Cape Town

We have landed safely after a very long flight. The Landy is still stuck in a container somewhere in the English Channel. Its been great relaxing with family and enjoying the sun.

We have been looking at overland stores here. We were shocked at how expensive overland kit is here compared to the UK. The Uk is cheaper on almost everything, even if you take into account the weaker pound/stronger Rand.

All we have to do now is chill and wait for the Landy.

A race around the world

We handed our Landy and all our worldly possessions over to the good chaps at Wentworth International Movers about 4 weeks ago now. When we booked it all in we had no idea which would land first. Us, or the Landy. Our Landy has only made it to Felixstowe docks. That's like taking 4 weeks to get from Earls Court to Heathrow. The ship is only set to leave for SA tomorrow. We fly to Cape Town two days later. It looks like we will win the race hands down. Our landy should roll off the docks on the 11th of Jan. The guys at wentworth have been very helpful and I highly recommend them. They have been very polite to respond o my constant phone calls asking where is Landy now?

The coolest part of the whole shipping process is the ship its going on - massive!

Happy sailing!!

We have sweated and toiled over the landy for what seems like forever. It has been a part of our lives for the last 6months plus. As of 24th November Casper (my name for the landy - Campbell disapproves. It's way better than Yolandy!!) has been entrusted to the shippers Wentworth's who use Kings as an affiliate shipper on the South Africa side of the world.

Suddenly our lives have been reduced to 1.5 bags each, an almost empty bedroom and no landy to paint, polish, rust treat, clean or fuss about. It's refreshing in a way to have this break from the car that will be our home for 7months, but also slightly unsettling to send our stuff off on a ship without us.

"See you on the flip side Casper"

Packing:

Now you see them>>>>> Now you don't>>>>>

Split charger

I have been having issues with the batteries charging correctly. It all started with my batteries being being replaced. They were passed their sell by date. The new batteries don't seem to be functioning well. The leisure battery does not hold enough charge to power the inverter and the main battery is sluggish in starting the engine when linked. At first I thought it was the alternator but after a bit of testing it seems to be the split charger.

I have had a look at the amp hours on the batteries and they are significantly different. After reading up a bit on the net this is apparently not a good thing. I'll be taking the batteries back this weekend to get two with the same amp hours rating. Hopefully this will do the trick. Will keep you posted.

Alternator

Our new batteries are now showing increasing signs of discharge. Its looking like the alternator may be to blame. I need to run a test on the alternator tonight which should reveal if it needs replacing. Not good news since we ship to Cape Town in a week.

New Batteries

Just when we thought the car was completely finished... Since our last post we had a whole list of things done to the Landy. Wheel carrier, split charger, electrics... The long list of things to do has now reduced to smaller and smaller jobs. Although, we are realising that the list of things to do never really goes away. Its just part of owning a Land Rover.

We have also learned that no matter how much time and you spend fixing things, the stuff you haven't fixed or given any attention to will still continue to break. We learnt this lesson when doing a morning run to the shops on a cold Saturday morning - the car wouldn't start. A quick call to the RAC, an hour wait and some diagnostic looking equipment all resulted the only possible conclusion - the battery needed to be replaced. Not only was one battery dead but the backup was dead too. So off to the garage to get two new batteries.

Lesson of the day - stuff will continue to break and the RAC do not cover Africa. The only option is to replace everything.

Back from the shop

We took our Landy back to Bob at Church Road Garage a few weeks ago. Here's the low down on what he did for us...

We don't know when the cam belt was last changed on the vehicle. Not wanting to risk a cam belt going en route we opted to get this changed. Turns out it was a good time to do it. The wear and tear on the old belt indicated it was time for a new one. Alas, whilst Bob was changing the belt he noticed that our radiator wasn't looking so hot. Figuring this is another important piece of kit we opted to have the old one reconditioned. Overheating is a common problem for Defenders especially in hot climates. The heat gauge on the dashboard now settles at half the temperature it was at before the change. Definitely an improvement.

