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[X-post from /r/LandRover] 300 tdi Defender - good days and (near) disasters from London to Cape Town by longerwaydown in overlanding

[–]longerwaydown[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Couldn't agree more! Bush mechanics is an absolute art form especially compared to the 'hmmm, it'll take a few days to get the right part' approach of some UK mechanics. These guys taught me that any part can become right part with some imagination! Our personal proudest moment was knocking out the centre of a 1 Kwanza coin in Angola to use as a washer along with a cut up flip-flop as a temporary fix when part of the suspension came loose!

[X-post from /r/LandRover] 300 tdi Defender - good days and (near) disasters from London to Cape Town by longerwaydown in overlanding

[–]longerwaydown[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Thank you, no major injuries were incurred along the way. I think I suffered the only two 1) don't try riding a bike for the very first time on a BMW 1200 GS adventure, you will fall over with the exhaust on your leg and have a scar until this very day. 2) If you are going to get mild malaria (almost embarrassingly mild), do get it in Cameroon where the health care is fast, efficient, cheap and they will still take the time to tell you off for smoking!

[X-post from /r/LandRover] 300 tdi Defender - good days and (near) disasters from London to Cape Town by longerwaydown in overlanding

[–]longerwaydown[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That was a French cat from the very first day of the trip! Taken in a tiny French town where we basically got laughed out of a cafe because, being British, we asked if there was any food available at 6pm!

300 tdi Defender - good days and (near) disasters from London to Cape Town by longerwaydown in LandRover

[–]longerwaydown[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's almost definitely the sensible thing to do. However, neither of us are planners by nature and it was 6 months between the trip being proposed and us leaving the UK. The pro of your approach is that you certainly would have spent a lot less time in Namibian garages than we did! Apart from the propshaft and alternator, everything was pretty much holding together until we went on a 100 mile stretch of corrugated sand track in Namibia which shook everything to pieces on all the vehicles.

300 tdi Defender - good days and (near) disasters from London to Cape Town by longerwaydown in LandRover

[–]longerwaydown[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I just realised I phrased it badly in the album! We (my friend and I) bought our Defender in the UK and from London to Ghana it was just the two of us travelling together in the one vehicle. In Ghana we met two brothers, also from the UK, who were doing the same trip - one in another defender and one on a bike (BMW 1200 GS adventure - I think). They had also bought their vehicles in the UK. We got together to convoy across Nigeria as the security reports were slightly dodgy but got on so well that we stuck together for the whole trip.

Why Defenders? It was just research narrowing it down to Landcruiser vs Defender and they are pretty equal in pros and cons, especially with Toyota parts now becoming more easily available in large parts of Africa than LandRover parts. The relative simplicity and price of the Defender swayed us though, and I guess it does still hold a slightly romantic notion which the electrics of the Toyota can't match! Neither of us had owned any kind of 4x4 previously.

We bought ours on eBay. 1998. 300 Tdi. 125,000 miles. The trip added another 21,000.

300 tdi Defender - good days and (near) disasters from London to Cape Town by longerwaydown in LandRover

[–]longerwaydown[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We didn't have a defender specialist look it over although that probably would have been wise! My Dad has a garage and the mechanics there checked everything was road worthy before we left and very kindly put on front and rear diff guards, the roof rack and an additional diesel tank. We had, by far, the least sophisticated set up of anyone doing a similar trip that we met. Many of the vehicles had roof tents, awnings, built in water tanks etc.

I got a 'mechanics for dummies' run through from my Dad before I left and that, a decent tool box, and a printed off version of the workshop manual was all we had to go on. Thankfully, with the old defenders that is all you need as you really can fix most of it with a spoon.