The Lowdown
21/08/08
Lorraine's Ursel report is now here. There are also one or two extra photos in the Heidi Photos and Other Photos pages.
14/08/08
Exciting times! We've just got back from our favourite show: Ursel. Heidi was quite a bit heavier on the journey back home than on the way out. The reason wasn't just down to all the Belgian beer in the back, but also because of our latest find - the pedestal for the MAG machinegun. It's something we didn't expect to find. We always find one or two bargains on the market at Ursel, and this year was no different with a new pair of front reflectors and a green convoy filter. The MAG mount was an added bonus though, and a real bargain too. I won't tell you EXACTLY how little it cost us, as I don't want to upset a certain person who shall remain nameless...
This weekend will see us start to strip our new acquisition and get it ready for mounting into Heidi's loadbed. Photos from this year's Ursel show (and a write-up) will be on here in the next few days.
20/07/08
I'm sitting in the kitchen eating dropharingen as I write this. This morning we painted Heidi's rear crossmember in red oxide, in preparation for a new coat of paint. The original plan was to tidy-up and give it another coat of black - because all the photos of Dutch Laros we've seen have shown them with black crossmembers - but when I removed the bumpers and tow hitch the paint underneath was green, so now we're going to restore it back to that colour. After getting the old paint off the new spare mount and straightening it up, we removed the bumpers, tow hitch and electrical socket from the crossmember. These are now cleaned and primered; the next job is to put it all back together again. Then we can put the spare mount on. The mount hooks over the top of the rear tub and is fixed with the two upper bolts of the toe hitch, so once it's on the tailgate is out of action. This means we'll only fix it on for shows, but Heidi will look much more like she used to in the old days. Some photos here.
06/07/08
We now have a spare wheel mount for Heidi. In the eight years we've owned her, she's always had her spare on the bonnet, traditional Land Rover style, but when she was a recce vehicle in the Dutch Army she had the spare on a specially made mounting fixed to the tailgate. As we'd never seen one of these things (except for drawings) we didn't hold out much hope of finding one, but a surprise e-mail from our good friend Steven a few weeks ago got us rushing to the ferry. After a short holiday in the Netherlands, which included visits to the museums at Best and Overloon, Heidi came back carrying her
very own spare wheel bracket. OK: so it's a bit bent, and a fresh coat of paint is required but it's another piece in the jigsaw.
22/06/08
Right then: the Mog engine is back together but doesn't run. The threads on top of the distributor are buggered, so we're currently looking for either a replacement or an alternative. The Mog engine is a Mercedes M180, which was also used in one or two Mercedes saloon cars so there is the possibility of replacing the distributor cap with a civvy type plastic one. We're still looking into it.
Lorraine's report on Mogstock 2 is now here.
Heidi has been working hard as usual. She took us down to Hereford for the Wyeside festival on the seventh, and then up to Southwell (near Newark) for the Gate to Southwell festival - two festivals in one weekend! Then this weekend she took us up to Thetford to the East England Military Museum for an exclusive East Anglian Fighting Vehicle event, which will soon have a report in the events section. In a few days Heidi will be back in her native Netherlands to collect her spare wheel mount, stay tuned...
29/05/08
Mogstock 2 was a real blast. Good to see most of the original Moggers from two years ago, and nice to meet-up with some new people too. The event is in danger of having to change it's name to Ivecostock if we're not careful though...
After that, I decided to do one of those "five minute jobs" - change the spark plugs. Yeah, you know what's coming, right? Managed to snap-off a plug, leaving most of the thread still in the engine. So the slightly-longer-than-five-minutes job of removing the cylinder head and removing the remains of the dead plug commenced at the weekend. Every nut, as well as being crusted in 40 years' worth of rust, seemed to be carefully positioned to make it impossible to reach. We finally got the thing out, removed the remains of the plug with a drill and then repaired the hole with a helicoil - provided by expert mechanic Roger - cheers Roger: you're a star! Now we're just waiting for a new head gasket to arrive from Turkey (yes, really) and then we can put it all back together again. Easier said than done!
11/05/08
The Unimog went to its first show in almost a year today. We were keen to give her a run before next week's Mogstock 2, so we took her along to Brightlingsea School fete with Heidi. After fitting a pair of new batteries she started without any complaints and the topless run to the school was trouble-free (and great fun in the sunny weather). Three Ferrets from the East Anglian Fighting Vehicle Group also came along - courtesy of Clive, Peter and Eddy - and we pitched camp in amongst all the shiny classic cars. Photos of the Mog restoration can be seen here. Pictures from Brightlingsea are here and here.
