I plan to visit the museum soon! Ill be making allot of notes and taking allot of pictures.
Your right, it is a barking idea. however its a plan that will challenge me and push my limits forcing me to learn more. its not fun if its easy
thankyou for your suggestion, I'll look into torsion bars with greater detail soon, I have just finished exploring the idea of leaf spring layouts etc, I have plans for a adjustable Hydrogas suspension unit for each of the 10-12 road wheels, pressure controllable from within the drivers compartment using a mix of pneumatics and hydraulics. hard to explain my idea here though!! in its simplest form I suppose I'm using a pneumatic pump to fill the hydro gas tank and then topping up the pressure with hydraulic flow to my desired pressure, theoretically it should give me zero to very high Pressure.
I have a plan to use lead ballast, it will also allow me to balance the tank so its not too front/rear heavy. however you have reminded me of another Idea I had, It involves a cylinder with a heavy weight inside, by moving the weight forwards or backwards you can shift the centre of gravity to your liking. I have the think it should allow steeper banks to be climbed (or sheer banks | ) as the extra weight will be applied to the front end pressing it into the bank. ha ha the ideas i think of while working!!!
originally I thought the drive train would be a pain in the arse, but after thought the only hard bit I can think of is creating a watertight seal to the drive sprocket, I can send the power from the engine to a lorry differential, from there the power is split between the L & R I'll need the think of a strong braking mechanism to provide skid steer on either side of the diff, from there it should simply be a matter of sending the drive straight out the side to the sprocket (I think a suitably large flange cut up will suffice to start with) hmmm is it possible to take two brake calipers and mount them in such a way that you can fit two or more on a brake disc? might burn out quickly or last longer as the strain is being shared by 2-4 calipers!!
I have many years before I can go ahead with it though I wont be allowed to build a tank on the drive at home!! Ill just have to plan and brainstorm my ideas for now
On topic again!! I have bought a 100L (plus two 12.5L pockets) bergen to hike in, I cant find my old bergen and my little bag isn't up to the task, might as well get use to one now rather than later