Vol. 6 Issue 6 Newsletter of The Southern Land Rover Society, Inc. October 2002

DON’T MISS - MID ATLANTIC RALLY IN VIRGINIA OCT 4-6 SEE WWW.ROAV.ORG FOR DETAILS

2002 Southern Appalachian Expedition a big success despite the rain - over $5,000 raised for local Habitat for Humanity Chapter

This year’s Eighth Annual Southern Appalachian Expedition was a bit damper than usual but the hardy crowd of Land Rover enthusiasts that came to the event didn’t let rain and dense fog put much of a damper on a weekend of camping out, eating under canvas and exploring the northwest corner of Georgia near Menlo for off-roading opportunities. Thanks to the hard work of some Solaros volunteers and the generous donations of a number of vendors and the participants at the event a total of over $5,000 was raised for the Chatooga County Chapter of Habitat for Humanity. Over a hundred Land Rovers of all de-

David Gage from Thatched Roof Garage does a little rock climbing with his Freelander at the SAE event

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Upcoming Land Rover Event Schedule October 4-6, Mid Atlantic Rally—Pearl’s Pond, VA see www.roav.org for details October 16, Solaros meeting @ Tony’s October 19, Trail Ride November 20, Solaros meeting @ Tony’s November 23, Trail Ride December 7, Solaros Holiday Party

Club news The SOLAROS club officers had a meeting and decided to extend the official dues collection date from August until January. When Solaros was originally founded back in August of 1995 we set the membership period from September 1 to August 31. We have decided to amend the membership period from January 1 until December 31 of each year. As a result all current members have had their member-ships extended until December 31, 2002 and anyone who has already paid for their next years membership has been extended until December 31, 2003. We will start collect-ing dues for next year at the next meeting and will have officer elections as we have previously done in January. The Roeders brought their 1971 Series IIA project truck to the September meeting on its initial road trip. It was resplendent in a fresh coat of British Racing Green paint and was in an old Land Rover’s most attractive configura-tion – topless! Jack Walter also brought a 1971 Series IIA to the meet-ing—half way under it’s own power (until it ran out of gas—hey I WAS headed for the nearest gas station) and the rest of the way behind the Range Rover on a tow bar. Steve Herrod reports on a new source for K&N air filters: Discount auto parts wanted $65.00 for the same filter he got at Performance International for $38.88. Performance International www.performanceintl.com sales@performanceintl.com 949.642.8533

Thank You to all who made the SAE a success Solaros would like to thank all of the landowners, ven-dors, volunteers and participants who contributed to the success of this year’s SAE event. We would especially like to recognize Scott Copeland, BJ Montgomery, Mike Larkin and Alan Padgett for their contributions to the success of this event. Thanks also to David Russell, Jona-thon Horrobin and his wife, Chris Schramm, Robb Sund-maker and all of the other volunteers who provided sup-port to the event. We also thank all of the vendors who generously contrib-uted parts to the charity auction and raffle at which we raised over $5,000 for the local Habitat for Humanity chapter. These vendors included Rovers North; Thatched Roof Garage, TLR, Great Basin Rovers, and BF Good-rich among many others. There are too many folks to list here in the available space so we will be sure to thank them all by name in the next issue of The Greenlaner.

Solaros to Invade Central Virginia for MAR A large contingent of Solaros Members is planning on attending the Annual Mid Atlantic Rally in Virginia over the weekend of October 4-6, 2002. This event is put on by the Rover Owners Association of Virginia and is one of the premier Land Rover related events in the United States. Ask anyone who’s been to one of these MAR rallies and you’ll generally get a faraway look and the description that you just have to go—it’s that good. Something about the ambience of this event just hits exactly the right note and the food, the Rovers, the location, and the people combine to make this one of the must do events for any Land Rover owner. It’s about an eight hour drive from North Atlanta to get to the MAR. For any Solaros members that are interested in convoying up contact Chris Schramm or Jack Walter to see who is planning on leaving when and to try to set up contact points. Some members are leaving Thursday eve-ning and staying at a motel on the way while others will plan to meet at the I-85 rest stop at Suwanee (just before the I-985 turnoff) at 5:00 AM Friday morning for the drive up. See the website: www.roav.org for more details about the event - and we need more Solaros members in the Alumi-num Man Triathlon event this year!!!!

