Off-road African hospital transport

[davemakesstuff]

This one's for a good cause - it's a high mobility 4x4 for an African mission hospital. They work in Madagascar and send out Land Rovers with community care teams. The difficulty there is that the roads and the communication network mean that an ambulance service is impractical, and people come from up to fifty miles away. It's important that they identify potential emergencies before they happen, because if e.g. a woman has difficulty in labour, she probably can't get to the hospital before her baby dies.

Then bring the wet season into the equation, and the mud roads are too soft to use for half of the year. So I set out to build something with the same Land Rover running gear as they were used to, but with better off-road capability. It's been a long and difficult build, but hopefully it's of use when it arrives. Not quite finished yet...

https://youtu.be/zCYFP1bBxYg

[nav2014]

I need one. Can't help thinking it'd be simpler to bolt a caravan to the back of a Hilux chassis or something, but it's cool and I need one.

[davemakesstuff]

/simpler to bolt a caravan to the back of a Hilux chassis/

Oh, believe me, it would be.

This truck is the product of an initial constraint (must share the 300tdi running gear that the receiving hospital's current fleet uses) and the recognition that a forward control layout simply fits more in. This vehicle's actually no longer than a Defender 90 but has the rear overhang of a bobtail and eleven seats. If I started a new build, there would be some different design decisions - for example, I'm a much better welder now than I was then, so I'd be willing to trust my welds on a chassis; back then I had to use an existing 101 Forward Control chassis that had been coil spring converted and repair modify it to suit.

So... it's been quite a journey, and I wouldn't necessarily recommend repeating it, but the end result will hopefully be useful once delivered.

[snowandrocks]

Interesting project! Really cool looking little truck.

As an aside, would a Land Cruiser 70 series with the troop carrier body not do a similar job and be more reliable/durable than a DIY Land Rover based one off.

[davemakesstuff]

I agree with where you're coming from; my first thought was a Hilux as I've got first-hand experience of a Discovery's need for regular maintenance. The drawback is that the hospital's team only have 300tdi Defenders in their fleet and weren't willing to take on anything that didn't share the same running gear. All of the important mechanical bits of this are 300tdi as a result.

[sealtt]

What a great project, loved the youtube video and the other ones you have too.

[davemakesstuff]

Thankyou! Building a Youtube channel is a long road that you have to start at the beginning (and most people don't get very far) but I'm giving it a go!

[InitialDave]

Interesting project! How's the steering with the box turned on its nose like that?

[davemakesstuff]

Well... with it being a Land Rover steering box, er, leaky. Apart from that, it's good! It was a real blessing to discover that the Isuzu steering column and the Land Rover steering columns use the same size UJs, so I could link a Land Rover splined end to the Isuzu shaft without difficulty.

I suspect the box is going to be a bit challenging to bleed this way up; time will tell whether I have to drill and tap the housing for a bleed nipple. This won't be clear until I have a non-leaky box. I'll start by changing the seal but usually there's a reason for the sort of seal play that leads to leaks.