For those of you that don't watch Top Gear on the BBC, Mark and I were privileged to be apart of the show. It started out with them contacting us about a roll cage which spiraled into loading on a pallet a cut and turned FJ40 housing, spring over parts, high steer, trail ready bead locks, 30 spline longfields, metal tech nose guard and stinger.

Mark flew down to Bolivia initially to help prep the 3 vehicles, '74 FJ40, '84 Range Rover, '91 Suzuki Samurai. He then proceeded to head down into the jungle along with 2 other British mechanics to help keep the vehicles going. I got a call from Mark right after I got home from Offroad Expo saying I needed to book my flight in two days and head to Bolivia. I met up with them just as they were doing the death road. Mark and I did all the work on the FJ40 for the big build up and I proceeded to continue on with the production crew into Chile while Mark flew back home. It was quite a challenge for both Mark and I since the hours were long and hard but if asked to do it again I would do it in a heart beat.

Here are the youtube videos of the show. It is their South American Christmas special. If you would like to download the whole movie I'll put the rapidshare links down at the bottom. It uses a funky video format but you can download VLC player and it will play it perfectly http://www.videolan.org/

YouTube - Top Gear Bolivia special challenge 2009 part 1 HD (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlQ5vsfboQ0)

YouTube - Top Gear Bolivia special challenge 2009 part 2 HD (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bToHqTr8mGU&feature=related)

YouTube - Top Gear Bolivia special challenge 2009 part 3 HD (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqxU2XGFH5E&feature=related)

YouTube - Top Gear Bolivia special challenge 2009 part 4 HD (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFyrW32YdLg&feature=related)

The rest of them.

YouTube - Top Gear Bolivia special challenge 2009 part 5 HD (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aHW_7xxUq4&feature=related)

YouTube - Top Gear Bolivia special challenge 2009 part 6 HD (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuNdsLddgt4&feature=related)

YouTube - Top Gear Bolivia special challenge 2009 part 7 HD (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zdn5C_zbog&feature=related)

If you would like to download the entire movie here are the 12 parts to download. It is in HD 720 pixel which makes it about a 4gb file once it is all extracted.

http://rapidshare.com/files/326945426/Top.Gear.S14E06.720p.HDTV.x264-BiA.part01.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/326945701/Top.Gear.S14E06.720p.HDTV.x264-BiA.part02.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/326945485/Top.Gear.S14E06.720p.HDTV.x264-BiA.part03.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/326946727/Top.Gear.S14E06.720p.HDTV.x264-BiA.part04.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/326948017/Top.Gear.S14E06.720p.HDTV.x264-BiA.part05.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/326947751/Top.Gear.S14E06.720p.HDTV.x264-BiA.part06.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/326950778/Top.Gear.S14E06.720p.HDTV.x264-BiA.part07.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/326948798/Top.Gear.S14E06.720p.HDTV.x264-BiA.part08.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/326949160/Top.Gear.S14E06.720p.HDTV.x264-BiA.part09.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/326949438/Top.Gear.S14E06.720p.HDTV.x264-BiA.part10.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/326951764/Top.Gear.S14E06.720p.HDTV.x264-BiA.part11.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/326949007/Top.Gear.S14E06.720p.HDTV.x264-BiA.part12.rar

Those three limeys are pretty damn funny LT.

I bet you have some funny stories from these guys and your trip

Happy New Years!

john

Do you know when it will be broadcast?

It already broadcasted in the UK on the 27th of December, BBC America is about 4 months behind so the earliest you might see it is in April. You can download the full episode with the rapidshare links. I did that and hooked my lap top up to my tv and the picture/sound quality was really good.

Did not see it listed in their programing. Great show. They have been playing the North Pole excursion in the Tacoma's lately.

LT was the cruiser actually have as much trouble as it was shown happening??

How exactly did they blow up the rear diff??


I love that show though.

That was the first thing I noticed when the 40 rolled out of the "shop" was the "metal Tech" sticker on the drivers A pillar!!



Good job guys! Very cool to see a great cage on a great show!!!!


HAHA Redline

one of my favorite shows!
Poor cruiser. The roll looked staged. Too bad they bought such a beat Cruiser. I have to admit though, the Land Rover is a nicer washboard drive. but hey.

-dustin

I'm guessing that showing an unscathed Metal Tech cage after multiple rolls might have played into the equation!

LT, I'm thinking you guys should have taken down a pair of 4.88 thirds on the pallet along with a wrap bar!

so, i am guessing that they spun it so the damn brit truck looked better eh? :D i love this show and watch the new ones every sunday night. you can torrent the HD video on www.finalgear.com

LT was the cruiser actually have as much trouble as it was shown happening??

How exactly did they blow up the rear diff??


I love that show though.

The nut on the e-brake backed off allowing the drive shaft to fall off sheering the pinion.

I'm guessing that showing an unscathed Metal Tech cage after multiple rolls might have played into the equation!

LT, I'm thinking you guys should have taken down a pair of 4.88 thirds on the pallet along with a wrap bar!

We did have an anti wrap bar down there, but didn't have enough time to install it. Besides, the FJ40 didn't need the anti-wrap bar since they didn't do anything extreme enough to cause the axle to wrap. And we were also on very short notice to get all the parts rounded up before being shipped down to Bolivia. We would of needed to have the thirds pre-built if we were to have them installed.

The nut on the e-brake backed off allowing the drive shaft to fall off sheering the pinion.




