Minor Discovery 1 repairs, welding the sills and indicator faults

Repairing our Land Rover again

Whilst I was expecting a few things to go wrong with my Land Rover 300TDI after 5,000 miles in 2 weeks I was surprised at what actually went wrong. I would have maybe a wheel bearing failure, suspension after the bashing Larry took, or even something worse like a hose failure, transmission fault.  But no the sills and Indicators went wrong.  So nothing that serious and certainly nothing which was going to stop the tour in any way.

Our complete list was;

1. The plastic headlamp retaining clips broken
2. The driver side wing mirror glass fell out, which I leaned was just glued in to start off with.  A bad previous repair
3. The driver side indicators started blinking quickly, err

Also on further inspection at home I found I'd managed to destroy the metal plates which hold the rear mud flaps to the wheel arches.  Also two small holes had appeared in the rear of the sills?  These really looked OK before we went, how odd.

So prior to MOT in August I set about fixing the problems, the mirror was glued back in, plastic clips replaced on the headlamp, easy.  This only left me the Sills and Indicators to resolve.

Fixing the Discovery 1 sills

After replacing the whole front end back of Larry after the incident with the Oak tree I was not worried about doing this repair on my drive way at home.

I got the welder, angle grinder, drill and wire brushes out and started cleaning up the while sills after removing the Rock Slider.

The overall condition of the sills was pretty good, I know Larry is a Jap import, but he has been here for some time now so rust is starting to show.  I took the opportunity to get all the rust off.

Anyway, quick cleanup, Por 15 applied and left to dry, then I painted the whole sills both sides with two coats of zink rich primer then two coats of gloss black car spray paint.

Then I set about cutting out the rust and doing the repair.

Drivers side hole and split between the mud guard and sill

The very odd passenger side sill

Ok so the next thing to do was to cut out two pieces of metal to fit the wholes, this was done using the angle grinder and a cardboard template, here's and example of the finished patch plate.

Replacement part

Set into the whole, backed with copper

I then tack welded the pieced in, I did not seam weld them because the metal is to thin and the welder probably would have blown wholes in the sills.

This gave the following results.

Tacked around the plate

Seam welded the wing bottom then tacked in the plate

After fitting the plate, I then flap disk'd down the welds, not to much because there not that visible, re-primed and painted the whole repair inside and out.  This gave me the repair done like this.

Shiny paint

I probably should have flapped the spots down a little more

So that completed the sill repair, the only repair remaining now for the MOT was the indicators.

Indicators flashing to fast on a Discovery 1

This problems has proved to be more difficult than I though.  Normally if you get an indicator flashing to fast its because a bulb has gone which changes the current flowing through the circuit and changes the flasher speed.  You put in a new bulb and bingo, current as expected and your done.

Mine however was not like this, all the bulbs seemed OK.  So I did this diagnostics check.

   Firstly I checked all bulbs were working, they were
   Then I checked that the other side was OK, it was, they share the same relay unit
   Then I checked the earths to the indicators, yes this was all OK

Hmmmm.....

Now I was stumped, so I sent Larry in to fail its MOT and let let the garage look at it.

You would never believe this, the issue was the bulbs, I got all of them changed on the advise of the MOT man and everything started working as normal.  Now even though all the bulbs seemed OK, I guess bouncing them about in Morocco must have changed the resistance and therefore the flash rate.  I know exactly when they started to go quickly this was when we flew into a dry river bed during a sand storm, this must have mucked up a bulb or two.

Anyway that was done and fixed, result, MOT passed after the bulbs were replaced.

I did get some advisories, the destroyed mud flaps and front wheel bearings, I'll fix this later this year.  I will also check the rest of the wheel arches because saw some surface rust which  may need plating.  Then I will cavity wax the sills with Waxoil or Dinitrol.  This should keep them going for a few years.

I'll then put the rock sliders back on, I'm really pleased I had these in Morocco or the underside of the car would have been a mess.

Morocco 4x4 overland tour, post tour to do's for the next time

Tips and tricks when overlanding in Morocco in a 4x4

Looking back on this years tour I've tried to put some things which we would have found useful with hindsight.  You know, we have all been there, got to a country and forgotten the phone charger etc.  Anyway, here we go.

Navigation

Planning our tour we spent enough time working out the route, but we were unrealistic about how far we could get wen we were off road in the deserts.  Also we didn't know how difficult some of the tour would be.

