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
Very cool build, subscribed!
I open this up expecting something like this...
But got something cooler and amazingly purpose built...
The spare tire is mounted to allow it to rotate. Does that mean the spare tire is mounted to a spare wheel hub adding just that much more functional spares to the rig?
You mention that you have no way to pull up the rear steps. A simple rope tied to the steps could be the way to retrieve and pull the steps back up. A simple nautical cleat could the used with the rope to secure the door and keep it closed.
Illustrative sample:
Nice, I love the thoughtful details!
Perhaps when I've finished this one I'll do the hot-tub-in-pickup idea 
A rope makes sense for pulling the door up. I do wonder whether someone standing at the top of the steps will have enough leverage, at which point some sort of jib hanging out of the back of the vehicle might be required - but it could fold in when the tailgate does. Hopefully a simple rope will be fine; it should at least be easy to test!
The spares are indeed mounted to a complete old axle that has been chopped and solidly welded and braced to the chassis, so there should indeed be an extra pair of serviceable hubs.
Thankyou very much for making the video appear, too, by the way.
You saw a problem and set out to solve it. Great work!
What kind of additional things are required to make it road legal?
Lots of little things - mudflaps behind the wheels, latches on the rear door, a working speedo, proper clipping of all the fuel lines etc. The overhang at the front of the rear cabin needs to be made less lethally pointy and it probably needs a grille to hide what's behind. The fittings in the front cab would also fail on crash safety (too many unprotected edges). So nothing earth-shaking; just a lot of diligence and detail.
JFW75
New Reader
7/5/20 8:46 p.m.
I'm posted to Tana currently. Well, exiled back to the USA due to COVID-19 at the moment, but usually there in country.
Be sure and have good fuel filtration, and if possible use whatever Toyota Gibraltar specs as stock on their Prado's and LC's for the NGO missions there, at least you'll be able to get parts there for them. Parts are extremely difficult to get in in country for pretty much any vehicle, and even though there are a handful of Land Rovers there, they are by no means plentiful. Good choice on going with an older mechanical diesel, the fuel there is garbage. If you need a garage recommendation in the capitol for spares, let me know.
Madagascar is totally the edge of the world and I can't wait to get back there.
Very cool! I'm assuming this is pretty much as low budget as possible?
Whats the red tube running right over top of the motor? Is that what the ebrake cable runs inside?
DaveMakesStuff said:
A rope makes sense for pulling the door up. I do wonder whether someone standing at the top of the steps will have enough leverage
Could you add an over-center gas spring there?
JFW75 - thankyou for the advice. I've got a sedimenter that needs plumbing in alongside the fuel filter. The truck will be filled with parts before it goes. It'll probably be in a shipping container and it's not actually that long overall, so there should be some extra room in there too.
ProDarwin, the red tube is the rigid rod linkage for the main gearbox. Should be strong enough :-) I'm tearing down the hi/lo and difflock linkages - they were done for me by an engineering firm, but bluntly there's much that needs putting right. The overall concept was reasonable, but I'm not sure unpainted mild steel sliding joints could ever be a good idea, much less when bolted to aluminium casings. I'll put out a video that covers the shifters in more detail.