We did have an anti wrap bar down there, but didn't have enough time to install it. Besides, the FJ40 didn't need the anti-wrap bar since they didn't do anything extreme enough to cause the axle to wrap. And we were also on very short notice to get all the parts rounded up before being shipped down to Bolivia. We would of needed to have the thirds pre-built if we were to have them installed.

Now that you mention it, I was wondering why the parking brake drum was off. I just assumed standard cruiser axle wrap with a course spline pinion....Snap!


The pre builts was my thought. Sure would have helped with the big tires and altitude. Must have been a hell of an adventure. I'm sure you guys had a good time. Did you get compensated or was the product plug your only payment? How'd they happen to pick you guys?

Very cool!

Now that you mention it, I was wondering why the parking brake drum was off. I just assumed standard cruiser axle wrap with a course spline pinion....Snap!


The pre builts was my thought. Sure would have helped with the big tires and altitude. Must have been a hell of an adventure. I'm sure you guys had a good time. Did you get compensated or was the product plug your only payment? How'd they happen to pick you guys?

All three vehicles were required to have roll cages for insurance purposes and they were calling around to the big name Land Cruiser shops in the USA and they all said Metal Tech. Contacted us and it spiraled into doing a spring over, bead locks, longfield 30 splines, Marlin Crawler hy steer, etc and Mark flying down there initially.

When production was starting to fall behind because of the poor conditions of the vehicles Mark convinced them to have me fly down. We did get compensated for everything including hard costs and daily rates. The BBC has a strict no promotion policy, the stickers were put on by us, we just made sure they would be visibly seen by the mini cams :D We are also allowed to promote the show as much as we want.

pretty sweet LT. Watch all the video.... Its a shame what happened to the 40. It looked pretty damn pimp though.

landrovers are crap my money was on the fj40 or the sj

http://yorkshire-suzuki.7forum.net/general-chat-f2/topgear-tonight-745-t2110.htm#15436

you can also see it in full here

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pm34y

Very cool LT, neat that you and Mark were able to go down there and represent :cool:

This show was brilliant and TBH I did not notice the shameless product plug:D however, it was a great show. I get limited UK programs here in Spain but caught that one just great. Top gear has some serious following but it seems they have now BTDT over and over, I hope the BBC don't drop the show next year as has been reported (rumoured) in the local press rooms:eek:

Good to hear you guys got involved I'm only a little green with envy.

regards

Dave

That's awesome.. can't wait to see it!

what did they end up doing with the 40? looked like it handled the roll pretty well except for the wheel falling off

That was great! Good job guys, and that show was funny and fun to watch.

Great Job LT... its was a great show definately one of the best.... the TG guys have been upto some challenging stuff in the past (Toyota Hilux to the North Pole, Killing a Toyota Hilux) in addition to the usual Brit whacko stuff they do (racing a plane against a supercar across Europe, etc etc etc) but this was definately one of the best yet! Good to know that they were able to get/make their last laugh for the Range...

One of the key things LT forgot to mention about our big 24hr build – We did it at 12,200’ in elevation. La Paz is one of the highest cities, with their air port being THE highest commercial airliner airport. (12,700’) So after a full two and a half weeks of keeping the junk running, including the camera truck. (they too were braking) we got into La Paz at like 3 AM after driving the Death Road at night. Then later that morning we started in on the big build.

Last we heard all the trucks were to go back to La Paz for paperwork reasons. However now that we have worked with the BBC, I am sure that since they were done with them and decided to NOT ship them back to the UK like they said they would they just kind of abandoned them. I hope I am wrong.

Yes the 40 did have a lot of issues (they all did) they also edited it to show the show they wanted. The FJ40 used: three starters, one regulator, clutch, master cyl. Both brake and clutch and clutch slave. The Rangy was the biggest pile and took 2x the amount of time the other three did to keep alive. Also 3x the resources were put into the Rangy since it was Clarkston’s truck #1 and the UK made truck #2. The 40 was in the roughest condition to start with since it was used the hardest prior to the show. If we had access to the parts we do in the States we could have had the truck running with no issues.

4.88’s would have been nice but they would not let us change much on the truck. They ask for our Jackson roll cage and not our Full Profile roll cage, yet full cages went it to the other trucks. The planning by the BBC is real off the cuff and not what one would expect. They claim its on purpose and “makes for better telli”.

HUGE thanks to Bobby Long, Marlin, Trail Ready, ARB and BFG for their support of the FJ40.

Mark Hawley

FYI
This is on Top Gear this week

haha, that is so cool that you guys got to help! I honestly think that was one of the best Top Gears I have ever seen. That cruiser, i think, did us toyota folk proud. I KNEW there was no way the range rover could not have outlasted a cruiser, but I guess they gotta make a show.

Did you get to interact with Jeremy, Hammond and May? They seem like they could go either way--they could be really cool or could be dick-ish.

It's funny, I actually worked with the BBC on one of my research projects, and their editing was, exactly as you said, a bit misleading, and I was like, really? this is how you're going to do business huh?

Anyway, Big ups!

Makes a guy feel proud to personally know both Mark and LT.

That was a funny episode.. and the 40 looked great after you guys got your hands on it!

Watch full Bolivia Specia episode here: http://watchtopgear.co.cc/s14e06-bolivia-special/

That episode was awesome. I knew Marlin's high steer was on it but I didn't realize anyone else in the sport was a part of the show. Way cool!!