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Battery split charge system Too complicated, tried several types. On my last couple of vehicles, I have simply installed a heavy-duty marine-type twin battery switch. (On a Defender, it can be fitted to the passenger seat-base). Turn the big knob to select Battery 1, Battery 2, Both, or Off...

Or a 40yo Land Rover, doing what's presumably light retirement duty: The point is, all of these are good vehicles, and none of them is better in every respect than the others. So which you rate "best" overall is a personal opinion, based on your perception of its charateristics, and your...

We could all take a guess, and then average those! The more people we ask, the more accurate our answer will be.

Yes, I agree. I like this design: You drive onto the chocks, and then chain them to the bumper. The chock has a nice edge that digs in...

I'm with you on the point that diff locks only partially mitigate poor axle articulation (having lockers and good axle articulation is the ideal). And while in the 1970s and 80s, it was hard to find vehicles with lockers, nowadays that feature of the G-wagen is not nearly as special, as there...

That's a nice piece of work! With something similar up front, you also don't have to worry so much about the vehicle frame stretching when tandem pulling, either.

What does over-engineered mean? Never really understood the term.

Correct. Steel cable only in the tirfor types. However, there's nothing to stop you using (and carrying) only a few metres of cable, and having the rest of your rigging synthetic. This would make the whole thing lighter and more manageable. You'd have to re-rig every five metres or so, but...

The "drag" rating is a total con. It's some hypothetical horizontal pull rating, plucked out of the air by the marketing team to make the thing sound more powerful/robust than it is. The only meaningful figure is how much tension it can exert on the line (i.e. its vertical lifting capacity)...

There's a vast difference between the requirements of a towing point and those of recovery points. That's not necessarily to say that a towing point can't make a good recovery point, but it might well not. If there's any doubt that the towing point is adequate even for towing, then don't even...

I believe Engel use a Tecumseh compressor. We found the Engel seemed to run down our batteries noticeably more quickly than our home-made Danfoss-based freezer, and didn't perform as well either. As you say, it's all down to insulation (including positioning), venting, usage (keep it full, and...

I still prefer a pair of Jate rings, myself.

Well, except that as I understand it, that's not a summary of Mr Brady's conclusions. Taller, narrower tyres are better in most off-road situations, and in fact the strengths of wide tyres come into play at higher speeds, cornering, etc.! Your last sentence is spot on, though!

Larger diameter tyres don't have any significant effect on power. They do require more torque to accelerate any given load. That's what transmissions are for. However, most gearboxes and drivetrains are optimised for the standard engine and standard tyres. So you may find that with bigger...

Well described!

I agree! A short length on the winch is a good idea, as long as you have a few good extension lines. Most pulls are just a few metres, and having only, say, 20m on the winch has hardly any disadvantages, and many advantages. The economic advantage is that when you replace the oft-used winch...

I've just come back from holiday, and caught up on the thread. These two posts seem to have addressed the issue of how the carcass of the tyre might be contributing to holding the truck up (and therefore not maintaining a contact patch inversely proportional to pressure). I still can't quite...

A long narrow footprint is better in sand than a short wide one of the same size. I'd choose big diameter in preference to wide. And a smooth tread pattern. To be honest, though, I've found that none of those things matter much in sand - it's all about airing down, and the rest are minor...

That would seem an ideal test, Spence. FWIW, it's probably preferable to use as smoothly treaded a tyre as possible, to avoid the complications that big rubber lugs would introduce. Slicks would be perfect! I can see why the instability of high sidewalls would be something of an issue for a...

This thread might help: http://expeditionportal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2376&page=5