Bone Machine

Originally Published: February 2014 Words: Paul Looe Pictures: Harry Hamm

The front axle started life on a 110, which isn’t a bad start. Not that Ian was content to leave it at that. Inside, a Detroit Truetrac diff turns hardened halfshafts from Ashcroft, while bolted to the ends are enlarged calipers to keep three feet’s worth of Sirocco from getting unruly

Very fine things you see here include the unmistakable sight of a Gwyn Lewis front dislocation cone and the leading edge of a Qt hockey stick. The truck sits on +2” coils, with +5” shocks allowing plenty of extra travel

Resplendent beneath the rear tray and winch mount is the back axle from a TD5. Like its counterpart up front, it’s running hardened halfshafts, though in this case they’re turned by an ARB Air-Locker

Same as at the front, dislocation is handled by cones from Gwyn Lewis. Again, +5” shocks and +2” medium springs take care of holding the vehicle up

You weren’t expecting to see a pair of namby-pamby trailing arms here, were you? Sure enough, these mighty great HD beasts, which are also cranked for more droop, come from Qt (as does the diff guard wrapped around the back axle). Between them, the axle pivots about a standard A-frame

If your truck’s engine does all you need it to, why on earth would you want to mod it? Ian’s steered clear of building any unnecessary unreliability into his 300Tdi unit by keeping it as good as standard, with just a tweak on the fuel pump to liven it up

The engine might be near-standard, but not everything under the bonnet is that way. What you’re looking at here is a 100W alternator, which couples up to twin Optimas and an X-Eng split-charge set-up to juice the winches for full-on comp use

Ian describes the cage as ‘just generally a giant kids’ climbing frame.’ It’s anchored to the chassis throughout and provides a basis for the whole of the body – not one bit of which is left unprotected by some sort of tube

It’s not so much a trayback as a frameback, this. A few bits of chequer plate and a waffle mount are all very well, but you won’t see any surplus metal however hard you look

The exo structure includes custom tubular wings which tie in to the cage and winch bumper and, skinned out in chequer plate, provide a brutal level of massive strength for those comings-together with trees

‘Pretty’ isn’t a word you often hear people using about challenge trucks. And you won’t hear it being used about Ian’s rock sliders, which he fabbed from sections of box and used as a mount for the rear hoop of a full exo cage

The rock sliders might have the sort of looks that make little girls cry, but the fuel tank guard tucked just inboard of the nearside one is as neat a bit of work as you’ll see under a competition Land Rover

Sumo bars and a heavy-duty panhard rod lurk behind a steel guard that’s built in to the winch bumper. Ian could probably run his winch rope round a snatch block, hook it on to one of these things and lift himself right off the ground without it showing any sign of bending

It’s not what you see on the loadsamoney challenge trucks, but Ian’s custom front winch tray is home to a 7.5-ton Goldfish. This runs a Bowmotor 2 and winds 38 metres of rope on to a reduced-diameter drum

It takes a bit of getting your head around this picture, until you realise that that’s the A-frame mount on the back axle just ahead of the winch. Ian bobtailed the back of the chassis and replaced the rear crossmember with the steel tray the winch (a 4-tonne Goldfish running a Bowmotor 1 and 30 metres of rope on a reduced drum) lives in

Ian Hitchen’s Land Rover looks tough, but it’s not what you’d call pretty. These days, though, it’s a lot nicer than it used to be. That’s because it spent some time in the hands of someone who collected dog bones – meaning that when it came to be sold on, it was crawling with maggots. How delightful…

You hear all sorts of stories about the state old Land Rovers get into. But few people can hold a candle to the horrors that befell Ian Hitchen’s 90 in the days before he turned it into the hardcore off-roader it is today.

Many familiar boxes are ticked in Ian’s story. Police auction? Oh dear, yes. Unfinished project? Yes, that too. Massive infestation of flies and maggots? You what…?

