Suppose 5 years worth of events hasn’t helped but there is no deep corrosion so should be easy to clean up and paint.

Site suits all abilities

TOILETS (bring your own loo roll!!) / RUNNING WATER AVAILABLE.

Fees £15 members, £25 non members.

Vehicles MUST conform to scrutineering requirements to participate, follow this link for full details.

Directions.

Site is off B676 Colsterworth Road in village of Stainby, entrance is approx quarter mile past cross roads with Skillington Lane, heading towards A1. Postcode is NG33 5QP. Entrance will have 4×4 markers nearby.

Here’s a detailed write up of what has been going on.

The Chassis-

The chassis Has been welded up now and painted, It has rose joints on the links to the chassis offering a lot of movement compared to standard rubber bushes. The axles are off a range rover classic. I have used bespoke trailing arms at the rear and modified radius arms at the front. I have made mounts on the chassis to accept the radius arms and trailing arms and upper link for the rear axle, Plus new spring mounts on the axles and bespoke suspension turrets on the chassis. Also at the minute it has RR and LR coils (But i will be changing these for softer ones at a later date), the shocks are pro comp es9000,s. The suspension fully dislocates all round with my bespoke dislocation cones that i fabricated. Dazz kindly donated a power steering box from a Mercedes G-wagon as it was just the thing for the job. The chassis has been lengthened by 9″ as the sump was too close to the front diff for my liking. I have custom made the rear bumper/winch trey and purposely made it a little heavier than normal to compensate for the light body on the rear and heavy engine upfront. All the fuel lines and brake line are in. I’ve used braided hoses for the chassis to hub connections all round for the brakes. The main fuel and brake lines are made out of copper with the final fuel connections being standard rubber fuel hose.  I have made a bespoke propshaft for the front which has two wide angle UJ’s. To do this i had a piece of tube machined up to mate the daihatsu prop and slider to the rangey prop.

The Engine-

The engine is a 2.8td. Its out of a Daihatsu fourtrak. To fit this on the Suzuki i have made a bespoke removable gearbox mount/crossmember (This is so the gearbox can be easily removed without taking an angle grinder to it.) As for the engine mounts, i removed the brackets from the chassis, cut them down a little and re welded them in the correct position. For the rubber i have used Land rover engine mounts and smaller ones for the gearbox mount. I had to chop a little out of the body to get the shell back on without it fouling the gearbox. I will be making a custom exhaust in the near future, this will just simply go out the rear drivers side. I have managed to wire up the engine and have it running. Although I’m trying to overcome a few teething problems with the alternator charge light. And trying to get the alternator to work. I will probably be wiring a new dash pod and loom from scratch, which shouldn’t be too hard (Hopefully). Future ideas for the the engine will be an inter-cooler, oil cooler, water cooled turbo and gas kit. I have also invested in a spare engine and box.

The Body Shell-

I have decided to go for a king cab style shell, this is to offer space in the rear for my fuel tank, second battery, winch (although i have made a removable panel to access the winch easily) and wet strops ect.. to get more space in the rear i have made a partition that is set back into the cab and then formed a “Parcel shelf”, this is an advantage as it feels more spacious inside compared to most trey back designs, the battery’s and fuel tank can still be mounted externally which is a lot safer than internally mounting them. Plus the seats can still be pushed all the way back for the taller variety of driver. All the wheel arches are going/have been re-made due to the wider axle width and the old ones perishing. New and much stronger outer and inner arches have been bespoke made on the rear out of 1.5mm sheet galv. they will also have a little bit of rubber round the inner of them to help catch a little more mud and make it conform to SVA standards (Yes i am going to get it SVA’d eventually). The bonnet and wings will be extended 4″ to accommodate a radiator and intercooler but still leave space for en externally mounted front winch. The rear window is the top half of the original back door and the off cut has been used for the new fold-down back door. Also to stop mud and sh*t getting in the back i will be making a “Lid” for the rear.

Any constructive comments/ suggestions welcome. Ill be updating more now I’ve figured out how to post topic’s!

Been doing a bit more the the suzuki- Building the front end up, made new inner and outer arches and tried two of alexes landrover tyres on- A few more pics.- Think ill have to chop the rear arches out a bit more tho and move the axle back 4″ But the approach angle from the front is spot on!

Here is a write up of my latest  bobtailing project.

