Renewable personal transport
As spring is now upon us, although you wouldn’t believe it be the amount of frost we had last night, its time to get on with those spring chores … such as the annual patching up of the Landrover. Larry, who is currently tipping the scales at a very respectable 110,000 miles takes a bit of a hammering over the winter, what with all shootin’, ‘orses & general hooning about in the fields that constitutes life round at Free Market Towers. So, come the onset of warmer weather, its annual refit commences to ensure that just the right amount of moss continues to grow in the rear window runners. Thus on Friday, it was time to whip him over to the Englishman’s Castle to start this years remedial works – first job on the list … get the rear step welded back up after a (cough cough) slight altercation with a grass bank.
As this site has long maintained, proper people have sensible friends who in turn have proper toys. No, they don’t have the latest Coldplay CD because that’s about as much use as a sick headache - they have the sorts of toys that there is some call for – such as angle grinders & welding rigs.
Take a tolley jack, a large tapometer, a bit of brute force & ignorance and low ….15 minutes later & thanks to The Englishman, Larry’s botty is starting to look a bit better.
Now all your humble correspondent has to do to get to grips with perennial bane of every Landrover owners life, the rear cross member. For those of you that have not yet had the pleasure of said item, it doesn’t matter how old or new your vehicle, as sure as night follows day & the Labour Party will take a bung for a peerage, they rust. They rust no matter how much Hammerite you use. Time to get busy with the sander, wire wool & paint. Then there is the small matter of replacing rear mud flaps & rear bumperettes, the remains of one already having been cut off after the destruction of a reinforced bollard in Salisbury, the other having been pulled off during the remodelling of a wall in Wales. Oh, then there is the small matter of the side steps that have been generally trashed over the last couple of years.
It never fails to amaze me how much misplaced vitriol the tofuistas reserve for these 4x4s – unlike their throwaway Jap cr*p hybrid sewing machines trying to save the planet by running on whale poo, a proper truck is a renewable resource. How ‘green’ is that?
Comments
Rear crossmembers benefit from a hearty dose of Waxoyl, particularly inside where the tinworm fairy lives. This is likewise true of chassis rails and front bulkheads.
Posted by: Robert | April 10, 2006 12:23 PM
that's not a bald patch is it? :-)
Posted by: jan | April 10, 2006 1:38 PM
Nah, the tyres look fine to me
RM
Posted by: The Remittance Man | April 10, 2006 2:50 PM
At least it isn't grey...
Posted by: The Englishman | April 10, 2006 6:42 PM
Surprised Mr FM allowed such a long haired hippy to work on Larry....
Posted by: Mark | April 10, 2006 9:27 PM
Interesting technique. Looks like he is holding the rod onto the work?
Posted by: Tony Harrison | April 12, 2006 3:06 AM
Some of the Jeepers who drive around on rocks up in the Sierras have on-board welders to fix stuff they break - I've heard that sometimes it's just a rod hooked up to a car-battery.
Posted by: -keith in silicon valley | April 12, 2006 7:41 PM