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Defender, wild animals and steering guards......

Just for info

A chap down the pub told me (literally)........ if you hit an animal head on at a reasonable speed with a Defender, as the steering rods are not well protected, it can bend them and steer you straight into the other lane if you're on the continent (or off the side of the road in the uk(?)).

A friend of his died this way in Luxembourg. He hit a wild boar while doing 55mph, the Defender dived into the other lane, flipped and hit a tree with the roof. The chap who told me the story has a steering guard installed for this reason....

A wild boar would seem to be the right height to do this, but I can't think of many other wild animals of the same height (no wild boars in the UK). A badger would get your diff, a deer your radiator and I think a fox would be too small. I guess the only real danger to the steering rods comes from dogs or wandering sheep.

Guy

Reply to
Guy Lux
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You really shouldn't listen to what people in the pub tell you. . . . . . .

Reply to
Exit

snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com (Guy Lux) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com:

Drunkards crawling out of said pub at closing time? Some get very wild when they call "time".

Derry

Reply to
Derry Argue

In my experience they usually come through the radiator (or would if you don't have a bull bar). Occasionally as high as the windscreen on a Defender, depends how big the roo is and how fast it is going. Other accidents involving animals round here seem to be mainly sheep or cattle. The Defender drag link is behind the axle, but the drag link is in front and reasonably vulnerable, although only to a small range of animal sizes - it would be rare for one to be heavy enough to damage it, and not high enough to hit the bumper first. Pigs would be about the only thing I can think of

- most other animals heavy enough are too high, a few such as wombats too low. I don't think it is a very high risk. JD

Reply to
JD

I overheard 2 guys talking in a pub, one of them claimed to be on a motorway driving behind a transporter which was "full of them huuuge great pick-up trucks." He went on to describe how the transporter hit the back of a vehicle, the impact of which dislodged a pickup which fell. He then told how he avoided an accident by driving underneath the vehicle as it landed on all four wheels and bounced over him!

Reply to
Wolverine

I've met him! He flew tanks for the Navy during the war!

Richard

Reply to
richard.watson

I've cleaned up a smallish roo in my rangy at about 80k's.. it smashed both of my cibie oscars, *bent the steel arb bullbar*, mangled the grill, and it bent over the bullbar and put a dint in the bonnet... I was just glad I'd slowed down from 100!

Don't want to go hitting wombats either.. they're solid li'l buggers..

Macca

Reply to
Macca

I'd recommend a Series 2a 2.3 petrol as the solution. I am regularly overtaken by sneering hedgehogs and snails play chicken across the road as I happily bowl along.

Eddy

Reply to
eddy bayton

On the plus side, if you'd been driving a Falcon you'd have had a pissed off roo in your passenger seat kicking hell out of you.

Tim Hobbs

'58 Series 2 '77 101FC Ambulance '95 Discovery V8i

Reply to
Tim Hobbs

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