Hi to all, the discovery was all ready fitted with some off road kit when I bought it, but I thought lets give it the chop, and make it more interesting, it takes quite a bit of working out the angles for the cuts, but used to it now as I’ve done a few in the last year, the roof and inner frame work and boot floor are all easy to weld as just steel, so the only tricky bit I am having trouble with is the ally tig welding, but I have a mate who is brill at it (scott doyle) so he will weld the sides for me this week and then its for the paint shop, the tow bar will be put back on and some extra brackets welded to chassis for the arms to bolt on, the tank this time I have had made from plastic with the discovery sender unit fitted back in, I had alloy ones for last ones, so will see how the plastic holds out, will let you know if splits, the filler cap will be reused and tigged into side panel, ( see photos ) the arches have been cut back to accept the 33 12.50 15 bfg tyres and offset modular rims, just got to get rocksliders with tree guards and a set of arches for finnishing off, the roof has been painted with semi gloss paint and the center of bonnet will be done when rest of car is painted, to stop the glare when roof lights are fitted. I hope you enjoy the project and only happy to answer any questions you have or ideas that could help in future projects, I have just bought another white 3 door 200 tdi and will bobtail that next. I hope to have it finished by early feb as it is still has tax and mot, ready for offroading.

Here are a few pictures of the off road vehicles I have had over the past four years.My first off road-er and daily drive.

A Suzuki SJ410 and it progressed into this.

Nigel started this project and called it Barbie and I finished it and called it Tango.This was my second vehicle.

This write up could prove interesting as it may go on a bit, and it’s something I’ve not done before but often thought about, I’ll try and stick to the the plan and write about the Buggy although getting sidetracked purely depends on who walks into the yard/garage/kitchen and distracts/moans/kicks or pulls chair out from under of?, so here goes:-

I’m often asked what the thing is based on and the answer has to be that, without it’s fibreglass Landrover shaped panels, it can’t really be said to be based on any recognised road vehicle.It is called a 3M Challenger and various comp. safari car builders have apparently laid claim to the design, but what I do know is that it was designed to accept SeriesII Discovery axles and coilover suspension, all clad in fibreglass panels which made it look very similar to the ‘Tomcat’, although wider (due to axle width increase on SII Disco’s), lower due to the 3″ diameter tubular chassis rails and at the time it was longer than any available Tomcat.

Please understand I’m not knocking Tomcat in any way, they’re good guys and build some nice trucks. Pod’s 2nd Tomcat was built in the same garage at the same time as the Challenger, although his was finished way before mine and there was a temptation to delve into his massive pile of ‘shiny bits’ and hide them away! At the time the garage door had Special Projects Dept. written on it in marker pen.

The challenger/Buggy took a lot longer to build, just over a year really as nothing was straight forward, the main tubular chassis had the rollcage on it and nothing else. It was collected from Warwickshire on the trailer and to move it I just stood up inside it and walked into the garage wearing it like a very big hat! Light? yes .

The donor vehicle was a rear engined buggy I’d built in ’95 which was quite ‘trick’ at the time but was designed around 29″ high maxicross tyres ( think they’re called aligators now?). An awful lot of this old buggy was going on the new one, and there was a plan at the time to get back into comp safari, which Pod and Shouler did (at KORC!!) and whilst at that site I came across the car I’d built and raced during 1990/91! but that’s another story.

Prior to the new buggy build we’d all spent/drank our way through many different ideas but the trouble was Clarkson’s Motorworld had been on and introduced Icelandic trialing to us which was mind blowing at the time and not long after Channel 4 covered a whole season of this, the craziest motorsport on the planet. That did it for me, and when I was offered a set of 35″ Simex, I couldn’t refuse, what a very very nice man.

So on went the 2 salisbury axles attached by some 10″ extended rangie front radius arms with SII Disco bushes @ about £14 each! (does that mean they are good?), decided on coil springs and the longest shockers that pro-comp do because coilovers were too expensive and still are. Could always go to those later, and still could.

The Chevy 5.7 litre lump went in easily as did the old 4 speed manual but where the radiator used to live above the engine, I wanted to be able to look out rearwards so had no choice but mount it in the front where it’s likely to fill up with mud etc. I took the option though of moving the rad. way back towards the bulkhead and this does work ok. By this time the frame had been sprayed a crazy green/yellow colour and I still cannot say WHY.

Paneling was/is fairly minimal and whilst I spent loads of time at the front, the back end was very rushed and still is temporary.

Since starting to run Chevy’s in 1990, the current one is No,4 and was built by a mate (a very clever mate) and is balanced etc but has a fast road cam in it, it does shift given the chance!

No.5 engine is in the garage with forged pistons and roller this and that all stuffed into a ’69 corvette block.

The auto box which went in this summer was a revelation, wow good to drive or what?? I said this was going to go on a bit, future plans are full hydro steering, painting, beadlocks and re-tube the backend where it’s all bent.

The good thing about the whole buggy is that it works ok superslow trialingwise, handles sideslopes really well, twists up ok and can really climb but also has quite a good escape button!!

Chris.

