Direct connection between two ADSL routers?

I have XP Pro connected via a wired/wireless router to ADSL. I'm keen to experiment with port forwarding so I could enlist of a friend who has a similar setup. The problems are that he lives 200 miles away and he isn't computer literate so he would be unable/unwilling to tweak with his system following my instructions by telephone.

A solution would be to have the two ADSL routers in the same room, each with a PC attached to it. Is there some way to connect the two routers together via a cable as if they were both connected to the internet and communicating in the conventional way? What I'd like to do is use PC1/Router1 to connect to PC2/Router2 and have Router2 to forward traffic to a specific Port of PC2. If I have everything in one room, I'm happy to tweak the settings myself, rather than have to persuade my friend to follow my instructions or have a round trip of 400 miles to change the settings myself.

Thanks in advance.

PC1--->Router1 --->crossover cable (depending if your router(s) do not have autocablesense)---->router2--->PC2


The crossover cable should be connected to the WAN ports of both routers.

Both routers should have a config utility you can access via telnet and/or your web browser. Simply connect to the IP of your gateway (i.e, your router), put in any username and password, if any, and you should be able to set port forward options.

Yeeks - as simple as that? How embarrassing!

I have ordinary as well as crossover ethernet cables. I'll have to check out the routers because I don't know if either is able to sense the cables automatically.

I'm happy delving into my router to set the port forward options.