Bobbed and caged RRC called The "JWH"

[Bowie69]

Won't stay cool there for very long

Agreed, plastic will probably be better, and forgot you had easy access to truck arches, VERY handy

Could do the front arches at the same time.... semi-spaceframe it

[Soren Frimodt]

haha no probably not, but couldn't really find a cooler spot maybe next job is fitting a cooler like the yanks have on their trailrigs, looks so funny when they tipover and there's beer spread all over

Yeah have thought about spaceframing the front with all the factory panels just hanging off it like on a Mud Bogger. However I'm not sure it'll be much lighter, so might just be a lot of work for a small gain.

[Bowie69]

Reckon you could rip out most of the front panel with a little thought...

[Soren Frimodt]

You guys know how I love my Wolfrace wheels, so naturally some had to be fitted to this thing as well! Not only are they a tad wider giving me more thread surface back, the backspacing also allows me to remove the spacers making servicing easier and yes you guessed it, remove more weight All in all I removed 36kgs with the wheel swap.

I also changed out the steering wheel for a much nicer one from a softdash (Didn't weigh those, its not like a fetish you know )

[Bowie69]

That's not from a softdash surely... they are 'square' in the middle.

http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k72/stanstorey/P1020083_1280.jpg

And yes I do love those wheels, had a set on my Mk1 Fiesta when I was very young, they weigh absolutely NOTHING in 13" guise.

[Soren Frimodt]

Oh I see, my bad Yeah Wolfrace must have been quite the thing back in the day

[elbekko]

That's not from a softdash surely... they are 'square' in the middle.

http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k72/stanstorey/P1020083_1280.jpg

And yes I do love those wheels, had a set on my Mk1 Fiesta when I was very young, they weigh absolutely NOTHING in 13" guise.

There's another Softdash steering wheel too, without airbags. Same as in a D1 300TDi.

But the one Soren has is definitely from an older RRC.

[Soren Frimodt]

Softdash or no softdash, the steering wheel didn't help me avoid this situation today

[qwakers]

need innertubes :-P

[Soren Frimodt]

.. and learn not to think that I can make new tracks cross every old track I see

[Soren Frimodt]

making the last few preps on this before 14 days of wheeling this summer. First job was stuffing tubes in the front wheels, then I went on to fitting a mesh under the grille to avoid sticks poking up into the radiator from underneath:

Then I went on to the quite cumbersome task of fitting stock shock mounts rear. Not only is a lot of grinding required to remove the homebrew parts that are already fitted, but being an early RRC the RHS shock sits in the back of the axle, so decided to do that side first to get it out the way, here's how it went down:

So now I can fit any sort of off-the-shelve shock I want. Just need to get the other side done as well

[Soren Frimodt]

Ohh have she been ever faithful to me this summer! The 14 days which turned into 16, of offroading was handled without breaking a sweat! Sure I have a whole bunch of knackered bushings now, and even more dents in the body work, but nothing major, so really chuffed!.

Only mechanical problem have been fouling two plucks, about a week apart. But am running Brisks so didn't expect anything less

Check out my clip at the video section to see how she handled it

[Blanco]

I guess I still have much to learn...... I don't compete or anything ...... I watched and enjoyed the clip .... and I am still totally clueless as to 'plucks' and 'Brisks' ???? In my simple way I still sort of think the answer is 'clean', just not sure

[Soren Frimodt]

haha it's my bad, just din't notice it I meant to write 'plugs' as in sparkplug and Brisk is a brand of said item (and they are crappy but cheap)

[Soren Frimodt]

Time for a bit of TLC on this thing, actually found that the bushings aren't all completely shot yet, so just going to replace those that is basically completely dead

And dead is a suitable word for the rear trailing arm bushes at the chassis end. They've been 'not good' for all the time I've had the car, but now they are worthless, I did notice the rear axle was steering a lot for and aft in the wheel-wells as I was driving along. This is how one of them looked:

And here's the technique i use for changing these, hate trying to overcome the powers of the new rubber so just strapped the suspension down on one side at a time, and use another strap to pull the axle back. Easy-piecey:

[Soren Frimodt]

Suddenly realized that the three weekends that stand between now and week 42 where I'm going to wheel this thing for a solid week, all are occupied except for one! And I have a bazillion things I wan't/need to do before then! So dragged it into the garage today after work to get as much done today as possible, might get a wee bit of time on it Sunday as well, other than that not until next weekend will I make any real progress. Need to find out what parts I'll need to order this weekend though..

Anyway enough of me stressing out, she wouldn't start today, turned out there was no fuel in but the gauge was stuck at 1/4 full so managed to drain the battery and swear a lot before I found out about that

One of the biggest priorities was to re-install the winch, though this time with some small alterations. Not that I had, had any issues with the bracketry I made earlier but sometimes overkilling just feels nice. Especially on winch setups. So added some forward facing stays which also acts as a location for the relay-box.

Please ignore the fact that the stuff I'm working with is extremely dirty, simply don't have time to clean it right now:

[Soren Frimodt]

Sneaking into the Garage as often as I can to prepare this thing.

Today I got both props all greased up and the oil checked in everything. Then I moved onto fitting the old but very effective Kenlowe fan that was on the now scrapped 88"

I had, in the summer preparations, fitted a cheapo chinese 16" fan on the inside of the radiator but sadly this came in contact with the pulleys at a hard hillclimb and further it doesn't really move enough air. I've never really trusted Elec' fans so brought the mechanical along, which you can of course fit without any tools as the thread tightens itself. And even though I have much more faith in this Kenlowe, I'm going to bring the mechanical one should it fail or just not be up to the task.

