Morocco March 2016

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Those STT's I used last year are still in great shape with 15mm of tread, only taking one spare this time, as tire technology has improved so I'm hoping one spare will do.It's my theory anyway, I do have a repair kit though to plug tires.
 
No snow in Suffolk, hardly ever snows here as it's too flat and below sea level, 3c but was blue skies and sunny for a while, just bought one of those petrol Coleman stoves of the bay of E, got to be easier than all those gas canisters and gas stoves I took last time.
 
Hi
Sorry to but in I'm new to all the forums so not sure on the etiquette regards to using them.
I've just bought a defender and is on my bucket list to do some sort of trip like this.
I maybe to late this year but was wondering what sort of upgrades I would need to do to enable me to finish a great trip like this?
What would be the trip costs?

Many thanks Dai
 
I was in the kind of same situation, bought my current Defender to take to Morocco. So I will list what I did to prepare mine
Where ever possible I use genuine LR parts or parts marked OEM, as a rule don't buy cheap pattern parts, as you don't want stuff failing out in the sand pit.

New discs, pads and callipers
4 Timken wheel bearings
4 shocks and HD front springs, new rear Land Rover shocks failed soon after returning to the UK, now replaced with Bilstein Gas shocks and rear helper springs
New AP clutch and Ashcroft dual mass flywheel
Stainless straight pipe and cat delete, remap, EGR blanking kit
Silicon intercooler hoses, as rubber ones breakdown and collapse internally with the oil residue that flows through them
New radiator and intercooler, fuel filter and both oil filters
New fluids, brake, clutch, coolant, diffs, transfer box and gearbox
Front and rear diff guard, now have a fuel tank guard fitted too, as the standard one is made from tissue paper thin steel
HD front bumper and winch, unnecessary for Morocco
6 Cooper Discoverer STT tires and quality steel modular wheels, never needed the two spares though
Roof consul to install the CB
Stupidly expensive Ring lightbar, never used it in Morocco
Removed rear seats and made plywood platform to install the 240v Waeco fridge running off a 1400w inverter, which fed from a leisure battery being charged by a electronic split charger.
New chrystal wipac headlights with night breaker bulbs
4 new UJ's, now have new diffs and transfer box as the truck has 100k on it.
4 HD drive flanges
2 Ashcroft rear drive shafts

You don't need lifted truck or a modified one really for Morocco, all you need to do is go through your Defender front to back mechanically, I have a full service history on mine, but some of the parts were looking just a little old, so I swapped them out, you may not have to, what I did really was my personal preference.

You will need though, tip top suspension and steering, as that takes a proper battering for 9 hours a day, dont really need expensive parts, just good quality items. This includes all bushes, radius arms, panhard rod etc
Check your swivel seals on the front axle, don't want too much grease leaking from them as the dust and sand will start eating the already leaking seal and eat away at your swivel balls and CV joints.
Cooling system, needs to be bang on, day one, you will find yourself hammering for hours on motorways across France and Spain, or depending on your route, maybe just Spain, for hours and hours. Then the cooling system is subjected to high temps whilst crawling through deep sand and rock trails in Morocco for 10-15 days, so its needs to be looked at, as does the water pump, thermostat and hose condition, anything feeling sticky or soft, change it, as remember, you've still got to hammer it for hours back north across Spain and possibly France to get home.
Swivel bearings need checking,drive flanges and seals, but probably the most important thing to have is quality tires.

A serviced Defender can trundle around with no worries, I probably went overboard, but that's just me, I like to look after my toys,as I find selling them easy once I'm bored with them.

You don't need a roof tent, most kip in cheap pop up tents, or in the back of their Landys, some sort of camping stove and camping stuff, water carriers, jerry cans, tools, stuff like that is needed to live out of your Landy for the best part of three weeks, oh a proper fridge is a most excellent civilised addition, cold beers, well until they run out on day 5, then its frozen cokes, rock hard bread that needs thawing, is a nice thing to have in the middle of nowhere.

Cost wise, roughly from memory

Ferry return from Portsmouth to Santandar, £700, or you can bore yourself to death and save £200 each way maybe driving through France and pay the tolls.
Ferry return from Tarifa Spain to Tanger Med, £180
Morocco insurance for a month £65
Cash wise, I guess I spent, £1500 on top of the above, but I did go nuts in the ferry bar from Spain which is silly money.

I would say £2500 covers everything, I may be way off, Ken is the master of saving cash, he can advise better.
 
