Hi also from Uganda

[Colin Davidson]

Hi,

My name is Colin, also from Uganda. I live in the capital city, Kampala, very close to Lake Victoria and I own 3 different Landrover models. My main run around is a 1993 200Tdi Discovery which I use every day and is in quite good condition, just needs the Air Conditioning sorting out and some bodywork issues rectifying....leaks through the windscreen seal and door seals etc!! I also have a Defender 110 200Tdi which is currently going through an engine overhaul, having covered over 300,000 kms out here without the engine ever being opened. This was owned by a car hire company and so has had a very hard life, it's been rolled twice and the gearbox has been rebuilt as well, but when the engine is done, it will be a superb safari vehicle. My 3rd Landrover is a 1979 2Door 3.5 Range Rover Classic which is waiting to be converted to LH Drive for driver training for a 4WD Driver Training School just outside Kampala.
I used to run a company called Rhino 4X4 Services which caried out repairs and maintenance on 4WD's, mainly Landrover, but also Japanese models as well....they have simply taken over the market in this part of the world unfortunately. However, I am now setting up a new company to sell Landrover spare parts in both Uganda and hopefully Southern Sudan which is now opening up. The repair business is over saturated with "Jua Kali" (Hot Sun) operators who do a job at less than half the cost of everyone else!!
I look forward to hearing from your forum members, particularly members who have passed through this part of the world!!

[AJC]

Hi and welcome.

Aj

[Marc Lurie]

Hi Colin, and welcome to the forum.

You may remember me from 2001 when I was working in Uganda and living in Bugoloobi for a few months. I drove up from SA in a 200Tdi with reg. 200TdiGP. You did the head for me at one stage.

I was last in Uganda in January/February 2002 and to be honest, I miss the place. I'd love to see how Kampala has changed in 5 years. One of my clients is Mohammed Alibhai from Tight Security and he's out here every now and then. He tells me that Kampala has grown and changed considerably.

I also miss spending those hot, sulty evenings at Just Kicking (is it still open?) drinking beer and playing pool.

I sold the 200Tdi and bought a Td5 which I sold a year later and bought a brand new re-released 300Tdi which I'm very happy with.

Cheers,
Marc

[Dave-H]

Greetings Colin :)

[Grant L]

Welcome Colin. Did you see, in the Africa section, that somebody in Burundi is looking for information on safari modifications?

Grant

[V8_Disco]

Hi Coiln

Was it your company that modified a 2 door rangie in one of the mags a couple of years ago the name seems familiar

A

[seriesowner]

Jambo Colin, habari?

(I was born in Mbale);)

[Colin Davidson]

Marc,
I do remember doing your cylinder head on the Defender 200Tdi, I remember the Roof Tent and the Winch Hubs on the rear wheels, and I've just looked up the record of the work done....still have my files from the Rhino 4X4 days!! Rhino 4X4 fell by the wayside due to political interference from a very powerful individual who wanted the land I'd just moved onto, this happened just over 2 years ago and the case has been in court since then, no judge has the courage to take the case on, so it is postponed each and every time it comes up!! Kampala has changed enormously since you were hear, not all of it good.....roads falling apart and power available about 50 to 60% of the time. But, JK's still very much alive, will be very busy over the Rugby World Cup and just around the corner, an excellent Irish Bar...Bubbles O'Leary's!! I now live just past Tank Hill on the Ggaba side of town, so spend most of my time at Cafe Roma, the Italian place on Tank Hill, good cheap food!!
Grant,
Thanks for telling me about this forum, I've spent quite a lot of time reading some of the threads and will be adding to them soon. I will check out the Burundi contact as I have a very good friend who has just moved from here to Bujumbura, and I intend to go down there with Chris More in the not too distant future.
The V8 Rangie was done by a guy called Shane who runs his own work shop called Shane's Auto Service (SAS), it is still running around Kampala and takes kids to the same school that my kids go to....when it rains, you need a good 4WD just to get to the school, with Diff Lock working!!! The other Landie workshop here is run by a very good friend called Chris More, The 4WD Service Center, and is located out on the Entebbe road near Kajjansi. We don't really mention the official Landrover dealer, they seem to have lost interest with "The Best 4 by 4 by Far"!!
Lane changing out here.....what is a lane??? Most people drive on the part of the road that is less potholed, so more often than not, you come round a corner and face to face with a truck or matatu (Toyota Van converted into 14 Seater taxi!!) and quick evasive action is required, sometimes into the nearest ditch!!! Driving out here is an experience never forgotten, and it does help if you are very aggressive and in a large 4WD!! What a pleasure it is to drive in UK with rules generally obeyed and people considerate of others!! Mbale....have you ever been back, it's also changed, much bigger, dirtier and very busy!!
Look forward to hearing from more members.