But I must say with this very thick five vane fan it really does move some air. Anyway here it is fitted, going to tilt the radiator a tad back to make sure it clears the front plenty:

I have also begun disassembling the front suspension to raise it an inch and fit some new shocks. Had actually ordered the Fox dampers that Paddocks are selling but they are not in stock until the middle of October, which is too late. So ordered some Koni's instead, and frankly I know these very well and trust them,. They were immaculate on my Mog and just as amazing on my brothers 90" So don't think it'll be half bad

[Team Idris]

In the Comex catalogue I have at work the thin blades seem to be the ordinary 10amp and the wide blades the 20amp, just like that big Kenlow. I'm considering changing my Kenlow to a new 20 amp 15", as the Comex, GeneralCab and Spal are all wet proof. And the Kenlow is a fair age

That winch install is never getting boring to look at I've stared at mine a few times to see if I can do the RHD version, but I've filled the space with all sorts of other things

[Soren Frimodt]

Okay, nice info.. My experience on 'leccy fans is very limited though, I just know that you can easily feel this one moving much more air than the flat one.

Yeah I get a lot of comments about it looking dangerous in there but I honestly can't see why, sure if the wire snapped and was attached to something elastic at the other end, and a passenger was sitting in the seat, and the kinetic energy didn't get lost somewhere through the shocktower or rubber curtain it could potentially hurt the passenger. But I think other dangers with using winches are much more likely to occur. And first of all I would never let anyone sit there while winching.. But it sure is nice to be able to see it! And operate the freespool

Todays update: Got an exhaust leak fixed, hooked up the fan to the thermostat and switch and changed the belts. The one you see dangling at the end of the waterpump is actually the old PAS belt, look how thin it has worn! It has actually looked like this the entire time I've had this thing, but hasn't squealed once so never bothered to change it. No I finally did though:

Lastly I began to cut off excessive weight, adding and adding makes me feel bad.. Need to remove some too!

[Soren Frimodt]

A bit of progress, however not anything amazing by any means. Started the weekend by jamming my finger in between the grinding stone and the machine itself at work Friday. Resulting in a split nail halfway down all the way across and a great big bulge of blood at the tip of my right pointer finger. Dammit it hurt, and still does. So progress in the workshop is really slow. Thankfully yesterday I had already planned to go watch some Trophy so that was a day well spend without having to use my hand. Today though I managed to fit new shocks all the way round and 25mm liftblocks for an extra inch if ground clearance:

[Soren Frimodt]

Final update on this thing before my week of offroad vacation. Had started stripping some weight from it as I wrote last week, but after damaging my RH Pointing finger I had to abandon that and only today got to finish what I had started before loading it up on the bed of the Merc.

Even though I'm a sucker for low CoG I must admit that it does look a bit better being raised an extra inch:

And it'll give some much needed extra ground-clearance.

Here's the weightshaving I had started, did manage to finish both rear posts with Ali mesh as in the bonnet. Also notice the holesaw holes on the back, the plan was many more of these all around the car but obviously never got to that, well some other time then!

[Soren Frimodt]

After a well done week of offroading with only two broken stubshafts (those from the CV out, 10 spline RRC) its time to do some more to this thing. It performs really well and takes the abuse I give it surprisingly well. I could however do with a bit more horsepower. Even though my Hi-Comp SD1 engine runs really well, when the ground gets slippy I could use about 50hp more to get some wheelspeed. But hey, lack of power only makes better drivers, right?

But first and foremost its going to be about winching. I really wanted an 8274 for it, but by the time I have it performing well enough to drag this thing around it would be quite expensive for what little I'm going to use it. So mechanical winches had started to tease my mind. This all came to a sudden reality when I got a very good deal on two Toyota mechanical winches off the old 'Cruisers that the Danish 'Falck' Recovery company had used quite a few of back in the day.

Its very similar to the Koenig PTO winch actually, just very strong and with two of them I have spares at hand:

So next was the PTO itself, to my luck Ole (oddballrovers) had one not far away from where I was offroading so went and bought that and fitted it right away!

Clearly there has never been an RRC fitted with rearfacing PTO from the factory because the prop would have to run inside the cabin! Not a problem for me though, just have to do some cutting.

My plan is to have the wire exiting as it already does in front of the car, then fit the winch in the back for weight distribution and have the wire running between the legs and under the seat of the passenger. might do a little cover, but not sure, if they're scared of it then can just get out!

So started the teardown tonight to began cutting and planning (in the reverse order hopefully)

[Soren Frimodt]

So.. Continued on this today. First thing was to cut some holes and make some sort of lever for engaging/disengaging the PTO, used various bits of scrap and as you might notice a tensioner for an alternator came in really handy to overcome the difference in length there is when shifting back and forth. Also I built in enough play for the gearbox to move around:

Then came time to make room in the back by moving the fuel tank over to the drivers side. Had fitted on the passenger side for the sake of weight distribution, but the winch will contribute well to that I reckon

And finally I've roughly put the winch where I'm going to fit it, will have to notch the floor to get it further down and rework the lower stay on the cage as it sits right where the cable will go. But all in all its the only real place to fit it with the compromises of propshaft length and angle, wire-cable routing and the wheel-well:

That's it for this weekend!

[seriebil.dk]

HI Soren

Mechanical Winches Rule !!!

How about running the wire in a PVC pipe, from winch to front - just like on The Kitten (Oddballrovers), clears the isued of open wire in the cabin, and can be replace easy, i have 2-3 meters spare black pipe from my heating system, yours if you pick it up.

[Daan]

Nice winch! do you know the ratio?

Daan