We found ourselves three times just not getting to where we thought we would do.  If your going in the deep south think how far you will go and then double it, this way you will not get stressed out as we did.

Also, don't kid yourself if you think looking at the map that the country has well marked roads around you will get lost a lot.  Most of the country away from the coast,  or south of Kenitra gets more difficult to get about.  There are signs but sometimes we found we could not find the roads, they were moved a couple of times, or they were just not there.  Use the maps as guides for going in the right direction and try to take time to check your route by village or town name.
 
We got help once from a local in the desert, it cost us about £2 for him to guide us 10 miles till we got on the right track and he drew a more accurate map then most companies can, you can trust some but not all of the locals to help out, just remember to them you are rich and they will expect a tip for helping.

The maps we had were ok to understand roughly where you were, or to get around on the major roads but that was about it.

GPS systems were ok, but we found that they can only point you in the right direction, not actually get you exactly where you need to go.  So the approach we had to adapt was "the gps thinks were going that way".  This means that although the GPS thought there was a road often there was nothing there so we picked our way around in the rough route we were going.  Do not go to Morocco in the deserts and only rely on the GPS.  After our initial navigation cock up which was caused by Google Earth and a GPS system we started to do some sensible spotting on routes and being a little more careful.  This did not stop us from getting lost, but we did not get in as much trouble again.

Also, if your in the crap, turn around and go back, then find a better route.  This happened to us three times, we got very good at finding alternative routes when things got tough.  We only had real issues in the desert when the sand was getting us stuck....

Next time we go I will have a large screen GPS, maps and CB as I did this time.  But I'll change the planning and distances we need to cover.

Car preparation

We made sure our car had been very well looked after mechanically and although Larry looked a mess due to the replacement of the front end before we went we had no mechanical issues.  What we did have though was things fall off, this was caused by the bashing Larry took.  You will never know what will fall off till it does, but be aware of the headlights on a disco 1, the plastic clips break easily when you give it some on the corrugated roads.

CB radio's are a must and learn how to use them.  This caught us out until I set all the radios onto the same channel and same European frequency set .  If you are in a Defender get an external speaker of you will not hear anyone when you are on the rough stuff and also get a good external antenna.  We had quite a few issues here and they are invaluable, without the CB's in the sand storm we probably would have lost each other.  CB's are a must we used them everywhere.

Tyres, I think you can use any type of tyre in Morocco, we never had bad mud or snow.  However, if you are using standard road or cheaper AT tyres they will not come back in good nick on the hard stuff we drove on.  Only the Goodyear AT2 equipped cars (2 of us) had no tyre damage, the other cars all had bad tyre damage caused by rocks cutting to the tread.  I don't know if other tyres are as tough as the AT2, but they worked.

Other than that as long as the car is in good nick then you are ok.  It was only the 90 that had real issues, it lost a diff and a drive shaft, this was caused by incorrect gearing putting to much torque into the transmission parts, not James driving.

Kitting out our car

This is a quote from Mike "I was overtaken by a bottle of bolognese source at high speed".  The tip here is take nothing that is glass it will break, unless its beer which is made from special glass, and put things in boxes.  Also make sure everything is tied down and in boxes or bags which are tied down.  Tie things down and put stuff in boxes, getting the hint. 

The P38 and Kens 110 were really well kitted out and they had no problems at all.  Make sure you have everything in boxes tied down and what you need the most you can get at 1st.  There is no point having your spares near the doors and the beer deep down in the cabin.  You will always need to get to the beer 1st and if you break down you will have time to get the tools out.

Not having things in boxes and tied down caused a right mess in Mikes car and we had two tents wrecked because they just rubbed against other things moving around in the car.

The exception here is the compressor you should have for inflating your tyres, your spade, tow rope, jate rings and matts, you will need these a lot in the desert.  Get them somewhere easy to hand.

So ties stuff down and keep things you need to keep you going to hand.

The need for beer

This is a debatable thing, we would normally not have taken beer but wine, however when its over 40c in the day you may need a cool drink and there is nothing better than a cold beer.  We can't thanks the guys enough for them having cool beer on hot days, it is just nice to pull over and have a cold beer.  Other than that I can see no need for a fridge in the car.

Water is really important Ken was not drinking enough and this caught up on him a bit, so water is more important than beer, I know this is hard to understand but its true.  You can drink water warm as well, unlike beer.

