March is a grim month for PHs in Zambia. All have just about spent their previous seasons earnings, school fees are coming up and to cap it all this is car fixing month, which is closely followed by camp fixing month prior to the start of the season. Basically costly and unpaid work. The safari hunting season is just around the corner. That rat that ate its way into the air intake system of my POS Land Rover is now costing me thousands of dollars.

Vehicles are the bane of of a PH’s life and yet their life line. The most expense bit of kit he can own and his income depends on it. Hunting the third world can be problematic and there is very little backup here and no dealership around the next corner. Vehicles have to be in good working order, not pretty but reliable. All PH’s that I know of are master mechanics and can strip down and rebuild engines, gearboxes, differentials and winches before breakfast. I like this stuff but my failing is electrics and by the end of the season every possible wire is directly connected to the positive battery terminal in a big birds nest, but I do know that I can charge my battery from a solar panel if need be and that I can wire direct the fuel cutout switch on a injector pump or heater plugs. I have in the past direct fed diesel from a jerry can held above my head, bound springs with wet back skins, welded shit that you are not supposed to touch with your bare fingers. I have seen a PH strip an engine after dinner and not sleep that night but cleaned up good and rearing to go that morning on one less piston. Another I saw hand carve a complicated bush from a piece of hardwood. My most inventive was a broken rear fixed axle shaft and I made a wooden ski between axle and the dirt. I thought I could slalom back to camp in 4 wheel drive. Cars are critical to your survival in remote areas. Communications it is fairly worthless if help is a day or more away and you have a Sable rotting in the back of your car and what happens if the help does not make it? Ever notice how a PH sweats when some thing starts rattling under the hood of his truck? Like I say the car it is his an integral part of his chosen life and much more so than the gun.

End of season two years ago my POS Land rover gave up after a piston collapsed. Having towed the damn thing back to Lusaka I abandoned it in the back of my garden and subsequently converted it to a free range snake hatchery.



My Cruiser on the other hand was perfect and probably could do with a good polish.

If a PH can afford it he has a back up car. If not and he has a problem in the bush then he has to hire one from the outfitter which is expensive. Maybe the outfitter has to bring a car in on request and the cost doubles and you can right off any profit from that safari. I remember some years back I was hunting in Lower Zam and a piece of my newly fitted clutch plate collapsed and a spring lodged itself between it and the pressure plate, the best I could do was to start and drive it in second gear. Simply turning the car off when I wanted to stop. We were onto Lion and my client was not prepared to write off fifty grand because of a cheap pirate part and a lame car.

If you are considering buying a Land rover this post could save you tens of thousands of dollars and most of the skin off the back of your knuckles not to mention possible divorce and years of future ridicule.

POS (Piece Of Shit) Landy had now become a permanent landscape feature. I even had a couple of chaps come to dig around it for spare parts. One was nearly bitten by one of my breeding cobras and the other offered me less than the plants he damaged, and he had the audacity to bugger off with my ten dollar shovel.

My plan was to sell the double and maybe the Charles Osbourne which a mate of mine had always fancied. My town car could go and I would ask Julie my wife for a small advance. I will replace all (except the wife) with a brand spanking new out the box Cruiser.

SIXTY THOUSAND FLIPPING US DOLLARS (US$56,000 to be exact, without winch or AC) I was quoted by Toyota Zambia. The bloody thing only has two doors? Sod that and just out of curiosity I then nipped into the Land rover shop and was quoted an astonishing $50,000 plus and the halfwit sales person informed me that a Land rover does not need a winch. Laugh I nearly pissed myself. Instead bought a ten dollar spade and told my gardener to dig up POS. Crap, I had already sold the double which I very much liked. Important at my age as I can no longer run as fast as I used to. Managed to keep the Osbourne so things were not all bad.

A knackered piston is fairly cheap to replace but I remember the engine had over heated and new cylinder heads cost nearly as much as wedding vows. However my luck was turning and removed the head all looked fine. Had it pressure tested and it passed. I noted the head gasket was also in good shape which is another healthy indicator. I had forgotten the other reasons as to why I had abandoned it apart from bending it across a stump which ripped the passenger door and a good portion of side body off which I cut out (see picture) and converted to a step. There was also a stripped shaft which had been welded to the drive member and I seem to remember some heavy knocking noise inside the transfer case which turned out only to be a chipped gear. So far so good. Most of the body is thankfully aluminum but some rust had eaten into the chassis and the drive train. Every nut and bolt had been busy mating with themselves in my absence. The tailgate had been converted to a cooking pot. The gardener had sold off what he could hack off with a pair of shears. In all tt just needed some light unbending and a lick of paint. The engine overhaul cost me plenty and still runs a bit rough and probably just needs to be run in. I dunno as I am not a real mechanic really. Another few grand later it is sort of finished. There is a big pile of stuff that I cut or ripped out that I considered superfluous. Roof, doors, glass, AC, heater system, kilometers of electrical wire, trimmings, switches & solenoids, wipers, horn etc etc





The indicator lights I some how wired to the headlights which is quite funky, especially in low light. The original paintwork was white but now it is black as for some reason black paint is much cheaper here? Try explaining the theory of primary colors to a paint shop assistant? Yellow paint is cheaper than black?



