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I remember reading your own conversion posts, and wondering, wth would you want to do that??? But then, I did a 6x6 conversion to a Defender, and I am sure people wondered why I didn't just go and buy a different vehicle in the first place. The point is that we all have our little quirks and...

I don't think they ever sold the 4.6 here. None of the V8s was popular here, with petrol at US$5-6/gal. As I recall, the 4.0 V8s were sold until 2004, and were available with a manual box only until 2001. After that, auto only. I don't know which manual box it was, probably the R380, same as the...

I quite like the idea of connecting up all the truck's breather pipes into one, and then having a button on the dash to pump, say, 200mbar of air into all the boxes and axles when you're doing water crossings. Like the Unimog does, when you lock the diffs. It might cause some seals to weep fluid...

Isn't the overheating usually a function of the electric motor, rather than the type of gear mechanism? And even if it doesn't overheat, how long you can use it is limited by battery capacity, usually measured in minutes, not hours!

A winch is a winch, whether it's powered electrically, hydraulically, or by hand. The nominal line pull of any winch is determined by its power source, and its mechanical features (gearing, leverage, drum diameter, etc.). With any winch, given enough rigging and good anchor points, there is no...

Tom Sheppard's VDEG is the bible, and I also pore over his articles on packing (and the rest!), but on this point... I just can't see the trade-off being worthwhile. There's nothing basic about packing and managing jerry cans full of diesel. I'm taking this as evidence of a foible, and that he...

High lift / exhaust jack and hard work... :) Actually, I suspect Tom doesn't get stuck. The thing I wonder about (and VDEG didn't really clarify), is why he carries fuel in jerry cans in what is obviously a dedicated expedition vehicle. Surely a tank in a similar location would be more...

Well, I guess if that's what it does, it's not such a bad idea... you'd never really want the t-case in neutral when the transmission is in park and the key removed, would you? (Why does it make less sense with a t-case?) I just wondered if it was a hare-brained scheme to prevent shifting...

Audi?

Pardon my ignorance, but what is the purpose of the solenoid? NAS only, some kind of safety thing is what I gleaned... but what does it do?

I wouldn't bother with a winch and ground anchor, for sand. Aired down tyres and good driving will probably keep you from getting stuck, and if you do happen to get bogged down, then IMO some mats or even a big tarp, and an exahust/air jack are the best extraction tools for sand. You do know it...

Maxtrax, and then when you can afford recovery gear, a locker. (Lockers are more convenient, but in most really difficult situations, Maxtrax will be more effective, IMO). In any case, open diffs aren't as bad as many people make out - good driving skills close the "capability gap" between...

15 times stronger than steel will be a weight for weight measure. Valid, but misleading.

I will concede that a come-along is time-consuming to use, so for day-trips, or if you have two vehicle with winches, a come-along is less attractive. But for use on a single-truck expedition, it is a very versatile tool. With sufficient rigging, it will do everything a vehicle-mounted winch...

Chains make a huge difference in mud as well as ice or snow(?), but I still don't think they are worth their weight (and other unpleasantness) unless you are expecting a LOT of use out of them. A good quality, medium sized come-long, with lots of rigging is a great tool to have with you on an...

I definitely like the idea of using synthetic winch line in place of chain or wire rope. Keep in mind that any knots, tensioned or not, will reduce the breaking strain of the rope by a huge factor (it may well be less than half the rated breaking strain). Most synthetic lines will be comfortably...

IMO, good quality is more important than capacity. Bear in mind that all the pulling effort comes from the work that the operator is doing, so it doesn't matter how much of the mechanical advantage comes from the length of the lever, versus the Come-along mechanism, versus snatch-blocks. The...

A G-wagen tends not to be a great "toy", IMO, unless money is no object. Parts are not cheap, and any damage and consequent depreciation is expensive in proportion to the premium price these trucks command. In other words, if you have a £1000 old banger Hilux, and you off road it hard, it will...

You make some reasonable points about the advantages of bolts over welds. So far, so good. But there's a sudden leap to "no weld is good enough". There's nothing wrong with a well-designed, well executed welded solution. Actually, at some point, almost any recovery point relies on some welding...

"Unsafe" is a relative term. It looks unsafe and it is unsafe compared to a rigid mounting, for at least the three reasons I mentioned. Safety is just another factor to be traded off against some other benefits, so it's a value judgement as to whether it's a good trade-off or not. I personally...