Posts of Blog

Untitled Post

2009-07-27T22:55:18.687Z

We're now on the road and are no longer updating this site. Go to our Blog on a Map page to see where we are now.

H -14 hours

2009-07-24T23:22:21.432Z

Must second Ryan's tip-of-the-hat for his dad Mike, and i want to add one for his mum Carol. Both of them put in so much consideration and effort into the project. Add to that their hospitality. It was like being home.

H -14 hours.

The army chaps had already put in the inverter and today we installed the aux connector set so we can plug in general appliances. Adam Shanley at Truma had to courier us the parts. After some drilling and cursing we got it installed. Ryan tested it by charging his mobile.

Meantime we also got rid of the roof rack because it was adding a lot of weight to a generally top-heavy vehicle. Seems to handle much better now. The final test will be on the highway to Dover, tomorrow. Linda's dad Bob has been a key asset in these projects. Handy with suggestions and a helping hand.

We start for Dover @ 2pm tomorrow.

Big win

2009-07-11T21:17:03.598Z

My dad's been doing it again. I just spoke to him and found out that today he got us sponsored by Motaman in Salisbury who have donated the European driving kit and a tow rope. He also told me that the vehicle is going to be resprayed white on Thursday and Friday of this coming week. He wouldn't tell me how he swung that one, but I think I owe him - big time!

Insurance problem

2009-07-10T19:31:46.529Z

I insured the vehicle a while ago straight after we got the civilian plates for it. At the time I asked if I could add Ajay later and was told that I could. However, when I phoned up recently to do this I was told he couldn't be added because he wasn't a UK resident. I then spent about four hours ringing around other insurers and couldn't actually find any that would insure the combination of the unusual vehicle and the non-UK driver. This is now a real problem for us as without Ajay on the insurance I will have to drive all the way to Russia myself. We buy insurance for Russia at the border, so we should be OK from that point on.

I've decided not to worry about this for a little while. I'm off to China on business on Monday and will just sort this out when I get back (I hope)!

Second battery

2009-07-09T18:11:23.698Z

Chris (a.k.a. "Sparks", the REME electrical engineer) was planning out the installation of the inverter today and decided that in addition to the high-output alternator we should also install a second battery. Now here's the amazing bit: my dad, on hearing this, promptly drives over to Halfords in Salisbury and catches the manager just before he's leaving. My dad explains the situation and, thanks to the manager's extreme generosity, walks away with a second £100 battery courtesy of the company! Halfords have been absolutely brilliant in backing us. We got the first battery from the Uxbridge branch, and now the Salisbury branch has donated the reserve battery. I'd been down a bit over the last few days due to a number of issues cropping up (like not being able to add Ajay to the insurance for the vehicle), but this has restored my faith that we'll pull this thing together no matter what.

New alternator on the way

2009-07-08T11:28:13.873Z

This morning I managed to find a dealer that specialised in ex-military Land Rovers and he had a 65 Amp alternator in stock which he has put in the post to me today. I'd spoken to the army electrical engineer earlier and he gave me some back-of-the-envelope figures to work from:

Firstly, the original military alternator was 48 Amps, not 60. However, the civilian one I got to replace it was indeed a 35 Amp one, so wouldn't suffice.

Now, we 've added various electrical components which he provided the rating for:

Heated windscreen - 20 Amps

Spotlights, for night driving - 16 Amps

Rear worklights for lighting an incident scene - 10 Amps

Fridge - 5 Amps

If we assume the basic electrical system requires up to 30 Amps to operate, then the 65 Amp alternator adds 35 Amps of capacity which will give us enough to run all of the components we've added, but obviously not all at once.

Bottom line: it will suffice so long as the operators are sensible about what they run and when. The nice thing is that the Truma inverter is an intelligent system which will stop supplying 240 Volts if the battery charge gets too low, so it will literally be impossible to discharge the battery by over-use of any of the 240 Volt appliances.

Thanks Mum and Dad!

2009-07-07T19:22:10.281Z

I´d just like to publicly thank my parents for all the support they´ve been giving me. Firstly, my dad has been doing so much crazy running around to help out with the preps that I´m sure he´s put more time and effort into this than I have, and he doesn´t even get the reward of going on the drive at the end of it all. And secondly, my mum has been an absolute hero for letting my dad do all this running around, leaving her on her own for much of the time over the last several months. If I can be as good a parent to my children as my mum and dad have been to theirs, then I´ll really have something to be proud of.

