Land Rover Ideas for Grenadiers

[jscherb]

I saw this item in one of the magazines:

It's not really an idea specifically for Land Rovers or Jeeps, but it was in a Land Rover magazine and caught my attention. And it reminded me of these pouches I saw the other day at Home Depot: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Husky-Assorted-Size-Parts-Organizer-Pouch-Bag-Set-HD25200-TH/312387470

The Home Depot pouches are substantial and very well made.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Husky-Assorted-Size-Parts-Organizer-Pouch-Bag-Set-HD25200-TH/312387470

Harbor Freight also sells similar single pouches, they're only $2.99 as I write this: https://www.harborfreight.com/12-in-zipper-utility-pouch-70998.html

 

[jscherb]

From time to time the Land Rover magazines mention jerry can covers, one that's often mentioned is this one from Camp Cover in South Africa: https://www.campcover.co.za/product/jerry-can-cover-ripstop-20-litre/

They are available in the U.S., OK4wd sells them. A while backb they featured it in one of their promotional emails:

This is another one from South Africa, from a company called Wild Quagga: https://www.wildquagga.co.za/products/jerry-can-cover

One problem with both of the covers above is that there's no provision for security - I secure these cans with a locking strap through the can's handle and there's no holes in the side of the bag for a strap to go through the handle.

Also, they have holes in the top for carrying the can; rain can get in through the hole and accumulate inside the cover, which will lead to a metal can rusting. Might be better to require the cover not have a hole and unzip it to access the can's carrying handle.

I never see covers like this mentioned in the Jeep community, even though they were standard Army issue:

I believe the Army issue ones were for keeping water cool, not for fuel.

Covers are very common in the marine space:

A search on "sewing jerry can cover" will turn up quite a few pages of designs and instructions. There's even a step-by-step sewing plan for one in one of the sewing reference books I have here - Canvas for Cruisers, it's a book about sewing for marine use.

Jerry can covers are very popular in the marine space because most of those are plastic for carrying water and UV will degrade them, but why are they popular in South Africa - the web sites for both I mentioned show metal NATO cans in them. And why not popular in the U.S.?

And from Australia, this isn't a jerry can cover, it's a bag the size and shape of a jerry can, designed to fit in jerry can carriers: https://www.drifta.com.au/product/drifta-jerry-can-holder-bag/

Seems like the bags might be a good idea to carry gear when you can spare jerry can carrier space for one, and the jerry can covers might not be a bad idea either, although probably more useful as UV protection for plastic containers like Scepter than for metal cans.

 

[jscherb]

I had some fabric left over from other projects so I sewed a quick jerry can cover out of it. The new cover addresses what I consider some design flaws in the first two commercial covers in the last post - mine has holes in the side for a locking strap, it doesn't have a hole in the lid to allow rain to enter, and it doesn't have a solid bottom so any water or spillage that gets inside the cover will drain out the bottom.

Holes in the side allow a locking strap to go through the handle of the can. This is just a piece of webbing threaded through for the photo, it's not a locking strap:

The cover is insulated with foam and a mylar inner lining; the insulation on the cover is visible in the photo above.

The bottom is open so any water or spillage that gets inside the cover will drain out.

Also I designed and sewed an insulated Rotopax cover to prevent the "Rotopax bulge" in the sun, I used the same fabric and insulating foam. Also made a Molle recovery gear bag out of the same fabvric that can attach to either the Rotopax or this new Jerry Can cover.

 

[Zeep]

I like that digital camo pattern. Would go well with almost any color vehicle.

 

[jscherb]

I like that digital camo pattern. Would go well with almost any color vehicle.

I found that fabric in a shop in the Delhi Cantonment (a large military area near New Delhi, India) a few years ago. Seemed like a good pattern for off-road accessories so I bought a few yards. It's waterproof so good for things that might be outside the vehicle. I've made a bunch of things with it over the past few years.

 

[jscherb]

Are these trash cans?

The article is about an England to Australia expedition in in 1965 but no mention is made of what appear to be trash cans hanging on the back quarters.

In the back they've mounted the tail lights higher so the cans can fit. Would be a little harder to relocate the Grenadier tail lights, but it could be done - they could be mounted on the corners of the hardtop. But this space wouldn't be available on a Grenadier because the side-swing doors ould limit what could be mounted on that rear corner anyway.

 

[jscherb]

Been there, done that: Nepal

A photo from an article about a Land Rover road trip around Nepal:

I've got photos of villages like that but I won't post them because they bring back memories of unbelievable traffic jams.

The first jam was about 3 hours, it was because a truck struck and killed a pedestrian. It became more of an incident because, if I recall correctly, the driver of the truck was a muslim and the pedestrian was a Hindu and the Hindu crowd wouldn't let the driver go until retribution was paid. Somehow the police calmed the situation but it was very tense for a while and for a long time it looked like violence would be unavoidable.

In the second jam we were stuck in a town exactly like the one above for 8 hours. We were on the way back to Kathmandu, heading for a pass in the mountains that surround the city. A landslide had occurred at the top of the pass and it took 8 hours for them to get earthmoving equipment up there and clear the slide. Like pretty much all routes in Nepal, there was no alternate way, we just had to wait.

This is the map from the article showing the route of the magazine expedition. I've done about half of that route, plus an equal amount not shown on the map.