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scriptions attended (it was hard to get an accurate count be-cause of dense fog and the way that groups of Land Rovers seemed to be coming and going to the various trails at all times). After arrival on Friday most of us set up camp and then amused ourselves either trying out one of the trail systems or wandering around and visiting with the other Land Rover owners. There were quite a few guests from other states in-cluding a group from Rovers North who had driven all the way down from Vermont. Other visitors drove up from Southern Florida including the Shapiros from Naples who had elected to stay at a local B&B the Mountain Grove Inn—probably one of the more intelligent decisions of the week-end. A very big improvement at this years event was the set of maps created by Alan Padgett that showed all of the trail

systems and some scenic drives in the surrounding areas. These were a big help and we didn’t hear any complaints about getting lost from any of the participants. Some new trails were cut in the Dirt Seller area this year and Mike Larkin had added a whole new loop to his fa-mous off road course. The new loop was reportedly much more difficult than last year’s already challenging course. Mike Pado managed to blow a seal in the steering box of his Discovery right away on the new Larkin trail putting an end to his off road adventures for the weekend. Ross Davidson was experimenting with his newly installed lockers and Great Basin axles and reports that they sure make things easy in some instances.

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We watched David Russell do an emergency master cylinder repair on his SIIA (what would a Land Rover event be without getting to watch David fix his truck?) He had driven up from Atlanta with no clutch and luck-ily both TLR and Thatched Roof had replacements with them. The threat of rain became a reality as peri-odic showers deluged the campsite and more Rovers rolled in throughout the day. After a nice dinner of tacos prepared by chef Ross Davidson we settled in for a damp night. Saturday morning dawned with a heavy fog and most of us arose late. Around mid-morning we started lining up two groups of trucks—one for a “bunny ride” down to Little River Canyon and another group for the Dirt Seller site. The Little River group got to see a demon-stration of the Freelander’s rock climbing skills cour-tesy of David Gage and ford the river twice although water levels were as low as any of us could remember. Alan Padgett led us to the overlook for the Little River Falls and then to a stop a country store/bait shack that was a learning experience for some of the more cos-mopolitan Land Rover owners. The group split after this adventure with some of us electing to go try the Dirt Seller trails and the rest either returning to camp or heading for the Larkin property. After a short back road trip (and two wrong turns) we arrived at the Dirt Seller trails where the first obstacle ( a very mild section of washed out road) proved to be too much for the Jeep that was tagging along . After a failed attempt to “conquer the terrain” the Jeep driver decided to turn around and head out. We might point out that none of the Land Rovers had the slightest bit of trouble with this “obstacle” and in fact most of them didn’t even have to think twice about it. After negotiat-ing the two steep berms of earth that are the only tricky

parts of this intermediate trail we drove up the hill and went over to the difficult section to watch John from Rovertym get his Disco up the fault line trail. After John negotiated the final climb with the aid of his winch it was time for the two Davids (Russell and Murrell) attack the trail with their Series vehicles. David R – now with operational clutch—relied on the Banzai technique to throw the truck up the hill—Scott Copeland reports that several trees are feeling the pain of what they report as something other than a gentle hug. He did clear the hill without the aid of a winch but acquired several new dents along the way—including one in his roof! David Murrell also “cleaned” the hill but used a much kinder, gentler approach sort of like the finesse shot in a game of pool rather than the let’s just bust em up and see what falls technique. Good show though for those of us lucky enough to see it.

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After this inspirational demonstration we went down to the end of the trail to run the nice tight little single track that winds up and over some steep off-camber inclines and through some very closely spaced trees. Under dry conditions this trail is easy as long as you watch your corners—with a little water thrown in the red clay be-comes rather treacherous and things become more inter-esting. Steve Herrod managed to get off line and wound up slipping backwards toward a couple of trees and a steep embankment. We backed my Range Rover back down the hill to try and tug him out with a tow strap but only succeeded in getting my quarter panel uncomfortably intimate with a nearby tree. After winching myself clear of the situation (first time I’ve ever used my winch for self recovery!) up a section of hill that I had just driven up five minutes before we then winched Steve’s truck out of trouble. IMPORTANT NOTE—be sure you know how to operate your brand new shiny hydraulic winch BEFORE you get stuck in the woods. After some time wasted reading instructions (YEAH-YEAH) we got Steve’s new winch working just as it started to rain again and got everyone else up the hill. Around the next bend was a steep embankment that dropped about 14 feet and it was pure slick Georgia Red Clay—I unsuspectingly eased over the bank and HOO-BOY—we commonly refer to what happened next as the Kentucky thrill ride—a slipping, sliding out of control, sideways, yee-hah inducing moment of pure excitement. After taking appropriate steps to warn everyone behind me and making sure MY truck was well clear of the ac-tion we all gathered round to watch the fun as one after another of us experienced the rush. Alice wisely decided to walk down that particular stretch of trail and the Rovers North guy lamented the fact that they had NOTHING this slick up where he was from. After watching several of us come down the bank pretty much sideways he decided to take a different path and tried to ease down a gentler slope between a couple of trees. After getting crossed up due to a bad approach angle it was time to break out the winch again (along with the snatch block) and get him off the hill in one piece. About this time Steve’s truck decided to cook the coil—a common problem according to the RN guy and we had to abandon the truck to get back to camp in time for dinner and the auction. This of course meant a night ride was scheduled to retrieve Steve’s stricken Rangie. Luckily the Rovers North rep had thought to bring a new coil to the SAE so once back at camp we shortly had the part we needed in hand ( of course we were already prepared to remove the coil from Pado’s Disco if need be). Dinner was great—barbecued chicken and a few sides

