Land Rover Ideas for Grenadiers

[jscherb]

When I lived in London about 20 years ago I got in the habit of reading Land Rover magazines - Land Rover Owner and Land Rover Monthly. I picked up subscriptions when I moved back to the US because almost every issue has something interesting that could apply to my Jeeps.

I started this thread to share ideas from those magazines that might be useful to people with Grenadiers. A lot of the kit that's commonly found in/on Land Rovers around the world should also be useful for a Grenadier. I've been saving ideas from the magazines in my "idea file" for years and in this thread I'll post things that I think could be useful to the Grenadier - I've got dozens of ideas to post. As I post things, let me know if you think they're dumb ideas that wouldn't work in the Grenadier world or if you think they're worth doing/protoyping on a Grenadier. For some of these ideas I've already implemented Jeep versions and I'll post photos of some of the Jeep implementations if these ideas that I've done and I may design Grenadier versions of more of these ideas so if you post your thoughts you can help me decide what makes sense.

Both magazines also regularly featured overlanding trips and even though they're UK magazines the expeditions are often in the US - not too long ago LRO ran an 8-part series on driving the Continental Divide from Canada to Panama - even just the US portion of the journey would be a great overlanding trip. A page from part 7 of that series:

I'll post a number of articles on U.S.-based overland trips from the magazines in this thread as well.

Also, having gone through these magazines multiple times and saved the best ideas from them they're taking up a lot of space - if anyone is interested in several hundred Land Rover magazines, let me know. I could use the space. Before you ask if I can ship them to you, they fill 5 boxes totaling almost 250 pounds ranging from 40-60 pounds each, so shipping won't be inexpensive.

 

[jscherb]

I'll start with roof racks - Land Rover people seem to be much more serious about roof racks than we are here. Like this one, which extends out past the windshield.

I've never seen a roof rack on a Grenadier that extends past the windshield. Why is that? Seems like the extra space could be very useful, especially when you've got a roof top tent on the rack. With a tent it could provide space for extra gear, and with the gear removed it could be a nice "upper deck" for sitting.

A short extension can be useful on a short 2-door...

Here's an interesting rack which extends out over the windshield. A roof rack could be installed along with this; the front rack wouldn't interfere with a roof rack.

Here's another one. This is on a Dormobile Camper, the roof hinges at the side and opens into a sleeper tent so there's no place for a roof rack on this one; the windshield rack is the only way to really add cargo up top on a Dormobile. This could be good to go with an Ursa Minor pop-top.

This isn't a Land Rover, it's a Mahindra Major. I spotted this one near the Ranthambore National Park tiger reserve in Rajasthan, India. This one's in rural taxi service, and typically will be packed over capacity inside with passengers so luggage goes on the roof rack and the windshield rack.

 

[jscherb]

It's pretty common for jerry cans to be carried on the side of the hardtop on a Defender and there are similar mounts on the market for the Grenadier.

But if you look closely at the photo above, there appears to be a length of L-track just below the roof drip rail. I've always wondered why the Grenadier designers decided that L-track below the side window was a good idea but they didn't add one below the drip rail. Here's another Land Rover example of something mounted on the side, although this one doesn't use L-tracks:

Here's an example of a mount for sand ladders using the upper and lower L-tracks; the mount aldo forms a table:

This is a commercial L-track hardtop side mount for Defenders:

A few other Land Rovers with upper and lower L-tracks:



If our Grenadiers had upper L-tracks there are lots of Defender accessories that could mount there. This photo shows a short fragment of L-track left over from my dash mount project posed in place under the drip rail... mounting things on the sides would be much easier this way than having to go up to the bars in the roof or to the drip rail with awkward bracketry. I may add L-track here so I can do custom side mounts without messing with the roof bars or drip rail...

 

[jscherb]

think this roof box is a nice idea. When I've got the roof top tent on my Grenadier, there's extra space on the rack for other gear. A "streamlined" storage box like this could be useful:

Another one:

This one is with an AluCab pop-top.

I did a design for a box like these, printed it on cardstock in 1.5" to the foot scale and assembled it:

This wouldn't be hard to turn into a production product, but I did find this box on eBay a few years ago. I think I paid about $120 for it. It's been very useful on long expeditions and road trips:

 

[jscherb]

More storage? Not sure this one is a great idea, it may be ok on a Land Rover hood, but how about on a Grenadier hood? Also this apparently isn't waterproof, so it's only good for nice days? Notice the hood it's on is protected by diamondplate, probably not a good idea to put something like this on the paint of the hood?

Another one on a Land Rover Discovery:

 

[jscherb]

This Series 1 107" is outfitted as a family overlander - two roof top tents, one for the kids and one for mom & dad. Looks like a longer roof rack over the windshield is needed for this:

A good idea for overlanding families?

 

[jscherb]

This photo was part of an article about a well-equipped overlander.

One interesting detail is the onboard hot water shower. Check out what looks like garden hoses on the A-pillar. The article says the shower is plumbed into the engine heater, has a pump and two stainless steel tanks for water storage although none of those details are pictured or described in detail in the text. I'd definitely like to know more about his setup.

