Whilst being laid up here in Walvis Bay I have time to catch up on Man vs Land Rover.  We have had a few issues of late, requiring professional intervention (shiny new head) as well as some of my traditional “just get it working again” medicine.

Viscous fan – in a nutshell, this stopped working efficiently, causing overheating on the mountain passes in Lesotho.  I hadn’t considered this as a cause (the fan had only about 30k on it), so thanks to Paul at The Centre in Durban for the idea. Chatting/swearing about how to lock the fan mechanism in the campground (sorry mate, I didn’t get your name!) let to the revelation that people in a Jeep had tried to use epoxy, but the heat killed it pretty quickly.  “Aha!” thought I, i’ll drill some channels and slap in a few self tappers.  It worked flawlessly, problem solved until he fan was replaced back in Durban with a shiny new one.

Roofrack leg – back in Europe, the captive nut in one roofrack leg failed, necessitating a quick bodge with a nut and bolt.  Not ideal, so I bought a new leg in Joburg and fitted it.  Naturally I didn’t torque it correctly, so it vibrated loose here in Namibia (new rattle detected and identified, problem sorted in Solitaire whilst hopping around on one leg waiting for my knee to start working again (see previous post).

Light relay – whilst driving back in the dark from Dune 45 to the campground, we lost our high beam headlights.  Inconvenient (as there was game around) but not the end of the world as we have VisionX lamps on the bumper (with fog covers, but better than nothing).  I have identified the fault as a failed relay in our Boomslang light harness, an easy fix once I can get on the roof to my spares box (or talk Margaret into fossicking around).

Lost suspension bolt – this one was a bit more serious.  Whilst juddering along the most corrugated road on earth, one of the rear shock absorber mounting bolts vibrated out, and we didn’t immediately notice (the juddering was that bad).  A few km later we stopped for a breather, and something made me check the shocks… the shock mount on the chassis had been bent off at nearly a right angle to where it should be, the shock was dented and its dust cover ripped off, and there is a gig shiny dent in the floor where the shock had been hammering it.  In true bush mechanic fashion much swearing was deployed, buying time for a solution to be dreamed up before family meltdown occurred.

Margaret was sent down the road with a walkie talkie to search for the bolt (handy having a runner available) while I attacked the chassis mount with my trusty landy-hammer (copper mallet, good for hitting sensitive things really hard and not worrying too much about denting them).  With the bracket now roughly back in shape I dug into the roof boxes and found a bolt of the right length, diameter and thread – albeit not high tensile – called Margaret back and remounted the shock.  A few bits of Gorilla Tape and the dust shield was also back in place…  rolling again!  A new shock is arriving on Monday, and we will also source a proper suspension bolt to replace my #8 wire solution.

Venice, Italy.

It has been a VERY busy 5 weeks.  We have covered 10,773km, and driven through England, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, (boat trip to Russia), Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia and are now in Italy. Home in around 10 days time.

Given how heavy the Taniwha is (it is REALLY heavy, especially with full water and longrange fuel tanks) I have been pretty happy really with how things have gone mechanically, all things considered.  When the extreme distances we have covered are added to the compressed timescale (and with some pretty wild weather thrown in) the old fella has done well.

However..  things are not perfect.  I have come to the conclusion that the aftermarket hubs that are fitted aren’t going to work out for us – I am sure that on a “normal” Land Rover (if such a thing exists?) they would perform flawlessly, but given the weight and constant stresses ours are under they are showing the strain.  We have a bit of bearing grumble front and rear, and none of the hubs are more than 12 months old.  So..  something to sort out back in the UK before we hit Morroco and more serious terrain.

We have a slight oil leak from the turbo drain pipe (I think I may have cracked a weld when I was wrestling with the manifold pre-trip), so I will need to replace this – not a biggie at all and the leak is very minor by Land Rover standards.

Storagewise, still some changes needed in the rear.  Too much stuff loosely packed.

Tires – I have been really impressed with the Cooper Discoverer STT Pro tires we fitted before this trip.  Roadhandling is exceptional, snow/ice they stick like glue (Thanks, North Cape..).  Ride quality is superb.  Given these are proper mud terrain tires, this is a huge surprise.  Yes, they are pretty noisy – but it’s a Land Rover so is very noisy anyway. Orchestras need many instruments.

Water tank/Pump/Filters – working very well indeed.

Bonnet chequerplate – a really good investment.  Margaret climbs up the bonnet to get to the roof boxes, no hint of buckling yet.  I will be adding some grab handles in the UK to assist in the wet.

External mains power hookup, USB and 12v sockets – superb.  I am using all three right now.

Fridges and Freezer – we have a perfect setup for us now. I need to run heavier wire from the distribution board in the boot to the middle seats, as we are getting an unacceptable voltage drop.  But it’s all working nicely.

Navigation Systems – Garmin, sort your $h1t out!!! I foolishly updated the software, maps and camera database before we left.  Naturally, the build is as buggy as hell, and is happily screwing up routing and mis-reporting speed limits (90 in 50 zones, etc…).  I sense some fines coming in the post. There has been much swearing directed at it, and not the usual good-natured Antipodean sort.

Remapped ECU – MUCH more power.  Possibly too much in built up areas.  I think I will use the factory ECU for on-road, and the remapped one for when we need the power… it simply doesn’t like rolling along at the speed limit.  And it is thirstier, despite the engine running a few hundred RPM lower than the factory ECU… not sure how this works – maybe it is injecting more fuel?

Anyway, more musings as and when I have them.