Start the clock..

The countdown begins. 3 months 'til the next trip and quite a lot to do to get ready. As usual I've been putting off some of the spannering as the winter weather doesn't encourage it. Cold metal, cold fingers; but I'm going to have to get on with it as I'm working away from home for most of March. So in effect I've only got 8 weeks left to get it all done, not the 12 that you'd think. This shouldn't be a problem but since everything has to come by mail it adds to the time everything takes and needs a lot more forward planning. For instance, it's not like I can just run around the corner to get a gasket or a special washer if I find that I haven't got one lying about when I get to that point in a job. Everything has to stop until the next week 'cos it takes at least 4 days for bits to arrive and if there's a weekend in between, which there usually is, then you can add another 2 days. The temptation is to "make do" with something else, which is OK for a Field Fix but not really an option at home.

Alternatively, I could go to the local Landrover dealer. They might as well have this stuck on the door...

...and they generally have "to make it a special order" as they don't keep anything useful in stock. That's 3 days and 4 times the on-line price. If I'm lucky.

Sitting in the back and sheltering from the gales last weekend I had a think about sorting out some of the limited storage. The area under the gas bottle and "flight boxes" can't be accessed very easily and is just a long tunnel.

That's where the warning triangles and wheel changing kit lives, together with other stuff that's long and thin. It's on a pull out board but this always jams as the stuff on it doesn't stay put. Time to make that a bit more user-friendly. After all, if I'm going to need it I'll probably be in a hurry, it'll be dark and cold and Really Useful Things  - like the wheel nut key -  will probably finish up falling into the water/mud/sand/snow and being lost.

A few bits of plastic along the sides help to keep everything in the right place and the "tool board" can be made up so that everything holds everything else in place.

Here's the table support with the wheel brace and extension lever/tube inside it. Fitted to the other side are 2 tyre levers, and the all-important wheel nut key is on a bolt passed through the board and there's a wing nut to keep it there. Maybe I should try to get a spare one - losing it would be a potential problem as I doubt that anything I could "bodge" would easily undo a wheel nut. Given that we rarely leave the vehicle anywhere unsafe, we could be better off not using them at all.

The 2 warning triangles sit snugly between....

...and the rest of the stuff interlocks - scrubbing brush, dust brush, hammer and the lock for the back door.

It all slides in and out perfectly without anything jamming or falling out into the road. Lovely.

Do I need to get a life?

The wiring to the work light on the driver's side is sorted after I reconnected the wires to the right part of the switch, and the correct parts to connect the CB co-ax to the antenna have arrived. I tried to set the system up last weekend - while I was hiding from the wind - but all the readings on the SWR meter were in the red, which suggested a short circuit somewhere. Since the only part of the system that I'd interfered with was the antenna connection, it was going to be the likely culprit. In other words, if it's electric and I've done anything to it, it'll be me that broke it.

I sent a photo of my attempt at a connection to Jan at Norfolk CB Radio and after he'd stopped laughing pointed out that I'd put the connector on upside down...The new bits cost a fiver and are idiot-proof. Just as well.

A bit of soldering and everything ought to work a bit better. While kit like this might be useful in an emergency - which is why I want it to work properly - we've never really felt the need for a CB except for the Trail-of-Ducks trip we did in the Alps in 2014. The commercial guide/leader/organiser insisted we have one but two of the participant crews couldn't get their's to work on the frequency everyone else was using but could still chat to each other. Strange, and I know enough (despite what you've already read) about radios to know it made no sense. Halfway through the trip I had a thought and retuned our CB to the equivalent European channel to the UK one that we were all supposed to be on, to hear the two "silent" crews having a lively discussion about some of the rest of us, and it wasn't flattering. To us nor them. I switched back to the proper channel and kept quiet....for a day or two. Another thought - the authorities in Morocco aren't keen on CB radios and similar kit, so the whole lot has to be disconnected before we get to Tangier-Med....in theory, anyway.

Some more armour plate

...to protect the nice, clean and repainted fuel tank. Which, as I found out, is made of steel so thin you could puncture it with a pencil. The stone guard that Solihull provide, otherwise described as the mudtrap, is actually necessary and Elly came to us without one. I wasn't too concerned about this lack of protection, given that any large rocks would be deflected by the iromongery that forms the towbar mounting, until we took the tank out to repair the leak. As I said, with the paint cleaned off and no rust you could be forgiven for thinking that it's made of aluminium since it's so light, which for steel read "thin". With that discovery in mind, I decided it needed something under it to stop even small stones from doing damage.

The price of an ally guard is quite reasonable given the consequences of a hole in the bottom of the tank, so I was prepared to get one from one of the usual suppliers. A quick look on eBay, though, turned up this:

It's hard to tell from the photo but the seller confirmed that it was bought for a TD5, is supposed to be for a TD5 but it wouldn't fit. He said that it "wouldn't clear the antiroll bar" because his Defender was modified. This sounded a bit of a mystery but with the price less than half of a new one, and it was going to get filthy within a day of being fitted, it seemed like a reasonable buy. I reckoned that I could modify it to fit our 300Tdi since the arrangements of the metalwork underneath and around the tank seemed pretty similar. I have an angle grinder, anyway, so what couldn't I do? If all else failed I could cut it into panels and bolt it to the towbar stays.