The article also points out that the Defender has Winches at both ends.

I sometimes find that winching from the rear is the best way to recover so I've got my winch in a receiver mount. This photo shows it in the rear receiver of the Grenadier:



I made up a NATO-Anderson adapter to connect the winch in the rear:



For the fronts of my JKU and LJs, I designed and built "quick install" receivers - they bolt in place in minutes s I can install them in preparation for an expedition but I don't have to have them installed for daily driving.These are the quick install front receivers for my Jeeps; I've designed a similar one for the Grenadier and have the materials on hand bu haven't built it yet. I'll post about it in my Grenadier thread when I build it.


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[jscherb]

This is a grab bar bag and attaches to the bar in a Series Land Rover.

The bag isn't on the company's web site anymore so maybe it wasn't popular.

I do like the idea of attaching things to the grab bar though. Overland Outfitters has offered what they call Grab Bar Pockets for Jeeps for quite a few years and they're very popular. When I got my Grenadier I tried one from my Jeeps in it but it didn't fit quite right because the Grenadier grab bar is narrower than the Jeep bar so I told OO what they had to change to make it fit and they made a Grenadier version. I've got a tan one in my Grenadier but they also come in black. Very handy.





My copilot uses it for her sunglasses and other small things she likes to keep handy.

 

[jscherb]

A weatherproof case mounted to the spare? This appears to be a Hardigg case, and the article this Land Rover is in is about a couple whose honeymoon trip is driving their Land Rover around the world. For that trip I guess one would need lots of extra storage, hence the Hardigg (and the other box off to the side).

This photo was printed at a very small size in the magazine so it didn't scan well but it shows how they use the case.

Here's a surplus Hardigg case that appears to be the same size as the one in the photo above: https://colemans.com/u-s-g-i-large-square-hardigg-waterproof-storage-case

In addition the box on the rear corner they also have one on the side.

I haven't seen any other info on these boxes so probably they're one-offs done by the owner of this Defender.

BTW later in the series about that couple driving their Defender around the world the Hardigg case on the spare doesn't appear so maybe they decided it wasn't a good idea or maybe it go damaged somehow. Don't know, it wasn't mentioned in the article.

 

[jscherb]

Storage on the bonnet? Earlier I posted a soft "bonnet bag", here's a hard one - this box is from South African company ALU Innovations.

Unlike the Defender hood (bonnet) I think the back of the Grenadier hood comes up too close to the bottom of the windshield for this to be practical - it might obstruct vision too much but for some people it might work on the Grenadier.

 

[jscherb]

If you've got an awning off the back of your Grenadier and want more light under it after dark:



There are lots of LED strip lights on the market that could be used...

 

[jscherb]

This could be useful in the wild for some people...

It's about $45 but could be done a lot cheaper - stools like this are available for about fifteen bucks: https://www.target.com/p/coleman-rambler-ii-stool-brown/-/A-77432010 and it wouldn't take much to make a new fabric seat for it - could be done in two layers of fabric - a solid piece of fabric for when it's used as a normal stool, and the top fabric would fold back for use for more private purposes. A two layer fabric design would make the stool useful around the campsite with it's not being used for it's "holey" purpose and so would better justify the cargo space it takes up.

I drew it to show how it might work, it could be something like this:

Could even be a simple product for some company, they could make just the replacement cloth that would fit most of this type of stool - recycle an old stool into a dual-purpose stool.

The text at on the at Target linked to above says "Roomy 15.5-in. cloth seat offers hours of comfort". Let's hope someone in the wild doesn't need it for that long .

While I'm on the subject of field toilets, at Overland Expo West in 2024 I picked up a design assignment - a company was there selling a folding metal toilet box called the Thunderbox:



THe box folds flat so you take it out of the burlap bag they provide with it, add a plastic bag liner, and away you go (pun intended). They approached me and said that people wished there was a better storage bag for it so they asked me to design one. I did and Overland Outfitters manufactures the bag for them now:



I do have a sample Thunderbox here, I needed it to design the bag, altough I haven't yet used it in the wild.

 

[jscherb]

Maybe one of these would be a good accessory to go with the toilet seat/stool... https://www.campcover.co.za/product/toilet-roll-holder-2/. It's from South Africa but I learned about it from a Land Rover magazine.

 

[jscherb]

Before the advent of vehicle A/C, Series Land Rovers had a Tropical Roof option, which wis second metal skin over the roof with an air gap between. The air gap is designed to keep the interior cooler; the sun beats down on the Tropical Roof and the air gap prevents the sun from hitting the main roof.

Not sure a modern Grenadier with factory A/C would need a Tropical Roof, but in extreme climates it could reduce the load on the Grenadier's A/C.

 

[jscherb]

A lot of the Series and Defenders I see in the magazines that have roof racks have this style rack, which I've never seen for a Grenadier.

I checked the web site (https://www.johncraddockltd.co.uk/jc202-series-and-defender-roof-rack-galvanised-swb.html) and the price for the Defender 90 version of this rack (roughly TJ/JK2dr size) is 199 GPB - roughly $257. The price could be why this style is so popular? Some photos from the site: