It was sometime around 2009 that my wife decided not to attend anymore OTRs in our CJ340. There were couple of reasons. The first, effect of dust, heat and wind on her hair & skin tone. After travelling 1000kms in just two days in the Jeep (Munnar OTR event), she needed a long spa therapy. The second, inability to take our two kids on OTRs. After our younger kid was diagnosed with autism, she didn’t want to leave the kid behind while attending OTRs. Some might remember that we brought the kid to Munnar along with my parents in a second vehicle. That is not something one can do often, so I needed a better solution.
Thus began my long quest for a family friendly offroader. I think I can safely take credit for coining the term family friendly offroader on Team-BHP, although that term came under attack early on by hardcore Jeepers. But that idea of luxury hating Jeeper has changed over years. Now we have Jeeps (Thar) that come with factory fitted AC. Multiple vendors are offering aftermarket hardtop for Jeeps.
After Thar CDRe came out, I came close to buying it many times. But every time I stopped short because it didn’t address my biggest needs, AC and hardtop. I had mentioned it way back in 2009 in the Thar wishlist:
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/4x4-ve...ml#post1523169
Then the wait for aftermarket hardtop began, while my family circumstances were changing very fast. My family had to move to Bangalore for my son’s therapy, and I started travelling between Manipal and Bangalore every two weeks to balance my work and family life. The expenses skyrocketed and I no more had the luxury to consider a Thar DI, left alone CDRe. And I continued to eat dust and fight the elements in the CJ340 year after year.
By mid 2011, I started considering MM550 as my next vehicle, anything else was outside the budget. But my wife put a condition that I should sell the CJ340 before purchasing the MM550. That put a big damper on the swap process, what if I sell the CJ340 quickly and then can't get a MM550 for a long time? I didn’t want to be stuck without a Jeep during the 2011 monsoon.
Meanwhile, I saw a hardtop MM550 on sale. It was quite an unique vehicle, with aluminium hardtop, toyota engine/GB, and lot more goodies. It belonged to a TBHP friend (4x4addict aka Tini Korah) and at a very decent price. Then the weight and complexity of the mods made me back off from that. But Tini wanted to help me out, so he had one more suggestion. He was getting a Roplas Hardtop MM550 restored at his cousin Vivek Kuriakosse (BHPian Papaboost). But he was in two minds about it since he was considering a brand new Thar DI. So he told me that I can have the option of buying that MM550 if he goes with Thar DI. He sent me a photograph, after one look at the white hardtop, my wife rejected it. And that was that. Later Tini went ahead and bought the Thar DI and I didn’t check on the MM550 any further.
So another year passed by without any change in status. Around that time, Sreeraj Unnithan tries to sell his excellent MM550 for a very low price and I can only watch it in silence. When there were no takers, a stunned Sreeraj takes it back from the market. That puts further damper on my spirit. I mean what kind of sale price can I expect for my CJ340, if a well kept MM550 doesn’t sell at that low price.
However, there was one change in my CJ340. It had become so reliable, I didn’t have a single problem or even a niggle in 2012. For example, I started the CJ340 this week after 3 months. It started at first crank.
Anyway, back to the main story. In August we had a small OTR at Kodachadri. And my wife’s cousin was my passenger on the first day. On the second day, he quietly shifted to my offroad teammate Sachin’s MM550 and enjoyed the rest of the OTR and return trip in AC luxury. Meanwhile I was subjected to rain, dust, rain, dust and did I mention rain? At the end the trip, Sachin gave me a sensible advice. Buy the MM550 first, shift the tyres, alloys and winch from the CJ340, and then put the CJ340 on sale in peace. So the hunt for MM550 re-started in earnest. Preferably, I wanted to buy from Jeepers I know, rather than strangers. Lot can be wrong when it comes to Jeeps. Since the Jeep prices have shot up, every beat-up Jeep gets a skin level makeover and is put on sale for crazy prices. This time I wanted to be very careful.
My first call was to Sreeraj, to see whether he will reconsider selling MM550. He didn’t, but he promised to keep an eye out. True to his word, he called me couple weeks later saying there is a MM550 on sale with our common friend Vivek Kuriakosse. So I call up Vivek and got a photograph emailed to me. Then it dawned on me that it is the same MM550 that was suggested to me last year. After the completion of build somewhere in March, it was sitting idle without a buyer. But the hardtop was now black, so I made a visit to Vivek’s workshop next week with full family.
This is what we saw:
It was a very cleanly done up MM550, and the black hardtop had changed it’s character. Knowing Vivek’s attention to detail in his restorations, I knew the quality was not just skin deep. The XD3P engine sounded very smooth to my not-so-expert ears. All doors were lockable. The only thing I hated was the 5-speed BA-10 gearbox with linkage, that felt extremely unpredictable. So I took a lot of photographs, spoke for hours about other options. Vivek showed me various Army NGCS MM550 under restoration at different stages. Those wide track OKBJ axles, oil cooled engines, NGCS chassis, etc., had me drooling, but I quickly came back to reality. Those variants were quite outside my current budget.
After coming home I uploaded the pics to the hosting site and asked Sachin to go over them. After careful perusal and long discussion, he gave a grudging approval. And we both agreed that the BA-10 gotta go. So I informed Vivek that If I can get this Jeep with KMT90, I will buy it. Since BA-10 is a 5-speed gearbox, it shouldn’t be too difficult to find a swap. And it wasn’t, Vivek found a barter in 30 minutes. BHPian prabhuav (Vijayananda Prabhu) gladly took the BA-10 off my hand and gave me a KMT90. Then there was a long list of additional things I wanted, and Vivek happily obliged.
Some major items I wanted:
1) This MM550 had drum brakes, but disc brakes were high on my list. Fortunately, the Jeep did have brake booster and hanging pedals. Converting from that to disc brakes was a matter of changing to new knuckles, rotors, calipers & brake pads. That we found out after one call to Arka.
2) Seat belts.
3) 12V power outlet.
4) Swastik Fabs brand front bumper with mounted with for my Ramsey winch.
5) Swastik Fabs brand rear bumper with swing away tyre carrier and hi-lift jack mount.
6) FC renewal and paperwork.
7) The current tyres were really bad, so I needed serviceable tyres that can take me to Manipal safely.
About 70 days later, I was able to take delivery of the Jeep. It could have been faster, but I did a US visit in between and my constant travel between Manipal & Bangalore messed with the schedule.
The last item in the list was a big problem. It is almost impossible to get decent used tyre that fits a Jeep. So I had to look at other options. My Grand Vitara had 16 inch tyres (Michelin LTX AT2 235/70R16) that had completed 40,000 kms, and still had about 5000 kms of life left in them. So I bought new tyres for the GV, and gave the Michelins to Vivek for mounting on the steel rims. I also bought 5 brand new tyre tubes to go with it. After Yeti’s tragedy, there was no point in taking risks with the tyres.