Hi everyone,

Happy Christmas, hope you've had as good a one as me. It was my first with my 9 week old daughter with all of my family (upto Abby's great Grandparents).

Anyway, almost as good as that was the progress with Bluey. Me, two of my friends, a cousin and a complete stranger (roped in cos we needed him) have managed to get the back body on the chassis.

Unfortunately the bolt holes didn't line up so after alot of pushing and shoving the body still wouldn't line up with the chassis tabs - obviously I blamed my new galvo HD Marsland chassis until I realised the 2-3mm offset was caused by the slight error(mine) in bolting the aux fuel tank in place. Once I unbolted the tank the body slipped into place - I then had to redrill the bolt holes through the tank and rear crossmember ( by a few mm - very awkward!!) to resite the tank. The under wing water tank bolted in without any problems.

After that I thought it was time to get the engine started - a big step after over 15 months of inactivity. I put some fuel in ( £1.06 a litre for diesel!!!)( I read that currently it was about 2-3 US dollars to fill an expedition LR with diesel in Iran - I can't wait to get there!) Anyway I couldn't be bothered to bleed the fuel system so I attached the battery and gave it a go! Unfortunately the ignition barrel was wired up wrong so after a few minutes with a tester I had sorted. By then the original battery which had been sat for over a year was well dead. I had bought a pair of Optima batteries (red and yellow top) so I hooked up the red top and had a go.......it fired up straight away and my Grandad was there to witness it.

I can't describe what a brilliant feeling it was - it was then tempered by the fact that the fan viscous coupling was buggered and it wouldn't rev. The viscous coupling is just to replace and I reckon the inability to rev is cos its sucking some air in the fuel line to the lift pump cos when it stops I can hear fuel draining back into the tank.

Thats what I hope anyway!

Oh by the way for Surf 110 the aux fuel tank was from Foley's Special Vehicles and the twin spare wheel carrier was from Frog Island 4X4 - both top quality items.

I'm sorry I can't supply any photos but we've had to reinstall our computer cos the hard drive was buggered so we've lost some useful photo software!

I'll post when sorted

Andy, Rosy and Abby