Next the rear rad was fitted with stainless tube helping with heat dissipation. That was fun with more bends than a tin of spaghetti, but this was done so there would be no actual 90% bends. Andy asked how I Wanted the winches wiring and together we made them far more reliable and easy to maintain. Since those early days a new fuel pipe system as been made from three different models of car that still complied with MOT standards.ARB lockers have been fitted to the front and rear axles with Ashcroft shafts and heavy duty flanges in the rear axle.

The challenge with this truck as always been to maintain it’s all rounder qualities and that means being able to MOT the vehicle for two years on the trot. I still know that some parts of this truck are ruff but to me it’s always been able to do the business when I commit it to the moment. Plus the more time I spend on it the more it becomes mine and less the last owners.Andy Finnley who built the truck originally wanted a truck that would perform but would be cheap to maintain. Sounds good to me. So here is what she’s made of.

Body is Suzuki SJ 413 with a small truck cab conversion.

Chassis is Suzuki SJ with rangie out riggers

Seats are recaro sport

steering wheel Suzuki swift GTI

In cab there are switches for 10 exterior lights and 5 interior lights both winches plus remotes two kill switches one for the batteries one for the engine. Three for the lockers.Three for the fans inter- cooler, radiator, in cab. Also there is a dual battery monitor that switches between the two battery’s which is controlled by an intelligent solenoid

The engine is a Isuzu 2.5 DT with inter cooler.

Suspension is scorpion extreme with dislocation on the rear.

Axles are 110 Lanny 2004 TD5 with ARB lockers back and front with Ashcroft shafts and flanges on the rear.

Winches are Warn 9000xnd i front and Warn 8000 on the rear with albright solenoid.Bow rope on front and rear.

Complete exterior roll cage going down to chassis at 12 points.

At the moment running on Insa turbo 33″ tyres.

Future plans include a new front suspension that will hopefully incorporate the body dropping a bit more to lower the centre of gravity. Plus just to continue to up grade and make good as we go along.Gaz and i did our first comp a couple of moths ago and had an awesome time, want to do a bit more of that this coming year.

Shrek came to me as an insurance write off for £670 from Easysalvage

Shrek was a commercial write off because he had had a serious fire in the rear of the passenger compartment. This had written off the rear seats and carpet, headlining (all rangies of this age have saggy headlining anyway) the rear screen was perspex!? and the rear quarterlight window had gone along with the rear offside door window.
On the plus side, the engine started first time when a battery was put on it, with no camshaft noise and the autobox worked very well, with low range being selectable. The damaged rear screen was a nightmare, or so I thought, but on inspection the rear screen framework was a brand new aliminium number, so I got very lucky there.

As anyone who has run rangies before will know the tailgate is a major source of rot. This was actually good news for shrek as he has a lovely ali frame, just needed to get a rear screen to go in the back. £10 managed to see me with a rotten frame, (just pulled the metal off the glass, not kidding) and so I set about silicone sealing the new glass into my good ali frame. Anyone who is wondering about that, just go ahead and do it, it’s really easy just don’t use as much silicone as i did, took me yonks to clean it off.

So, having replaced the headlining and all the glasswork, and obtained some new rear seats. (how quick this all is to write, took me about a month) Shrek headed off for his MOT.
He failed.
But all his not lost, he failed on one tyre for a nick in the sidewall, and for the windscreen wipers being crap (Doh, forgot about them)

After we managed to get through the MOT, I was then looking for somewhere to go and play offroad with my new toy. I managed to find Spondon and District Off Road Club on the MSN groups site. After succeeding in a brief chat with Trev I managed to get to Shottle for my first event with the club. Anyone wh remembers that first time out will also remember that it was pretty wet in the morning and that I was slithering round like I was on wet grass OH, thats right I was, but Shrek had some new tracker tyres given to him by Shrek the Bloke, and we were in business for the next time out.

Ok I promised more of a write up, so here is the second installment. Things stayed pretty static for a while, while I was enjoying my new technic trekker tyres, which were much better than the AT’s that were fitted previously. After being winched out by Daz at holymoorside at least eight times in one day, I decided that i definitely needed a winch for the front of the Green fat boy.

I started reading up on winches for fitting to Shrek. I bought an electric No brand winch off eblag for £110 cos the bloke was advertising it in the wrong section. This also meant that i had to buy a winch bumper, (or make one and I didn’t have the time). A discovery winch bumper fitted the bill for the front. Bits of the rangie wing stick down below the discovery winch bumper, and I’ll cut them off if they ever get caught but this far they never have. Now, I am a tight fisted sod, and if I spend my money on a winch, I wanted it to last for more than the 5 mins that the electric winch lasted for. I recognise that I probably bought a lump of cheap tat, but I fell out with electric winches further when I did some research into how long they last i.e. not very long.