Whatever I say negative about the Land rover (and I really do hate the bloody things) there are few vehicles that can eat mud and water like they do. Disc brakes all around and coil suspension make for a good ride. It is turbo charged and the 4 cylinder 3 liter engine is very quick off the mark. Or rather it was before I got my hands on it.

I was short on time as I got myself an AR group coming in beginning of May and I had to have a second car, and a trailer to get everything and everybody in and out the Flats. So bought myself a tired looking trailer off a farmer and am presently busy sorting that out. My luck was indeed changing and it turned out to be British military. A preseason bargain and probably worth more than the POS Landy itself.



Considering that it had also be buried it was in bloody good shape and just needed a light sanding. I also painted that black and just putting in a galvenized steel bed as seen in the picture.

Sometime ago I had stripped my no name winch, to clean it, and carefully put every labelled component in a box within a box, sort of double wrapped. First lesson for budding mechanics is to remember how stuff was removed and then put it back in the same order. Second lesson do not fix what is not broken. The drive coupling, a complicated brassy looking thing, magically disappeared from the box within the box and much to the annoyance of my wife, and gardener I had the house and yard turned upside down. Eventually after visiting every 4x4 retailer in Zambia I took the winch to an engineer to see if he could make a plan. He however informed me that the world had yet to invent a hexagonal drill bit and besides the part I needed was probably cast. Pretending to know exactly what he was talking bout I nodded in agreement and left. Can you believe this? The very first South African winch chap I spoke to asked me if it was cast? and did it have a hexagonal insert? which I replied very affirmatively. It was in the post that afternoon. Good country that.

The next bargain to come out of South Africa was a chap called Andrew McLaren a familiar and popular AR member. Cannot afford the hunt but he could he come along and help out with the chores and trophy field prep? I had a cunning plan and my first question was could he drive? Did not mention POS Land rover yet or the very annoying heavy thing that that would be dragging behind him. After he had confirmed his flights (note) I asked him if he would go in advance to set up a basic camp before I came in with the others? Things were looking up all of a sudden and I did not have to nurse POS into the Flats by myself. He is a hunter and hunters do not ask silly questions like where are they going or how do they get there? Nor did he question me when I told him the only thing he had to worry about was the Tonga, the pirates of the Flats. I will pack him off with a bunch of spares and an overhaul manual and he will be fine.

Blue? I was positively pink.

It gets better. 505 Gibbs is also coming in early to help me out and what with Andrew now in Tonga land it looks like Brad and I can now attend a couple of important beer tasting functions.

And if he has got a minute he can help me polish the cruiser.

Great write up. I know your pain with British Clutch plates. Ahhh Landrover's and British Military Bedford Trucks..

Sounds like the making of a fun Safari.

I have the blues too.
I wont be setting foot in africa for 16 months, seems like a lifetime right now.

People complain about Land Rovers but the truth of 'em is that..........

IT'S NEVER OVER IN A ROVER!

Sure they go wrong a lot but they can always be fixed and I'm still convinced they're a much better ride than anything else OFF the road!

quote:

Ever notice how a PH sweats when some thing starts rattling under the hood of his truck?

You alucky not to have Walter as a client.

He got one of those gizmos that one puts inside the exhost pipe, and makes a funny noice.

He modified it somehow, waited until we stopped midmorning to look at some tracks. Then he slipped it into the exhost pipe.

Roy started started the engine, then:

"What the hell is that noise?"
"What noise?"
"I think the gasket is gone!"

Now Walter joins in.

"TYPICAL! Now we are hunting, and the bloody car breaks down!"

"Walter, shut up. This is not funny"
"No it is not funny. Tell that to your friend who does not fix his car properly"

While this is going on, Roy had stopped the car, opened the bonnet, and was listening to the engine.

Some unhelpful character mentioned that the noise seems to be coming from the rear of the car, not the front!

Suddenly Walter was at the receiving end of a barrage of swearing from Roy, with a promise to do him some nasty body harm.

We had a fridge in the back of the truck. And Roy wired a 15 amp socket from the battery, into which the fridge is plugged when the truck is on the move.

He had given strict instructions that the plug must be taken off as soon as we stopped.

We went following elephants, and Walter stayed in the truck.

A few hours later, we walked back to the truck empty handed. Roy stopped about a 100 yards to have a leak.