Let’s go back two years to when Ian bought the vehicle. ‘I bought it off a lad as an unfinished project. He had bought it from a police auction.’

Here’s where it gets haggard. The cops had recovered the 90, which happens – but when they did, it was full of dog bones. Picture it if you dare. ‘When he got it,’ says Ian, ‘all the interior had been eaten by flies and maggots. So, not a nice life for her.’

Indeed not. And things have become no less testing since then for an old Landy, albeit a whole lot more dignified. ‘From me getting it,’ says Ian, ‘I have fitted the lockers, built the winch trays, strengthened all the cage and basically made it the monster it is today for myself and my two sons.’

It’s no surprise to anyone who knows him that Ian built the vehicle the way he did. Though you might raise an eyebrow at the amount of time it’s taken him to turn his attention to the winching scene.

‘I’ve generally been into Land Rovers since I was a child,’ he says. ‘My dad bought me and my brother our first Lightweight, a 2.25 petrol, when I was 12, and since then I’ve never looked back. I’ve had Series II, Series IIA, numerous series IIIs, 90s, a Range Rover Classic – and Suzukis, too. I’ve always been off-roading, but only recently got into winch challenging.’

Having decided to see what all the fuss is about, Ian has quickly become part of the inner circle of Trans Pennine Off Road Club’s challenge faction. They’re a good bunch of lads whose motors are all about honest hard work rather than just spending huge wads of cash on the latest kit, and Ian’s 90 is typical of the trucks they run.

Of course matey with the maggot problem had already done some of the work before losing his appetite for the job, so what Ian took on from him was much more (or less, if that’s the way you see it) than a standard 90 waiting to be built. It already had a cage and some handy suspension, which takes some of the hardest graft and biggest spending out of the equation, and just as importantly it had been left well alone in areas where trying to make sense of someone else’s mods can leave you in tears. The 300Tdi engine, for example, was unmolested, as was the rest of the drivetrain, though the axles are a 110 unit up front and a TD5 job at the back.

Which brings us up to the point mentioned above, when Ian rolled up his sleeves and started finishing off what someone else had begun. Finishing it off and improving it, too, with the roll cage and its chassis mounts beefed up to give him the sort of peace of mind you want. Ian has a cheerfully gung-ho driving style but, in keeping with most people you come across who’ll happily give it death off-road, they’re only like that because of the diligence they’ve put in back in the workshop.

He’s more than a welder-upper, too, having installed a Detroit Truetrac and ARB Air-Locker in the front and rear axles respectively. We know people who basically do everything themselves but draw the line at tussling with that job, so fair play to him for not being daunted.

And then, of course, he installed a pair of winches. You don’t have to go far in the challenge world to come against someone who’s spend more on one winch than you did on your entire car, but you won’t see any twin-tops here – just a good, honest 7.5-ton Goldfish with a Bowmotor 2 and narrower drum.

How many off-roaders would at this point talk about how they’d like to be able to afford something cooler one day? Not Ian. ‘The big winch on the front will pull a house down,’ he says. ‘It’s just not the fastest of winches. But in general it all works pretty well together.’

So much so, in fact, that there’s not a lot about it that Ian would change. Is there anything he’d do differently given his time again, we ask. ‘Got a cheaper hobby’ is the unequivocal reply.

This is motorsport in the real world, where success means knowing what you need to do to have fun rather than dreaming about how you might be able to turn your truck into something which, deep down, you know it’s not. Ian might not be able to winch as fast as someone with a GP or Hornet, but he’ll try pretty much anything in the truck he’s built – and at the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about.

GWYN LEWIS SUSPENSION, QT TRAILING ARMS, 90, DEFENDER, ARB AIR-LOCKERS, FEDIMA SIROCCOS, QT RADIUS ARMS, DIY ROLL CAGE, BOWMOTOR 2, ASHCROFT HALFSHAFTS, DETROIT TRUETRAC DIFF, X-ENG SPLIT CHARGE, GOLDFISH WINCH