Land Rover: Time for the soft top

 


Tomorrow we begin the process of removing the hard-top and replacing with a mesh hoop  kit. More on that in a moment. The forecast is for rain the next four days (Calling for five inches in the next three days) so I decided to put the truck in my storage unit a bit early.
We were hoping to do the work just outside the unit where we’ll have some light and room to work. But I think we can make this work and I’m eager to make the switch. Here’s what the soft top will look like and here’s the instructional video by the supplier.

Behind the truck are four saw horses with 2×6 planks across them. Once the top is unbolted, we’ll lift it back to rest on the saw horses until this fall. We’ll post progress photos here.

Timelapse of the entire Universe


“On a cosmic time scale, human history is as brief as the blink of an eye. By compressing all 13.8 billion years of time into a 10 minute scale, this video shows just how young we truly are, and just how ancient and vast our universe us.”

Melodysheep is John D. Boswell, a filmmaker, composer, and editor from the pacific northwest. There is a version of this video with narration but without the embed code. I recommend it. Thanks to Kent for pointing us to Melodysheep.

The Land of Land Rovers


Last year was the 70th anniversary of the Land Rover marque. One of the commemorative events involved a visit to a remote community in West Bengal, deep in the Himalayas. Known as the “Land of Land Rovers,” they are reliant on a fleet of dozens of meticulously maintained Series Land Rovers dating back as far as 1957. The video shows the 31km journey made frequently by the residents of Maneybhanjang, which sits at an altitude of 3,636m.

Land Rover 4WD: LOW RANGE!

I think I understood the concept behind the high range/low range gear lever on my Land Rover. But I had never had a real opportunity to use it this weekend’s snow (about a foot).

Went down the hill in 4WD (high). Came back up in 4WD (low) and it finally clicked for me. I need to remember to engage these gear combinations from time to time to make sure all the doodads are working.

Trackdown (Trump con man episode)

“Trackdown is an American Western television series starring Robert Culp that aired more than 70 episodes on CBS between 1957 and 1959. Trackdown was a spin-off of Dick Powell’s Zane Grey Theater. Trackdown stars Robert Culp as Texas Ranger Hoby Gilman. It is set in the 1870s after the American Civil War. In early episodes, stories focused on Gilman going to different Texas towns in pursuit of wanted fugitives.” (Wikipedia)

I was nine years old in 1957 and remember watching Trackdown every week (no binge-watching back then). In those days we watched everything but westerns were must-see TV. In a 1958 episode a con mand named Trump comes to down and warns people the world will be destroyed and only he can save them… by building a wall.

And the actor playing Trump in the episode… looks a little like Fred Trump (right).