Changes to Red, our Land Rover, since our previous adventure

With less than a week till the launch of the Moroccan Rally 2012, we thought we'd post up some information on some changes to Red, our Land Rover, since the previous rally in 2010.

A luxury item upgrade was added, cup holders.



We also added some light guards.



Then we had a slight issue with the gearbox...namely a hole in the gearbox!



So the gearbox housing was damaged and needed replacement. We got hold of a second hand box - which we were told only had a small problem with one of the gears - but our gear was fine so we made a good box out of the two.


Left: Moss from the Desert Bunnies, Right: Alex



We put the gearbox back together and thought that would be the end of it. We were very wrong - it would randomly jump out of gear, which we could not put up with on a rally. What occurs next can only be described as a gearbox fitting marathon - we had the gearbox in and out the car several times and replaced various bits that looked faulty. Eventually we got there - by basically replacing virtually every single component for a new one. Needless to say, the gearbox on Red now seems perfect.

Some of the brake components were already worn out, so we decided this time we would go for genuine Land Rover parts. All of the shock absorbers were very worn from the previous trip so we treated Red to some heavy duty shock absorbers - hopefully these ones will last. Or perhaps we should stop "driving as fast as the old thing will go, all of the time". But then again, probably not!