.

Once upon a time I competed in the Welsh Hillrally in a team of two Range Rover Classics. We I was sponsored by a company who made alloy wheels. We turned up at the start line with both vehicles decked out in a pretty new livery complete with the manufacturer's company name emblazoned all over them.

Off we went on the Prologue Stage and within a few minutes the wheels on both vehicles starting cracking! In fact big lumps were being torn out of them. To cut a long story short, we ended up visiting the nearest independent Land Rover specialist to buy 10 rusty old Rostyle RR wheels and having all the tyres swapped. Looked so funny after that to see our alloy wheels-sponsored team with manky old steel wheels racing around the stages. Good, this pegged back the arogant sponsor who said his wheels were "rally proof" ... I don't think so.

Needless to say, no problems after that. Well, with my driving yes, but the wheels were fine.

all the years iv been driving off road on steels and alloys,,,never damaged an alloy wheel,,,,but i did crack the rim on my 101 and that was steel,,,,,,

Rock-crawling in a 101FC, now that I'd like to see.

I had a long discussion on LR4x4 about a water tank some while ago. I now have four 20 litre army black plastic jerry cans in the 90, next to the bulkhead. There is a flexible hose and pump which can be rigged for filling or pumping out. This setup minimises sloshing, algae build-up and if I get contaminated water it won't affect a whole tank full.

On the pump outlet there is a normal tap with garden hose push fitting and a purifier filter for drinking water. I have fairly long hose (stored wrapped around the spare tyre under a cover) which fits onto the normal tap to refill engine coolant, feed a shower attachment, pump the jerry cans out, or by reversing the pipe connections it can be used to fill the tank from a campsite tap, or to pump in water from a stream etc (hazards or using natural water sources noted).

This setup has been well tried in Ireland last year.

I am in the process of piping one of the jerry cans into a heat exchanger under the bonnet to give us 20l of warm/hot water after a run. This is still in development. I have managed to heat a tank of water fropm the engine with a trial rig. I don't yet know if I can insulate the jerry can well enough to keep the water warm for long, a couple of days and still have a warm shower would be good.

Regards
Richard

very nice job Vixen

Interesting & nice idea to setup a wonderful gallery.

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