Retroanaconda

Assuming all timing pins etc. have been removed, a battery perhaps? Does the engine still turn over by hand okay?

There is also a consideration to be had in the fact that the shaft is collapsible for a reason.

I use BFG ATs on mine and have done for a while now - I find them good enough off road for my uses without compromising noise or fuel economy on the road. I don’t seek out deep mud and so don’t need the more aggressive AT treads. They do lose grip in the wet as they get older, this is a price of longevity I think. They last well, although not as long for me as others have had out of them. I figure because of the sort of roads I’m driving on - i.e. fast windy ones. Got 72k out of the last set in the two years they were fitted, the current set have also been on around two years and are just over half worn at 62k so going on for the same longevity.

I just used a whole Defender unit, with the intake ducted to the radiator grille.

The ones I’ve seen are all #4 Phillips. Decent bit in an impact driver usually sees them loose.

I could hire a power float, but I've not used one before and I would probably be more comfortable doing it the 'old fashioned' way where if it goes a bit wrong it can be touched up by hand and you can stop before you wreck half the slab! People I've spoken to say they're a handful to use for the inexperienced. A decent smooth concrete floor will hopefully be more than sufficient in terms of a good surface - it will be painted light grey to seal it and stop too much dust being produced, with the benefit of being lighter for finding those M6 nuts. I can see the obvious advantages of the screed when extending or raising existing surfaces but hopefully given that mine is all new it will be good enough. My biggest challenge will be timing the pour with a window of dry weather. There will be a cable duct coming up in the corner nearest the house, through which I will run my 10mm² SWA for power and some rope for any future requirements. Ethernet shouldn't be required as the router is in the closest part of the house already and being timber-framed there's only one skin of blockwork for the WiFi to break through to get outside, but if it is for whatever reason it will then be easy to draw it through.

At the back where the greatest forces are it's braced against the base of the 4" fence posts which are nice and solid, plus there is a bank of earth there as well. I can easily add more stakes for good measure. And I do have some type 1 left - good idea. There will be two layers of reinforcing mesh in the slab, more to control cracking than to add strength, but it's cheap enough and can't be added later. There will be one along the bottom and one closer to the top, though the spacing will vary a bit as the depth of the slab does. It’ll likely be A193 mesh (7mm steel). I'm hoping to achieve a reasonably smooth floated finish so that things like engine cranes roll easily. My last workshop had a rough concrete floor and it was a nightmare trying to move anything heavy.

Surprising how long it takes to make the timber forms, would be easier if the site was flat and I could just use standard road forms. Each one is made to suit the profile of the base - which isn’t as level as it could be. Spent all day today on it and got almost three quarters of the way around.

Today has been a day of spreading type 1 and compacting it and the underlying sub grade. I have built things up a bit on the bottom side but the slab is still going to be around 350mm thick there, tapering up to 150mm at the top closest to the house.

Try Elite Automotive for stub axles - I have used their OEM ones with success. Their web shop is Shop4AutoParts which sounds dodgy but isn't! Also good for things like propshaft UJs.

Might be worth trying to remove and refit the battery and starter motor connections if you can reach them. This can be caused by an intermittent bad connection.

I always put a smear of RTV on the gaskets around the water gallery areas as the mating faces on mine are pretty old too. Only a smear mind, not a bead. Just to help the gasket seal.

Wouldn’t have thought that gasket would have been disturbed if just doing the belt? Unless you took the timing case itself off? I suppose given that the water pump bolts go through the pump, timing cover, timing case and then into the block it may have shifted slightly when you removed them.

The easiest way to tell is the steering wheel is on the left... As simple as that. I suspect they made far more LHD vehicles than RHD since only a handful of countries still drive on the correct side of the road. Santana doesn’t really come into it if you want a Defender as it’s a different vehicle, albeit on a similar base.

No reason not to improve it, the Boomslang is quite poor quality I had found. You can DIY as above fairly simply or just buy the Landreizger one which is very nicely made and plug and play. Has two feed cables from the alternator too so built in redundancy.