You should be gulping 2-5 litres of water a day depending on where you are and how many time you will be digging out the car in the sand.

Driving tips

 I can summarise the driving tips we used here quite easily;

1. Sand, put your foot down and keep going, as soon as you slow down you will get stuck
2. Dunes, as above but take your foot off just before the top son you don't get air
3. Rocks go slowly and if its really difficult get someone to spot you, a portable CB is good here
4. Corrugated roads, you need to pickup speed till the bumps go away, but remember your effectively bouncing on the top f the road so you will have very little grip or steering and can spin easily
5. Moroccan towns, go very slowly and be careful

You just need to be sensible, ensure you deflate and inflate your tyres where needed and be sensible.  You will soon get used to driving on sand or you will get stuck, the corrugated stuff is the more difficult skill to get perfect so your not losing your teeth.

Breaking down

We made a rule for us before we drove anywhere difficult which was if someone broke down one of the others would tow them to a garage after we got them to a road.  We did this once leaving the other three to go ahead and meet up.  We took this approach because we knew we would be going places where it was likely we would not see anyone else.  The reality is we would not have been alone for long if we broke down and stayed where we were.  Morocco has a lot of people out looking for you to give you help.

Also if you need to repair your car and get parts you can for Landies, I'm not sure the P38 or my EDC Disco 1 would have got parts easily but the Defenders were ok.  But it will cost you a lot of money, they know you are broken down with no parts so haggling is not going to work well.

Take as many sensible spares as you can, but I can't see anyone taking whole spare transmission systems.

Morocco 4x4 overland tour, day 13 and 14 - the way home

Missing Marrakesh in Morocco

Out Morocco overland tour was coming to and end, so after leaving Ouirgane we decided the best thing to do was to miss Marrakesh on the West side and head back to Kenitra for our last night in Morocco before going up the coast road to the ferry port to Spain.

So we left quite early and continued towards Marrakesh and then headed west towards Amizmiz, onto the A7 north to Casablanca and then onto Kenitra.

I will find some photo's of the journey from somewhere, we must have them, but this was not a really good part of the tour.  We did however miss the traffic in Marrakesh which on a good day can be described as mayhem, but we hit the rush hour at Casablanca.

Oddly because James 90 really could not go over 50mph we did the whole trip at about 45mph and we got 34mpg out of the Discovery.  This was however beaten by the P38 and the 200tdi 110, both of whom got another 3-4mpg.  James did not do as well.

The highlight of this leg of the trip was watching the guys eating in the motorway cafe.

Anyway, we got to Kenitra and stayed in the Cork Forrest again.  Now they will not admit it, but Sid and Adam used their home made awning for the 1st time all trip, so we spent some time posing in different positions so the wives could believe they used it several times.

Again, Mike got some beer out and we settled down to a hot meal and out last night in Morocco.

We started off the next day quite early and because we were all going our different ways after we got to the ferry port we all set off at our own speeds.

On route Mike had a blow out on the motorway, I'm not talking about the normal eating which was done in the morning, but a proper one.  So Mike and Jerry had to stop and replace a tyre.  James did not stop at all because he was going flat out at 50.  The rest of us filled up with diesel.  Adam and James filled all their jerry cans for the way home as well.

Oddly we all ended up on the same ferry and got to Spain mid afternoon.

So our time in Morocco was over, we now just had the 1,300 mile to get back home and two days to do it in.

That's it folks, I'm not going to boar you with the trip through Spain and France, that was the easy bit of the whole Tour.  Needless to say we stayed in two great cheap hotels on the way back and perhaps had to much to drink on the way back.

On the whole I would recommend any Landy owner to go to Morocco, its a 4x4 off road paradise and has lots to offer everyone.

Lastly despite what people say, outside of the major cities the people are on the whole really nice, although they can be a little annoying.

Morocco 4x4 overland tour, day 12 Tafraoute to just south or Marakesh via the Tizi-n-Test pass

A long day driving.....

OK so after the previous days excellent driving we knew today would be a long day of travelling on normal single lane roads all the way towards Marrakesh.

I believe we went from Tafraoute to Ait-Baha, then upto just south of Agadir and then we cut across on the N10 to the Tizi-n-Test pass.

I would love to say this was a fantastic day driving, but apart from the 1st part to Ait-Baha where we were travelling on really pretty mountain roads until we got to the past later that evening it was pretty dull.  However we do get some picture of the more interesting 1st part of the trip which was on a single track road being made into a double track road.

