Prepping a defender 130 for around the world..

[Kgh]

Well the engine has been blowing a bit of smoke intermittently lately and consuming oil...looks like the turbo I installed has to come off and be redone...bummmer but better here than in the plains of Mongolia..

Make sure you have a hat, jacket, and gloves. I see it is getting into the 70s at night down your way.

How's the annex room coming along?

Negotiating with a guy right now on an older 130 double cab. I guess I should feel lucky it doesn't have a pesky turbo...2.5NA ******! LOL Gonna have to source a 200Tdi for a no hassel install while in Europe. Drop the 2.5NA back in for eventual export.

 

[The Rover Shop]

So we have 2 side rooms for the vehicle that attatch to the ARB awnings, one side is a mozzie room and it will be mainly used on the left side of the truck so we had to make a way that we could access the fridge and cooking side while still keeping it somewhat mozzie proof, so the wifey broke out the trusty sewing machine and put a zipped flap in..

 

[The Rover Shop]

Coming down to the final bits and pieces, we've put lots of miles on her and now it's getting close to heading off for overland expo...then it's back home for a couple of weeks for last minute tidying up and we are off to Europe....finally, seems like for-bloody-ever..

 

[cj7ox]

Nice!

 

[The Rover Shop]

Currently parked up camping/living in it full time at the moment giving it a dry run so to speak, found a couple of areas that I need to address for really wet rainy weather, so making some mods before I give up the luxury of being in one place long enough o make some mods.. we did a couple of weeks up in Colorado Arizona area in cold and windy conditions and it was excellent..brand new ventilated drilled brakes have a bit of a pulsation so changing those for some upgraded ones...truck ran great on our 5000+ miles trip, somthats all good..

 

[The Rover Shop]

I've always been concerned with no low coolant level warning system and it's a pain constantly checking the level as you can't see into the top of where the td5 reservoir is located...I recently did a system on another truck I'm building and I think I will do the same on this one..will have to weld in a flat plate on the allisport td5 aluminum reservoir, but that's not a big deal..lol..it will trigger a small red led warning light in the instrument cluster when it's done..

 

[The Rover Shop]

I love whole milk....... and as such we go through a good deal of it on the road...especially with making a couple of cuppas per day...our Engel fridge does a great job of keeping it cold but every time we pulled the milk out something would fall in its place and it was a pain to put it back in....so I took an old piece of dishwasher rack and made a hanging cage for our milk container...it leaves about an inch or 2 off the bottom so you can still put stuff under it, but now when you pull it out it's a piece of cake to put it back...

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[The Rover Shop]

At a recent expo we were approached by a coffee company and tried some of their coffee...now I'm no coffee snob but I do like the occasional cup...this coffee was very yummy, a little discussions later they asked us if we wanted to have our own coffee blend in return for using our rig as the face for it....well let me think about that for a.......yes..of course....and so our own personal coffee blend was born...Overland Coffee co produced the Kenya Blend for us, and it's been written up with rave reviews in rovers north magazine as well as some others..it's a great company that gives back to the overlanding community..their expedition blend is pretty awesome also...

http://overlandcoffeecompany.com

 

[The Rover Shop]

A friend told me a while ago to type into google....worlds most well built defender....pretty neat....

 

[The Rover Shop]

Some of you may have noticed that I spent a good deal of time addressing security needs on my builds...nothing worse than having you vehicle broken into and you possessions stolen..or worse yet, your whole truck...along those lines I got a little sidetracked developing a couple of my ideas and am in the process or trademarking and patenting them...I can't share al of them here but here is a couple of them...
The battery defender....this turns your underseat battery compartment into a safe room for your alarm module or tracking system..


My keyed battery cutoff that still allows enough current to run your central locking, interior lights, alarm etc...but open circuits completely when anything larger is used...like starting, lights etc..

 

[The Rover Shop]

I also have an easy to use brake defender that my manufacturer wanted to steal and call his own..still in the hands of my lawyers but it's probably for the better as redesigned it better...this unit stops you from being able to release the parking brake...

 

[The Rover Shop]

And my gearshift defender...this locks the gearshift in reverse gear and in difflock to stop it from being stolen...locks it solid to the transmission...

 

[The Rover Shop]

And my very simple theft deterrrent....the flasher..... simply a super bright flashing red led light that turns on when the engine turns off and off when the engine turns on...simple 2 wire install that fits any vehicle..

 

[The Rover Shop]

Wife has always complained that it's hard to see into the fridge of a night time from the side, since the Engel we have now opens from the side (after some modifications....) so I had a couple of LED rock lights laying around so I installed one above the fridge and one above the cooking surface and they both operate off the same switch, now you don't have to have he interior lights on when cooking or prepping meals, they give off plenty of direct light...

 

[The Rover Shop]

I have a backup computer that contains my delorme topographic maps etc as well as all my technical repair information programs and the full Land Rover electronic parts catalogue....coz I am driving a Land Rover...... I use a Panasonic tough book with the rotating and flip down touch screen, something's it's nice to have the ability to mount that in the front cab, so I decided to make a secure mounting plate for it that mounts to one of the heavy duty ram mounts off the centre tuffy box, I made it with corner tabs so it mounts securely in place but I'm going to do something different as well.......
A wise overlander once said everything should have at least 2 purposes and ideally as many as possible...so I will make this so that the mounting point under the tray easily comes off and install on the other side, which now makes it a flat surface to be used as a table or writing surface.. it wil be pretty much centrally mounted so that driver or passenger can utilize it..