Now that the major mechanical problems (well, most of them) have been dealt with it was time for some overland installations. Bob installed a split chargers system for us. The vehicle origionally had one but it was removed. We now have a car radio (barely audible over the sound of the engine), CB radio, work lights, front spots and an inverter all connected up. The Landy is starting to return to its former glory.

The next installations will be a safe, bull bar and swing away wheel carrier. Watch this space.

12hours, many blisters and two sore backs later...

The new door is finally suited and booted. Spot the difference. Pleeeease tell me you can spot the difference (the one on the left is the new one). Proud, sore and tired mechanics!! Stupidly enough we thought we had done the hard part. Two hours after this smug photo shoot we finally got the door on and locked. We thought putting the door back onto the vehicle would be as easy as taking it off. Wishful thinking!! I have the blisters to prove it. Our first three attempts, frustratingly enough, allowed the door to close but not lock.

HELPFULL TIP to any brave soldier who tries this same feat: close the door until it locks properly then tighten bolts. One person needs to hold the door in position (Thomo was the only one strong enough for this) while the other sad minion turns the bolts blister by blister. Believe me, when it is so cold outside that your nose won't stop running and your hands are shaking and you have been at this game for hours this isn't a lot of fun.

The most important thing is that the door is on and in good working order. Go team!!!

still working on the new door...several hours later!

It has taken the best part of our day to get all the parts off the old door and onto the new one. Thomo is such a trooper having done most of the research and hard work on today's project. My nimble fingers proved invaluable on the small tricky screws and bolts, but mostly I acted as a prop to hold the door in place while my man worked. What a super hero he is :)

Fun shots with "New Door" project

All the knobbly bits off the old door:


"Hello!!!"

"Ha, you thought I was actually in the Landy. Fooled you!!" This is the old door.

"Where's the door that goes with this handle?"

"New Door" project continued...

...and in with the new:

"New Door" project continued...

The old door was one of the worst affected rust areas on the car.

Out with the old...

The New Door

We were very lucky to get a brand new door in the purchase of the car, already spray painted the perfect colour (we have had some issues with getting the right paint colour, so this was a relief). It took us a whole 20minutes to get the old rusty rear passenger door off. WOW, they are super heavy. Here is the landy without the door - feeling a bit exposed and patched up !!

Top Tips

We haven't even left yet but we are already picking up some good advice from people and our own experiences. Here are a few...

Talk to people who have done it before. Their advice is worth its weight.

Do as much of the work on your car as you can yourself. It will save you money but requires a lot of time. It will also help you get to know your car.

Buy your vehicle at least 6 months before you travel and drive it regularly.

Buy half of what you think you need and take twice as much money. A very difficult thing to do.

Paperwork, paperwork and paperwork. Be prepared for it. Carnet, insurance, MOT, V5, shipping docs, visas, vaccinations, international drivers license... These things take ages to organise and are generally a hassle.

If it needs fixing do it before you go. You will be too busy fixing the things you didn't know needed fixing while you are travelling to fix the things you knew needed fixing in the first place. Thats a mouthful.

belts and radiator

The Landy is back in the shop. Not knowing when the cam belt was last changed we figured it was a good idea to have it changed now. Turns out to have been a good idea. The belt was worn and needed changing. Whilst the team from Church Road Garage were changing the belt they noticed the radiator was shot so time for a new radiator to go in. Although these aren't things you want to hear its better to hear them now than when they go wrong in the middle of nowhere.

Frustration

No doubt we will encounter more frustrating circumstances but the company I ordered overland parts from have failed to deliver the parts. The Landy is now sitting idle in at Church Road Garage because the parts did not arrive. I have been able to source the split charger from another supplier but the wheel carrier is proving hard to come by. Will have to wait for new stock to arrive.

Rust to boxes

We spent yesterday rust treating the chassis at Pit Start and Campbell finished off the rest of the chassis with Hammerite today. It's almost as good as new!

I was tasked with wrapping, folding, sticking, stuffing and packing most of our belongings into boxes as well as making a detailed inventory of items. The countdown to the ship date has begun and we have to learn to live with less. It's time to be brutal!!

More work on the Landy

It was off to Pitstart garage again today. We did some more rust treatment on the chassis. We are at the point now where all the problem rust is gone. The rust treatment work we are doing now is just to clean things up and extend the life of the vehicle. It is still slow going but we are getting there.