On the way to Ait-Baha

Rachel can be half a cow some times

Dropping into the valley towards Ait-Baha

We stopped for lunch in Biougra which again was so cheap and good it was silly, I think £7 for two of us with drinks and 3 courses.

Anyway, onward after tiffin to the Tizi-N-Test pass, I will however admit at this point I was looking for somewhere to sleep already, I was a little tired so we stopped to look at a couple of places, none of which were suitable so we kept on going.

Help I'm scared of hights

Whilst the road to the Tizi-n-Test pass was boring as hell after Ait-Baha that cannot be said of the road itself, it pretty much come up from a couple of hundred feet above sea level to I think something lie 7,500 feed with loads of single tracks.  Very steep falls, when required.  Also road works?

Road works on the Tizi-n-Test pass

Traffic jam, grr

Look camper vans going down the other way, who needs a landy

Wiggly road

More wiggly road

I need a diet!!!

Yes again the Moroccan people are improving the road network and I'm sure in 2 years this pass will have lost all its charm.  If you can use the word "charm" when your shitting yourself because you don't like heights.  Anyway, up and over we went, fantastic views again, we even saw another P38, then we found a village of reasonable size to get somewhere to sleep for the night.  

We ended up in a place called "chez momo II Ouirgane" click on the link if you can handle the music.  I think it worked out about £40 per night B&B each which was well worth it after the previous nights coldness.  Even Ken got a room which was a 1st for the tour.

The pool

The bar and dining area

Where we arrived late for brekfast

A little route planning before we set off

This was a fantastic place to stay the food was fantastic, the rooms really nice and they even had wine and beer Yay!  Bathrooms was great etc etc.

This was a good place to stay before we continued north toward home.  We may come back here in 2016 and find the gorge we missed two nights before and do the pass the other way, but only time will tell.

We arranged at the evening meal to set off at 8am the next day after breakfast.  To our amazement and the guys annoyance Rachel and I went into a deep coma until we were woken up by Mike banging on the door.  I have never seen a woman get ready so quick in the morning so we did get on way a little late at 8:30.  I guess if we just said we were going at 9am it would have been better for everyone else, but we probably would have overslept anyway.


The next day was to end with our last night in Morocco for a while....

Morocco 4x4 overland tour, geep and fantastic views

Heading towards home

All good trips have to come to and end and and ours was not different, after 9 days on our Morocco tour we had to start heading towards home.  We did some planning and decided to take it easy for a couple of days and take a route north and miss Marakesh on the left (if your looking at a map up the right way).

This was odd though, I could not help but think we had not done all we wanted to do and we did rush some things, so even though we had a tough couple of days some of us were already talking about coming back by now.  Ken was already booked on another trip later in the year, Mike was gagging to come back as soon as possible.

Personally, I already had a couple of trips planned for 2014 and 15 so it was always going to be 2016 for me, this sounds like a long time away, but it will come around fast.  Anyway, enough of the waffle, lets get on with the tour.

So, by now we had done some sand, more sand, corrugated roads, sand, sand, rocky stuff, corrugated roads, some sand then some road works, and tarmac.....  What we had missed was rocks.

Rocks, Mountains and Geep

So after we had breakfast and packed up, recovered our heads from the beer and grabbed a coffee we set off from Foum-Zguid to head towards Tata.  The roads on the whole were paved and we saw some fantastic scenery, the 1st thing we stopped for a photo shoot was the mountains we could see in the distance from the day before and then shortly followed by an excellent dry river bed which looked pretty much like a dry Grand Canyon, but smaller.

Mountain range on the N12 from Foum Zguidd to Tata

Larry on tarmac again

The dry river bed was just as we headed out of Tissinit, you can miss it, its on the right after the town.  I swear everyone though I was going to drive into the bed and get stuck again, but we parked to have a look around.

Dry river near Tissint

All parked up for a group photo

Sid even managed to have a walk about

Larry and the P38, the odd couple on a trip full with Defenders

Either there people are really small or the river bed is big.

We realised at this time that we really did not have many photo's of us on our Landies so we also decided to do some posing on the vehicles.

Rachel on James 90, obviously Larry did not want her on his bonnet.

Jerry and Mike, probably wondering where we were heading next.

Garside Snr, and the 90 again.

