NextStepDesigns

Here’s a neat trick I learned from Dave Lane of Denver, CO. Land Rover thoughtfully included a spare compartment in the engine bay of the LR3 for a spare battery, or perhaps for an on board air compressor. So that’s what I’ve done. I installed a Viar 400H 33% duty cycle air compressor. The installation was quite easy, most everything you need was included in the box from Viar. The only thing I added was 4 self tapping screws for mounting the compressor to the bottom of the tray fitted by Land Rover.

There are several options for connecting the air hose, air intake, and power switch. Dave Lane mounted everything through the wall of the plastic housing, so that he does not need to take the cover off to turn on the compressor and connect the air hoses. I considered this, but felt that having the fresh air intake outside the box was problematic, because most of my local trails are either quite dusty or quite muddy. Not a great combination for an exposed air filter/air intake system. So I left everything in the compartment to keep it as clean as possible. It’s a snap to take the lid off, connect the air hose and turn on the compressor installed in this fashion.

Update 6/18/08:  I recently compared the Viair 400c to the 450c.  Test results here 

Photos:

Here is the Viar 400H kit, plus the filling hose kit

Here is the spare compartment on the left side of the LR3/Disco III

Here is the completed installation

All Land Rovers ever made proudly proclaim “LAND ROVER” in large block type letters arcross the rear… except for the LR3. Most LR3’s are festooned with nomenclature on the rear such as V8, TDi, HSE, SE, etc… My base model LR3 says none of these things and looks positive naked back there.

A simple solution is to aquire more of the hood mounted logos stickers and place them on the rear. The stickers come from Land Rover in a nicely jigged up template, matching the curvature of the hood. Well, the rear of the truck is flat and mostly straight, so you have to do each letter individually to defeat the built in curve. I used a straightedge and signifcant amounts of painters masking tape as guides, and the whole process was quick and simple. Estimated time: 15 minutes. Difficulty: 1.5 (you do have to measure a few bits). Cost: Cheap on eBay, about $45 USD from the Dealer.

Before shot - it’s naked back there!

Applying the decals carefully:

New & improved rear view:

After the decals:

After Lion’s Back, we proceeded at our pace to play around in a cool Mud Puddle that we found, and then we ran through the last half of Fins N Things.  We had a relaxing day, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves .

Photos of us Fooling Around (36 images on SmugMug)

On the 5th and last day, the SCLR group and honorary member Doug Evilsizor (founder and editor of LRL Magazine) decided against doing any organized Solihul Society runs and opted to do our own thing. We started out with Adam and Joe conquering the impressive and daunting Lions Back fin. Here are the Photos:

Photos of Lions Back (42 images on SmugMug)

The evening of the fourth day in Moab was a fun night.  The Rally organizers put together a Vendor show in the arena, and had a tilt ramp set up outside, and as a special treat, a beat up old car that they invited everyone to try to drive over.  That was pretty fun.

Photos of Rally Activities (20 images on SmugMug) 

Day 4 was the most fun for me I think. On this day I discovered that special place on this world known as the Fins N Things trail, in Sand Flats, just above and east of Moab. This is one of the most amazing places on earth to go wheeling.

Photos of Fins N Things (60 images on SmugMug)

Day 3 in Moab was the first official day of Land Rover National Rally. On this day, our SCLR group broke up, and I chose an easier trail, reputed to offer some incredible views of natural arches and such. This trail was to go through the Klondike Bluffs (an old mining area) , past some dinosaur prints, and then drop down into Arches National Park. Sounded good to me. The trail itself was easy, and fairly long. Photos are here:

Photos of Klondike Bluffs & Arches (45 images on SmugMug)

The day started quite early in the morning. The procedure was that you picked a trail based on the placard in the lead trucks window, then drove up to form a line behind it. There were about 10 or 12 different trails run every day, and officially there were 152 different Land Rovers (well, mostly Land Rovers), participating. There were a total of 5 LR3’s there, one Range Rover Sport (Adam’s), and MANY Defenders. More Defenders than I have ever seen before! There were no Freelanders, and about an equal mix of Range Rover Classics and Discovery’s. A couple P38’s, but no current (3rd Generation) Range Rovers to be found.

Our group started out on a long road trek to the trail head. We soon got to a large slab of slickrock (petrified sand, ie: sand stone), and saw quite a few very distinctive dinosaur prints in the sand stone. Very cool! Shortly after that, we came to a nice fissure in the sand stone, that provided a range of difficulty in passing through, from easy to as hard as you’d like. I opted for a medium difficulty spot, and promptly got stuck. My wheels had no purchase in the sand at the bottom of the crack, and I needed to take several approaches at it. On my fourth attempt, I found the right line and began to climb up the other side, but was given a bit of a bad Spot by a fellow LR3 driver (sorry Ray), and pushed my bumper just enough to make contact with the rock. Doh! Not a big deal, it was the same spot I dinged ages ago in Last Chance Canyon. Turned the wheels the opposite direction, and drove right out. Dave Lane in his LR3 followed in a more difficult portion, and made it look easy.

We stopped soon after at a place where you can hike a bit further on and see a magnificent overlook. A few of us made the hike, and then continued up scrambling farther into the rocks along the top of the bluffs. Very nice spot.

Continuing on, We go up and down a nice hill with some well placed rocks to navigate, and drop down into a large flat valley where we stopped to regroup. The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. We did get to seen an arch (Tower Arch), and cruised past the bottom of the Klondike Bluffs that we had climbed up from the other side. We marched along slowly, until we got to an awesome dry river bed. We let the first group go way ahead (like 15 minutes or so), and then Dave Lane and I put our foot down hard into the soft river bed sand and had a total BLAST racing through the banks of the old wash. It was the most fun I’d had on the trip yet. It lasted only a mile or two, but was great fun. We quickly caught up to everyone, and the second half of the group was not far behind us. We ended up in Arches National Park at Balanced Rock, and then the group headed for home. I went the other direction, and went deeper into the park and found some more off road trails, but didn’t see much else of interest, and headed on back.