After an abortive trip to Morocco last year, we are preparing for a trip to the Tunisian Sahara in October 2010.

My car is fairly well prepared but we are making many more mods over the next few months.

I have detailed some of these and I will be adding plenty more on my website (address in signature below). You are welcome to comment and ask any questions.

I shall make the articles as detailed as possible to show how things were fitted, where they came from, how they were made and how successful they were.

In addition I will be running a 'countdown blog' until we leave on the 2nd October 2010 and then updating it remotely during the trip.

Many of the ideas and mods have come from things I have seen on forums and other personal websites. This site is my way of giving something back to the online community.

Ralph

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1995 300Tdi Discovery
Vehicle mods and expedition countdown blog www.overland-rovers.com

Just read your blog re. Morocco 2009 Ralf

You and your wife are hero’s
The fact that you can venture out of the house at all is a miracle after your last attempt never mind planning a Tunisia trip. I guess you must have used up all the bad luck by now though, so it can only get better!



Seriously I’ll be very interested in your next trip, I’m now pondering Tunisia rather than another Morocco trip. Do you have a route planned?


Russ

Russ

Thanks for the comments. Yes our Morocco trip was a bit of an experience still, we leaned a lot and it will set us up for Tunisia.

It took a while before Belinda even considered another trip but Peter of Atlas Overland did a brilliant sales job at Newark last year ad now she is all for it.

Our planned trip/route can be seen here:

Tunisia 2010

We are joining the Atlas Overland tour commencing on the 7th October in Marseilles. There are still some spaces if you're up for it?

I shall continue my blog and adding more stuff to the websites as time goes by.

Cheers

Ralph

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1995 300Tdi Discovery
Vehicle mods and expedition countdown blog www.overland-rovers.com

Hi Ralph

Have just read about your Morocco trip. Excellent advert for Toyota!

Also saw the pics of Granada Fiesta.....interesting to see the KKK in Spain.

Mark

overlandcruiser.net

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www.overlandcruiser.net

[quote=ilesmark;281838]Hi Ralph

Have just read about your Morocco trip. Excellent advert for Toyota!

quote]

Nah! You would never have that much fun with a Toyota and besides, rumour has it that even Toyotas break down occasionally. At least my throttle and abs brakes work okay

__________________
1995 300Tdi Discovery
Vehicle mods and expedition countdown blog www.overland-rovers.com

'Fun'?

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www.overlandcruiser.net

Of course it's fun!

Why else would we put ourselves through all that?





Although, I must admit, it didn't seem like it at the time

__________________
1995 300Tdi Discovery
Vehicle mods and expedition countdown blog www.overland-rovers.com

Bloody Hell......

Just read your Morocco blog........

Good luck with your future plans....

Cheers
Matt

Cheers Matt

Hopefully the next one won't be so 'eventfull'

I'll keep a running blog leading up to and during the next 'adventure' in October.

__________________
1995 300Tdi Discovery
Vehicle mods and expedition countdown blog www.overland-rovers.com

Just to let you all know that I have added some more info to the site as well as maintaining my blog.
Some articles are still 'in progress'

Full length boot storage system
Built in fresh water system
Solar panels and boot security
Fitting a Hannibal Awning on a Safety Devices Roofrack

I hope these are of interest. There is plenty more to come including:

Howling Moon tent write up
GPS Tracking with Spot
Rooflight and work light wiring
Servicing and engine, drivetrain and brakes overhaul
Spares list
Tools list

Cheers
Ralph

__________________
1995 300Tdi Discovery
Vehicle mods and expedition countdown blog www.overland-rovers.com

Love the solar panel idea. I am thinking of boarding over my Defender boot space windows.

I glad you like it.
The panel I used have now been superseded by a new model which is slightly more powerful (7.75W). I didn't use them because they have changed the shape and they are now rectangular (484 x 258 x 14 mm instead of 375 x 360 x 26 mm). That means that they wouldn't fit in the window space I have. However they should fit behind a defender rear window easily.

They do say that you should work out what power consumption you need from a solar panel and then double it to get and accurate figure of what to fit.

At full power these units combined could give 1Amp into the system. The reality will always be less because they are on opposite sides of the car and are sitting vertically. If I get 0.5W then I will be happy (that's each unit running @ 50%).

The Engel takes about 2.5A to run as well as any other electrical bits which may be on. So these aren't going to make a huge difference, but they will make some. Starting and running the engine for a short while every other days doesn't seem like a big problem and we aren't likely to stay in one place for more than a few days at a time anyway.

The panels I used are very simple to connect (all plug and play basically) and have reverse current protection so you don't need a controller with them.

It just seemed like a bit of dead space that could be put to some use.

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1995 300Tdi Discovery
Vehicle mods and expedition countdown blog www.overland-rovers.com

Out of curiosity, who makes the solar panels?

Their actually made by Sunsei which is a subsidiary of ICP. Website here:

SE 500 Solar Trickle Charger

Cheapest place is here:

Sunsei SE-500 Solar Panel - Machine Mart

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1995 300Tdi Discovery
Vehicle mods and expedition countdown blog www.overland-rovers.com

For those that are interested I have an update on the solar panels.

Unfortunately one of the 7.5W panels I had fitted failed miserably (it overheated and melted) and so I had to get it exchanged. Again, unfortunately they were not able to get a direct replacement which meant I had to have the 7.75W models (the company did replace both of them so that they matched).

Initially I thought that the new model wouldn't fit in the disco window space, but I was wrong.

They fit perfectly and, in fact, I think they look better. Once wired in I am getting a consistent 13.9V across the auxilliary battery.



Link to full article here

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1995 300Tdi Discovery
Vehicle mods and expedition countdown blog www.overland-rovers.com