and the raffle and auction was a big success. Chris Schramm did his usual fine job as an auctioneer and the big item of the evening—a set of BFG all-terrain or mud terrain tires were auctioned off to Trevor Griffith for $550. Thank you Goodrich for this very exciting dona-tion and thanks to all of the other sponsors and raffle ticket buyers for your generous contributions that helped us clear over $5,000 for Habitat for Humanity. After the evening’s festivities were over it was time to go retrieve the silver Range Rover from Dirt Seller. Heavy fog had set in making it difficult to even find the exit from the camp ground and the drive down to the foot of the mountain had us straining to see the next marker dot in the roadway. The trip up to where we had left the stricken Rover passed without further incident and we were just completing the repair when we saw lights on the trail where we had experienced our little bit of difficulty earlier in the day. Thinking that this might prove entertaining we walked down to watch and offer sage advice as we watched some more victims experience the Ken-tucky thrill ride. It is even more exciting in the dark and John from Rovertym came pretty close to “having a moment”. After watching this bunch we finally made it back to camp about 1:30 AM where we climbed into our tents and listened to the rain come down all night. In other words we got wet, we had a great time, and we can’t wait to

Albert (the land owner and Habitat for Humanity representative) is shown with Solaros club President Norman Barden.

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TELLICO….. PAYING THE LATE FEE By Steve Herrod After missing a nice Friday night out at a local restaurant with friends, I finally had the Ranger Rover packed with all the camping and off road gear needed for the annual Unoffi-cial Solaros Tellico Off Road Adventure. The plan…… was for my wife (name withheld to protect the innocent/guilty) and I to get up at 5:30 Saturday morning, shower, pack personal gear, stop for ice, have breakfast while driv-ing, arrive at the State Line campsite no later than 9:00 a.m., find a camp site and set up camp, ride the trails all day with fellow Solaros members, not experience any mechanical breakdowns or body damage, have a nice cooked meal that evening, socialize and tell lies around the campfire about the days events, get plenty of rest that night and enjoy a lei-surely breakfast on Sunday before packing up and returning home. Reality….. The alarm clock went off at 5:30 as expected, but after stay-ing up late the night before, packing and watching TV, I/We just did not feel like moving that early, so what is the rush? We could still make it in plenty of time. So we hit the “snooze” button until 6:30 at which time we both got to moving. I was ready to go in 30 minutes after showering and packing my clothes for the event (one T-shirt). The wife wasn’t ready yet, so I sat down to enjoy my cup of cof-fee and to watch TV. At 8:00 “we” finished getting ready and we were off. Get-ting close to Murphy, we noticed it had rained earlier that morning and knew this would keep the trail dust down to a minimum. We arrived at the Tellico ORV sign in location at 10:30. Several vehicles with trailers had already off loaded their trail rigs and were gone. We registered and paid the $10.00 fee for the two days we would be off-roading. After a short ride down trail #1, we arrived at the State Line camp site……no one was there! Everyone had already hit the trails and was gone. We looked for a camp site to pitch the tent and set up our camp but all of the sites were taken, and we were reluctant to double up on the already taken camp sites, as in the past, the park rangers seemed to frown on this. So we decided to drive a little further and set up at the next camp site. To our surprise, that site was over grown with vegetation and in disrepair after being closed down by the park service for renovations due to “safety reasons”.