Bit of a pickle

2009-07-07T19:04:51.109Z

Hmm, a while back when Matt, the Staff Sergeant in charge of the overhaul project, was first assessing the vehicle he suggested I get an alternator for the spares pack as this is a component which might fail over the next 4-5 years. So I ordered a Land Rover Series 3 alternator and thought nothing of it.

When this subsequently showed up in the workshop while Matt was away on a sponsored Lands End to John O´Groats bike ride, Jay (Too Tall) immediately hopped on it and got the thing installed in his usual super-efficient style. However, I´ve now learned that the original alternator was a special one fitted to military vehicles and rated at 60 amps so it could power more electrical equipment, where as the replacement I ordered was for a standard civilian vehicle and only rated at 35 amps. This gives us a problem as we need the higher-rated alternator to power all the medical kit, and the original one has now been disposed of. So tomorrow I need to start ringing around to see if I can lay my hands on a military-spec alternator. Fingers crossed. I just wish Ajay (or someone) was here to help. I´m really busy at work at the moment and fitting this in before I leave for China on Monday is going to be tight. Ideally I´d like to contact a bunch of alternator specialists and see if they´ll provide one for us free of charge, or perhaps upgrade our existing one (which I´ve learned is possible by increasing the amount of coils internally). But given the timing I think that just isn´t going to happen´.

We´ll get through it, but we could have done without the complication at this late stage.

Broke the £5000 barrier

2009-07-06T20:35:18.851Z

Thanks to a couple of recent donations we have now received over £5000 in direct cash donations. All funds raised through this website go towards purchasing, equipping and preparing the vehicle. We still have a few more expenses to cover, such as painting the vehicle, but thanks to everyone's tremendous support it looks like we will have raised enough to cover the vast majority of the cost of all this preparatory work.

Please follow along with us via this blog as we complete our journey so you can see where your money is going - literally!

Jerry can holder

2009-07-06T20:34:00.246Z

I got a great deal on a military twin jerry can holder which I found on ebay last week. £10.51! Thanks to Greg for picking it up from the seller for me, as postage would have cost a whopping £45. Yeah, it's not light.

The cool thing is that the holder also acts as a ladder for accessing the roof, so although the holder will add weight, we will lose all the weight from the current roof-mounted ladder, so overall I think the vehicle will be lighter. And as the jerry can holder will mount on the rear door, it'll also lower the centre of gravity slightly.

Final jabs and visa

2009-07-06T20:23:46.780Z

I got my final tick-born encephalitis injection today and picked up two doses of rabies vaccine for self-administration in the event of us getting bitten along the way. We need to keep the rabies vaccines cool so its a good job we've got the medical fridge.

I also heard from the visa agency that my final visa, Mongolia, has now been granted and I should have my passport back tomorrow. Job done.

Truma UK sponsors us

2009-07-01T20:06:22.406Z

Having just received a tremendous donation of medical equipment for the ambulance our next challenge was to figure out how to power it all. Fortunately Truma UK has come swiftly to the rescue with a fantastic donation of a £1,500 electrical system which will allow us to run all of the kit off the vehicle battery without risk of overloading or discharging it. This system, the Truma TG 1000 Sinus Power Inverter, is an intelligent power source that can supply up to 1KW of 240V A/C on a continuous basis, running either from the vehicle alternator or an external source. This is particularly valuable as it will allow the inverter to be plugged into a mains supply when the ambulance is not in use and thus permit the continuous operation of the electrical equipment without needing to remove it from the vehicle. This means that the medical fridge, defibrillator, etc will all be charged, in place in the vehicle, and ready to operate whenever the ambulance is called into action. This in turn cuts down despatch times and means the vehicle can get to where it is needed much more quickly whenever an incident occurs. Absolutely fantastic.

Got the medical kit

2009-06-30T19:54:54.750Z

Last week I'd been in contact with Aid To Hospitals Worldwide, the charity that is donating the medical kit to our project, and they had said they should have the equipment ready for collection on Monday. So yesterday morning I called them up to confirm and sure enough they said it would be ready around 2pm that day. I booked the day off work and had a chat with them about how much kit there was and was surprised to learn that they didn't think it would fit in a large 4x4, even with the stretcher on the roof rack! Yikes - how much kit have these guys got for me?

So I hurriedly arranged to hire a van from Budget in High Wycombe and drove straight over there to pick it up. Paperwork out of the way I hit the road around midday and rapidly ran into the horrible new roadworks on the M25. I slowed to a frustrating crawl, and it soon became apparent that I wouldn't make it to the A2HW warehouse in Bury St. Edmunds by 2pm as agreed. Having cleared the M25 roadworks I then heard on the radio that the main motorway to Bury St. Edmunds was closed due to an accident. Things weren't going my way. I pulled into South Mimms services on the M25 to see what options I had.