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MrNasty said:
I was in the kind of same situation, bought my current Defender to take to Morocco. So I will list what I did to prepare mine
Where ever possible I use genuine LR parts or parts marked OEM, as a rule don't buy cheap pattern parts, as you don't want stuff failing out in the sand pit.

New discs, pads and callipers
4 Timken wheel bearings
4 shocks and HD front springs, new rear Land Rover shocks failed soon after returning to the UK, now replaced with Bilstein Gas shocks and rear helper springs
New AP clutch and Ashcroft dual mass flywheel
Stainless straight pipe and cat delete, remap, EGR blanking kit
Silicon intercooler hoses, as rubber ones breakdown and collapse internally with the oil residue that flows through them
New radiator and intercooler, fuel filter and both oil filters
New fluids, brake, clutch, coolant, diffs, transfer box and gearbox
Front and rear diff guard, now have a fuel tank guard fitted too, as the standard one is made from tissue paper thin steel
HD front bumper and winch, unnecessary for Morocco
6 Cooper Discoverer STT tires and quality steel modular wheels, never needed the two spares though
Roof consul to install the CB
Stupidly expensive Ring lightbar, never used it in Morocco
Removed rear seats and made plywood platform to install the 240v Waeco fridge running off a 1400w inverter, which fed from a leisure battery being charged by a electronic split charger.
New chrystal wipac headlights with night breaker bulbs
4 new UJ's, now have new diffs and transfer box as the truck has 100k on it.
4 HD drive flanges
2 Ashcroft rear drive shafts

You don't need lifted truck or a modified one really for Morocco, all you need to do is go through your Defender front to back mechanically, I have a full service history on mine, but some of the parts were looking just a little old, so I swapped them out, you may not have to, what I did really was my personal preference.

You will need though, tip top suspension and steering, as that takes a proper battering for 9 hours a day, dont really need expensive parts, just good quality items. This includes all bushes, radius arms, panhard rod etc
Check your swivel seals on the front axle, don't want too much grease leaking from them as the dust and sand will start eating the already leaking seal and eat away at your swivel balls and CV joints.
Cooling system, needs to be bang on, day one, you will find yourself hammering for hours on motorways across France and Spain, or depending on your route, maybe just Spain, for hours and hours. Then the cooling system is subjected to high temps whilst crawling through deep sand and rock trails in Morocco for 10-15 days, so its needs to be looked at, as does the water pump, thermostat and hose condition, anything feeling sticky or soft, change it, as remember, you've still got to hammer it for hours back north across Spain and possibly France to get home.
Swivel bearings need checking,drive flanges and seals, but probably the most important thing to have is quality tires.

A serviced Defender can trundle around with no worries, I probably went overboard, but that's just me, I like to look after my toys,as I find selling them easy once I'm bored with them.

You don't need a roof tent, most kip in cheap pop up tents, or in the back of their Landys, some sort of camping stove and camping stuff, water carriers, jerry cans, tools, stuff like that is needed to live out of your Landy for the best part of three weeks, oh a proper fridge is a most excellent civilised addition, cold beers, well until they run out on day 5, then its frozen cokes, rock hard bread that needs thawing, is a nice thing to have in the middle of nowhere.

Cost wise, roughly from memory

Ferry return from Portsmouth to Santandar, £700, or you can bore yourself to death and save £200 each way maybe driving through France and pay the tolls.
Ferry return from Tarifa Spain to Tanger Med, £180
Morocco insurance for a month £65
Cash wise, I guess I spent, £1500 on top of the above, but I did go nuts in the ferry bar from Spain which is silly money.

I would say £2500 covers everything, I may be way off, Ken is the master of saving cash, he can advise better.
Click to expand...

Many thanks for a great reply.
I've started buying some gear from my local dealer.
I must say I'm starting to feel a little miss guilded!
A list of what ive bought so far:
I've bought new wild bear springs, wild bear dampers, dislocation cones front and rear, skeleton front turrets, steering Guard, Terriferma steering damper, diff guards, hd front wild bear winch bumper, rock sliders, and snorkel along with some fancy Kbx stuff. The wild bear suspension is s 2" lift upgrade.
I told them I wanted good quality gear and they told me that wild bear was great stuff.
What's the thoughts of Wild bear in general? I've since done s bit of research and found that ome would have been the way to go. It's not like me but naively with out research bought from the first shop I visited!!!
I've got the Puma defender and after reading some forums it don't like being lifted. So I'm stuck with wild bear suspension.
I'm not going to take it back so will fit it and try to over come the propshaft issue.
I will over the next couple of months keep upgrading and hopefully be able to go on a trip in 2017.
Many thanks for your reply.
Dai
 
