Planning starts and dates are being decided. Got lots to do and preparations to make. We are currently heading to West Africa and then who knows where. I've got to give a shout out to Angela who took some of these (most of them) amazing pictures. 

I'm out of work and funds are now tighter than they should be but as they say (who says this?)....you only live once. As Coen once said, "there is no time only money" and who needs money anyhow? Turns out we all do. Its going to be very tight. I'm going to do another budgets page soon enough to let you know the state of affairs.

Doesn't she look absolutely amazing !
#BFGoodrich #Goodproject #overlandbirds

A little more of a tease and some pictures from the recent madness that was Morocco. The crew all lined up and Henrietta on her best behaviour.

Its works really well when you have your own photographer in the form of Angela and most of the photos are hers. Some Jelly's but mostly Angela.

We had a momumental storm one day and the sand was more like ocean. Luckily we arrived in the flooded parts a couple of days later and so just had to cope with a bit of mud.

Few more fails in the bedroom department....actually in the expensive furniture. A few screws and some choice words were used and i wasn't happy.

We've had some nice camping in some nice Auberge, some nicer than others and some where they really wanted to help. One had a Stork !

We've distributed the #BFGOODRICH stuff we had left to some deserving locals in a garage. We were all greased up and Robin had a swivel seal changed in record time!

There was also a little water crossing.....it was a difficult one and the first after the flood...video will come later. If it were not for our MT tires we would have not made it....seriously. #BFGOODRICH #GOODPROJECT

#BFGOODRICH #GOODPROJECT
Following the directions of a team is probably a bad idea.....if anybody recalls the film in the title you will know what I mean where the directions would have been a lot better if we’d bought a squirrel off Cathy Bates…..

We went a bit "wrong on t" a few times which we now know means "t junction". This was unanimously decided of course so we all went wrong. The track was for the "adventurous" according to the book. It was that.

We’ve all been having a great time. So far,,,,,no Landies were injured in the making of this movie. Well only minor injuries. We almost had a terminal disaster in the form of three loose (VERY!!) fan pully bolts which luckily we found early. A squeek could have turned into a broken timing case and so very bad. We've changed a UJ on Dave's truck, which was a first for him.

We are here in Southern Spain having driven long days to get here. Having a bit of an issue with the blog so no photos....argh. We will cross to morocco in a bit. Weve already lost a team member. More on that later.

#BFGoodrich #Goodproject
​Fantastic weekend at Adventure Overland with great weather and some great company and mother I was absolutely shattered after the weekend spending hours and hours each day in the seminar room as did all the other volunteers who gave some great presentations. The BFG Guy gave a great session on tyres and an even greater session on how to remove a tire and refit it. The Professionals do make things look so easy. Turns out the trick seems to be always to use tyre grease. 

Some more things added to the car. I've added a small inverter so we can charge things up that are mains powered.  Aome maintenance has been done because the wheel bearings weren't very good, indeed I don't think the MOD had ever greased them since the day the truck was made. You can see in the pictures that the bearing race wasn't very good in fact it was pretty rusty and pitted. I had to rebuild two rear hubs. The fronts seemed fineas the grease was still white. The back was full of rust.

A bit of hot air and a bit of fingernail work and I managed to remove the ambulance stickers from both sides. It's left a bit of a mess on the side of the truck as the mod had just painted round these stickers when the vehicle was resprayed. I've tried to sand over the words but you can still see it so I'm going to stick an OverLandBirds sticker right over the top. I can't afford to get the resprayed it's probably going to be £4,000.

#BFGoodrich #Goodproject
Yes thats a real film title.....Henrietta likes her new shoes and new clothing.

#BFGoodrich #Goodproject Some of the merchandise has arrived. The trousers they sent for me, julie has on. I'm not sure a 10 year old would get into Julies trousers. I think they are a size 44 EU so thats about a 28 inch waist on my pair. The shirts however are OK and so is the windproof. Expect me to be wearing it at every event. I contractually have to! The tyres they sent were the right size. After all they don't sell clothing, they sell the best overlanding tyres. Is this what the Formula E drivers feel like? Do i get a new hat every race. I have questions.

#BFGoodrich #Goodproject The wheels are on. Bit of drama which i will go into later. Dropped some more stuff off to be powder coated. Now i just need to play about with the pressures to see whats good. So far 50 on the front and 65 on the back. the fronts might need to go down a touch. The stickers on the car say 40 and 65. Maybe I should follow that !

