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Deepmud in Alaska - update/trip report/howdy again


deepmud

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......

No comments on the rover moose-buggy thingy?.....I thought you (the lot of you :D )would be horrified :D But then maybe it's like cutting up the suburban that donated the chassis - no big deal since there are lots of them over there.

I've not seen a 109" body put on a chassis like that before, it makes the Land Rover body look tiny, even with the rear extension! There seem to be a lot of 'interesting' vehicles that side of the water, is it difficult to get them approved for road use or do they turn a blind eye to it out in the countryside?

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I've not seen a 109" body put on a chassis like that before, it makes the Land Rover body look tiny, even with the rear extension! There seem to be a lot of 'interesting' vehicles that side of the water, is it difficult to get them approved for road use or do they turn a blind eye to it out in the countryside?

When I was in Alaska 16 years ago there was no legal requirement for an MOT and many people also drove without insurance (according to the hire company). Mind you it is a state the same size as Germany with a total population of a city the size of Cardiff! So who is really going to be bothered.....

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All true :D my new favorite Alaska fact - Alaska is 2.5 times the size of Texas - except when the tide is out . Then it's 3 times the size of Texas.

That Rover buggy isn't road legal, even here :D - we also have insurance required by law - but I think it was like 20 years ago that was enacted. I suppose there could be some percentage of uninsured drivers driving around. We never had a MOT, and it shows :D When I was a teenager, I drove a totally rusted out 1975 Toyota pickup with one fender held on with some coat hanger wire, and no muffler, bad brakes, blown shocks. Luckily the newer old cars tend to stay together better.

My rig actually could, maybe, if you stand back and squint, be made to be "legal" again. However. I would need smaller tires, say 35-38(to help get the frame down to 22" or so - state law is based on the GVW of the vehicle, and the Zuk is in the lowest category - but I'd be betting they don't spot my 2" sub-frame welded on the bottom of the stock frame) and some lights and mudflaps out back. But I might be pulled over a lot, depending on the officer's mood - or it might look soooo weird they wouldn't know what it started out as, and not realize it shouldn't be so tall and oversize. If I had started with say, a Toyota pickup, and kept the frame below 24" from the ground, and the tires covered, it would pass just fine with as much as 40 or 44" tires. Kind of like Iceland, but without careful engineering :D . Funny thing is my Suzuki is actually very stable as it currently sits, with very little body-roll in off-camber driving, and the brakes are effective in spite of the monster tires.

zukonloadertires2.jpg

Still being crazy, from last summer. I actually got stopped by this obstacle - too long of a wheelbase. Usually I just idle over the stuff they put up as obstacles.....

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  • 2 years later...

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I haven't driven it in a year :( I wasn't happy with the power - it's like I have a non-turbo diesel - I think my CZ motor with "TDI-M Pump" is really just a pump from a VW 1.9td Non-TDI motor - which isn't up to the task of fueling the TDI motor) - and I made it worse, lol .

I went looking for a 300TDI Landy injection pump - found one on Ebay UK

http://www.ebay.com/itm/LAND-ROVER-DISCOVERY-300-TDI-DIESEL-INJECTION-PUMP-ERR4046-WARRANTY-BOSCH-/291327197541

Shipping is 50% as much as the pump! Wonder if you guys know if there is a less spendy way I might get this :D Could I Paypal someone over there to buy it for me (seller says free shipping in UK) who could ship it to me via some slower, cheapah' method.

Erik

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Hi Erik

What about having your existing pump reworked inside ? Not sure how far you would need to ship but there must be

a VE specialist a state or two away ?

Got any more pic's to share from your wonderful piece of planet Earth ?

cheers

Steveb

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There is a guy name Giles in Canada - he's the man for building a VW Bosch pump to TDI-M specs - nobody who buys one complains about how it runs - little non-turbo 1.6 Rabbit owners gush about power and economy gains (both! really!) - but it would be in the area of 1200 to 1500 U.S. (Plus shipping, lol - oh, and this is if I provide a 1.9 AAZ pump and a 1.9 TDI pump to build a hybrid from the two ) - while a LR 200TDI pump, is built for TDI-M and has the performance I'm looking for (120hp-ish hp @ 4000-ish rpm) and even with obscene shipping it's less than 500 U.S.

pics? sure :D I play on the local lakes in my kayak or on my inflatable stand up paddle board, or I have some good ones from hunting caribou...somewhere...

20141014_185236.jpg

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great pic's Erik as always

good luck with the FIP , I've got to fit one to a defender 200 for a client this weekend , he has sourced it locally . I

just hope it's not another pup as it will be the 3rd s/h unit I've fitted for him in a year . Given the chance I would only fit

FIP's that have come out of a Recon Diesel workshop with a warranty .

Not so cheap but you are starting with a guaranteed good FIP

cheers

Steveb

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:D the UK is high up on MY list of return trips! The wife is now in love with Italy as of this past summer however, lol . It's been about 15 years since I took my camping/motorcycle trip that included England/Wales and bit of Scotland - I want to go again.

I think it would be worth the risk at 200 quid :D or so to get a good TDI-engineered manually operated injection pump that "should" work for me. It would at least be a good rebuildable core - which I don't have now anyway. Keep in mind that it won't be running in a daily commuter so a hundred hours might last me a couple years or more.

More teasers:

Short video - Floating on Wasilla Lake, with Pioneer Peak (6398ft) visible over the trees. The water is so smooth it looks "fake" .

http://s85.photobucket.com/user/deepmud/media/random%20junk/20141014_185241.mp4.html

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I sold these old tracks off last week - seems the musher who bought them will be training his dogs from the comfort of his Jeep :D

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More from hunting - my friend Stephen scoping for caribou.

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Bear print :D

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Deep interior Alaska, deep in winter.

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in 2002 I got to work on a project on a fiber optic system that is along the Alaska Pipeline - a 4 foot diameter steel pipe that goes from the top of Alaska in Prudhoe Bay. It was a long bit of work - our crew put 10,000 miles on each of 6 Ford Excursions over a 3 month period - 7 days a week - 12 to sometimes 20-plus hours a day. I had purchased an Olympus UZ-2100 digital camera as I was heading out - I took over 2000 pictures - with a modern camera I would have taken a lot more - memory cards were pretty limited back then.

(Mile 0, at Pump Station 1)

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- The Pipeline is about 800 miles of "Middle of Nowhere" - you haven't been "Nowhere" till you've been this spot:

( about halfway from Atigun Pass to Prudhoe Bay - about a 100 miles of fllllaaaaaat flaaaaatt flat flaaaattt land.............

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Somewhere in the middle of the state......................

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Pump Station 4 - north of Atigun Pass

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Lynx....I forget where :D

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Steeep hill to access a Remote Gate Valve - where we have fiber optic nodes.

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Ptarmigan (the state bird, and tasty :D )

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Remote Gate Valve mechanism

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The RGV hut where the huge battery rack and the Fiber Optics (and old radio gear, etc) are located:

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Somewhere in Atigun Pass, Brooks Range

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Mountains near Valdez (mis-spoken by local Alaskans as "Val-Deeeez" :D and we like it that way, lol )

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Helicopter view, just north of Valdez

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Valdez harbor - it snows a LOT there.

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That enough for now ? :D I have more lol

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