buggering landrovers!

Sep 08, 2007 55 Replies

The company that supplies all the toyotas to the UN and other aid agencies is Toyota Gibraltar;

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I read an article on them some time ago in either one of the newspapers or one of the military vehicle mags I get where they went through some of the things they strip out or replace in the vehicles before they are regarded as ready to be used. I've not spotted a list on their website, they just say how wonderful toyotas are, presumably as they are apparently part of toyota or a toyota dealer, can't have them giving a list of the bits that break on the car now can we ;-)

They're not unique in that though, the cars that consumers get and those that are used by the professionals aren't generally the same, especially where the use is going to be much more rough than would otherwise be the case. Land Rover used to have (still has?) the "special vehicle" unit who modified them directly. I expect toyota has something similar, not sure why all the U.N. sales go via Toyota Gibraltar. The manufacturers don't let on that the cars that are seen doing hard jobs aren't the ones that we can buy in the showrooms, similarly to the racing scene where cars on the racetrack often don't share a single part or even a manufacturer with the cars that they are pretending to be. Suckers fall for it all the time.

People do however have this mad notion that a land rover will break very quickly off-road while japanese cars won't ever let you down, it's total bollocks, all cars will let you down if you spend day after day bouncing them off rocks. Some time ago some berk in a pub came up to me out of the blue and declared that if I went out into a desert in a land rover then "YOU WILL DIE!!", total certainty. I said that there's no vehicle that you can trust totally in such an environment, he knew sod all about anything though so the discussion stopped immediately.

Was it the hilux or the landcruiser that is in the s*it for having collapsing front suspension? I heard about it on a generic australian podcast, Late Night Live I think, or perhaps By Design, so not a 4x4 or off-road specific one so it must have caused a bit of a stink. ISTR there being noise about a recall in Oz due to incidences of it collapsing there.

There seems to be a common sort of stupidity on that sort of thing, and I think that some of the people watching that "Wainwright Walks" series on BBC4 will see the cute female presenter walking across the fells, and completely forget that some poor bastard had to follow her while carrying a camera. (I can think of worse views, but...)

I can't see there being less than four people in the group, and that's as it should be anyway.

Yes you have a point but there are very few vehicle producers who aren't going down this route.

Given the choice I'd rather cross a desert in a SIII diesel than a Third Gen Range Rover. The reality is mind that the Third Gen RR would probably be fine but there is always the chance.

I think Santana still fit a diesel engine that isn't reliant on fly by wire in their what is to all intents a Landrover. Would be interested to read of other non fly by wire vehicles that are currently on production lines. The basic test being do they rely on a throttle position sensor.

On the bright side the Third Gen Rangie does have Air con and off road sat nav. So unless the engine is cream crackered I can sit in the cool honking till help arrives lol where as I'd be forced to make an aircraft from the SIII ;-)

The first sniff of a problem with the electronic bullshit on my Hilux fuel system and I'm fitting a mechanical injector pump (it's already rebuilt, calibrated and waiting on the shelf).

A pal had the front suspension collapse on his Hilux , to be fair it was parked on top of a Clio at the time, driver of said Clio was being a racer the wrong way down the road from Derbyshire Bridge to Errwood Dam

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friend was hauling fencingup the hill. ( he bought a Hicap with the insurance )Derek

I want aircon in the 101. First thing to be done after i get the back sorted out and an awning made up i reckon... Though ive not yet found what those roof thingys like martyn bought are called to find em on ebay.

I could have gone and had a kip in the back of the truck while waiting for rescue ;) I dont think the people whos front window i was stopped infront of would have liked me much though! (infront of a row of terraced houses with no yards!)

I once pulled up outside a country pub in my old rangie to be asked by a local where my trailer was... 'you know, for all the spare axles'. Bloody peasants.

This it?

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You mean stuff like this:

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Steve

no prices on either of them - and im not sure i really need to be able to chill the 101 down to -20C! ;-)

You'll have to ring them then, the Hubbard site showed options for temperatures and volumes.

Steve

feckin ell.

just bin out. set to petrol, turn key and fuel pump whirrs away loudly indicating its trying to prime but cant. wont start - so i assume all the petrol has leaked out again..

set it to gas, turn key, clicks and hiss - and it starts!

reconnect leccy ignition and disconnect condensor - still starts on gas

switch back to petrol - this time it primes instantly and the pump goes quiet and it will now run on petrol too.

what is going on! only problem i could find is that the accelerator linkage is a bit dodgy at the carb (forgot to put the split pin back in) which meant it was sticking a bit open - but that shouldnt have stopped it runing.

have disconnected the lpg tank solenoid and it runs for 10 secs before dying (as it should). it then doesnt hiss when you turn the key (so it was getting lpg through yesterday). took out the LPG filter. no serious crud in it, reconnected the tank solenoid and it starts again.

so what was up with it yesterday! will try swapping my points, rotor arm and dissy cap back in a bit.

and why wont the petrol system prime until you have run the engine on gas first?

I had something like that, the vapouriser got stuck. Check for heavy ends in the vapouriser ?

Steve

buggering landrovers

when I saw teh subject line I thought someone was going to post that picture of the guy in suspenders who was quite fond of his range rover tailpipe!

AOL - I managed to restrain myself from posting a vulgar and offensive comment, though.

It's not the one I heard on the "radio" (the podcast was a copy of a broadcast from ABC national radio in Oz) but looks like it's related although it wasn't blamed on after-market work when I heard it.

It seems that all manufacturers are seeing less demand for actually capable off-roaders, the military seem to be going for much larger machines these days due to mines and explosives, once you've clapped armour on a normal-sized 4x4 or even the Pinzgauer 6x6es you've already half-knackered the thing so 6-8 tonne vehicles seem to be the small end of the current market from some recent military show reports I've seen. I'm hoping this'll mean that Pinzgauer 6x6es start finding their way to the military surplus market, I'd love a 718!

I don't think Landrover actually make the axles in Defenders etc, aren't they Dana or something? I know the class-1 modified nutters tend to go for Toyota axles because they are stronger, but I doubt very much that it's *any* toyota axle, probably a specific one from the older 70 series. Volvo C303 axles are pretty popular too, portal axles with diff locks as standard, so made to be very strong indeed as diff locks can put huge strain on axles as all the engine torque can end up going to one wheel, not something that an axle that doesn't have standard diff locks is usually designed to take.

The standard Toyota Hilux/Hiace rear axle copes quite well with 450BHP in a 2WD race car.

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