Wild bear stuff is fine, OME are as good, all fine. I have factory stock Land Rover shocks on the front and now Bilstein gas on the rears and heavy duty springs, even the helper ones on the rear are all standard ride height, for one reason, to lift any Defender, tdi, Td5 or Puma they often require cranked radius arms to keep the camber in the correct position, thus they are not standard, nor will lifted springs be, now what if your out in the desert fields, 5 hours away from even a basic town like Zagora and you snap a radius arm or fracture a spring? Nowhere in Morocco without a real drama is going to have a 2 inch spring, if they do it will be used, same with the radius arm both standard off some 20 year old piece of scrap, you'll end up getting it welded and will probably fail again. Whereas if you have standard suspension, a used part will most likely be found and possibly even fit. I don't plan on getting caught out there with non standard components. Pumas have no issue with being lifted if you do it properly a Puma as regards suspension is exactly the same as a Td5 or tdi, all the way back to 1983, subtle changes to the thickness of the radius arms is about the only change I can think of, and that was in the eighties.

Cranked radius arms and a wide angle front prop would resolve the ride characteristics, sometimes you can put a two inch lift on, and it has no adverse affects, other times it makes them drive skittish and feel light on the front end, there is no telling.

But if your serious about going through the Sahara without any dramas, stick to standard stuff or get the suspension set up by someone or a company thats actually been out there, otherwise your going to have to get any replacement parts flown from the UK, then get around the massive import duty, but you wont be near wherever the parts first land to get around the duty fees, so that will cost, the language barrier is quite bad, unless you can speak Spanish, Arabic French and the odd English phrase chucked in one sentence.

I have hassles of my own, the Td5 relies on a ECU, if that plays up over there, I doubt anyone in the Southern part of Morocco even has a diagnostic machine, I'd need to get to a Land Rover dealer in Casablanca or Rabat.

To swap the suspension over only takes a few hours. ost of that time is standing about drinking tea and smoking. :)
 
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In all honesty, the guards, the snorkel, all good, service it, change the suspension back to standard, and your pretty much ready to go in March this year.
 
David Davies said:
Hi
Sorry to but in I'm new to all the forums so not sure on the etiquette regards to using them.
I've just bought a defender and is on my bucket list to do some sort of trip like this.
I maybe to late this year but was wondering what sort of upgrades I would need to do to enable me to finish a great trip like this?
What would be the trip costs?

Many thanks Dai
Click to expand...
My Defender is a 1990, 110, 200 TDI off the shelf basic Defender. The only thing I had changed was the front axle as the original was bent. I fitted a Salisbury front axle which are supposed to be stronger.
Before going I had changed the wheel bearings, steering ball joints and shocks. Otherwise a Defender is good to go as it is. That's what they were designed for. I didn't kit out the back as some people do. I just threw everything in the back which resulted in jars of tomato soup and a few other jars of sauce ending up of the inside of the windscreen as soon as we went off road. Next time round I will make sure things are strapped down. If your Defender is in good working order and serviced it's good to go. Forget about high lift springs etc. That only puts stress on other components which will lead to failures. Keep it standard. My springs are the original 1990 ones. If you do have a breakdown standard parts are much easier to get hold of out there and easier to get repairs done. One person in our group fitted higher lift suspension, they said next time round they wouldn't bother. We went everywhere they went with standard height springs. The only difference was when they got stuck in the sand they just went down a couple of inches deeper.
Oh, just thought, I have a sump guard, snorkel and bull bars on mine also. The sump guard gives piece of mind. Bull bars look butch but not many Bulls in the desert, The snorkel does help keep the air clearer for your engine as it takes the air from higher up rather than almost next to your front wheels. But the sand and dust gets everywhere. One year on I'm still finding sand in it.

Chris did a blog of our trip which you might be interested in: http://land-rover-discovery-1.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/day-2-morocco-trip.html
We had a great time. We are not out there to see if we can destroy our vehicles. If you take it steady the stock Defender will take it all in it's stride.
Cost wise, between my friend and I we spent about a grand each. The only other expense you will have is the crossing from the UK. That included a couple of nights in hotels, fuel, eating out. a couple of times. To get ****ed, you have to take your own beers etc.
 
MrNasty said:
No snow in Suffolk, hardly ever snows here as it's too flat and below sea level, 3c but was blue skies and sunny for a while, just bought one of those petrol Coleman stoves of the bay of E, got to be easier than all those gas canisters and gas stoves I took last time.
Click to expand...
Will be interested to see how you get on with your petrol burning stove. My father was in the Royal Marines, they had something similar. He claimed the petrol stove killed more of our men than the Germans did.
I would try it out a few times closer to the emergency services.
 
