Retroanaconda

Conversely I average over 100 miles a day - can't see home working catching on for me! The autonomous cars one is interesting, particularly how these 'issues' will be resolved. Insurance, liability etc.

All hubs have an inner (inboard) seal, which runs on the step of the stub axle. Some vehicles, though not many, also have an outer seal which runs on a special spacer which sits between the hub nut and the outer bearing race. You'll know if you have them as you'll have this ~1/2" thick spacer jobby in place rather than the usual ~1/8" thick thrust washer.

Might be worth testing your thermostat. Or for all the cost of them changing it for a known good one.

How would you repair chassis rot/damage if you aren't allowed to cut/grind/weld the chassis?

Load resistors are available at many places, for example: http://www.trailertek.com/trailer-parts/lighting/led-lights?p=2 Could no doubt be had cheaper from RS or other electronics outlets. My concern would be where to mount it, needs to be somewhere metal for heat dissipation and ideally not exposed to the elements. I would be interested to hear how the LED units are working and which ones you are using? I'm sick of having to fiddle with the rubbish light units on my old Ifor Williams every time I want to use it and so want to swap them for something that will just work ad infinitum (or at least for a good while!). Being sealed and 'solid-state', as it were, LEDs would seem to fit the bill. However I am also wondering if a decent quality set of normal units would also do the job.

Photos would be useful, it's not a subject that it seems there's a great deal of tech info easily accessible on. If I recall correctly need4speed had a similar issue and ended up drilling the brackets, he might be able to chime in to confirm.

I suspect your bulkhead has been modified to make it fit older models, but they have forgotten to make the necessary changes to the wiper mechanism. I would drill the dash brackets, properly treated and painted you will not get any rust problems there. If you use the later Td5 wheelboxes they will fit the oval holes in the bulkhead correctly (unless as part of its modifications they have been welded up and redrilled circular), but you will have to change the crank gear in the motor to retain the correct wiper sweep.

To illustrate differences... Pre-2002 version (note tube runs at top of wheelboxes): Post-2002 version (just visible is the wheelbox 'upside down' and big bulge in the dash where the motor hides):

The later (2002-on but we'll call them Td5 for ease) models had the wiper motor and rack arranged differently on the bulkhead. The motor is mounted higher on a separate bracket (hence the loss of part of the dash tray) and the tube comes straight out across the dash with no bends. The wheelboxes are also mounted 'upside down' compared to the earlier type, with the drive tube at the bottom. This is why yours won't fit, as with the wiper boxes mounted the other way round the tube will want to be at the top and occupy the same space as the dash brackets. If you are converting to a later Td5 dash then just fit everything as per the later models. If however you are fitting your Tdi dash then I am afraid you will need to drill the dash mounts to pass the drive cable tubes through. You may also need to modify the dash top rail to make it fit the brackets. Equally the bracket that mounts the wiper motor (visible in the photos in western's linked thread above) will need removing.

Looks a great vehicle. Love the fairy lights!

Can you drill the support and pass the tube through?

Breather needs to come in as high as possible, and above the nozzle as others have said. Copying the factory design/function will get you pretty close to ideal.

The rear discs get more road spray than the fronts. I found that when doing a lot of miles on un-metalled roads the lack of shields reduced rear pad life to a few thousand miles in the winter when the grit-laden spray off the road surface was at its worst. Putting the rear shields back on improved this dramatically - I assume simply as less of the spray gets onto the disc surface. As mentioned though if you're doing pay-and-play type off-roading where you're actually getting mud and stones up in around the hubs/axles then they're likely to trap stuff and cause problems for cleaning etc.

My advice would be that if you do a lot of heavy off road work in deep muddy conditions then leaving them off will make cleaning the brakes easier, the brake pads will wear quicker but that will happen doing that doing that sort of work anyway. For normal road use and light off roading I would keep them on. Extends brake pad life and also helps keep water off the discs when driving in heavy rain so avoiding the 'oh shi--' moment on the first pedal press as the water clears off the discs - this is more of a front brake problem though.

How much pressure? Some is normal. Crankcase breather clear?