New Zealand Gold Prospecting & Metal Detecting Forums Archive

Now you have done it

My Landrover it must be remembered had a mind of its own

- It took the corner where the corner was not located and wrote off a car
- It got drunk and didnt give way at an intersection and wrote off a vanguard Ute
- It slid along the road and wrote off a Rover 2000 - I think this was due to mutual attraction but cant be positive - I am sure that the wet road didnt have anything to do with it.
- It reversed into a mineshaft and caved in the rear LH corner
- It reversed into another mine shaft and caved in the LH corner
- It went front first into a mine hole and caved in the front RH side
- It hit a bridge girder and knocked the front diff housing back one inch
- It tried to commit suicide and rolled over and lost its entire canopy
- It tried skiing and rolled over in the snow onto its side, slid down the road, slid up a bank,back onto its wheels - and kept on going as though nothing had happened
- Its back RH wheel came off on the main road and rolled past me complete with axle
- The spare tyre abandoned ship and bounced along chasing me
- The spare wheel decided that the above was an exhilarating experience and did it again
- The spare wheel took an intense dislike to some old folks roses, abandoned ship, bounced over the gutter, bounced over their fence, mowed the roses down and ended up in their spud patch
- The spare wheel decided to abandon ship again but I had tricked it by bolting it down to the bonnet where it should have been so it just ripped and bonnet and mudguard right off
- It drowned itself and hydrauliced the engine
- It drowned itself in the Arrow and had to be towed out and repaired
- It got stuck on the Lammerlaws right up to its sump in a swamp
- It got stuck again in another swamp in the lammerlaws
- It got stuck in a muddy paddock at Hindon
- It took off down a hill when the handbrake failed
- It took out the corner of my grandfathers shed
- It took out the farmers fence when its owner was doing silly tricks in the paddock
- It took out another farmers fence when its owner decided that the crew were to drunk to shoot rabbits so decided to do the driving and shooting and took the door off to do so - saw a hare, spun the steering wheel to face the hare, hit the brake but missed, hit the clutch to put it out of gear and missed both the clutch and the gear lever, fell out, pulled both triggers of the shotgun that discharged about two feet in front of him - the Landrover complete with crew took out both the gorse hedge and wire fence - the owner chased across the paddock with the crew blithely unaware of what was going on lying in the back singing - owner hopped in and drove out onto the road and headed away as fast as he could as the sheep headed out through the gap to freedom.
- hit a bump in a new farm track so fast that all of the crew in the cab hit the roof with such force as to dint the roof
- decided to drive along the verge of the road one night and went straight into a ditch.
- Dared my .303 rifle to go off one day in the middle...no I wont tell that one
- On another occasion a rifle plus window made bad friends
- Gear lever snapped clean off in my hand one day
- free wheeling hub fell off
- Boat came off the deck once when the wind got under it and sailed over the roof of the car behind me missing it but I am sure giving the occupants of the car a fright
- It got stuck in Waihao river
- It got stuck a second time in Waihao river
- It got stuck a third time in Waihao River
- It slid backwards down a ridge on the Hunters Hills - now that was a worrying one and I was about to abandon it but my cobber in a panic pulled the door handle clean off so the Captain had to remain at the helm - how we got back down the hill out of control I will never know
- The breaks failed on Bradshaws bridge at Waihao and it hit a farm ute head first - I was on the bridge first so not my fault

It also witnessed the wanton murder of a rabbit right outside the farmers door and when I went to pick the rabbit up it turned out to be the mans cat - I am sure that everyone would agree that rabbits and cats look suspiciously similar
The same night as the episode above - which incidently was also the same night it took off into the farmers paddock and let the sheep escape - I saw an opossum sitting behind another farmer front gate - a picket gate - the shotgun blew the pickets on either side of the Opossums eyes out and killed the Opossum - that particular Opossum also turned out to be the farmers cat!

And those are the ones I remember

Great things Landrovers

None of that relates to gold mining but then again I tend to become easily sidetracked..apparently.

Edited by user Thursday, 13 September 2012 11:31:07 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Well done Lammerlaw, Thanks I had a good load of chuckles out of that little lot.
That Landrover of yours is a mutinous swine, I would have shot the bloody thing, hang on, it sounds like you actually might have - if I read between the lines correctly lol.
NUGGY


Copied from Locations .....
Hi again Lammerlaw, I too was once addicted to a Landrover. My swb truck cab was a 66 series 2a factory diesel, ex rabbit board. I owned it for 8 years, and had some fantastic adventures in it. It was incredibly cheap to run, and if driven gently could do 50 miles per gallon on diesel!
It had character the old girl, and I was pretty hard on her.It had some odd breakdowns that other 4wd owners never seemed to suffer from.
The back diff shackles broke while going downhill on a narrow 4wd road, the whole diff shot back and tyres jammed against the bodywork. It never managed to stop as quick as that using the brakes!
A log rolled as I ran over it during a shallow creek crossing, another time and a branch came up through floor and pinned my feet hard down on clutch and accelerator!
The starter suddenly decided to operate itself while going downhill on another 4wd track. I lost focus trying to cope with it and ended up in the drain with the drivers door jammed against the bank.
I got it stuck quite often, but became quite expert at getting unstuck, and apart from the diff incident never had to walk out. I seldom had the money to get it repaired by a mechanic, so had to fix most things myself, and it was terrible to work on - it seemed to have been designed to cause maximum trouble to anyone attempting to repair it. The spring fittings had to be gas cut off, to do repairs on them, those stupid cowlings around the leaky master cylinders, and the bloody brakes that drove me nuts.
Soooooo - I got a Landcruiser! it was great to work on seldom broke down and could go just as many places that the Landrover did! The trouble was though - RUST. It rusted beyond belief, galloping cancer ate it up rapidly on what seemed like a daily basis. I couldn't really fix it properly as it rusted from the inside out. I never got one to last longer than 2 or 3 years, and I went through 4 of them!
Sooooo I bought a Daihatsu Rugger, I still have it after 8 years, and it has been my best choice for reliability, ease of maintainance and 4wd ability. It's going to be replaced soon and I'm thinking Hilux at present but you never know.

