Bolt on tat, and why its all pointless.

Bolt on tat is funny stuff.

Go to any major Landrover event, and the vast majority of stands will be pushing bits and pieces that can loosely be described as Bolt on Bling, in the name of offroad protection. Things like diff guards, trackrod guards, sump guards, rocksiders, fuel tank guards...

Now, I have never fitted any such Bling to Bitsa, partly because it looks gay, and mostly cos I'm really tight. But, prompted by a post over on the Series 2 Club forum, I fell to museing about what good all this gadgetry might have done me.

Those who know Bitsa well may be aware that she has a few dents (actually, make that a lot). I don't think there is a straight panel on there to be honest, and I can't say the fact bothers me much. Even worse is the state of the chassis - it has dents in the main rails, damage to gearbox cross-member, a simply huge dent in the bellhousing crossmember, another ding in the centre of the rear cross-member. The dents are not all new and novel, but are the product of a load of greenlaning, with the odd bit of use round farms and playdays thrown in. The funny thing is, that all this not withstanding, I've yet to damage a single thing there is a guard commercially available for.

If I've never bent a steering rod, never dented a diff, nor punched a hole in my sump, what exactly am I doing wrong? I'll go in for almost any loony driving, bar mud runs (only because I can't be bothered cleaning up afterwards, and because I don't like wet feet), but I still keep failing to break the "approved" of items to break. This prompts me to suspect that bolt on tat is, well just that - tat, and it is sold to enrich the seller, rather than for any practical purpose. Still doesn't stop people who only do road mileage buying this sort of tat, and bolting it to their motor's mind you.

Oh well I suppose, after all, news has come in that the Pope's apparently a Catholic.

P.s. new chassis next year, and with 2" lift, plus that lift from the 9.00's that come with it, and its going to take some serious rocks to knock holes in my new chassis...