We got the Landy back from Church Road Motors on Thursday. The vehicle is much improved for having a major service. The new shocks are great.

On Monday we take it back to get the electrics worked on as well as a safe and wheel carrier installed. After that we will be close to having our Landy overland ready.

Back and Booked

The Landy is back from its major service. Big items were new shocks, some more welding and the usual filters, brakes, fluids....

The new shocks were definitely needed. The ride is a lot smoother and road handling is much improved.

We have now sent off our forms to book the shipping and process the carnet.

Waiting...

Still waiting for the Landy to come back from it's major service before we push the big red button called 'point of no return'...

Landy Service

Our Landy is going back to Church Road Motors in Barnes for a major service tomorrow. The guys there did a great job on welding the rear cross member so we are making use of their services again. Many areas of the vehicle are still a black box to us. We didn't get a service history with the vehicle (well, one that can be backed up with receipts) so we are going to for a major service on brakes, steering, fluids, shocks, cam belts, wheel alignment, gearbox, transfer box...

In doing some minor servicing ourselves we realise now how long it takes to do things yourself. Its definitely more fun doing things yourself but for speed and quality of workmanship we are handing our landy over to the pro's.

The route...version 105

So three months and counting till we fly home. WOW, time has really flown.

To give the family and friends a rough idea of our time scale:

January 2010: South Africa, Botswana, Zambia

February 2010: Malawi, Tanzania

March 2010: Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya

April 2010: Ethiopia, Sudan, Egypt

The rest is TBC...but here is a rough idea:

May 2010: Jordan, Israel, Syria, Turkey, Greece

June 2010: Albania, Yugoslavia, Croatia, Italy, France, Switzerland,

July 2010: Germany, Netherlands, Antwerp, Belgium, France, UK

...a new and much prettier addition to the team :)

Ally finally gets an invite to the blog!! Hmm, I see we will have to work on communication.

Rust treatment

The door sills of the Landy are badly rusted. Here's is our brief process to treat the rust and paint.

We purchased some wire brushes and abrasive sanding disks. A couple of hours grinding down the rust leaves you with a good surface to clean with solvent. Let this dry then apply metal ready products. We gave the surfaces a liberal coating of the amazing POR15 product. Then some primer on top and finally green paint. We have been struggling to find the right paint colour. Our landy's paint codes don't match the colour so we are not sure what to do next. As the rust treated area will mostly be covered by rubber sills we have decided to live with the dark green paint I bought. Its not close to our colour but we needed to get moving with the treatment so on goes the dark green.

A week after performing this treatment we noticed some of the green didn't bond well in certain areas. This was because we didn't allow the primer to completely dry. Good lesson - don't rush the job. It only cost you time later to do the job properly.

Changing track rod ends

Some pics of me having to use increasingly larger tools to get the old track rods off... See below for my best tips on how to change these.

Here's few tips on how to change track rod ends. For those who don't know what a track rod is, its a long bar that helps to keep your front typres aligned when turning. Firstly, this is a really easy task. The biggest difficulty we had changing them is to get the old ones out. Using a universal ball joint separator a crowbar and a lot of sweat & tears will get the old ones off.

The biggest trick to doing this is to precisely measure the length of your track rod and ends. THe track rod ends screw out of the ends of the track rod. Also, this can be a very difficult task if the ends are firmly in place. Years of rust and mud can make them difficult to remove. Here's my handy hint to getting these off easily..

1. A lot of WD40

2. Heat. Even using a cigarette lighter a few times will help the metal expand and contract a few times.

3. Wedge a screw driver into the track rod grooves. It was only after using a lot of WD40 did we notice there are two grooves than run down the side of the track rod at the ends. Getting a flat screw driver into these slots can help.

After this its easy. Screw back in the new track rods (you can get these off ebay). Again make sure the length is perfect otherwise you will lose wheel alignment. Counting the turns of the track rod ends or measuring the length with a tape measure will do.

The guys from Pit Start were a great help. We would not have been able to complete the task without their advice. Check their website http://www.pitstartgarage.com/.