NUGGY

Edited by user Thursday, 13 September 2012 10:59:20 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Nuggy - you said 'That Landrover of yours is a mutinous swine, I would have shot the bloody thing, hang on, it sounds like you actually might have - if I read between the lines correctly lol.
NUGGY'

Yes well - The window episode was when my father, brother in law and I were spotlighting many moons ago and my father wanted to get home to watch the rugby for some obscure reason - i said that I needed to unload the rifle which was an old time Marlin Model 1892 lever action in .32 rimfire - he said to unload it as we travelled and I tried to explain that those particular Marlins needed to unload the last shot through the breech - he didnt listen and the gun went off removing the die window beside dad in the process - i can still see his face lit up in the blast of the black powder of the old ammo.

The .303 was through the floor boards, a .22 did the same thing.

A 12g once took out the floor boards as well

The rear vision mirror got shot off one night spotlighting - the roaring 70s!

I now remember that I wanted to attach a bracket to the Landrover in the well deck and for the life of me couldnt find a drill and bits so I just used the .22 and shot the holes where I wanted them...thats called lateral thinking, abstract thinking or using your brain.

I remember once owning an L1A1 FN Browning Military SLR .303 - the dog chased an opossum which ran up under the Landrover and tried to hide above the driveshaft - that didnt stop someone I know letting rip at it - I remember that I got the Opossum and couldnt find the bullet hole but as sure as grass is green it had to go somewhere and I strongly suspect it accounted for one of the more serious oil leaks as the last trip in that Landrover took 2 and a 1/2 gallons of oil to get me 500 miles. The only thing that ever managed to beat that record was my Ford Customline which took a gallon of oil to get from Halfway Bush in Dunedin to Outram and back to East taieri where I had to put more in!

As you can see Landrover suffered from lead poisoning on a number of occasions.

Edited by user Thursday, 13 September 2012 11:25:48 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

at long last

bit busy a moment so will follow up later

Did someone say spotlighting - years ago we went spotlighting and I sat on the roof and my cobbers brother sat on the spare tyre on the bonnet - I never saw the rabbit but the driver did and put on the anchors so hard that I shot off the roof sort of like a torpedo leaving a torpedo tube I suppose - I clearly remember flying across the top of my cobbers brother just as his shotgun went off and landing splat on the road in front of the Landrover...I am not sure now if that was the trip where we got home and next morning my cobbers wife phoned me to tell me that he had got his gun to clean and for some obscure reason put it on his foot - she told me he was in hospital with a huge hole blasted through the center of his foot.

We took an old series one up to Skippers once - I remember that my cobbers dog jumped over from the back and my cobber let go the steering wheel to throw the dog back over the back - the landrover shot off the road near Middlemarch - went up a low bank, demolished a few broom bushes and back down the bank onto the road.

Back then petrol was 48 cents a gallon - we went on another trip to Skippers and got to Alexandra at 11.00pm and no petrol station opened so around to the pie cart we went. I got eight or so fifty cent pieces for the coin operated petrol pump and back to the garage we went - there were two other cars at the coin pump and the drivers of both seemed to be having some sort of crisis at the pump and both eventually left disgusted as they had got no petrol - it was our turn so we pulled up beside the pump but it was jammed with a fifty cent piece just inside the slot - I managed to got it out with my fingernails and then with the blade form a hacksaw managed to lever another one out of the inside of the pump - that was a heap of money - two gallons worth.

We still wanted petrol so I kicked the thing - firstly it did nothing then there was a tingle as a solitary ten cent piece fell out the reject slot...followed by a cascade of fifties - eleven dollars worth of them...sorta like a one armed bandit.

I put one fifty back into the machine and it worked!!! so I put another four dollars worth in - the truck was filled at three dollars and so we had to empty two lemonade bottles into the gutter and pumped the petrol into a pot then poured it into the lemonade bottles, we drank a large bottle of beer each and filled the empty bottles, we filled our two cooking pots and finally got half a gold pan of petrol.

The gold pan was put on the floor but by the time we got a mile down the road it had all slopped out - I remember that we both got nasty headaches but at least had a free holiday.

Edited by user Monday, 24 September 2012 10:25:48 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Another good trick I discovered by accident way back, is to carry a loop ended length of 10mm wire rope, a couple of short fence waratahs and a bit of chain. Put the loop on the wheel nut of the spinning front wheel (obviously not when it's spinning ya mutt). Then wrap it around the free-wheel hub once or twice. keep it in line with wheel and attach it to a driven in waratah at ground level, leave 6 inches or so of waratah sticking up. Attach chain to top of this waratah, and stretch out and drive in other waratah, all in line, with chain at ground level on second waratah, forming a long capital letter N. Damn good, light, cheap and easily carried ground anchor.
Put the old girl back in 1st gear and spinning wheel becomes a de-facto winch that pulls you out quick smart. Of course this only works with the big old fashioned free- wheel hubs, or you could make something that you bolted on when needed!
Later NUGGY

Edited by user Tuesday, 2 October 2012 10:56:52 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified