Let’s see if I can explain why I like this short (2 min) video so much. In part because I became invested in the story of this restoration, after watching the first 20 videos in the series. And the solution seems so in character with Max (the guy doing the restoration).
Author Archives: Steve Mays
Land Rover restoration – Part 1 (Max Ironthumper)
The video above is the first in a series of 24 (?) chronicling the restoration of a Series IIa Land Rover. The gent doing the restoration — Maximus Ironthumper — describes himself as “a blacksmith living off the grid.”
Let me say up front, I don’t expect anyone to watch these. The series is just a good example of something I think we’ve come to take for granted. In a pre-YouTube world we would never have been able to watch this amazing process. No cable channel would have produced something this… real. This gritty and honest. YouTube has become my go-to source for entertainment and information.
With cable and network television, someone else decides what you get to watch. On YouTube, you decide.
Towing
I’m not a trailer hitch kind of guy. With the exception of the 4 Runner, I’ve never owned a car with enough power to pull a trailer. So, no trailer hitch. In the early 80s I rented a small U-Haul trailer and towed it from Albuquerque to Missouri behind my Plymouth Duster (6 cylinder), stopping every hundred miles or so to let the engine cool down. I kept waiting for the temporary trailer hitch the U-Haul guy bolted on to come loose.
No, I’ve gotten by fine without towing stuff behind my vehicles. And backing up a trailer always looked like a Dark Art to me. But I’ve been told on several occasions in the last six months that my little 4-cylinder Land Rover is quite capable of towing. I didn’t really believe this until I saw this video by a guy who calls himself Maximus Ironthumper.
According to his YouTube channel, he’s “a blacksmith living off the grid.” And he restored a beautiful Series II truck as a companion vehicle to his motorcycle so he “can haul stuff to and from the junkyard.”
I don’t know what I might haul but after watching this I’m open to the idea of a trailer. Stay tuned.
Land Rover: Problem with fuel line
After a lifetime of pumping gasoline into my cars, I’ll have to remember to pull up to the diesel pump. I thought it wouldn’t hurt to have a little reminder like the one in the photo below (not my truck).
In order to add this little badge, Mr. Wolf had to remove a cowling inside the tub of the the truck.
“I am glad you sent me that Diesel Only emblem to install under the filler neck, because installing it meant I had to remove the cowling inside the truck that covers the filler neck, and when I removed it I found that where the rubber hose that connects the filler neck to the tank goes through the floor of the truck, the hose was pressed up against the edge of the opening, cutting into the hose. Then further down toward the tank the hose was severely kinked, which explains why I had such a hard time filling it with diesel the one time I fueled it up. Also, there was no gasket between the metal filler neck and the body. I can’t find one in any parts diagram, so maybe there wasn’t one originally, but I could see this being a water ingress point, so I am going to make a gasket for it.”
This is my first experience with a frame-off restoration but there sure seems to have been a lot of little (?) mistakes like this. All’s well that ends well.
1996 F355 Ferrari Challenge
“1996 Ferrari F355 Challenge. Factory built race car, non street legal. So naturally I drove it down from San Francisco today. I’m doing some fettling to bring it up to par then selling it.”
“In 1995, Ferrari introduced a race-ready F355 Challenge model for use specifically in the Ferrari Challenge. The Ferrari F355 Challenge model was created by starting with a standard Ferrari F355 Berlinetta model and modifying it with a $30,000 factory-to-dealer supplied kit. The initial 1995 cars came with cage mounts factory fitted and carpets removed, each year the cars arrived with more and more race parts factory fitted, culminating in 1998 with full-evolution cars which were supplied as virtually complete race cars though parts such as the rear wing still needed to be fitted.” (Wikipedia)
PS: To illustrate just how small a world it is, this from my friend Andrew: “I rode in a Ferrari challenge car this week. Didn’t drive it cause I didn’t have $330,000 to replace it. But it was amazing. Pure 100% race car. I bet Mr Wolf has been to the track I was at in Arizona.”
What are the odds that I’d be acquainted with two people who were in one of these cars in the same week?