume you have plenty of room for truck storage,and all those useful things like tools,electrixxxity and last but not least a spare car as DD?

Sooo,I think you're a lucky one!

Plenty of space, lots of tools but no power is lewis's biggest killer. And his DD blew up the other day. he's commuting in a loadall at the moment.

[Exmoor Beast]

Have you spoken to Devon4x4?

They aren't as expensive as you might think in the workshop. They did the gear linkage and then later on the gearbox on our old P38 a while back.

It would be worth speaking to them.

Will

[q-rover]

We have the Varanger from Helsport

If I was going to buy another one, I would definately get the one pictured. It's main

advantage is it has got a sewn in floor and an inner tent, all extra on the one we have.

With the pole it weighs about 5-6Kg and packs to the size of 2 largeish compressed sleeping bags.

Not cheap, but they are very sturdy, weather resistant and offer a lot of space.

Ours is a 4-6 person (the smallest) and really is too big (2 adults+ 2 children<4)

But we could easily fit 4 camp beds inside, instead off using rollmats on the ground.

OOOOOOOOOOPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPSSSSSSSSSSSS

WRONG THREAD.

[FridgeFreezer]

I'd advise against buying an off-roader to play with as a temporary measure - you'll end up spending your spare time & money on it and your project will fade into the background. When I had to buy some tyres for my DD Range Rover I deliberately chose AT's as I knew if I put muds on it, I'd never finish the 109 and I'd then be out breaking my daily driver and spending all my money modifying it.

If you need power, f*** it, buy a genset. Even a really big bugger is going to be cheaper than paying someone to build your truck, and then you've got a source of workshop power wherever you happen to be. Money spent on tools is never wasted, and I find buying tools gives one a warm feeling and an enthusiasm to go out and play with them

Shop round on ebay you might even find a 3-phase genny for reasonable money, that'd get the party started.

[Daan]

I wouldn't go down the route of having 2 offroaders: that means 2 projects and while you are playing/fixing with number1, number2 stays in the corner of the garage gathering dust.

I genuinly saw you starting off seriously and am a bit puzzled to see you now thinking of giving up. You shouldn't let a heap of metal get the better of you! Otherwise you might as well go and compete with the other vapour build retards on here. I would, if nothing else, make a statement by pi&&ing off all the vapour builders on this forum and show pictures of the new machine asap.

Daan

[discojmz]

dont sugarcoat it or anything will ya Daan

[FridgeFreezer]

the other vapour build retards on here

I wish you wouldn't hide behind euphemism and just say what you mean

Perhaps a bit harsh on some of the entrants for the Vape-off 2008 as I reckon Jen & Twizzle at least are likely to finish. Will may even be in with a chance if he can put down the colour swatches for 5 minutes and get the spanners out

[Daan]

I wish you wouldn't hide behind euphemism and just say what you mean

Perhaps a bit harsh on some of the entrants for the Vape-off 2008 as I reckon Jen & Twizzle at least are likely to finish. Will may even be in with a chance if he can put down the colour swatches for 5 minutes and get the spanners out

Well at least I didn't get personal unlike some of us. Dropping names and all that...

Daan

[Paul Humphreys]

What about getting people from this forum downfor a "work shop" weekend? That would get it on track again.

Paul

[SiWhite]

As ^^^^^ said.

You supply a few slabs of beer, a barbie and some dancing girls. Forumeers descent like the letcherous buggers we are and turn a few spanners for the weekend.

[Lewis]

Bits are often worth more than complete cars. Take it all apart, sell the bits you do not want to bolt onto a new 90 a

I've already long sold the bolt on bits, theres nothing left that itsn't custom or modifed apart from the truck cab and gearbox

[Lewis]

If you need power, f*** it, buy a genset. Even a really big bugger is going to be cheaper than paying someone to build your truck, and then you've got a source of workshop power wherever you happen to be.

Shop round on ebay you might even find a 3-phase genny for reasonable money, that'd get the party started.

Have you tried shopping around on ebay for a three phase genny?

I have a 50% share in a 72KVA generator with is currently tits up, hence the lack of power. To replace it would cost in the region of £3.5k - £6k depending on hours and condition. There are no cheap generators which can power even a Kettle, let alone a 350amp 3phase Mig plant

For those not up on generators, 72KVA is ample supply for approx 5 farms or 15 large households

[bill van snorkle]

Ship it over to me Lewis, I'll finish it for you. Seriously though, I know what you are going through. Although I have completed quite a few builds over the years, I would now find any project that took my truck off the road for longer than a long weekend too daunting a prospect to contemplate. By preplanning and prefabricating parts I was able to build up my series 2 piecemeal without immobilising the truck for more than 3 days each time, as at that time it was my only means of transport. This meant that at times I would be driving about with say portals only on the back and a straight axle on the front, or a coil spring and radius arm on one side and a leaf spring on the other, but for me it was a way of maintaining momentum and enthusiasm, rather than reliving the tedium and frustration of trying to resurrect a stagnant project sometime after the initial excitement of starting something new has worn off.

Bill.