We then rode across the bridge down the dirt road to see if anyone was coming up “rock garden” on trail #2. There were several peo-ple sitting around watching about 6 jeeps lined up in the garden waiting for the lead jeep to winch himself out. These people were also from the Atlanta metro area. We watched this for a while and finally got tired of watching “jeeps” and decided to ride further down the paved road to see what else the park had to offer. There are several other large camp sites in the area that looked very nice. These areas are large enough to hold several vehicles and many people to camp as a group. We rode back to State line and ran into Adam Lyon and his delightful girlfriend Jessica, both of whom had not been there long and Steve Dempsey who had, since Wednesday night. They were about to leave to go back up the trail and retrieve Steve’s Series truck that broken down the night before; something about a failed steering linkage on one of the extreme trails. Steve warned us that we were illegally parked (2” of tire touching the pavement) and the park ranger would bust us, so we moved the rover. We discussed doubling up on the camp sites but, before we did that, decided to go find a ranger and get his thoughts about that set up. After additional travel up the paved road, without finding the ranger we thought it was time to eat lunch. We stopped at one of

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the picnic areas, registered at the sign up site, paid the $2.00 picnickers fee and set up our lunch. After a nice turkey sand-wich and some fruit, we headed back to the rock garden viewing stands, hoping to find the Rovers. No one was there so we drove further up the dirt road. Finally the road forked, and we took the rode to the right not shown on the map. Af-ter about two miles of travel not knowing where this road would take us, and not wanting to “off road” alone, we de-cided to turn around. This was about the time we felt the past weeks wear and tear on our bodies, the turkey’s tryptophan, and the day’s events said “its time to take a nap”. Fighting back that sleepy time feeling, we headed back down trail #1, turned on to trail #5 and drove to the creek crossing. About that time several heavily modified domestic trucks showed up so we left. We crossed the bridge and headed out on trail #1 while fighting off the urge to pull over for a snooze. It was now about 3:30 pm, so we decided not to set up a camp but to leave the ORV area and head back home. Even though we never saw any of the other Solaros members, I still enjoyed riding around the park and seeing the sights with my wife. We did find some nice camp sites other than the State Line site, we found a good place to fish for trout, and we did get to ride trail #1 and parts of trail 2 and 5. All those trails were driven without use of any recovery equip-ment or receiving any body damage. So you see, stock trucks can ride Tellico but you need to avoid the “late fee”. Late fee total: $40.00 food/supplies $25.00 gas $10.00 ORV registration fee $2.00 picnicker’s fee No camping No camaraderie Ron Ward sent these pictures from the Tellico trail

ride to show what Steve Herrod was missing. These shots are from the spot on Upper Trail two where there is a five foot high rock ledge that initi-ated Chris Schramm’s Series II Disco into the won-derful world of body damage and let us all see how high his voice could go—he’s better now...

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AD-VICE FROM A

NO-VICE (THINGS I HAVE SEEN OR LEARNED IN MY

SHORT TIME OF OFF ROADING)

1. YOU KNOW THE LOAD LIMITS OF YOUR

WINCH, BUT DO YOU KNOW THE LIMITS OF YOUR TREE TRUCK PROTECTOR, D-SHACKLE, RECOVERY STRAP OR BUMPER MOUNTS? MAKE SURE ALL OF YOUR RE-COVERY EQUIPMENT IS COMPATIBLE.

2. WHEN USING THE D-SHACKLE, MAKE SURE

YOU DO NOT OVER TIGHTEN THE PIN; TIGHTEN THE PIN AND THEN LOOSEN IT ½ TURN. MOVEMENT OF THE SHACKLE DUR-ING USE CAN ACTUALLY OVER TIGHTEN THE PIN MAKING IT VERY DIFFICULT TO RE-MOVE THE PIN.

3. IF YOU HAVE TO USE TWO RECOVERY

STRAPS TOGETHER FOR INCREASED LENGTH, PLACE A STICK BETWEEN THE KNOTS YOU TIE IN THE STRAPS. THIS WILL KEEP THE STRAPS FROM TIGHTEN-ING THE KNOTS SO MUCH THAT YOU CAN NOT LOOSEN THE STRAPS LATER.

4. USING A SNATCH BLOCK TO DOUBLE LINE

A WINCH PULL WILL ALMOST DOUBLE THE PULLING POWER OF YOUR WINCH BUT IT WILL ALSO INCREASE THE LOAD ON YOUR RECOVERY EQUIPMENT, MOUNTS AND CHASSIS. WILL YOUR EQUIPMENT ENDURE THIS?

5. WHEN USING YOUR WINCH: DO NOT DRIVE

YOUR LANDROVER TO ASSIST A WINCH PULL; LET THE WINCH DO ITS JOB. VEHI-CLE MOVEMENT IN COMBINATION WITH WINCH OPERATION MAY CAUSE SHOCK LOADS TO THE CABLE WHICH MAY OVER-LOAD THE CABLE OR WINCH.