I got to the truck, opened teh bonnet, and removed the battery cable, and plugged in the fridge.

We had our drinks, and were reay to hit the road again.

Roy attempted to start the truck.

Nothing hapened.

"&*^%$#@! Someone must have left the fridge plugged in!"

Getting out of the truck, Roy went to have a look at the fridge, which was of cours plugged in.

"Why doesn't anyone EVER listen to what I say? How the hell are we going to get home now"

After a few minutes of heated arguments, we told him what had happened.

Roy comes to pick us up from the airport when we arrive with a big smile on his face.

He seems to have an even bigger smile on while he is driving us back to the airport after our hunt.

I wonder why?

Damn that was funny... sounds like Andrew and .505 don't know what they are getting into. However, I always find it amusing that PH's literally hate their Landys, but when I ask why they keep them around the answer seems to be they are lighter than the cruiser and will go anywhere! They just run like shit and need to be coddled....

When I hunted the Luangwa the rover was used to hunt hippo because we could run out in the river sand and not sink as deep as the heavy cruiser. So I guess they earn their keep in the swamps where lechwe are found? Sort of?

quote:

The next bargain to come out of South Africa was a chap called Andrew McLaren a familiar and popular AR member. Cannot afford the hunt but he could he come along and help out with the chores and trophy field prep? I had a cunning plan and my first question was could he drive? Did not mention POS Land rover yet or the very annoying heavy thing that that would be dragging behind him. After he had confirmed his flights (note) I asked him if he would go in advance to set up a basic camp before I came in with the others? Things were looking up all of a sudden and I did not have to nurse POS into the Flats by myself. He is a hunter and hunters do not ask silly questions like where are they going or how do they get there? Nor did he question me when I told him the only thing he had to worry about was the Tonga, the pirates of the Flats. I will pack him off with a bunch of spares and an overhaul manual and he will be fine.

One of the beauties of Humanity is how the appearance of another able body can turn a situation 180 degrees and invigorate the soul. Another beauty is the exclusive ability to look forward to a time with no expectation.

Fairgame & 505 gibbs - What are the exact dates for the Kafue Flats hunt in early May? Let me know asap, if you can.

yeep Landy's ride better if you don't mind having to work on them three times as much as Toyota's

If , in addition to that, you can shoe a horse without crippling either of you and learn to rope a cow,

then come on out west and be a cowboy



SSR

What the Hell? I thought you hunted the "cream of the hunting world"? It sounds to me like I need to off load my driving gloves, scarf and brair wood pipe. If I have to get out and push, well that will just be bollocks!!!

Jeff

quote:

Originally posted by Bwana Bunduki:
What the Hell? I thought you hunted the "cream of the hunting world"? It sounds to me like I need to off load my driving gloves, scarf and brair wood pipe. If I have to get out and push, well that will just be bollocks!!!

Jeff

You are on a classic safari mate and the Landy will be reserved for distribution of large mammal parts and the collection of fire wood.

I am surprised that March is the time of the starvation moon on both sides of the Equator, but for different reasons.

True Story;

It was July of either 2003 or 2004, I can't really place the year but I had chartered into Shoebill camp in the Bangweulu swamp (wetlands?) with Andrew. We were there for 9 days of swimming with Sitatunga and a Black Lechwe. At the time the guy who had Shoebill camp (a birders venue) was a guy named Ed Farmer. Ed had in the camp, a Rover Discovery double cab (without a cab) and a Datsun pickup truck also without a cab. If I remember properly the Datsun had a handmade wooden ladder lashed to the side with inner tube strips. Horrible place it was.

In any case the Rover developed a bad, either clutch slave cylinder or brake master cylinder I don't remember which one and the alternator went on the fritz.

At lunch Andrew disappeared deep under the hood of said Rover, only his bare feet sticking out with only an occasional profanity eruption. After a bit he came out with the bad cylinder. He then went to work with thread building up the seal of the bad unit. I sat and watched the process in utter awe and amazement. We here in the states are so spoiled as to just hop into our "other" car and go fetch spare parts.

In what seemed no time we had, once again an operable either clutch or master cylinder. Now his attention went to the alternator problem.

Cannibalism is alive and well in Zambia, Andrew next robbed the functioning unit from the Datsun and somehow got it into working order on the Rover.

Well done Andrew...........now all we had to worry about was how to make the endless crossings of the swamp in mokoro's with holes large enough to stick your feet through. I remember one in particular that Andrew has most likely long since forgotten, I went across first, it was no more than 35 yards across but by the time Patson poled the sieve, I mean boat to the other side the mokoro was nearly full.

Back across goes Patson, emptying the water with his bare feet whilst poling. In jumps Andrew and down goes mokoro.

Steve