Retroanaconda

I considered a high level brake light but couldn’t really see the benefit, so I just went for the heated screen and will wire that in when I get around to it.

Yes that is the steering stop bolt, it limits the travel of the steering to stop the tyres rubbing on the chassis. The mud shield is retained by the locknut on the back of the bolt, so you shouldn’t need to remove the bolt itself, just the nut. If you do have to remove the bolt take note of its length or you will have to reset the steering stops afterwards.

Maximum trailer noseweight depends on the towbar type fitted and not the engine:

The later ones have a longer bottom pin as the bush design changed. Early has the two rubber doughnuts retained by two pairs of washers on a flat axle mount. Late has two cone-shaped bushes retained by a single pair of washers and sat within fixed cups on the axle mount. Top mount never changed to my knowledge.

I find I’m bad at leaving it in and then wondering while the car is sluggish, then I suddenly realise it’s been in overdrive for ages. Can’t be good for it I sometimes wonder if a switch could be added to put a dashboard light on when engaged.

I had to drill the holes for mine, which I think is the normal arrangement. The new channels had holes in but not the door frames. There are two screw lengths, the shorter ones are for the upper area around the door frame top if I remember correctly.

A Defender will be metric and so will have 11mm pipe nuts for most of the system, with 13mm for the female nuts on the flexi hoses.

Can be fun getting the bolts out and the side tank makes access hard on the drivers side but it can be done. YRM sell the new galv sill members you see in my photo above.

I had a set of brake discs get so corroded they started falling apart - that led to some interesting noises and vibrations under braking. I don’t think there was any noise in normal driving though. Does the noise change when you apply the brakes, or on drive/overrun at all?

They’re a much better design as they don’t get knocked off by your boots all the time, and don’t trap dirt against the sill.

Yes I concur - you should just have the plain sill box section if using the later seals. Not a great photo but visible here:

In that case yes it’s normal and usually not anything to worry about until it gets worse. However check for corrosion on the steel sections that make up the C pillar behind there, visible at the rear of the door aperture. Common place for rot and will fail an MOT as it is close to the seatbelt mount.

Do we assume you are referring to the corrosion around the rivets?

They are a fair bit quieter than a Tdi? (clutching at straws!)

I don’t think even cars that have one-touch window switches use a limit switch, given everything is computer controlled now they probably just monitor the current draw on the motor to know when they’re either closed or trapped on something. In ‘good old fashioned’ motors like a Defender the limit device is the person taking their finger off the button once it’s fully open/shut

Well I’ve done the belt six times without issue so it seems to work okay

Yeah, as it’s not much force required to tension the belt. I’ve never found it hard to get the correct figure though - I just don’t pull it as far?

I’ve got a deflection beam type one which I’ve used for all my timing belt changes without any bother, I don’t remember it being very difficult to buy - in fact I think I got it at the local motor factors.

Could a Td5 tank be made to fit with a little modification and some brackets? Would probably cause issues with the crossmember but at least it could never rust.

All back ends of R380s are the same so will mate to the LT230 okay, as long as you rebuild with a V8 input shaft/pinion then you can build up any spec you want in terms of shifter position etc. An R380 is an inch longer then an LT77, and so the two V8-type bellhousings are also a different length so that the overall package length is the same. This is important as an LT77 V8 bellhousing will fit onto an R380 but will be too long and not allow the input shaft to properly engage with the back of the crankshaft. From memory the correct R380 bellhousing is about 11” long compared to the LT77 one at c. 12”. R380 V8 bellhousings are fairly rare, but Ashcrofts do make their own new ones if it comes to it.

Very true, but fairly inevitable when your design brief is basically copy and paste from a 2016 Land Rover brochure. I would hope it will tow well though, Defenders certainly do and this has a better engine and drivetrain.

From the owner on Facebook:

If they can sort out the pig-ugly front end and it proves to be as reliable and capable as a Defender then I would probably look to try one in five years or so. The trouble is I can’t really see it doing anything better than my 90 or 110 can already do, but I’d still like to try it out.

What a day indeed.

There are some pretty sharp switchbacks. It’s not impossible to get a well-driven 110 round in one go but by limiting the wheelbase to 100” they aim to ensure that shunting back and forth is minimised.