While Kenya continues its ‘lockdown’ life at the camp continues too. The term ‘lockdown’ is actually the wrong term for what is happening in Kenya. Because most lower income families live in very small abodes and these one or two room buildings are often shared with the whole family (in the Maasai community on our Northern boarder there are as many as eight individuals in each 3x3m room) it means that the government has not been able to lock the country down. Kenya is dealing with COVID-19 by limiting movement between large cities and hot spots (such as the coast where Kenya’s first cases were recorded from tourists here on holiday) are barricaded in. It means no movement anywhere, for anyone. This seems to be working well as cases are only creeping up very slowly.

We are keeping ourselves busy getting the camp into good condition awaiting the time guests can return. One of the projects I have been working on is converting a 1957 Series one land rover into a more useful tool around the camp and the conservancy.

With only a skeleton staff still on the ranch our usual deliveries of water have literally dried up. The tractor drivers are only doing essential trips across the conservancy (Lolldaiga Hills is a working farm too) and we are not quite essential enough! With this in mind we had to find a solution for transporting clean water from the nearest borehole (well) back to the camp.

After looking into a number of options the most practical, affordable and fun option was to remove the rear tub from one of my Series I’s and build a simple, cheap but practical tray back that can be used for transporting a 1000L tank of water to fill our main tanks. In the future I hope it can also be used to move camping equipment around and also as a serving surface for bush lunches and breakfasts.

The car with the back tub still in place

I set myself the target of spending no more than 15,000/- or about 100GBP on the fabrication of the new tray back. I decided to use treated cypress pine as its affordable, easy to find and relativity hard wearing. I bought about 7 meters of angle line bar, 6 meters of 3x2 tube (I already had some laying around so this was free) and 4 meters of flat bar. I also bought about 80 feet of 6x2 cypress wood.

Some of the cypress pine being measured for the tray

We started by removing the tube, which was surpisingly easy since most of the bolts are likely to be 60 years old or more. Once the tub was off I dropped the wood off with the carpenter to plane them so we had a good fit, without too many gaps, and the got measuring with the box section and angle line bar to make the frame and support for the car.

This was never going to be a very neat job but something cheap and practicle with what we had laying around. I felt much happier about this approach when we studied the chasis - it seemed I was just one member of a long line of owners of this Series I who had taken the same relaxed attitude to repair work as there was a number of ‘bodge jobs’ of welding across the chassis. Having said this, the chassis was solid and without rust.

I was quite worried that my left over box wasn’t of a strong enough gauge so ended up reinforcing all of the box sections with vertical angle line car welds too. The frame for the wood was quickly knocked up and 10mm wood screws used to connect the metal frame to the wood itself with two lines of metal bar underneath keeping it all tight and inline.

Working on the wood before we hammered it into the metal frame we welded.

Next we treated the wood with a good outdoor deck sealent and screwed it all together.

Back at camp and the tray is ready for a test run.

After what had been a long day to get where we needed to be we decided to take the truck for a quick sunset run in the conservancy, I think she is looking great.

Since finishing the tray I have decided there are a number of modifications I need to make. First of all the clearance is not good enough under load. I transported about 500kgs of water in one of our PVC tanks and the tray was touching the top of my tires. I also need to make some strong tie down points for securing the loads. I have ordered 7 meters of 3 x 3 heavy gauge box section and will use this to raise the whole tray up so that I can transport my 1000L water tank without all the scrubbing.

Thanks for reading - let me know what you think of my project in the comments below. Keep safe and look forward to spending some time under the bonnet with you all here in Kenya soon.

Ed