Hi All
I am planning to build a Jungle Safari vehicle for game viewing in the forests of Tadoba in central India. I already have 2 gypsies for the same purpose but feel that i need another vehicle to address some of the shortcomings of the Gypsy.
This thread is being started to be a repository of ideas for this project.
Thinking aloud, my requirements of this vehicle is as follows :
1] It should be Larger than a gypsy - should be able to seat 6 to 9 wildlife photographers comfortably at the rear apart from the driver and the navigator.
2] More comfortable than a gypsy in terms of suspension - the vehicle should be comfortable for high speed on road trips as well
3] Equally if not more capable as a gypsy on the jungle trails - should be a 4wd vehicle
4] Simple, not too heavy petrol or diesel engine for ease of maintenance.
There exists a vehicle which just about matches my requirements - the Tata TL 4x4 which the Taj safaris have modified to be used as safari cars
But the drawbacks of these vehicles as far as I am concerned are that they are too heavy, engine too complicated to be fixed by the local mech, the engine is too noisy, besides the fact that I dot have a budget of 7L for this project I am operating on a tight budget of 1.5 to 2L at the most considering that this is only going to be a hobby vehicle which is going to be stationed at Tadoba and will be used only when I visit there.
To address these issues I have been thinkig for sometime now to delve in this project.
To come straight to the point, i am thinking of the following lines :
Procure an old sumo with IFS , convert it to 4wd, cut away the body and fabricate a seating system similar to the ones in the photographs. Alternately I can also think about procuring a total loss sumo and use it as the base vehicle for the project.
Is there any other vehicle (available for cheap) with the similar feature sets that I want which I can use for my project ? The Tata Sierra ad the Tata estate also come to my mind apart from the Tata 207 but on reading this thread
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/commer...e-207-4x4.html I understand that 4wd conversion may be a huge pain in these vehicles. An ex army 4wd sumo would be the best but as I understand they are very rare and I have seen none come out so far in the army auctions. I would generally want to avoid ex army vehicles for this project because of the additional cost of registration of these vehicles.
Alternately is there any Mahindra vehicle with ifs and a similar engine or from any other company that I can use as the base vehicle ?
For starters I want to understand the engine systems used in the various models of the sumo over the years apart from the changes in the suspension systems that the sumo has seen over the years. Was there any particular engine that the sumo had which was light weight and less noisy ?
My mech says that the ifs of the sumo is a particularly troublesome suspension and needs more servicing than reguar - is this true ?
If I think about using only the sumo chassis with the suspension and carry out the build , which diesel or petrol engine with a appropriate gearbox with 4wd could I think of plonking in -
remember that my criteria here is slightly different than the other routine builds that happen on the forum. My criteria is a reasonably light engine capable of hauling upto 9 passegers inside the forest on dirt tracks and be capable enough to get out of tricky slushy conditions during the monsoons?
With the help of all the experts here , I envisage that my project will run in this fashion
ECR Safari Car Game Viewer and I am hopeful that the end result will be something like this.......
Notice how the Gypsy looks small as compared to all the rest all.
These are just some of the preliminary questions that come to my mind. I hope the experts will guide me through this build. Please let me know if I have been ambiguous anywhere.
regards,
Dr. Abheek Ghosh
09960332228