Land Rover Ideas for Grenadiers

[jscherb]

It's not uncommon here in the U.S. to make a trailer out of an old Jeep tub. And in the U.K trailers are sometimes made from Defender/Series bodies. Here's one:

Also notice the extended roof rack on the Defender above.

Because the rear of a Defender tub and the rear of the Grenadier body are similar, if a trailer was made from a Defender it would be a reasonable match for the Grenadier. Problem is though, at least in the U.S., there aren't many Defender bodies laying around waiting to be turned into trailers.

If you've got a Jeep, you don't need to find an old Jeep tub to turn into a trailer - you can build one with a fiberglass kit:

I designed the fiberglass Jeep tub trailer kit pictured above and a company licensed it from me and it's been in production for years.

It comes in several lengths, this is the long version set up for camping:



I wonder if there would be enough interest in a fiberglass Grenadier trailer kit? It wouldn't be hard to create a set of molds to make a Grenadier-styled trailer kit.

 

[jscherb]

A few more nice trailers made from the back of Land Rovers.

Imagine a trailer that matches the Grenadier body.

 

[jscherb]

More on the ground anchor topic...

This one might be better on very soft ground than the ones earlier in the thread that use stakes, but it looks like it would be difficult to pound into the rocky ground on a Colorado mountain trail.

I think I'll stick with my Sand Ladder Anchor Points I posted earlier.

 

[jscherb]

Even more on the ground anchor topic...

Another style ground anchor I found in the magazine, this one uses the shaft from a HiLift.

and on the subject of the FlatDog anchor that started the discussion of ground anchors...

The Flatdog ground anchor I posted from the magazine seems to be a scaled-down version of the British Ministry of Defence/NATO Tirfor Ground Anchor:

The Flatdog product, for reference:

The MOD anchor is about 36" long and has stakes which are roughly the same length and 30mm (just over 1") in diameter.

One source for the military ground anchor in the UK (sold out at the moment): https://dasoutdoors.co.uk/products/ground-anchor-system

The Flatdog anchor is quite a bit smaller than the military one above - based on the size of the guy's shoe in the Flatdog photo, I'm guessing that product is roughly half the size of the MOD version. To me it seems like the military one is larger than needed for most Jeep situations and perhaps the Flatdog one is maybe too small?

The question is how big is big enough and the answer of course is it depends on how stuck you are, how heavy you are and what the ground conditions are .

I'll still stick with my Sand Ladder Anchor Point solution.

 

[jscherb]

Land Rover folks sure seem to like their aluminum boxes... I count 7 in this photo.

 

[jscherb]

Even More Aluminum Boxes

I've posted a number of things about the widespread use of aluminum boxes on Land Rovers for carrying gear and supplies, here's another one. This photo is from 1957 (68 years ago) and several aluminum boxes are visible. Aluminum boxes have been popular with Land Rovers for a very long time.

 

[jscherb]

Polish MP Side Compartment

This Polish Military Police Land Rover has an external compartment:

The article this photo was part of didn't say what the Polish MPs keep in that compartment.

Not sure if there's really room on the side of a Grenadier for something like this although I suppose you could mount a box on the L-track on the doors? Could be a problem on tight trail though.

 

[jscherb]

Trans America Trail

One of the magazines covered an expedition across the US on the Trans America Trail. Would be a great excursion in a Grenadier.











More info: https://www.transamtrail.com/

 

[jscherb]

Another one from Sam Watson. This product is available in the U.S., but I didn't know about it until I read about it in Sam's column.

The web site: http://www.boundarytec.com/1530-showercoil-camping-shower.php

 

[jscherb]

Many military Land Rovers have tools on the bonnet. I don't think I've yet seen tools mounted directly to the hood of a Grenadier. The one in this next photo has a shovel, a pick and a recovery strap on the bonnet - one end of the strap is already hooked to the bumper for quick deployment.

Another one:

 

[jscherb]

If you're thinking of converting your Grenadier into a sleep-in camper, this product might provide some inspiration. https://ququq.info/ququq/d-box-english/. Wouldn't be too hard to DIY a Grenadier version of this.

Another product. A three minute conversion? I checked the web site of this one but the product doesn't seem to be there anymore.

 

[jscherb]

If you wanted to build a camp kitchen that was removable and not bolted to the inside of the Grenadier here's another one that could provide some inspiration:

 

[35xj]

Slightly loosen up every drain plug in the grenadier, to ensure some leaking. Land rovers rust prevention system was Genius😁

 

[jscherb]

What do all of these Land Rovers have in common?

They all have slider windows in the rear sides of the top - they're fairly common for Defender/Series vehicles.

It wouldn't be too difficult to create a slider window kit for the side cargo area windows of a Grenadier. A few years ago I designed slider window kits for Jeep JK and JL Wranglers for a Jeep accessories company called Retrofit Offroad.

This is an aftermarket option for the Land Rover sliders, it's a grille that functions as a screen to allow air flow:

The Retrofit Offroad sliders came with screens.

Would these be desirable for a Grenadier?

I found one aftermarket slider window from the Netherlands but it's not to my taste - it's got a metal grid on the outside, I'm sure for security purposes, but seems like it would really restrict light coming in and visibility going out. The glass area also seems small compared to the window opening: https://explore-glazing.com/en/products/ineos-grenadier-sliding-window. Maybe there are others out there, but that's the only one I've found so far.

 

[jscherb]

Been there, done that

In one of the magazines there's an article about going on a safari in a Land Rover to spot tigers.

Just one problem - unlike many of the expeditions featured in the magazine, the photo above weren't taken in the wild, it's at the Woburn Safari Park in the U.K.

Sure is be better in the wild...

A few years ago we did some off-roading in the Ranthambhore National Forest in southeastern Rajasthan. The vehicle wasn't a Land Rover though, it was a Maruti Suzuki Gypsy, which is a long wheelbase Indian made Suzuki Samurai. Mostly easy trails, but a little low-range rock crawling was required to get where we needed to be, plus some slickrock similar to that in Utah and some steep trails with embedded rock reminiscent of Colorado trails but with more loose dirt. Pictured below is the Gypsy, the naturalist/guide (left) and the driver.

Climbing up a slickrock incline in the Gypsy:

The reason for the guide and driver was that we were going into the restricted tiger reserve in the forest where guides and drivers are required. Saw lots of wildlife, including rare sloth bears, several kinds of deer, a mongoose, wild boar, some rare birds, and what the whole expedition was about - tigers. We came across this one mid-morning, she was not bothered by our presence and walked within 25 feet of the us.

The next morning we spotted two tiger cubs. Actually the guide spotted them, even when he started pointing at them I couldn't see them until we got closer. They were hiding in the tall grass.

After a while they got tired of us watching them and took off for the hills. The guide said they're both male cubs, about 14 months old. They're pretty large, but compare this cub to the tigress above and you can see the cub still has a lot of baby fat. The cub was maybe 30 feet from us when I took this photo.

Would it be cool to do a Grenadier in that orange tiger stripe paint scheme/wrap?