The difference in driving the car was immediatly. Much lighter and more responsive. If your stearing is dodgy check your track rods. It may be a quick win.

New Fuel Tank

Some photo's in no particular order.

Ally painting the rear cross member.

Ally draining the old tank.

The old tank. This is its good side. The liquid on the top it Q20. That's me trying to take off the fuel line connector. More difficult to remove screws...

Me. Lesson - shave before working with grease and dirt. It just ends up all over your face.

The new tank with the old fuel line connector. I finally got the screws out (see previous photo)

***

After owning our Landy for a few weeks we noticed the fuel consumption was a bit high. That and the giant puddle of diesel under the car each time we stopped made us think the tank might be leaking. So here's my step by step guide to change a land rover fuel tank...

First off buy a new tank. Ebay shops seem to be the best place to get them. Nice and easy delivered to your door. Its worth buying all the seals, pipes other parts around the tank that you think may need replacing. You can be sure that if your tank has rusted so badly that it needs replacing other things around the tank will need replacing too.

We booked ourselves into pitstart self service in London. They have a fantastic setup with all the tools you could need and more. I highly recommend them. Check their website pitstartgarage.com. This place is essential for any overland preparation.

Extras we bought for the task were spare nuts & bolts, rust treatment products and jerry cans.

We turned up to Pit Start early on Saturday morning expecting the job to take a few hours. We ended up taking more hours than I care to mention. The Haynes manual always makes these jobs sound so much easier and shorter than they actually are. There are always complications.

We had to remove our rear step and tow hitch. This took a few hours. There is something about 18 year old bolts that make them difficult to remove. In the end I had to cut them off with a hacksaw. An angle grinder was a bit of a fire hazard around our tank.

Removing the pipes and electrics from the tank also takes ages. The angles are difficult to work with. The clamps had completely rusted over the fuel pipes. These had to also be cut off.

It turns out our tank had rusted through the join (tank is constructed in two halves) and through the bottom of the tank! The only thing holding the tank in place was the tank guard.

With the tank removed we cleaned the chassis and general underside of the rear chassis. It turns out there was a few kilo's of mud stuck to everything. Mud is great at holding moisture and helping rust penetrate the metal.

After wire brushing and cleaning the chassis with solvent we sprayed it with pre-primer. As a rust treatment we used POR-15. This is supposed to be the definitive rust treatment primer. Two coats of this and a chassis paint coat on top completed the rust treatment.

Finally the new tank was put in place. Another easier said than done task. Although the replacement part was a good fit getting it in place with the tank guard and reconnecting everything again was another time consuming task.

Land Rover's bolt on bolt off simplicity still stacks up, it just takes a long time to get the bolts off!

Landy Acquisition

We have now purchased our Land Rover. We are really pleased with the Landy but after owning for a short time we realised there is a big oil leak and some serious rust on the rear cross member. It is now in the shop receiving some major welding. The oil leak has now been resolved. It turned out to be some loose bolts somewhere.

We are still waiting to hear back from the mechanic but are hoping that the welding goes smoothly. The first attempt revealed worse rust than we had anticipated.

Here are some images the previous owner took of the vehicle. We will hopefully update with some more of our own.

Here are a few points as to why we chose this Land Rover.

- BFG tyres, a must for any African adventure.

- Over landing accessories - Brownchurch roof rack, under body protection, inverter, work lights, cb radio

- Relatively low mileage for a Landy at 111k miles

- secure rear body. The vehicle is '91 county but the rear windows have been removed and plated over. Dog guards, rear window grilles and an additional lock on the rear door make the vehicle relatively secure for a Land Rover.

- Simplicity of the 200 tdi engine

There is a constant Land Rover/Land Cruiser debate. This is why we went for the Land Rover..

- UK based preparation. Land Rovers are more common in the UK. There is a vehicle to suit every budget and a club/mechanic/website all to hand any where in the UK. Not to say this isn't so for the Land Cruiser but it helped persuade me to buy British.

- Overland prep. It is easier to buy a Land Rover with some overland prep than it is to find a Toyota that has received the same prep.

- Owning a Land Rover!