Having arranged a courier it was promptly sent, but with Christmas in the way it took nearly 10 days to reach us in Northern Scotland from Lincolnshire. I reckon it'd have been quicker ordering from Australia, but that's the price we pay for living near the Arctic Circle. Apparently. Anyway, this 15kg lump of 8mm aluminium weighs more than the fuel tank it protects, so a pretty beefy bit of kit and far more substantial that the bit of tin that Landrover call a stone guard. It also  sits well clear of the tank's surface so the usual problem of mud and other crud getting trapped and causing rust - perhaps the reason why there wasn't one fitted - is avoided.

The weather has been pretty cold, windy and generally unpleasant over the New Year so we only got around to fitting it a few days ago. As usual, it turned out to be a bit more complicated than I thought, but not because it wouldn't fit the shape of the tank but because some of the mounting holes didn't match the ones in Elly's chassis. Not really a surprise, you might say, but a bit of investigation revealed that there were holes in the right places, mostly, but they hadn't been prepared (tapped) for the bolts that would be needed to hold the thing in place. Two of these are in the crossmember at the front of the tank, which isn't thick enough, in my opinion, to just be tapped to take a bolt. Since the hole didn't go all the way through and a TD5 has bolts to hold the normal tank protector in this position, I reckoned there must be, on the TD5, rivnuts (aka "Nutserts") to provide the grip. With no help available it was a bit of a struggle to get the guard in place to check how everything would line up, or not.



Heads, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes.

Having got this far I had to jam a bit of wood underneath so I could crawl out without having it all fall on me, since I couldn't reach any of the fixings.

Having drilled out the holes as accurately as possible given the lousy access I had a go with the rivnuts, without much success. The squeezy tool wasn't going to be up to the job of pulling the 8mm nuts



the normal DIY rivnut tool...



 so the alternative method seemed the best.





 With the back of the truck on ramps and me underneath I couldn't sit up and if I lay down I could only just reach the fixing holes. I tried to make a ramp for me as well, but ended up hanging off the spanners like a baboon and skinning my knuckles when the tools slipped. As they always do. I just couldn't get the rivnut to "bite" on the edge of the hole and stay in place, not that it was easy to get at anyway. After ruining 4 nuts and losing half a pint of blood I gave up and drilled right through the crossmember. Although it's bloody awkward - like all Landrover jobs - to get a nut on the bolt by feel, the front end of the new guard will be clamped by two large washers. I couldn't work out why the fixing on the guard was a slot instead of a hole since this isn't the best way of preventing it falling down, but this appears to be the way it's made. Odd.

I wasn't sure I liked it and thought we'd have to make something up that will ensure that if it is shaken down as a result of rough roads, it doesn't fall far enough to do any damage to the diff or the axle which, of course, needs to move about. It did make it easier to get in place, though.

If you try the same method, remember to put a bit of wood or something behind the crossmember so that when the drill breaks through it doesn't carry on going and (almost) punch a hole in that very thin gas tank....ask me how I know?

As you can see, there isn't a lot of room between the back of the crossmember and the tank. A bit of a pain to get in there with the nuts, too. Top tip - put them on loosely before offering the guard up to the bolts....

The cutouts in the side of the guard are to provide clearance for the towbar arms, which required a bit of gentle persuasion to fit.

Plenty of space between the tank and the guard - no mud traps here.

As a result of the tight tolerances by the time everything was back together it became obvious that these arms provide quite a lot of support to the bottom of the guard and, since the whole thing is a pretty tight fit, I decided that we didn't need to worry about the "slot and bolt" fixing on the front. I hope.


The bolts for the back of the guard matched up with those for the towbar brace - almost. A bit of filing  and drilling was needed but given how these aftermarket accessories normally (don't) fit, it went on reasonably easily, even if it did mean about 20 trips from the gravel, to the tool chest, to the bench and back again. The funny cutout that must provide clearance for something on a TD5 just happened to be just in the place I needed to put one of the fixing bolts, so I had to make up a bridge, but the other 2 went in fairly easily.

The "spacer" is a 12mm nut, drilled out

The small "collar" under the crossmember is part of the mount for a piece of steel angle that's a part of the towbar support. Since it wasn't easy to incorporate this part with the guard, I've left it off, but if I get advice to the contrary I might have to work out a way to put it back on and still have it do a useful job. This will be more difficult than it first looks as the big holes don't line up any more. At the mo, though, it seems a bit redundant.

The towbar is firmly bolted to the crossmember and the brace bars to the chassis - is this bit, which goes behind the towbar and fixes to the crossmember, really necessary?

So, a successful outcome, given that the thing I bought is for a different vehicle. Another Top Tip, though...I thought that the ARB would go across the outside of the guard but it doesn't...save yourself 30 minutes by not taking it off......😩