Hiya

Not sure if I've previously created a thread on here. I've owned a variety of 4x4s in my years of motoring, including a lot of 4x2s. Currently drive a 6x2 or 4x2 for work, but at least they pay the fuel.

I'm a truck driver living in the Midlands, and I've had a variety of hobbies to keep me out of mischief. I'm into radio, scouts, tech, computer and, of course, Land Rovers.

I've had my current one, a LR D2, for about 3 years and it's had a fair bit done to it. I've been around a lot on other forums as well, and used to spend a lot of time on Difflock & TruckNet.

I work weekends normally so most events are out for me but that doesn't restrict things much. Do a bit of laning from time to time, and also lead for others when I can. But most people work so they do their stuff on weekends. I like to be different

Welcome to LoonyZone

Welcome, let’s see some pics!

Welcome to the fold.

Hi and welcome to landyzone

Hi and welcome!

Yup, we like Landy pics!

So. I started off with a basic series three landie, a 2.25 3 bearing petrol engine with [some] horsepower and mostly on deestone cross-ply tyres. It went quite a few places that I probably shouldn't have done and had traction in lots of places until I needed someone to winch me out...

But it was the start of landy ownership, even 4x4 ownership. I'd been laning in my mum's car in the past but quite frankly, a Kia Pride 1.3LX on AT or winter tyres just didn't cut it. Of course, on winter tyres, in, er, winter, meant that we could still clock up the miles. Especially when you're sharing one car between 3 kids and mum, and she was working for a living. We were, um, getting to that.


So, yeah. Mine is on the far left, having a breather. Next to my mate with his RRC 3.5 V8. Can't recall who had the Suzuki's but I suspect Gren Thomas of South Wales may have been one. This was the trip we identified that a particular LR magazine had shown them winching vehicle deep through peat bogs and kept saying it was private ground and legally they could do it. Yeah, right. No.



Back then photography was an autofocus 35mm Pentax camera... This was before I'd got a new paint job on the truck. And I went to a LR show and the Lightweight Club were nice enough to politely point out I'd got it resprayed in US military green rather than UK military green.

Apparently, there is a difference

And of course, because at the time I was still learning that stuff i worked through the usual upgrades. 3 engines in 4 years. Starting with 2.25 3brg and working up to a.... 2.25 5brg. But it ran better, and sounded nice, and of course, returned 18mpg... on a run. Or 14mpg around town.... Err

I so wish I had converted to LPG and got a skimmed head back then, you know, that thing we did in the 90s to keep our old series going. It would have been so much better on fuel

Work wise. I tried indoor stuff. Call Centres, offices, admin stuff but... I didn't seem to get on in working in one big massive crowd and usually with everyone trying to one-upmanship of thier work over everyone elses. So I had a rapid direction change and started with 7.5t work with an agency, and ended up long term with this lot.



To be fair, the 22m Aerial platform on the Iveco or MAN chassis was a good enough truck. I think that was the MAN. That was in Norfolk with the BBC when Tony Martin was released and it was thought he'd return to the countryside for a few days or spend the time in London....

But we'd get a lot countryside work, all over with those. They were exempt from a lot of regulations, we didn't use tachographs, used red diesel and generally maxed out hours in a way the management didn't understand. This was the time the WTD 48 hours thing came in that confused a lot of people. But I got a salaried 36 hour contract out of it. But it was an interesting job and I enjoyed it. I got an SLR camera and took a lot of photos, but I had the RRC 3.5 V8 back then before changing to a regular car halfway through.

This was for 2 reasons. One of them was that I crashed the Range Rover when someone jumped a give-way line and I didn't have time to stop. The other was the depot had a break-in and tried to steal fuel from the trucks. We didn't lock the fuel caps and most if not all of the tanks were drilled to drain them.

Didn't like they found red in all the tanks and let them drain out onto the main road. 18 trucks with fuel tanks of 75L up to 800L... So the depot was 'encouraged' to move by lots of organisations with lots of important initials and we ended up in the next city over.

4x4 Content: Pair of Wumag 26m 4x4 trucks. MAN & Iveco. The MAN was nicer as it had a stereo and working aux power sockets. The Iveco had nothing But they went lots of places. CDL and a rear locking diff.

Plus legs. You could jack it up, put spreader boards under the wheels, drop it back down, stow the legs and drive off... Awesome machines. Until you had to climb into one without the use of one arm...



Found I liked night work too





Also found we were issued with tools to rebuild the sensors on the legs as the first step of troubleshooting before the engineer got out to us if we had a problem. So the night jobs usually had me in charge, for no extra pay, of the others. As I was full time and they were Agency... But it also meant I got to be standing on the closed motorway section with the duty supervisor planning the layout of the machines for what task and for what time frame. All good fun

Drakelow power station, rough ground access in a standard 7.5t boom truck. with 16 engineers around and their 4x4s with winches to support me as long as they didn't have to climb...

