Overland vehicle design / prep ethos

A terrible title - basically this is “how I learned to think about stuff” from the numerous wise folks I've had the good fortune to meet and tinker alongside, notably the justified ancients of HOFS, as well as 20+ years in the Shire Land Rover Club going on adventures on & off-road, watching what other people do and what works & what doesn't.

This is one for the rants section really - but we all fall into it.

Getting into 4×4 stuff much like any hobby you see tonnes of gear, loads of vehicle projects other people have done and it's very easy to end up thinking you need lots of gear, that everything has to be super-extreme heavy duty and whatnot.

This leads to “challenge” trucks that weigh more than a fully laden 110 and “overlanding” trucks that weigh more than the moon with gyro-stabilised espresso machines and granite worktops.

It also leads to very complicated (if very bling) solutions to problems - wheels being reinvented and all sorts of gadgets being added that are solutions looking for problems.

The main solution - the core of all this - is best summarised by Colin Chapman's famous quote: Simplify and add lightness.

This comes in many forms;

• Is this thing is really necessary?
  • Example: People will prepare their overlander like they're about to cross the Darien gap just to drive around on roads or tracks the local goat herders are driving in 30-year-old Toyota Corollas.
  • Another example is the huge prevalence of fashionable accessories - right now it seems you're not a true off-roader if you don't have Molle panels and MaxTrax-style traction boards bolted to the outside of your truck despite the fact they are rarely useful outside of sand or a few other very specific cases, in which case they are still not an optimal or multi-purpose solution to the problem (see below).
• Can the thing do more than 1 job? / Can this thing be replaced by something less specialised?
  • Example: I do not carry bottles of coolant, screen wash, drinking water, etc. I carry a single container of water that can do all 3 jobs adequately well. This either saves me 2/3 the space of gives me 3x more water than I could otherwise have carried… or somewhere in between.
  • The Hi-Lift jack is the classic example of this. It sucks and is very dangerous and a pain to use, but it covers about 5 different jobs and multiple problems in one package that is hard to beat for space/weight. It's also dirt simple and robust.
  • Steering bars instead of guards - loads of people fit steering guards to Defenders. I vastly prefer uprated steering bars instead. The guard can only deflect certain things and doesn't stop you from bending a steering arm due to a wheel hitting something - in short it doesn't make your steering any stronger, it just attempts to protect a weak part from damage. Uprated steering bars cost about the same and weigh about the same but make the whole system stronger, they're doing two jobs. I've seen more steering guards caught up on rocks or tree stumps than I've seen save a steering bar from damage.
• Can I make this simpler?
  • My favourite example of this was in the 1st racer Petal. We had a hydraulic pump that powered the winch, and it had a clutch to engage / disengage it. Some folks were espousing pneumatically-actuated mechanisms controlled by electronic solenoid valves linked to an on-board air system - Jez and Vince eyeballed the setup, drilled a 10mm hole in the bulkhead and ran a length of 8mm steel rod through. One end bolts to the clutch lever, the other end got a gearknob screwed on. Pull the knob to engage, push to disengage. One moving part.
• Can I make this cheaper?
  • Perhaps less critical but it makes a difference to a lot of us. Fitting expensive bling may look cool but a lot of the gear that's out there is functionally no better than the cheap equivalent costing 1/10th the price.
• Can I make this lighter?
  • You don't need to go to extremes with lightness when driving a 2-ton brick but the weight does add up, and Colin Chapman was right. So many people fit so much heavy gear on and inside their trucks and all of a sudden you've got a 90 that weighs the best part of 3 tonnes and has the power to weight ratio of a sloth with a hangover.