Retroanaconda

It would need to come down regardless as excavating for the foundation would compromise the roots on one side and greatly increase the chance of it blowing over onto the neighbours house or cars. Plus the potential for the roots to damage to the structure of course. Happily they want it removed anyway so that solves both problems.

Some more very slow progress, but I moved the oil tank yesterday. The fence will actually come down as I’ll fell the tree into my garden and not my neighbours, however it’ll probably go back up again afterwards. I don’t think I’m likely to have a problem with soft ground, digging the trench for the new oil supply pipe today I was mostly removing slate rather than soil. Bloody hard work, but good to know that there’s very hard and free draining material under there.

They're steel in construction. You'd likely be able to find a pulley locally. As long as it fits the shaft, takes the right size V-belt and is roughly the right diameter then it'll work.

In the past when I've replaced alternators they have not been supplied with the pulley. You have to take the pulley off the old one and swap it over. Can be fun getting the nut off sometimes! I believe RTC5686 is the part number for the pulley but check the parts book to be sure.

You need the normal LT77 V8 bellhousing as fitted to Disco 1, RRC and some early 90/110/Defender. The same one you threw away I’m afraid! Yes it’s longer but the engine sits 6” further forward in a V8 than in the earlier 4-cylinder models. It might be the same as the SD1 bellhousing but I wouldn’t know for sure. You would need to use this bellhousing with your Disco V8 LT77, using the Ashcroft adaptor kit to bolt your Defender shifter assembly on top. This effectively gives you a “Defender spec” V8 LT77. With that bellhousing the engine will drop straight onto standard V8 mounts and the gearbox will sit onto either V8 mounts bolted to the chassis or alternatively a 300Tdi crossmember - though the latter may clash with a V8 exhaust system. That way standard V8/300Tdi/Td5 propshafts will fit and the R380 seatbox, tunnel and floor plates also. Anything else will mean custom something, which isn’t a bad thing if you can make it up but it’s certainly easier when everything is as per the factory as far as possible. Appreciate parts are rather harder to come by over there though. Ive presumed that you’d be converting to a Defender tunnel and seatbox as this would make fitting easier. If you want to keep the series seatbox then you will likely need to keep the gearbox in the early 4-cyl position and have custom engine mounts.

No problem with vented calipers on my 90 with the earlier wider hubs. Are the calipers from a reputable brand or are they unbranded? If the tolerances are tight then a misshaped casting could cause a conflict.

No - the walls of the garage need to be about 300-500mm inside the boundary in order to allow for the eaves and the gutter to stay within my land, plus to facilitate access for installing and maintaining the cladding.

Started clearing the site this afternoon, the various bushes had an appointment with the chainsaw and were removed, releasing about seven billion midges in the process. A trip to the dump tomorrow will see it gone. The large grand fir behind the fence needs to come down too, but I’ll wait until the oil tank is moved before I fell that.

The guy who runs the Defender2 forum is now selling little computer unit thingies that are plug and play for running the Tdci clocks on earlier vehicles.

Alpine White LRC456

I used a thin smear of RTV when I did mine. More to hold the gasket in place than anything else but also to aid sealing given the age of the mating surfaces.

Very different shape between LT77 and R380 tunnels and floor panels. LT85 slightly different again, though quite similar to the R380.

The gasket could be the turbo oil drain perhaps?

I would run it in conduit either along the top or the side of the chassis rain. There’s space on top alongside the fuel pipes.

Clutch switch