Vehicle Preparation Exterior
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- Last Updated: Wednesday, 12 January 2022 09:42
1) Choice of vehicle:- My previous Landrover was a 109 Series 3 Hardtop which I owned for 14 years and took away on a couple of trips. It got to the point where I didn’t have the inclination, particularly in Winter, to give it all the TLC required and so I decided to seek out a slightly more modern vehicle requiring less upkeep. I wanted a Landrover partly because I like them but also because I am more familiar with the layout. I also want the vehicle to be more useful socially and so I went for the Station Wagon rather than the hardtop. The vehicle is a 1994 300Tdi 110 CSW.
2) Rollcage:- Although it adds a lot of weight to the vehicle I choose to have a full external cage. This gives me peace of mind that should I make an error, or someone else do the same, I protect the passenger area of the vehicle and also the windscreen and main body of the vehicle hopefully allowing the trip to continue. The cage is fully demountable and was built by Chris Blackburn of DME Motorsport in Wellingborough. Chris used to work for Prodrive and built cages for them. I found him through one of the forums for Landrovers listed as NorthernChris. I later had the cage powdercoated by Wrexham Metal Finishers. Allan James is the man to speak to there. He does a fantastic job and also coated my roof rack after I had done many modifications on it.
3) Winch:- This item is a Supawinch Husky which I had on my 109. Some people say don’t bother just take a hand winch but I am quite happy to have it along. It has a sealed solenoid pack instead of the originals and these were supplied by Gwyn Lewis.
4) Bullbar:- When I bought the vehicle I was quite happy that it came with one of the bullbars you can fold down. I wanted to keep this, however, the winch bumper didn’t allow this directly. I contacted Richard Saunders of Mill Services and he adapted the brackets to fit.
5) Lights:- I spent a lot of time trawling Ebay for spot lights and such as the existing ones were getting tired.
I ended up with Hella 550 spots on the bulbar, Hella 500 fogs for width of beam on the rack outers and PIAA’s on the rack inner. I have put a couple of lights on the rear to supplement the reversing light and to illuminate a camping area while setting up.
6) I have mounted the hi-lift on the back of the motor (although a common solution this highlighted the deficiencies of the hi-lift and following the trip it has been moved) and am carrying a spare on a wheel carrier and one on the bonnet.
7) Raised Air Intake:- I have added a regular metal raised air intake and put a Donaldson pre-cleaner on top (ammended picture to follow). I have added a full extended breather kit for the axles, gearbox, transfer box and timing cover. Any anoraks out there may notice the colour of the clamps for the intake to the rollcage. They were supplied to me by APB of Hartlebury who did the intakes for the Wolf limited edition for the aborted Land Rover Global expedition. They had some left as I was looking for clamps and so I get a slight piece of history to carry round.