As luck would have it, the South Mimms services are at the intersection with the A1M which provides the only reasonable alternative route north from London towards Bury St. Edmunds. So I called Linda, asked her to let A2HW know that I'd be late by an hour or so, and then got back on the road. At 2:45, after following the excellent directions that Becs from A2HW had sent me, I pulled into the car park at the A2HW warehouse. I was greeted by the CEO Mike and then give a tour of the warehouse. I couldn't believe the scale of the operation, especially when I later learned that this is just one of three warehouses they have. All of the kit that they get is reconditioned and sent out to continue saving lives in other countries. If it weren't for their work, all this equipment would otherwise end up in landfills, and many lives would go un-saved. Here's a snap I took of one small section of their warehouse.

After signing for the equipment I was helped to load it all into the van, and thankfully the drive home was very clear. With the help of my neighbour, Ian, we quickly unloaded the kit and I was able to return the van just before the office closed at 6pm. Maybe somebody was smiling down on me after all.

When I finally got a chance later that evening to take stock of everything we'd been given I couldn't quite believe it. Not only had David, the operations manager, managed to get everything on our wishlist, but he'd thrown in a whole lot of additional supplies and equipment too. Among the kit was a portable defibrillator, two sterilisers, a medical fridge, a warmer, a stretcher, a shelving unit (resus), breathing apparatus and three oxygen tanks, three comprehensive first aid kits, and boxes and boxes of general supplies such as dressings, needles, creams, etc. It is truly inestimable the difference this equipment will make to the people of Bayan Olgii. Our heartfelt thanks go out to all the wonderful folks at A2HW for their tremendous donation to our project. Below is a selection of pictures of some of the kit they donated. I hope to take it all down to the army engineers this week so that they can go about installing it in the vehicle.

Update on the medical kit

2009-06-24T20:45:43.406Z

I heard from the medical charity today that the medical kit is almost ready now and I can go to collect it on Monday! They don't have the defibrillator yet, but still hope to have it before we actually leave. It'll be great to get the kit so we can then go about installing it all in the Land Rover.

Update on the Land Rover

2009-06-24T20:48:16.296Z

I got an email from Jay (Too Tall) today giving an update on the status of the Land Rover. Jay is one of the REME mechanics assigned to our project and has probably done the most work of anyone on it, including working over the last few weekends. Jay's update is below:

"An update on your ambulance, engine is in, radiator is in, roof rack is on, prop joints replaced, headlight's finished, heated windscreen just needs finishing off, all in 2 days. not bad no?"

It's unbelievable how fast these guys work. I guess in the military you've got to be able to get vehicles repaired in super-quick time, often with limited tools and facilities, and in field conditions. I think Kwik Fit could learn a thing or two from Too Tall and co. Thanks guys!

Why we're sending computers to Mongolia

2009-06-22T11:55:26.817Z

For those that are interested, I just thought I'd share some of the details of how the 20 computers we've donated are going to be used when they actually reach Bayan Olgii.

Click the link below to see the project proposal put together by Save The Children in conjunction with Go Help (the charity we're working with in Mongolia). The file is in Microsoft Word format.

See the proposal

A morning in the workshop

2009-06-20T12:01:54.886Z

As our departure date draws ever closer I've been putting together a list of things that we still need to do before leaving. On Thursday I took the day off from work and went down to Tidworth to chat to the army engineers about what more needs to be done to the vehicle and how much longer it would take. While I was there I also met with the Media Operations Officer, Captain Chris Goslin, who gave me clearance to mention the names of the team that are working on the vehicle.

So firstly I'd like to say a huge "thank you" to Staff Sergeant Matt Steven-Fountain for leading the renovation effort and providing expert advice; and also Craftsman Jay Hart (aka "Too Tall") and Craftsman Louis Steadman for so professionally carrying out all the work in their own time over the last several weeks. It is genuinely thanks to this highly-skilled team of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers that this ambulance will provide many good years of service when it finally reaches Mongolia in August.

It was great to see what progress had been made on the vehicle. All the big mechanical components have now been replaced or reconditioned, and the engine is due to go back in on Monday, with the team hoping to complete all the work by Friday of next week.

