The return of Dave F.

Hadn't realised he'd put rock-sliders on.

Oh, he hasn't...

On or around Fri, 23 Jun 2006 00:00:34 +0100, "Lee_D" enlightened us thusly:

me too...

the blog was an ace idea though. amazed at the number of internet cafes they found.

if you look somewhere near the end of the blog there's a comment by me with a link to a scan of the picture of the 2-nosed hound in wanderlust, to compare with the one they found on the 13th in god-knows-where.

Mother"

Exit one fuel tank, I think.

I still stand by my comment some time back that it's a slow, cumbersome, unwieldy vehicle. That's now the second video clip i've seen of it getting stuck on something that a normal 101 wouldn't think twice about. The title of that clip would be better as "6x6 Land Rover

101 having a lot of trouble cresting a dune"

Alex

Well it did belly out, I'd have thought that a normal 101 would belly on that, if it had the same belly clearance of course.

Having an extra axle isn't the help that people might think, I know that if I put my pinz into three wheel drive (all axles powered but no cross-axle diffs) it's surprisingly easy to stop. When following some

90s around an off-road course, when I didn't have the cross-axle diffs locked, it would grind to a halt in relatively mild places that they sailed through. Given that they were over half a tonne lighter than me but had one less driven axle that was a little surprising but I know that the 6-wheeler pinz needs diff locks more frequently than the four-wheeler pinz.

At the end of the day though, the 6-wheeler 101 or pinz is meant for carrying heavy stuff, hence the extra axle.

Have to agree.. I'd bet had Dave realised how close the undercarriage was coming he would have got the pick and shovel out but lets face it we've all been there (Austin step forwards please). That extra axle has afforded a fixed bed for the last 3 months which I would imagine having done some rather less demanding caravanning is worth it's weight in gold.. not to mention the extra 200 odd litres of fuel being carried just in case.

If it were my truck I guess I'd be looking at the likes of the detriot lockers for the rear two axles at least, but thats not a cheap doo and it's not my truck....

The fact that the truck has completed the trip under it's own steam is surely testiment to the marque of which we should all be proud.... yes it needs some TLC now but thats a once in a lifetime road trip in a 30 year old vehicle, unless you happen to go twice.

Lee

No, if you pause and look at it atop the ridge, you'll see that the belly is on the ground because the second axle is right down on it's springs, owing to the extra load behind the axle not being supported by the third axle (which is off the ground). Which is the same problem i saw the vehicle in question having last time.

Again, you get the same problem. Fine on the flat but when it comes to having to cross difficult terrain, quite often the second or third axle will end up off the ground, and the extra weight results in the other axle becoming bogged down as a consequence.

It's only really solvable by having a tandem pair of axles, like on the Scammel Pioneer/Explorer, or by having all three axles equally spaced like the Alvis Saracen/Stalwart. That or the current solution being used by Land Rover - long travel independent suspension and active ride control. Fine if you don't mind getting stuck when the computer packs up.

Alex

Well, that's what you get for kitting a vehicle out to carry a load across rough terrain that a normal 101 probably wouldn't handle..

That's what the pinz does, when one axle goes up, the other is forced down by a rocking leaf spring to spread the load. However it doesn't help that much, and the times it's bogged down it's not been on terrain that I'd class as particularly rough. Then again it does have practically bald tyres on it ;-) Rear set are barely legal. Whack the lockers on though and it sails through.

The tandem axle arrangement does work, but only to the limits of suspension travel and a tight crest like that would test most things.

Some lockers on that 6-wheel 101 would help, when you have the extra length and three axles, you *are* going to lift an axle no matter what. I've toasted everyone in the pinz on off-road trips, and that can be attributed soley to the extra axle plus locker combination as the pinz axle articulation isn't good and the engine is weak.

However, the 6-wheel 101 was not intended to be an off-road world-beater, but an excellent expedition vehicle, and it seems to be doing the job pretty well so far. I'd fit rear lockers though as it would be a bitch to free it if it got stuck.

Or maybe " how to erode a dune in 4 minutes"? Derek

On or around Fri, 23 Jun 2006 19:45:16 +0100, "Lee_D" enlightened us thusly:

The extra axle makes it into a serious expedition vehicle. The main thing wrong with that conversion is the way the suspension works and it probably for serious off-roading needs at least 4 diff locks: one between front and rear, one between the 2 rear axles and one each in the rear diffs. Not sure that a front axle difflock would make much difference. I don't know how many diff locks it has, in fact.

The suspension comment is about the fact that it's not actually a true

6-wheeler, it's a 4-wheeler to which another axle has been added. One thing wrong with it, dynamically, is that the 2 rear axles are too far apart for the amount of articulation available - ideally, the suspension need a re-work into a proper 4-wheel rear end (see how most 6x4 trucks are done); this would allow better articulation, and would get the axles closer together which would improve the turning and reduce tyre scrub. You could do it even better by putting a steering axle on the back (at the cost of added complexity and stuff-to-go-wrong).