Being still a 7.5t driver at that stage I was mostly in the MAN and Iveco 5t and 7.5t boom trucks. 14m, 15m, 18m, 22m (King & Ariel) and 26m Wumag trucks. The 5t Iveco 15m King boom was set up on a 4x4 chassis with a rear diff lock, front freewheeling hubs and, er, um. Don't think it had low range but after they fixed the rear locker it got me unstuck quicker than a 1000 yard winch pull from the main road





We briefly had this 110 14m Simon boom in the yard but I found the defender very cramped. It had also been driven up from Bristol with lots of extra flashing lights on because the driver couldn't get it to turn corners or past 40mph. After I'd disengaged the rear air locker, low range and the CDL it behaved itself a bit better but was still cramped. I preferred the Iveco by that stage. Yes, I really wanted the landy but the brief abuse had trashed the transmission system. Quite a few drivers had 4x4 experience, and upon arrival pointed this out to the delivery driver in harsh terms.

Range Rover. Although it did not have that much damage, and, at the time had recently had an engine rebuild, I was given bad advice by the insurance company and it needed a lot of underneath work doing to it. I think the sills were bad but I was still learning this stuff so elected to move on. It could have been another contender for an LPG conversion but, well, I get distracted when buying cars and tend to see the bits i want to like than the bad bits. These days I go car shopping with people who can say no to me and I'd listen





How could you not love that. A 5sp V8 RRC!!



That was at a quarry to play with other 4x4s, 6x6, 8x8s...etc At that stage I think we were trying to daisy chain 3 4x4s to jump start a russian truck that had a 48v starter system. I was jumping the left side starter motor. Someone was doing the right side and another on the main electrics....

These are some other friends trying to work out how to get it started, as it was stuck in forward gears only.



That RRC is still in use today, and currently has a 4.2 V8 supercharged engine in it and the owner looks after it with as much laning as we can




It was somewhat tight for space in that there engine bay...

Whilst in cherrypickers I frequently saw these and they seemed pretty awesome at the time

LR Defender 110 with 14m Simon boom

So. After the cherrypickers, I got a job locally to where I lived on public transport and I helped out a friend by looking after his ex-girlfriends landie. It was bought for her but she decided to return it as it was quite expensive to run and needed some TLC...

So for about 2-3 years, I drove this beauty.



A 50th Defender 90 V8 Auto. On LPG.





I took it to a LR show and put it on the 50th stand. It looked pretty good there but everyone else had polished their motors to a high standard. Then I took it through the off road course. Some members of the club were quite... upset. Those particular members I found kept their landies in better conditions than their own home. But it's built for working out there in the harsh terrain doing all sorts of duties?!

I ended up on regular cars for a bit, as I got into truck driving and needed to do distance work just to get to work. Rover 400 did me well, and on winter tyres it was absolutely stunning. I got places i never thought I would. I would often only lose grip because the front spoiler was lifting the nose of the car up and I was losing traction!!!

After a few years and in a steady company doing temperature controlled transportation of food I managed to save up to get my first D2. Rose. A 1999 TD5 7 seater with half leather and an auto.









Of course, I set about being helpful to people, as one does.

Having already assisted a friend to tow a lifeboat from North Wales to Whitby in his RRC (he of the 50th D90) I felt long trailers were still allowed on landies.










It was legal, and allowed. I took plenty of advice and measured up and moved bits around... But the Scout Association in London had a new mast for their site at GP. At the time I was supporting the radio station there quite a bit (GB2GP) whilst I was by then a 2E0.

Whilst the red one was nice, it didn't last. I did well with it, and got a few ideas. A lot of use, and made good friends around. But it was taken, unexpectedly, from the rear.



I stopped at the white line, in the auto, and foot on the brake pedal. It was a small humpback bridge with traffic lights and he said he expected me to carry on as 'it was only orange'. He pushed me quite far, slid under the rear bumper, and, most importantly, under the receiver hitch support brackets.

The most expensive part was bending the rear door and rear door support for the back wheel. He might have cracked a light lens...


Because by then I had been doing a fair bit of towing, those lights above the shoulder lights are LED Defender indicators because the others are in the rear bumper.



Lifes complications got in the way but I ended up getting rid of it as at a particular tricky time in my life it failed on me and I was not in a position to work on it. But the insurance payout was enough for me to get another D2. A manual this time.

Great intro

Like it. Great story.

Great pics and stories!

More More!!

Your new D2

Great Into and cars gotta love a Manual RRC and of course a D2

Best intro ever
That life boat was long

That lifeboat was at Whitby, and you can google about it. It weighs 3.5t including the trailer and is legal to be towed around but they specify by LR. Which is nice considering. However, there had been configuration issues at the time about the layout of the load of which I was not made aware and so our speed was limited to 42mph from Porthmadog to Whitby...

All good fun

The bonnet up photos were at the M62 services to check coolant and levels. Probably at one of the high points on the motorway. It was a nice drive up there and it took a while to get there.