27/04/08
We finally managed to get some work done on the Mog. Everything that needs to be green is now in primer and ready for the top-coat. It really seems like the end is in sight now - at last! One side of the chassis is painted; just the other side and the centre sections to do and then it'll be time to apply the green paint. Then we just need to put all the bits back together again, hmmm...
We need to get to the paint supplier some time this week and order the paint. Photos of what we've been up to are to be seen here.
29/03/08
Still no time to work on the green machines yet. But, better news: our good friend Steven has found us another important part for Heidi's restoration. It's the A-frame for the rear of the vehicle which holds the spare wheel. Most other Laros had the spare on the bonnet, traditional Land Rover style, but Heidi (being a recce machine) would have operated with the screen folded down and various bits and pieces stowed on the bonnet. So the spare wheel went on the back. Haven't sorted out when we're collecting our new find yet, but we'll definitely be picking it up sooner rather than later.
17/03/08
Nothing to report in February? Well, we've been busy with all sorts of stuff, but nothing much to do with Heidi and her pals. We have managed to do a tiny bit more to the Mog: the cab is now in primer, there's just the back body and underneath do do now. Then it's top-coat time. All this needs to be done before mid-May, when it's MOGSTOCK 2. Heidi's indicator stopped working the other day. A simple case of a blown bulb, or so we thought, but when I removed the lens to swap bulbs the old one looked fine. I popped in back into its mounting and tried it out - works fine. No idea what happened there then: no moisture in the workings or anything like that. Contacts looked nice and clean, so it's just one of those mysteries us Land Rover owners have to live with.
The East Anglian Fighting Vehicle Group's website is now on-line: see here. Still early days at the mo' but Richard is busy gathering photos and such from the rest of us to expand on what's there so far. Talk at the last club meet seemed to be mostly about how many people have a Ferret (or are looking to buy one) and whether we should change our name to East Anglian Ferret Club! There's also talk of something happening at the East of England Tank Museum, but it's all hush-hush at the moment. He he...
Heidi has been busy taking us to and from our barn for various duties, including selling all our old X1/9 spares for a song (but that's another story...) and other stuff like taking rubbish to the local re-cycling centre - we're decorating at home, which is one of the reasons we've not been playing in Heidi much. Heidi will be helping Barry to move at the end of this month, but before that we're off to France for a few days. A Bientot!
22/01/08
Finally managed to make some time for our "babies" this week. Got back to the barn and continued with the Unimog's VERY slow re-paint. Photos of some of the parts that are ready for a top-coat can be seen here. The trouble with this time of year is that it gets dark before we're home from work, and once you're home and it's dark you feel like the day's over and can't be arsed to get working in the barn. Yeah, I know: excuses excuses! Once the evenings get lighter we'll be into the show season and then we'll have a different excuse for being lazy, he he. Talking of shows, I've updated the events page with what we've got planned so far for this year. We were thinking of going to Kemble again, as we went a few years back and really enjoyed the atmosphere there. But this year the organisers are charging entrants too much money to be part of the event, so we'll give that one a miss too. Considering we (the vehicle owners) are the main attraction at these gatherings it seems rather odd that the organisers want to charge us over £50 to be there.
We were in the early stages of organising a trip to Morocco but, with the recent cancellation of the Dakar rally due to terrorism we have put this one on hold. We'll go when things have quietened down a little!
06/01/08
First week of the new year and we've had our first MV event: the Heybridge Basin Bum Freezer. About 30 vehicles gathered in the car park outside the Jolly Sailor in this morning's glorious January sunshine. We were fed bacon sarnies and then made our way along the local roads to visit a private collection of military bits and bobs. Very impressive collection it was too. Georgie insisted on a club photo, so those of us who were present from EAFVG posed in front of Eddie's Ferret and said "CHEESE!" Perhaps she'll send me a copy...
Last week we were in France, seeing the sights in and around Nimes. Some photos from that trip are here.
Two weekends before that Heidi took us over to the Ardennes for a short break. On the way home a fuel line broke, spraying diesel all over the M20. The resulting recovery from the motorway cost us an arm and a leg, although the repair itself was only fifteen of your English quids. Ho hum...