Below are some pictures of some of the new components. Firstly, you can see the new shock absorbers and 2-leaf parabolic springs. The parabolic springs will provide a smoother ride (often important in an ambulance) and aren't prone to rusting in the same was as the original leaf springs.

This next picture shows one of the freewheel hubs that Matt suggested we fit. He explained that without freewheel hubs when the vehicle is in two-wheel-drive, the front wheels also spin the half shafts and the whole front of the drive-train, which adds resistance and unnecessary wear and tear to the components. By installing freewheel hubs, the front wheels can be disengaged from the front drivetrain when in two-wheel-drive mode and thus reduce this wear and tear. This also results in better fuel economy which will not only reduce the cost and impact of our drive to Mongolia, but also the cost and impact of operating the vehicle once in Mongolia. Nice!

Finally, here is a snap of one of the new seats (in the foreground) with an old seat in the background.

Stuff we need

2009-06-17T21:36:26.968Z

The progress we have made since we first embarked upon this project has been truly amazing. We've had so many generous donations of time, money and goods and have achieved far more already than we ever even conceived of at the start. Our "stuff we need" list is now down to just a few items. Firstly, thanks to everyone that has helped us get this far; and secondly, please take a look at the few remaining items we're seeking and if you can think of anyway to help us obtain them, please do let us know.

Royal Military Police Malaya Veterans

2009-06-17T20:18:33.437Z

My Dad served in the Royal Military Police (RMP) for 22 years, seeing service in British Honduras, Paris, Singapore, Malaya, Germany, Northern Ireland, and England. He recently attended a reunion of the RMP Malaya Veterans near Walsall and went about raising funds for my trip with his usual vehemence. I'd like to thank everyone that contributed, and particularly Tony Bowdler for donating half of all the raffle proceeds. I think our number definitely came up!

Wipes

2009-06-17T11:56:45.792Z

My mum has donated a packet of baby wipes which she got free from Lidl using a coupon that she cut out of the newspaper.

A little luxury

2009-06-17T11:53:20.882Z

OK, so this is definitely a "non-essential", but I just bought a cup holder for the Land Rover. Nice!

New route

2009-06-15T19:13:05.223Z

After much deliberation and soul searching Ajay and I have decided to take a much shorter route than originally planned. This is due to various reasons including difficulties securing the Iranian visa, and grossly under-estimating the time it would take to complete the southern route! We're now taking the most direct route through eastern Europe and then Russia. This will mean we'll use far less fuel, generate less carbon, and have more time to interact with the people along the way and also when we arrive in Mongolia and hand over the vehicle. Overall we're happier with this solution and glad to finally have the route resolved. You can see the details on our route page.

Introducing Wurzel

2009-06-05T19:53:59.437Z

When I first registered our ambulance I received the V5C registration document just a few days after the final DVLA inspection. I quickly scanned through it to check the registration number and address details etc, and then filed it away. However a few days later I received another V5C. The details on this new one looked identical, so I put it down to some administrative error and filed it away with the original. Well, I just had to upload a copy of the registration document so that it can be pre-approved for import into Mongolia and finally spotted the difference between the two. On the second certificate I was sent, the Body Type of the vehicle was correctly shown as "Van". However, check what they classed the vehicle as on the first certificate they sent me:

Well I know Land Rovers are essentially agricultural vehicles, and I've heard of them being affectionately referred to as tractors before, but I think this is taking it a bit too far. However, it did give me a great idea for the name of the vehicle and a theme tune for our trip.

Henceforth, our Land Rover ambulance shall be known as Wurzel

And this is our theme tune:

Jabs

2009-06-10T08:23:34.443Z

Last week I had my third Hep-B injection (the last before we leave for Mongolia), which gave me a huge bruise, and yesterday I had the first of two tick-borne encephalitis jabs. I also picked up my cholera doses, to be taken orally, and arranged to collect two emergency rabies vaccinations which we'll take with us for self-administration in the event of being bitten while on the trip.

More info on the medical kit

2009-06-09T14:41:55.316Z

I spoke to Becs and David at the medical charity this morning and they confirmed that they'll be donating the following kit with which to outfit the ambulance:

Stretcher

Comprehensive first-aid kit

Canulars/IV bags, needles, sutures, etc

Heart rate and blood pressure monitor

Minor operation tools

Sterilizer

Breathing apparatus and oxygen tanks

Defibrillator

They are extremely busy and are still working on preparing a couple of containers bound for Africa, but David thinks he'll be able to get my kit together ready for collection in the last week of June.

Engine number

2009-06-09T14:14:30.002Z

I finally have the engine number for the vehicle: 95117307C.