5. MAKE SURE YOU ARE FAMILIAR WITH THE

PROPER OPERATION OF YOUR WINCH BE-FORE YOU HAVE TO USE IT FOR A CRITI-CAL OPERATION. PRACTICE WITH IT BE-FORE GOING OFF ROAD SO THAT YOU KNOW HOW EVERYTHING WORKS AND WHICH LEVER TO THROW.

The Roeder family project 1971 Series IIA—running again after almost twenty years of being parked. Jack Walter saved this one from a field in Hampton, GA back in 1987 and passed it on to Mike Pado in 1994. The Roeders have worked for the past year to get it going again. Good going guys!

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ENGLISH - SWEDISH SPARES 345 Branch Drive Alpharetta, GA 30004

Largest collection of recycled Saab, Volvo, Jaguar and Land Rover Parts in the Southeast. Just off Mcfarland Road 1 mile west of GA 400. Toll Free 1-800-241-1916 Local 770-475-2662 Fax 770-475-2663

Land Rovers and Parts For Sale Because of an almost total lack of use I have decided to sell my ambulance. Series IIA Ambulance registered as '72, less than 27,000 miles with less than 1500 miles on the engine, record of all service since new, new tires, coil, fuel pump, recent service, $6900, 770-466-6514. George Rosselle Spoke to the guy who bought Nell (Series IIA) from Tom over a year ago. She's for sale $3200 obo. I have the truck here and can give a complete run down on what she still needs. Can put a battery in and fire her up if need be. Cheers!! John Dillingham 770-345-3516

Range Rover Classic Parts for Sale: Borg Warner T-Box for Range Rover Classic, 3.9 liter engine, 1 set - 3spoke Rover wheels,1990 Range Rover roof w/ sunroof, Rear Hatch - Range Rover Classic, RR Classic steering pump, RR Classic distributor, Front Cover/Oil Pump 4.0 liter, Differentials, CD Players, Plastic Bug Shield for bonnet, Also parting out 1990 Range Rover interior – grey, as well as lots of other items - PRICES ARE NEGOTIABLE!! Contact: MARK PRAZEN 770-490-3556

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Now featuring a full 5-bay service department With factory trained mechanics

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For Sale:all items are stock parts removed from 88 Range Rover Classic: rear bottom links (1 pair) $20.00 plastic sill protectors (1 pair) $15.00 tract and cross rod set $25.00 front bumper w/ brush guard $25.00 front bumper end caps (r/l) $20.00 rear bumper $15.00 rear bumper end caps (r/l) $20.00 235/85/16 bfg trac edge spare tire $5.00 205/16 michelin spare tires $free rear cargo area cover (gray) $15.00 rear cargo area spare tire cover (gray) $15.00 contact: Steve Herrod @ 770-928-3307

1971 Series IIA - 88” Station Wagon, Poppy Red (faded), limestone roof, 47,000 miles from new—documented by original owner who bought it new in California. This truck sat for 18 years in dry storage and is remarkably original. Land Rover has all new brakes; master cylinder, wheel cylinders, shoes and brake lines. New shocks, tires rear check straps and exhaust system installed along with new seals in front and rear differentials and gearbox. Swivel balls and springs have been replaced and clutch master and slave cylinders rebuilt. The interior is all original and looks new. Included is the original owners manuals, tool roll, jack, logbook, even the tag that shows which boat it came over from England on! Frame is solid with exception of rear cross member which will have to be replaced at some time in the future. This is a very nice original Land Rover—asking $8,200. 770-641-0147 Jack Walter

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THE GREENLANER Southern Land Rover Society 1325 North Point Way Roswell, Ga 30075-4135

Inside This Issue: SAE 2002 More Tellico Mid Atlantic Preview Novice Advice for winching

MEMBERSHIP RATE SCHEDULE Annual membership $40/year Now runs January 1 to December 31 Membership includes a subscription to The Greenlaner and a SOLAROS club decal for your Land Rover and membership in the Southern FWD Association. Additional decals are available for $3 each or 2/$5 Advertising rates for the Greenlaner: Business Card $45/year 1/4 Page $95/year 1/2 Page $200/year Full Page $395/year Libby Gallagher is the Membership Chairman. Please send all of your renewals and new membership enquiries to: 1758 Tappahannock Trail, Marietta, GA 30062 e-mail: solaros4fun@mindspring.com

Solaros can be found on the net at: http//www.solaros.com

Please send all stories, ads, pictures and other submissions for the Greenlaner to Jack Walter at the following address: solaros1@att.net