[steve b]

Hi Lewis,

There's a local (to me) ex-army place doing 30kva 3-phase cabinet generators for around £1800-£2000 , looked like nice units to me. Whats wrong with your existing power station? You have done a huge amount to your truck already , keep going , your engineering and fab skills would be wasted hiding behind a desk/paypacket .....also it doesn't matter how radical your ideas are , or what you do with it when its built, its about the fact that you have the idea's and can materialise them. How many hours do you think are required to get it driving?

cheers

Steveb

[Milemarker Type S]

Took me more than 3 months just to get two pumps to run my winch...

My 2p...

Sit down and write down exactly what you want from your off road vehicle- not the bits you think others would like- what YOU would like/ use. While you are doing it try to ignore what you have done already- I am sure there are bit that have taken time and money to get done and that you are not happy with or just don't want- they might just have to be binned/ sold...

Once you have that ideal list sorted look at the truck you have and make an honest (or get someone else independant to look at it without the rose tinted specs ) decision as to wether the existing truck is a suitable base to be built into your ideal truck. If so ideal- break down into realistic sections the jobs that need doing and crack on with one thing at a time (as has been said why not concentrate on stuff to get you going- lockers etc can easily be dropped in later)- nothing spurs me on more than crossing stuff off a list as DONE!! If the answer is that your truck is not suitable in its existing form then you need to bite the bullet and sell it/ break it up and get another base vehicle- yes I know it is a big step but it might be the step that means you finally get a vehicle that you want and will use... or a just a rusty pile in the corner that will not...

Don't give it to someone else to do/ finish- you will not like the finished truck regardless of who does it and to what standard- make it YOUR truck that YOU built and be proud of it (not many people that can say that)... You have done an awsome job so far- don't let yourself down now.

Also on the subject of welders/ generators- why do you need to be using a huge 3 phase set up? Why not beg/ borrow/ buy a smaller welder which will do all the jobs you need and will run off a much smaller generator?

Best of luck- funnily enough when the evenings start to get lighter and the weather a bit better you might feel a bit different about the whole thing!

Shrek

[T1G UP]

Lewis,Have you fallen out with the guy you were building it with??? dirty diesel???

Seems yours/his work was very good.

[Daan]

I am also an advocate to the 1 job at the time idea. Do a logic order of jobs and your truck will grow in front of you. One trap I have fallen in many times, is trying to improve your original ideas when you go along. This increased the needed time massively. If I were to do it again, I would spend more time thinking/designing things, before go to the workshop and do them. Most improvements that I dreamed up along the way ended up taking weeks rather than days, So I would say break it down into sizeablejobs and think every job through one at the time. I suppose the geny is job nr 1!

Another consideration is the position of your workshop: I presume you dont live next to it. When I build my vehicle going to my workshop was half an hour drive. So to get there and back is one hour lost. That means you need a good few hours at the time to make it worthwile.

In my current situation I have a garage next to my house and that is day and night compared to the past. I try to spend at least an hour every evening on it, as my way of relaxing and by the end of the week you have spent 5 hours on your project, which gets lots of little jobs sorted.

Oh and to reply to previously insulted vapourbuilders: I have been slated quite severely on this forum for putting a different fuel in my tank than some of us. Now that is what I call an insult. I have no time for people slagging of my motor because what they have in their garage will be much better once it gets to see a glimpse of daylight.

Daan

[smo]

Lewis - i can empathise with you completely, im almost a year into the D-Lander build and ive now not touched her for 6 weeks - nothing, barely even looked in her direction. I did what people are advising against and bought a play thing for the mean time, now i spend every sunday playing, and every sat promising i will work on the D-Lander but i never do, its a crappy situation and sadly i dont have the answer either...good luck m8!

[D9OSV]

I have no time for people slagging of my motor because what they have in their garage will be much better once it gets to see a glimpse of daylight.

Daan

Get it off your chest Daan

I know exactly were your coming from.

@Lewis: It would be very easy for be to be a complete B*stard and really give you a good kick in the groin at this point.

But i won't. What i will say is that for someone who is so opinionated, you don't half give up easy.

You don't need a 5 trillion kva gen to fix your car or a 380amp welder. You just need a single phase supply and cheap 150/190 welder that i am sure someone can lend you. A gen to run that is not overly expensive and i am sure if you look around you can find small barn closer to home for £20 aweek.

Just as a small incentive for you. If you can/could find anyone to take on that job (I am not talking about some bloke in a garage or mates, i mean a proper firm) and you asked them to get it to a 'turn-key-vehicle' expect to pay somewhere between 5 and 10k as all the work will be custom and takes a long time.

Now if you have that kind of money great. But if i had your skills i 'd be leaving it in the bank and getting off my backside and building something i could be proud of.

Jim

[SiWhite]

You need a list.

I have a projects list on my PC with all the jobs I'm hoping to complete in the next few months. I used to have a list of a few 'big jobs' eg install milemarker but I found crossing things off the list is great motivation, so I now have 'install MM pump' and 'mod bumper for winch' etc, about 6 small jobs for each old big job. Don't delete the jobs as you complete them, I strikethrough them so I can see what I've achieved. Even if you do something that wasn't on the list, put it on and strikethrough after it's done.

