(Another) barge with a mission - Rover P6 3500 V8
Discussion
mig25_foxbat2003 said:
Please tell me that is collapsible!! Having spent some time in a roof tent in Oz, I'd heartily recommend them - more comfortable than my bed at home, and you can fold a mattress up in them!
Yeah, don't worry, it collapses away! 
It's considerably less plush than an average roof tent though, as it basically consists of a period late '70s ridge tent perched on a fold out plywood platform - no built in mattresses here! Here's what it looks like once the tent is removed:
And here it is once the fold-out panels are put away, ready for a day on the road...
I agree that a rooftent is perhaps the ultimate luxury when overlanding. For my last Africa trip - the African Porsche Expedition - I built a similar setup to the Rover's platform on the roof of my old Porsche, more because I thought it would look incredibly cool than for any practical justification. However after 3 months on the road we were completely won over to the concept, as it meant that wherever you were, be it a stony desert, seedy border crossing or sodden rain-forest, you were guaranteed a good night's sleep (except during electrical storms, that is!
) . I generally don't need much persuasions to share photos from that trip, so here's the inspiration for the Rover's roof tent in glorious technicolour:
fivetenben said:
Yeah, don't worry, it collapses away!
It's considerably less plush than an average roof tent though, as it basically consists of a period late '70s ridge tent perched on a fold out plywood platform - no built in mattresses here! Here's what it looks like once the tent is removed:
And here it is once the fold-out panels are put away, ready for a day on the road...
I agree that a rooftent is perhaps the ultimate luxury when overlanding. For my last Africa trip - the African Porsche Expedition - I built a similar setup to the Rover's platform on the roof of my old Porsche, more because I thought it would look incredibly cool than for any practical justification. However after 3 months on the road we were completely won over to the concept, as it meant that wherever you were, be it a stony desert, seedy border crossing or sodden rain-forest, you were guaranteed a good night's sleep (except during electrical storms, that is!) . I generally don't need much persuasions to share photos from that trip, so here's the inspiration for the Rover's roof tent in glorious technicolour:
Whoa! The Porsche looks so awesome in that pic!It's considerably less plush than an average roof tent though, as it basically consists of a period late '70s ridge tent perched on a fold out plywood platform - no built in mattresses here! Here's what it looks like once the tent is removed:
And here it is once the fold-out panels are put away, ready for a day on the road...
I agree that a rooftent is perhaps the ultimate luxury when overlanding. For my last Africa trip - the African Porsche Expedition - I built a similar setup to the Rover's platform on the roof of my old Porsche, more because I thought it would look incredibly cool than for any practical justification. However after 3 months on the road we were completely won over to the concept, as it meant that wherever you were, be it a stony desert, seedy border crossing or sodden rain-forest, you were guaranteed a good night's sleep (except during electrical storms, that is!
) . I generally don't need much persuasions to share photos from that trip, so here's the inspiration for the Rover's roof tent in glorious technicolour:A quick update on the old Rover, and its trip to Morocco:
Firstly, the ferry is booked, for Sunday 10th June, from Plymouth to Santender - 12 days to go!
There's not been a huge amount of progress over the past week, as the glorious weather has made poking around under the Rover fairly low on the list of appealing ways to spend the days - instead I've been poking around in the foot-well of the rover's V8 stable-mate, a TVR Chimaera, changing its brake master cylinder so I could take it up to sunny Wales last weekend (more about that here )
We have however, completed a few jobs on the Rover:
The rooftent platform has been painted a fetching shade of brown, and is now ready to be permanently fitted to the car.
A thorough poke around the car's underside revealed a bit of rust in one of the sills, so we've cut it out and replaced it with shiny new metal, meaning we can now actually jack the car up.
We've also taken the first silencer out of the exhaust system, replacing it with a straight-through pipe which releases the V8's burble rather satisfyingly. Not exactly a critical job, but if you're going to hose money into a V8 for a few weeks, you may as well get your aural moneys-worth!
