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Tata Safari 7 seater 4WD 2001

Tata Safari.jpg

As I am now resident in UK and I did have a Series III Landrover LWB, here but  because it was getting rather old it had the rather agricultural nature of most of the 4WD vehicles of this time, (mid 70's) As I am now in my early 70's  the steering the clutch and the brakes required a lot more effort than they did when I was in my 30's, which is when I did most of my exciting off-road adventures. The cars described in the Off Road in the Emirates pages like the Chevrolet Blazer and the SsangYong Musso were power assisted and relatively comfortable,  rather expensive to both run and to buy, so looking at the market when we came back to UK in 2004, I decided that for value for money, durability, off road capability and pulling capacity. The Tata was the best bet.  The clincher was that the early versions have a Bosch fuel pump compatible with using bio-diesel, which I hope to make later.

It has 7 seats, - more or less, so that we can take friends out, as long as two of them -or us are less than adult.  The air conditioning works very well,  It was designed in India and having been to India I know it to be a rugged reliable workhorse, which is what I wanted. I was initially disappointed that my local car manual shop did not have a workshop manual, but after writing to the Head Office of Tata in Puna, I was eventually sent a complete workshop manual for this model on a CD. Yes! 

Above all, I have a workshop and can do most repairs.  And It Was Cheap!

I have just replaced the gaiter on the constant velocity joint on the Drivers side (RHS) as it had a pinhole in it and was losing grease, which caused it to fail last Autumn's MOT.

Getting it all apart was the biggest job, as the steering knuckle was held in by - as normal, two ball joints one of which I could not shift.   I found that even though it seemed to be in excellent condition on the car, it was in fact completely dry and full of rusty dust.  I forced the ball out of the socket getting it out, and this made it easier as it was then possible to disconnect the lower ball joint and pull the whole assembly out after taking off the bake calliper.

I would be interested to hear of any other owners of this Safari as technical advice is a bit hard to come by.  The manual I have is most comprehensive but sometimes a discussion of how things are actually done can be most helpful. I will not have any problems at all when I come to do the LHS joints, for instance. 

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