You can get 6 wheels in a Kia Cee'd Estate Car.....LOL

I've not seen this fim about a homicidal car tire...sounds really rubbish!

Something thats not rubbish however is BFG Tyres. We used them round the world last time and we've managed to secure a partnership deal with them for this trip. Thanks to BFG #BFGoodrich #Goodproject as they thought we were a Goodproject and we are !

I'm off to get my wheels painted and then will fit some new rubber! Hopefully not some homicidal 'B' Movie rubber...(it got a 5.8 on IMDB!)

Its been a while hasn't it. I've been busy with a new job and stuff so now thats settling down and the summer is aproaching we are getting some stuff done and going to some places. We have Morocco planned for October. Another shakedown. We also have some news that we can't say yet. So watch out for that.

Some freinds we met years ago have lent us their yeard for the First Annual Northern Overland Sphere Metting. We went for a weekend to check it out. We will probably not all fit.

Henrietta is now 100% carpetted although i made a mistake in the early parts and didn't do the windows correctly so i'll just had to live with it.  We did the final carpet in the sun whilst we were camped here.

I'm starting to spend money again on the truck. Going to get the wheels poweder coated and also the front bumper and steering guard. Still got the water tank to fit. Did i mention we are setting up the finances for the next leg of the trip. Its taking a long time. Too long.

A bit of work on the new ambulance in the form of water and power. Wasn't there a film about that. Anyhow. I put in a split charge to help the solar system keep the batteries charged up.

I tidied up the leisure batteries and wiring. I managed to the use the brown wire from the exisitng land rover wiring to make the feed to the rear battery set. So all i did was make a couple of short cables and then connect up the other end via a 100Amp fuse.

The fur in this one shows the belt was being slowly distroyed by the old pully and the outer flange could go at any time.

Here you can see the older welded flange type of pully. The outer edge eventually gives up and can really ruin your day. This is what happened to our travelling companions in Syria in 2011. It ruined both our days!

Below you can see the new pully fitted waiting for a belt. The injection pump locked in place with the pin.

Theres a new kid on the block called Drive Tribe. For those of you who do not know about it this is the ex- Top Gear crews attempt at social media. We'd love you to join us on there and also join the Overland Sphere Tribe.

Please do so following this link as it might give us a chance of getting some drinks with Clarkson et al.

https://www.drivetribe.com/t/UwlZUbCATc6RmukBdggSbQ/GAcHuaMmRgC9SBI9YxfdKA

A weeks driving testing every aspect of Henrietta and seeing some of the North and places i've never been to before. Weather was acceptable but not great. The Solar only just kept the batteries topped up and this considering almost no sunshine so was pleased and dissapointed in one go. If it had been keeping the  topped up in the dullness i'd have been delighted. We did the full NC500 route in the wet (almost) so the wipers got tested. Even had to go to HellFruads and get a new one as it wasn't wiping. So nine quid spent on that. Turns out my oil pressure is also a bit off so need to work on that as i seems my oil pressure bypass relief valve is knackered so thats a job for this weekend. The Genuine parts for that were not cheap.

A word of advice to the residents of Scotland in the very North. The mobile signal and internet from said signal is better in Ethiopia. Seriously. Took me well over an hour to upload two photos to our facebook page.

00:30hrs on Friday morning...up at 7am and on the way to Adventure Overland Show. You should have been there. It was GREAT !!!!

I was absolutely knackered. Shes getting there and shes nearly,,,very nearly finished.

Some more updates. We are getting there slowly. Week left to get it finished.

So she's back from the place that does stuff. She looks just like the CAD I did so that's good. Only a few problems in the build that I'm not 100% happy with. They've made some errors and to be honest botched some stuff but its still 98% good.

Those of you that know about such things will note the homage to UroCampers in the design. However they certainly took no part in the construction.

Its started the money has changed hands and the dates are set for the fitting out. The below video gives you and idea of what we are going for. Theres so many things in the design its taken literally loads of iterations to get it right. The flip over bed needs to be just high enough to miss the door handle when in position but also in a position so it doesn't hit the roof when flipping. Those that saw version one at last years Adventure Overland will know what i mean. We had about 1mm to spare. Now i have Sketchup (wonderful software)  i can test all this with ease. Last time version one was designed on paper and took two weeks of trigonometry!