Its tigger time!

[Elmo]

I hope there's no problem posting this here but please remove if you feel it is inappropriate.

Self and a couple of mates will be driving to The Gambia, West Africa starting on Boxing Day this year in a 50 year old DAF truck and an american Ford camper van, nicknamed "Tigger" and "Pooh" respectively. The trip is to Banjul and will take a month or so. We are raising money for the British Heart Foundation, the Cardio-Vascular Unit at Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and several Gambian Charities. Our cash target this year is £10,000.

Various links in my sig, there is also a thread on one of my "other" forums http://forums.teamphoenixrising.net/showthread.php?t=40269 which tends to be the place where ongoing progress is discussed.

We are now in full scrounging and fundraising mode, having already spent a small fortune on the vehicles and fittings. We are looking for personal sponsors/donations, and company donations of cash or goods/services which can be used on the trip, or used in the Gambia (for example, school and medical supplies). A couple of mud club stickers would look nice on the truck *hint* ;)

If you would like to support this effort please follow the links to the forum, the website or the online donation site and have at it. If you feel your employer may be interested in similarly supporting us then please please put a word in. All company sponsorship will be acknowledged on our website and the vehicles themselves.

Thanks for reading, tiggerstravels.net will be updated regularly from now on and during the trip so by all means follow his progress. After all, he is black, orange and cute :) If you want to see Tigger he is parked outside my pub in Shropshire, up close he's quite a sight so if you're passing why not drop in and say hello?

[bezzabsa]

That looks cool  :D
love the led lights...where dya get em from? and do they do 12 v ones too??

[Elmo]

If you mean the rears http://www.mobilecentre.co.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=41&zenid=075eee56c757765d8771e97ba923e64b
They are dual voltage 12/24, quality is good, fitting easy (flush mount onto two 6mm holes) and wiring a doddle. Assuming you don't have 24V positive earth of course because then you need a bank of 4 relays to fire them ;)

[MrTFWitt]

On the subject of scrounging, I'm looking for parts for the support vehicle.

Its a Ford Aerostar which has a lot of parts in common with a Ford Explorer.  So if anybody has one I'd love to know where you get bits for the 3.0 V6 versions.

Ebay US sellers dont seem to ship outside the states.
At the moment I need a Radiator, I'm sure theres plenty of other bits needed once I get past the fix-on-failure work.

[Range Rover Blues]

I have to say if it's got that many problems it might not be a good support vehicle.  Given the availability of older green oval parts world wide............

[MrTFWitt]

It might be serviceable with a bit of radweld and an egg which is what it will get if I cant find cheap parts to fix it with.

Bottom line is, we are taking two vehicles with a combined age of seventy years through the Sahara Desert and giving them away at the end.
No point spending more money than absolutely necessary.

I'll make sure all the lights work, swap the brake pads, change the oils and filters.  Might even clean the plugs :)

The vehicles have to do at most 3,700 miles.
If it all goes pear shaped one of them has to make it to the nearest airport.

[Littledan]

i love the orange with the black stripes looks wicked mate :D

dan

[Elmo]

Tigger is now complete and parked in Oxford after a shakedown run of 100 miles or so. No major issues, apart from a steering pull. Ten days to blast-off, you can see pictures of the finished article in my gallery "Final stages of Tigger's prep".