We got to Tata ok and James and his dad went to find a cash point to replenish funds after the earlier 90 repair.  Sid and I took different trips to a local butchers to get some meat as we decided we would have a BBQ that evening.  I used my beast French to order 2KG of ground beef.  Sid however, went and pointed at some carcasses hanging down from the wall.  He bought the smaller one.

We still till this day cannot be 100% sure what Sid bought in Tata, we know it was not cat because it was to big.  It could have been Dog that could have made us rough.  So we decided it was either Goat or Sheep.  So it was then called Geep, which seemed like a fair compromise.

After we got the meat in Tata and some fuel we headed off towards Tafraoute via Tisgui-Ldaou-Ballou cutting across country up into the mountains via Bou-Zarif and the Tasserirt gorge , we though we would probably get to where we needed to be by 6pm after a fantastic days sight seeing.

Wrong.

We got lost a bit as soon as we tried to find the mining track because the locals had moved the entrance to the track to Bou-Zarif again.  Or we were just no good at working the route out.  I think it was the former here due to the hastily made up signs.

The scenery was amazing as soon as we hit the mountains it was fantastic.

Fantastic

We spent hours travelling around so lovely mountain trails and then onto some more difficult terrain, we got lost about 3 times but we all absolutely loved the driving, some of which was quite technical.  To me this was by far the best driving experience I've had, it was also for once not too hot.

Mining track

Ken in tow

Onto a plateau

Err we got lost, we should have gone my way :-)

I have no doubt that the river beds we were crossing would be full of water during early spring, we spent a lot of the time at +4,000 feet and we could from time to time see snow on some of the higher peaks dotted about so it probably would not be agreat idea to come up here from November to Early March, April was ok though.

I can't really say how good this was, we had trails, crossing, more trails, the odd little village emerging from nowhere, with the kids chasing us down for sweets.  Us going around in circles and at some points squares (you know your lost when you can do a square) It went on and on and on, lovely.
 

Dry river bed crossing from inside Larry

As if from nowhere we ended up at the bottom of a valley and then crossed to the other side and up a windy mountain road, we believe there was a gold mine in the valley hence the tarmac road.  So we headed over the pass to our original destination, not.

It always amazes me what a Land Rover can do, well a proper old one like ours, although there was some tough stuff about we all went over and through it really easily and the only thing which tool a bashing was my tow hook again.

Another windy road going up looking down on the valley we crossed into.

We pulled over for some more pictures.

Shame some ugly sod got into this one though.

Nice

Anyway, up over and down the other side, the up another, down, up, down, up down, getting it yet.  Guess what we got lost again.  Anyway, to cut a long story short, we got very lost ish, the kind of lost where we kept going through villages and it was on roads by now, so it was nice lost.  We were also getting higher up and it started to rain.

Well, time to find somewhere to stay we all agreed on the CB's, except Mike who was still having issues with his.  So taking point as usual I kept looking for somewhere suitable to camp for the night.  The problem with being in the mountains though is finding somewhere flat for 5 Land Rovers and 5 tents to stay.

Just as the sun was setting I spotted an outcrop with no goats on it, across a dry river (I know it was raining).  We all crossed the 1/2 mile or so from the road, across the river bed and then hid behind some palm trees and bushes for the evening and setup the wild camp for the night.

This was now a military operation and we were all setup with the shelters our and the BBQ on within 10-15 minutes for a night of good cooking Burgers and Geep.

Geep is an interesting meet, if you BBQ it and chew it for hours its actually really nice.  I think however your probably better off cooking it for hours in a source and then eating it quickly when tender.  We now believed it was Goat. But to us, we had invented the Geep smaller than a Jabberwocky and can be used for shoe leather if needed.

Oh and a massive thanks to Mike, Jerry and Ken who donated some of the 100's bottles of beer to the BBQ and some Wine.  We talked and ate well into the night before going to sleep.  It was however bloody cold.

The next morning we worked out we were no further than 1 mile from 3 roads, so we broke up camp and moved on before we were spotted by the local childern and they chased us for sweets.

Packing up the mountain campsite

Ken did it in 30 seconds

Out oasis in the mountains

Mike and Jerry praying before we set off

Oh did I say Jerry had runny poo that morning, I don't think Geep suited him at all.  And, Sid was very cold after giving away his onsie.

So in the Landies, go 1/2 mile to the road, turn left and exactly 2 miles later we were in the destination we had been heading for all the last day.  This is typical of doing this kind of tour.  Sometimes you just don't get there.

Bloody typical.