Having said that, it's a very capable truck as-is. Looking at the video clip, DF actually does it more-or less exactly right: he approaches steadily in the first instance, rather than charging flat-out. When that approach fails, he then tries it again a bit faster, and then again, until he just clears the dune without apparent problems. Not sure when that was taken but at some point in the trip he lost the 6WD and if the truck's only in 4WD at that point, then it does well. He could have hit that dune at 30 mph in the first place, thrown the truck in the air, flown the dune and crashed down on the other side, and might have broken all sorts of stuff in the process including his teeth.

see comment above...

exactly. and notwithstanding losing the 6WD part-way through he doesn't seem to have got stuck, or not permanently. They got all the way round and back home.

Given the money, if I wanted to do a 6-wheeler 101-based expedition truck, I'd use 110 axles and suspension on it which would improve the articulation and allow (more easily) spacing the axles much closer - it would also get you disc brakes all round which solves the "101s don't stop in reverse" problem and lose quite a few of the difficult-to-source 101-only parts. Personally I'd do it with a steering back axle but that's a matter of personal choice, really.

It would of course upset the rivet-counters no end, but hey, someone's got to do that :-) and in any case, the rivet-counters wouldn't approve of the whole 6x6 thing anyway.

engine-wise, nice as the V8 is, for remote places it'd probably be better to go with a diesel. LR TDi with a nice big intercooler would probably do it nicely - with mild tweaking it should produce about the same power as the

3.5 V8, with maybe more torque.

BTW, if anyone wants me to build it... you know where I am, and I charge quite reasonable rates :-) That's a semi-serious offer, BTW.

actually, it'd be loads of fun to re-create the 8x8 the successor to which is now being made by some lot in America, based on 2 sets of 90 parts; AFAICS this would be relatively easy.

Quite a bit in my experience, I've ground to a halt with 5-wheel-drive and that extra wheel being added in by the front locker has made me move on two separate occasions now. It might not be such an issue on that 101 as the rear pair of wheels are further apart than on my old monster, on mine the two rears are often in the same shitty slippery stuff with just the front on better ground. It can almost snap your wrists though with the steering thrashing around.

A front locker is certainly not as useful though, but I'd have been stuck twice so far without it.

Was it just a one-truck expedition BTW? Sort of scary in a relative unknown like a custom 101! (perhaps a 10101?)

Is a 110 axle strong enough ?

Steve

On Sat, 24 Jun 2006 14:14:30 +0100, Austin Shackles scribbled the following nonsense:

in a 101 ambi the TDis are a bit gutless, probably more so in a 6X6! I think Martyn once said that Grumble weighs in at around 4 tonnes, which is really pushing the limit for a TDi. When I was looking at various options (LPG V Oil burner) my diesel engine of choice would prolly have been a 4.0 Perkins Phazer, which generates bags of low dopwn and torque and hp, and is still within the limits of the LT95. IIRC there is a GS owner who put a TDi in his 101 and found it struggled, but don't know if any drive train changes were made.

Rich Clafton has a 200Tdi, with a sensible intercooler, and he is very pleased with it apparently. And add Alisports new propane injection system, and you'd be close to 200 BHP.

Steve

Ice cold in Alex anyone!!!!!

Nige

--

Subaru WRX Range Rover 4.6 HSE (The Tank!)

We might be going on a summer holiday, the Greece Ball rally!!!!

On or around Sat, 24 Jun 2006 14:27:37 +0100, Ian Rawlings enlightened us thusly:

I guess it depends on your terrain as well. Mostly people "fail to proceed" on either steep uphills or serious gloop, and especially in the former case there's not much weight on the front end. In a really big mudhole then the difference between 5 and 6 wheel drive is not likely to be a major deciding factor although there are always going to be conditions where it makes a decisive difference as you point out. Look at it another way, would you pay an extr 500 quid for the last difflock, say?

yep, although they didn't go really far off-piste into the unknown, very sensibly.

On or around Sat, 24 Jun 2006 17:29:01 +0100, Steve enlightened us thusly:

I thought the 101 used range rover axles? The 110 uses salisbury rear axles which are strong enough for all those 130 things and the high-cap pickup which carries a ton.

not sure how strong the front axle is, but then again, it'd be sharing the work with a normal rear axle - unless you have a fixed one then you can have

2 salisburys.

No!

... and the electricity board 110s that seem well above even that rating with very HD rear suspension.

I don't think the 101 uses rangerover axles, aren't they special to 101? Salisbury axles are plenty strong enough, but the front axles struggle to cope with the weight of the Isuzu engine in the Perentie Landrovers, so it might not be quite such a good idea in this application. JD