Here's the modified exhaust and the waxoiled sill repair:
And here's how you listen to your Ipod on an 8 track:
Simply convert from '70s to '80s with an 8-track to cassette adapter, then from '80s to '00s with a cassette to MP3 adapter - amazingly, it works! I do feel it would be more complete if we'd managed to go via CD too however...
Right, after a week of very little progress, I feel we'd better get a move on with the more important jobs over the next week or so!
Firstly, the ferry is booked, for Sunday 10th June, from Plymouth to Santender - 12 days to go!
There's not been a huge amount of progress over the past week, as the glorious weather has made poking around under the Rover fairly low on the list of appealing ways to spend the days - instead I've been poking around in the foot-well of the rover's V8 stable-mate, a TVR Chimaera, changing its brake master cylinder so I could take it up to sunny Wales last weekend (more about that here )
We have however, completed a few jobs on the Rover:
The rooftent platform has been painted a fetching shade of brown, and is now ready to be permanently fitted to the car.
A thorough poke around the car's underside revealed a bit of rust in one of the sills, so we've cut it out and replaced it with shiny new metal, meaning we can now actually jack the car up.
We've also taken the first silencer out of the exhaust system, replacing it with a straight-through pipe which releases the V8's burble rather satisfyingly. Not exactly a critical job, but if you're going to hose money into a V8 for a few weeks, you may as well get your aural moneys-worth!
Here's the modified exhaust and the waxoiled sill repair:
And here's how you listen to your Ipod on an 8 track:
Simply convert from '70s to '80s with an 8-track to cassette adapter, then from '80s to '00s with a cassette to MP3 adapter - amazingly, it works! I do feel it would be more complete if we'd managed to go via CD too however...
Right, after a week of very little progress, I feel we'd better get a move on with the more important jobs over the next week or so!
2 questions:
1. You said 4 people... but only a 2-man tent?
2. Where does the tent and framework go when collapsed vs your other luggage?
ETA: I love your adventures. I have been working on an overland adventure. I'm still in the planning stage though.
1. You said 4 people... but only a 2-man tent?
2. Where does the tent and framework go when collapsed vs your other luggage?
ETA: I love your adventures. I have been working on an overland adventure. I'm still in the planning stage though.
Edited by Watchman on Tuesday 29th May 19:20
Watchman said:
2 questions:
1. You said 4 people... but only a 2-man tent?
2. Where does the tent and framework go when collapsed vs your other luggage?
Hi there1. You said 4 people... but only a 2-man tent?
2. Where does the tent and framework go when collapsed vs your other luggage?
All the framework for the roof tent platform stows within the platform itself, while the extra panels which widen the platform to take the full footprint of the tent sit on top of it; so basically the platform is completely self-contained. The tent then goes in the boot - it's quite small by tent standards so will just get merged in with the other luggage.
As for the fact there's 4 of us and a 2-man tent - well spotted!
Unfortunately there was no easy way of accommodating all 4 people on the car, so half the expedition will be camping on the ground in the traditional manner.We've completed a few other odd jobs on the car over the past few days:
The carbs are now balanced, cleaned out, and not running quite so rich - meaning the engine no longer stalls occasionally at low speeds.
The radiator had a hairline crack just below the filler which was leaking slightly - now sealed with steal epoxy, and thoroughly flushed out.
We've checked the ride height against the workshop manual, and it seems the car isn't sagging any more than it should, so I guess the excessive body roll is due to nackered dampers and slightly low tyre pressures. With this in mind, and to keep costs down, we've decided to risk it and not replace the rear springs.
And finally, the front wing now has a rather large pistonheads smiley.
So that's the current state of play, 9 days before we leave for Africa. And after flicking through the photos of someone exploring Western Sahara in a Landie here, I have to say I'm rather looking forward to it - provided the old Rover doesn't decide to interfere with our plans...
Practical Classics had a feature on one of these in their "Staff car sagas" column back in the June 2009 issue.
The objective then was "Gloucestershire to Iran or bust" - I don't know if they ever made it though.
I initially thought this was that very car, until I dug out the magazine and checked the article.
Their's is a slightly darker brown though and is a 2200TC.