As for motivation, there's nothing like a lap of Pirate4x4 to get me inspired, or a visit to a challenge.

Get a garage nearer home, my old place was 10 miles away and I had to take lunch etc if I was going - a pain, and I couldn't pop out there for a few minutes at a time. My workshop is currently 43 feet from my back door at the end of my garden

Keep going mate, it'll be worth it.

[will_warne]

Says it all really. I have been in the situation, but pressed on eventually. It took 4 years to get it going eventually, of what I was expecting to take a year. There have been periods of 3 months or longer with no activity, but usually I went to look at an event or codrive for someone else and after that I had a fresh aproach to it all and carried on. I am glad I didnt pay someone else to do it, as mentioned it will never be exactly what you wanted.

Daan

Daan, I really feel you've hit the nail on the head here and your completely right about doing one job at a time - I started at on the back end of my vapour build and I'm working forwards. I don't know what you're talking about regarding the wrong fuel, though

As has Jim said, I could twist the knife here Lewis but I won't - I know you can loose interest and it is soul destroying. If you have a few bad days or a long period off I know you just can't face it. As Nige said the important thing is to keep some sort of momentum up even if barely any work is getting done. Its something I've been careful to try and avoid as my co-driver has a SII in his garage that he started rebuilding 8 years ago and hasn't touched for 7 years after shelling out a lot of money on a new chassis, rebuilt engine and gearbox, new springs etc etc.

If you were lacking in enthusiasm I'd say go to an event but you clearly want to finish the car. Quite seriously, though, how much work needs doing? 100 hours? 200 hours? Even at £25 / hr that's going to be a very big bill!

[Night Train]

I guess I could say something too.

In members vehicles you will see the 6x6 scammell lookalike Land Rover I built many years ago. It was built on the public road with busy traffic and no shelter and with only a cheap £50 arc welder and a friend with some high quality rods and decades of welding experience for the difficult bits. I needed deadlines to keep the build going and mine was getting an MOT and tax disc each year so I could keep it on the public road. It took three years.

Year 1: Modify the front end body work and install a Ford York 6cyl 3.6l diesel engine and 5speed ZF gear box. Build a new clutch pedel to operate the cable clutch. Get all the fuel, exhaust and electrics working. Mate up the ZF box to the transfer box. Strip off the Safari body work and build a pick up bed. Make an extended truck cab from scratch and adjust the roof and doors to add 8" to the width of the back of the cab. Refit electric winch to front. Get it MOT, insure and taxed for another year.

Year 2: Strip off the rear suspension, buy three more Sailsbury axles and cut and shut to make two extra wide axles. Design and build all the suspension components and chassis cross members for the rear bogie. Design and build a three speed transfer box with three axle drives and a PTO. Install the transfer box and rear suspension. Design the propshaft routes, dog clutches and hand brake assembly and then make and install. Modify all the braking system for the six wheel drive. Change the fuel system again to place lorry tank in load bed. MOT, insure and tax for another year.

Year 3: Strip off the front suspension, cut away the front of the chassis and rebuild with a transverse leaf mounting on a new cross member. Cut and rebuild the front axle to match the width of the rear axles. Sort out the mounting of the suspension and drive shafts. Design the steering to reduce bump steer by fitting an Audi power streering rack to the side of the chassis under the drivers seat. Rebuild all the steering shafts to reach the rack. Rewire the whole vehicle and build a recovery crane to fit in the rear. Rebuild front winch mounting and install PTO winch in the rear. MOT, insure and tax for another year.

To keep a build moving you do need to have a deadlines that are reasonable and achievable. Do it one task at a time and get that task done so that you can feel good for doing it. You don't need much equipment, a small generator and stick welder can work wonders if you know what you are doing. Alternatively get a gas set. You can prepare a whole load of bits for welding and then hire a petrol or diesel site welding set and just get it all done in a weekend. Then get the next load ready for another weekend. All the rest of the stuff can be done with battery tools. Get an inverter for your car and have 240v to recharge batteries with and to run some smaller 240v tools. I have a 600watt (800watt peak) inverter in the back of my car now. Great for power tools as well as running laptops and printers and charging batteries.

Another way to get the build moving again is to get a friend involved, someone who doesn't have a project of their own and wants to work with you on yours, someone who may have skills you need or who you can teach skills to. Or someone with their own project and you both work on each others alternately to keep the interst up.

I hope you get your enthusiasm back again. Good luck with it.

[gelf]

im in the same boat........... lack of enthusiasm, its the working outside that does it.

but im one hell of a long way off my target, but i keep plodding on...

[callum]

In members vehicles you will see the 6x6 scammell lookalike Land Rover I built many years ago. It was built on the public road with busy traffic and no shelter

it looked like that in some pictures you've posted. that being the case i take my hat off to you. i whinge about working on a driveway in the rain and indeed snow recently, but at least i am able to use a small garage to make stuff in and keep tools. i only have to go outside when working on large things or things which are attached or to be attached to the car. building that vehicle outside on a public highway is quite a feat.