One thing the article didn't have were photos of any native Land Rovers, so here is one. This one has quite a history - it's an original Series Land Rover and was owned by the king of Nepal - it was used by the king to go between India and Nepal, back in the days when there was only one unpaved trail from India to Kathmandu. It's still kept in the palace, although I don't think it sees much use anymore. The palace was undergoing some renovations while we were there, which explains the look of the Land Rover's surroundings.

I won't post any other photos of this trip except the next one, which was a highlight of the trip. In this photo I'm receiving the blessings of the Kumari. The Kumari is a prepubescent girl who is regarded as a living goddess and an incarnation of Devi, which is the female divinity in the Hindu and Buddhist religions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumari_(goddess)

There are five Kumaris in Nepal, the one I had an audience with was the Kumari of Lalitpur.

 

[jscherb]

A storage box on the front bumper?

No, it's a cover for the winch:

This is the first "winch box" I've seen.

 

[jscherb]

This isn't exactly a Land Rover idea for Jeeps; it's a U.S. idea that made it to the U.K.

Back in 2017 I was given one to test, so I took it on a camping trip to Death Valley.

It was useful as part of the camp setup, but I offered the company two criticisms:

- It's pretty big. That's a good thing as a tabletop, but it makes it awkward to store in a vehicle. The item in the magazine says that "some American owners strap the table to the spare tyre", which, if you don't have anything else on the spare, sounds like a good idea, and would also lessen my next complaint:

- It rattles when it's stored in the vehicle. The way the leg is designed to stow clipped to the tabletop is fairly loose and rattles, so I removed the leg for travel.

 

[jscherb]

This was in one of the magazines a while back - a Dutch company Called Kiwi Equipment offers this "Kuechenbox" (Kitchen Box):

If I were doing this I think I'd add some soft of padding or retaining straps in the compartments so things didn't rattle around and break on the trail.

The web site is (was) http://www.kiwi-equipment.de/zubehoer/, it doesn't seem to be active anymore.

Campingküche

Kochen ist auf Reisen, insbesondere wenn das Reisemobil kein LKW ist, immer ein Thema. Gerade weil man unterwegs fast täglich am Kocher steht, denn Restaurants sind entweder rar oder von nicht über…

dulliexploring.com

 

[jscherb]

Kiwi Equipment also offered this grille which also serves as a grill...

They say the "Kiwi-Kuhlergrill macht seinem Namen alle Ehre" - The "grille" lives up to its name (their pun intended). Installations involves "wird einfach gegen den Originalgrill ausgetauscht" - its simply exchanged for the original grille and "mit Befestigungsschrauben" - and comes with mounting screws.

I assume it doesn't come with the rocks to set it on, hopefully those can be found wherever you need to cook in the wild.

Something like this could probably be made for the Grenadier but I'm not sure I'd want to put it back on the vehicle after cooking on it.

 

[jscherb]

In an issue of Land Rover Owner, regular contributor Vicky Turner has a DIY article on making insulated blinds for sleeping in her Land Rover.

Typical British humor:

Seems like these could be useful for people who sleep in their Grenadiers and since it took me a few reads of the article to fully understand what she did I'll summarize/paraphrase the article here.

She made the blinds out of mylar-foil covered insulation. She used something like this, which can be found at Home Depot and Lowes:

She attaches her blinds with suction cups. She used cups with threaded studs on the back like these found on walmart.com:

The suction cup studs go through holes in the blinds. The holes are reinforced with eyelets like these, also from walmart.com:

She trims the edges with duct tape. In this closer photo you can maybe make out how the duct tape edging works and you can see one of the suction cup studs through an eyelet in the lower right corner:

Seems like a pretty simple project. Maybe this will be useful to someone here.

 

[jscherb]

A Defender built for what the builder calls "wild camping".

I've posted about these ideas before, but he's got L-tracks mounted on the side of his hardtop (including one above the window) and on those he's got a swing-down recovery tread mount/table.

The Drop Down Table/Sand Track Storage is from Ratel X Industries: https://www.ratel-x.com/

They also make jerry can carriers to mount on the tracks:

I'm leaning towards adding L-tracks above the rear windows of my Grenadier so I can do things like this.

 

[jscherb]

Sort of on the subject of jerry cans and the jerry can size cargo bag mentioned a few posts ago, this item isn't from a Land Rover magazine but I think it might be interesting anyway.

Insulated coolers the size of jerry cans (https://military-tent.com/gemifoco4ga1.html):

There's also one with 3 interior compartments (https://military-tent.com/german-military-food-containers--3-part3.html):

A few more photos of these:

 

[jscherb]

Land Rover Owner regular contributor Vicky Turner says she got the "bucket" in Lidl (a German-owned grocery store much like Aldi). I've seen buckets/basins like these in Walmart, sporting good stores and other places here.

I used a similar collapsible basin when I designed the sink option for the MORryde Trail Kitchen. I found one that was easy to adapt to a bar sink drain:



These basins can be used in multiple ways - MORryde sells the sink option in a basic and a deluxe version. Both versions include the hinge-out sink tabletop and the same basin, but the basic option is only the basin in the tabletop with no drain (lift out the basin and dump it). The deluxe option comes with the drain, a pump, hoses, quick disconnects for the hoses and a hose adapter for a Rotopax container as a water supply.

There are a bunch of different collapsible basins on the market and they can be useful just as Vicky says, but also many of them can be adapted to more formal sinks as I did.