The objective then was "Gloucestershire to Iran or bust" - I don't know if they ever made it though.
I initially thought this was that very car, until I dug out the magazine and checked the article.
Their's is a slightly darker brown though and is a 2200TC.
TonyRPH said:
Practical Classics had a feature on one of these in their "Staff car sagas" column back in the June 2009 issue.
The objective then was "Gloucestershire to Iran or bust" - I don't know if they ever made it though.
I initially thought this was that very car, until I dug out the magazine and checked the article.
Their's is a slightly darker brown though and is a 2200TC.
I've got a copy of that magazine; in fact when I placed my speculative Ebay bid on the car, thinking back to the article - and the fact that the Rover P6 looked so cool as a quirky overland vehicle - definitely swayed me a bit.The objective then was "Gloucestershire to Iran or bust" - I don't know if they ever made it though.
I initially thought this was that very car, until I dug out the magazine and checked the article.
Their's is a slightly darker brown though and is a 2200TC.
They did make it in the end - 10,000 miles to Iran and back, with quite a few overheating issues and suchlike. A good effort for sure.
We're only planning on covering 3-4,000 miles this trip, so it'll be quite a short undertaking in comparison. There are some big plans involving the Rover afoot for next year however, in the shape of the follow-up to the African Porsche Expedition: 'V8Nam', England to Vietnam, with a V8. Some friends are already planning to buy it off me if it survives the Morocco trip to use for said adventure, so it's got quite an interesting 12 months or so coming up...
Thanks folks!
For those that are interested, we're underway. The Rover boarded the ferry in Plymouth at 1545 hrs on Sunday, and is now 470 miles down the road in the automotively-named town of Evora, partway down Portugal. The car is purring away well, and is showing itself to be a comfortable and pleasant - if not fast and economical - way to cover the miles. We've got another three hundred miles to cover in Europe before we board the ferry to Morocco tomorrow afternoon, and the adventure begins in earnest. I'm keeping a blog of the journey here, and so far, we've learned the following:
1) If you've got to drive across Spain the following day, staying up into the early hours drinking whiskey with a group of hairy Harley Davidson Club members as you float across the Bay of Biscay probably isn't the best plan.
2) The Jaguar F-Type: Looks great. There were two disguised cars on the ferry, which we saw again on the road in Spain, and they looked stunning; beautifully proportioned and with a nice balance between power and litheness.
3) Brown cars with vinyl roofs are now rather rare in Spain, and attract some attention.
4) Steel epoxy really is a fast and easy way to seal a cracked radiator.
Right, that's it for now, hopefully the coming weekend will see us crossing the High Atlas into the Sahara, and seeing how the Rover really copes with a challenge. I'll leave things with a photo of the Rover meeting some of its successors in Salamanca yesterday:
For those that are interested, we're underway. The Rover boarded the ferry in Plymouth at 1545 hrs on Sunday, and is now 470 miles down the road in the automotively-named town of Evora, partway down Portugal. The car is purring away well, and is showing itself to be a comfortable and pleasant - if not fast and economical - way to cover the miles. We've got another three hundred miles to cover in Europe before we board the ferry to Morocco tomorrow afternoon, and the adventure begins in earnest. I'm keeping a blog of the journey here, and so far, we've learned the following:
1) If you've got to drive across Spain the following day, staying up into the early hours drinking whiskey with a group of hairy Harley Davidson Club members as you float across the Bay of Biscay probably isn't the best plan.
2) The Jaguar F-Type: Looks great. There were two disguised cars on the ferry, which we saw again on the road in Spain, and they looked stunning; beautifully proportioned and with a nice balance between power and litheness.
3) Brown cars with vinyl roofs are now rather rare in Spain, and attract some attention.
4) Steel epoxy really is a fast and easy way to seal a cracked radiator.
Right, that's it for now, hopefully the coming weekend will see us crossing the High Atlas into the Sahara, and seeing how the Rover really copes with a challenge. I'll leave things with a photo of the Rover meeting some of its successors in Salamanca yesterday:
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