Tuesday 18 December 2007

Real Desert Truck.





You may spot that this is not a Jeep and has no tangible links with a Jeep, but it is a true desert truck, so there’s the link. This is my pal Mohammed. Mohammed, with his pal Sulliman, cooks for us in Germa, Libya, where I shall be for January. Germa is a dusty little breeze block shithole in the middle of bumfucknowhere about 700 miles south of Tripoli. Mohammed has had his Datsun pick up for at least ten years to my knowledge and it’s always looked exactly like this. He did point out, with great pride, that he had bought a NEW brake master cylinder recently and for the first time in a few years revelled in having brakes. They have a sort of M.O.T. type test in Libya, but they only test the lights and do it every two years. To get round this most Libyans in the desert towns share a set of lights to be fitted for the test, then removed and passed on for someone else. One headlight and one rear light is, obviously, quite enough for any car.

Tuesday 4 December 2007

All the bits.


A visit to the Overland Preparation Barn in Matlock yesterday confirmed that we now have virtually all the bits required to build a 1943 Jeep. All that is needed is some warmer weather and a bit of time. The chassis is fine, but all the hub oil seals will be replaced and all the brake pipes. The new spring shackles are now done! the body tub is welded and spot on. In the numerous boxes are all the rather prosaic bits and sitting on a pallet is the new engine. Well. Not new, new, but rebuilt by skilled French technicians (no laughing at the back) about 20 years ago. Graham, at Jeeparts, checked it over and confirmed it appeared to be ‘a good one’ and was ‘20 thou over’. The whole project is now 2 thou over, but I’m sure the end result will be worth it.