WE took air con out of our Rangy.
You're in and out of the car a lot in the desert and there's no point. You'll get acclimatised after a day or so anyway.
It's better driving with the windows open anyway :cool:

We've turned our air con pump into a compressor for on board air. Works a treat!:)
 
ShaunPDisco said:
Always like to keep an eye on this thread as one day would like to do the trip myself. How many of you have air con and how many dont?? I cant make my mind up if it is a must have or just something else that can go wrong!!!
Click to expand...
The three Defenders did not have aircon and I never missed it. Much better to have all the windows open . The sand gets everywhere. I prefer to keep it simple and have less things to go wrong.
 
David Davies said:
Many thanks for a great reply.
I've started buying some gear from my local dealer.
I must say I'm starting to feel a little miss guilded!
A list of what ive bought so far:
I've bought new wild bear springs, wild bear dampers, dislocation cones front and rear, skeleton front turrets, steering Guard, Terriferma steering damper, diff guards, hd front wild bear winch bumper, rock sliders, and snorkel along with some fancy Kbx stuff. The wild bear suspension is s 2" lift upgrade.
I told them I wanted good quality gear and they told me that wild bear was great stuff.
What's the thoughts of Wild bear in general? I've since done s bit of research and found that ome would have been the way to go. It's not like me but naively with out research bought from the first shop I visited!!!
I've got the Puma defender and after reading some forums it don't like being lifted. So I'm stuck with wild bear suspension.
I'm not going to take it back so will fit it and try to over come the propshaft issue.
I will over the next couple of months keep upgrading and hopefully be able to go on a trip in 2017.
Many thanks for your reply.
Dai
Click to expand...
You really do have some amazing replies and there is not a lot I can add. Cost can be as low as £1,500 door to door. Keep the vehicle standard. All you need is underbody protection and a snorkel. You need a fridge and again no aircon. You can easily be ready for March. I live close some miles east so you are welcome to look at my 110 - but it is a basic 300tdi hard top to keep it simple.
 
mikescuba said:
. To get ****ed, you have to take your own beers etc.
Click to expand...

Not strictly true. Moroccan beer is quite good by European larger standards and is widely available if you know where to look. Although slightly more expensive than stocking up in Spain I prefer to do my bit for the Moroccan economy, with the exception of special dietary needs I totally disagree with importing all foodstuffs etc. If taking your pleasure from the country it's only fair to put a bit back in the local economy and food there is good quality and cheap. Moroccan wine is also very good, sometimes very very good. Lots of Hotels all over the country sell beer and they have to buy it somewhere. Any town with more than a couple of hotels will have someone who supplies them, ask around and you will find them. Over the 12 years we've been running trips there I have stocked up on beer and wine in Chefchaouen, Fez, Meknes, Marrakech, Ouarzazate, Tinerhir, Merzouga, Zagora, Tafroute, Taroudant, Agadir, Tan Tan, Laayoune and Dahkla, and probably others I've forgotten. Also any town with a French or Spanish Supermarket (Marjane, Carrefour etc) will have cheep booze so long as the local radicals haven't been kicking up too much fuss lately.
 
It's fair comment giving something back. And have just started to give a little help to a small garage, well more like a hole in the wall, in a remote small town. Rachid literally has little more than a bent screwdriver and a few old spanners and this next trip I'm taking him an engine hoist and a few other bits and pieces.
 
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_DSC0200.jpg

Morocco seems a long way off.
 
What is that white stuff, foam party gone wrong?
As for the availability of beer, hotels in Zagora had some, but in Tafroute, there was bugger all, I drove around several hotels and shops non of them had any, unitilll I found a big hotel up on a hill that had 10 coke can sized beers I could take away for £30, nah, I'm not having that dilemma again, going to play safe on the beer front and take several more cases from that supermarket in Spain, I am building a drinks cabinet from a old Jerry can , for cans of coke and a dark rum I'm particularly in to right now.

On the air-con front, I think you will miss quite a lot of Morocco sealing yourself up, away from the different smells and environment, and if were talking Defender air-con, it.s crap anyway.

Yes, the petrol burning stove, might be good, might be a good way of finding out what skin grafts are all about, but the UK military still use them and I haven't seen any reviews from people whilst being treated for burns in hospital, lol. I just liked the idea of not being dependant of little bottles of butane and those cheap camping gaz burners.
 
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