[999Ric]

Hi and welcome to the site , I'm new also.

Ric

[jwinoz]

G'day, mate!

In case you you were wondering, I'm from Australia. I haven't really been onto the world wide web that much, but I have recently been discovering what a great Land Rover fraternity there is online.

I've been a Land Rover owner here in Oz since 1990; I started out with a 1974 109" Stwgn, which I rebuilt for trailing, complete with high speed xfer case and diff lock and a 200 TDi conversion; it never got stuck, despite being up to its eyeballs in mud. But then eventually I sold the Series III to someone who just couldn't live without it, and wouldn't take 'no' for an answer. So while I asked a very high price to deter the buyer, they went with the asked price, so I decided that it was a great experience bringing the old girl through and thought too that it was time for a new challenge.
I decided to move up a bit at the same time, so I bought a 1998 Defender 300 TDi with the proceeds from the Series III sale. This Defender has already been across Australia once, and was reasonably vanilla when it came to me.
Now, I'm working on a few tweaks and I want to take the Defender back out there when I get the tweaks up and running - up into the Northern Territory next time I get some time off from work. Already have added MaxiDrive to this beast, and am making a set of sidesteps that are combined sliders and are jackable, yet a bit more compact than the commercial ones.

I work with a great set of Land Rover mechos here which are a ways outside/west of Sydney. It's a mob called Land Vehicle Spares. (http://www.landvehiclespares.com/)
Their head mechanic used to work in Kenya, a bloke named George Horau. He's a magician with everything that has the green and gold badge, and helps me heaps when I'm scratching my head, especially during encounters with Lucas, the Dark Lord. :rolleyes:

Hey Colin, I was noticing in your post that you are Land Rovering in parts of Uganda and have had some contact with various vehicles about the place.

I know that it's a long shot, but I was wondering if you could perhaps hook up a friend of mine that is working in country; he's working to address the orphan problem that is at epidemic level in Uganda (2 million orphans there currently, out of a population total of 27 million - yikes). This man is a national Ugandan, and is a church minister, who is also in partnership with CNEC Partners International as part of the orphan effort.

This mate of mine that is working in Uganda was here in Sydney recently for a quick visit, he saw my Defender, and fell in love with it right away. He said that the most dire need that he has in getting his work with the orphans over the hump and rolling (so to speak) is that he needs to get onto a reasonable 4wd; if it's a Land Rover, so much the better, I suspect. But I don't think that he would be as picky as I would be, as he's just needing to get about to work with the orphans.

But the reason that I mention the CNEC connection with this work is that donations to their work with the nationals in Uganda would be in many countries tax-deductible, so perhaps it would be more attractive to locate a vehicle, price it out at a certain worth, give it to my mate to use for this work with the orphans there, and he could give you a receipt for the reasonable value of the vehicle, and then you could write off the value receipted for tax purposes.

I don't know; it's just an idea, but this work is so important there that I felt it worth running the idea by you and see what may be possible. Of course, if you have a contact that is better positioned in this regard, I would appreciate passing this idea over to that contact. But I reckon - why not use the power of Internet connectivity to do things we never could before!

I am looking forward to hearing from you and more about your adventures in the Pearl of Africa.
And if anyone else reading this post has a bright idea about how to get this minister rolling and helping the orphans out there, I'd love to discuss it.

Roving regards,

Jim

[MrsSpanner110]

Hello and Welcome from the entire Spanner Family :bigwave: