Retroanaconda

Nice colour. Bet you’re very glad to finally see it in the metal, as it were. Still can’t see past that bumper though, hopefully someone will come up with a sensible aftermarket one.

My brake bias valve is a different type - the earlier one I think. It just sits inline between the master cylinder and the rear brakes. Bad photo here:

I wouldn’t be worried about it being at 2kg at all.

These are the brackets. They take up some of the difference. It’s not perfect but with a bit of tweaking it will go on and will do the job.

Sorry I should have been clearer, there is no clash with the tank guard yet. It’s only the triangulation piece that may need that later. Its a Td5 towbar onto a Td5/Tdci chassis - only difference is I welded the tank mounts on myself. I have been daft though and forgotten some extra brackets. These overlap the tank mount where the braces attach, and also pick up on the chassis above. After test fitting, I think that actually with these in place there won’t be any issue - they space the brace out slightly and massively reinforce the tank mount, so I’m not so concerned about the twist in the brace.

I am trying to refit a towbar to my 90. Clearly the aftermarket tank brackets that I bought and welded on to the chassis are slightly the wrong shape, as the towbar braces do not properly line up. With a bit of manipulation with a hammer I can get it to this point: It will then pull closed with the bolt (an M12) but to do so it effectively twists the brace and puts a lot of strain on the bracket and bolt at the tank end. This is also an M12, into a tapped boss which is welded into the bracket. How happy would you be with this? Ideally I need to put a small twist into the brace, but it’s a bloody thick bit of steel and I don’t have the kit for that so would need to farm it out. It seems I will also need to notch the tank guard to fit the cross-brace piece - more fun!

I don’t think there’s any different between a 300Tdi and an early Td5 Salisbury is there? I know the brake pads got thicker at some stage so the calipers were presumably wider to accommodate that, but I’m not aware of any of the axle bits changing. Around 2004/2005 they changed to the Rover short-nose axle instead.

Pretty sure the master cylinders did not change in terms of size for most of the Defender run. The 1991 master cylinder will work a 300Tdi slave no bother. The pipework is 1/4” and there is a funny adaptor thing in the master cylinder to take the small thread in it up to the larger size for the pipe. There should be a flexible hose in the system, usually from a bracket on the bulkhead over to the gearbox/slave.

Fantastic - thank you both!

@Peaklander can you share details of the required crimp settings for the different pins? That looks like quite a good crimp tool. I have a ratcheting one which works well but is a bit brutal on these small terminals. Looks like I need one of these for when I sort my 10AS wiring.

1/8” rings a bell. Make sure it’s proper fuel grade hose, it’ll last longer - but still fail eventually as Mike notes.

I would agree with the above suggestions, manifolds, head, thermostat housing etc. are all a good shout and are worth having spares of. Defender engines are much rarer and so the specific parts for those are even more worthwhile hoarding. I bought a whole spare engine which has yielded spares, plus a second spare cylinder head. A 300Tdi head can be fitted but you’d need matching injectors and the injector pump also needs changing, as the timing is very slightly different. It will run with the 200Tdi pump but not optimally.

It’ll look good without all the ‘expedition’ equipment stuck on it. Very tempted!

I think it’s STC4629

The breather and filler pipes are common leak points, through perishing rubber. There is a factory rubber mat that covers the rear tub floor and wheel boxes. No foam deadening to my knowledge, it’s just a liner really.

Impressive work. Particularly without removing the tub.

It’s all the extra markings, which denote lamp type, dip etc. - the E circle thing alone is not enough. The TruckLites have it all present and correct too. The DOT is also a giveaway - that’s a US standard and is not generally compatible with ours or European ones.

I’m afraid it looks like the “E marking” on those is almost certainly fake and therefore not road legal. This is what a proper E mark looks like, at the top of this JW Speaker unit:

I’m heading down to the Pyrenees in September and a detour similar to the above is the current plan. It seems to be manually enforced and it’s unlikely to be a problem unless you draw attention to yourself, but an old British Land Rover does stand out somewhat amongst the sea of Peugeots and Renaults. Worth it just to avoid the traffic as above. When I went through in 2021 the clutch master cylinder was failing so there was a lot of starting in gear and rev-matching going on

Number 16 on this diagram. NRC7164 left hand side NRC7175 right hand side

You are missing the stepped bracket from the RHS one, which is the one on the left in your photo. The brake valve, again on the RHS one, attaches to the bracket that is present. Hopefully these photos will help.

Quite a few working ones round the highlands, usually towing a digger or similar. Pleasingly the blinged out ones do seem to be the minority. When I was in London last week I did see lots of black blingy ones, but I also saw a similar number of old ones in a similar style as well as G wagons etc. which is no surprise. They’re a capable and comfortable vehicle, particularly for towing when compared to most pickups, so it makes sense. Good residuals will help the business case for a commercial user, which is about whole life cost rather than outright purchase price.

The legal technicalities aside, it’s dangerous and antisocial, looks awful, and your car gets covered in mud/rubbish - so why would anyone want to do it?

And what’s the failure rate of later LT230 centre diffs compared to earlier ones?

In the UK yes potentially, but the OP is in the Falklands and so probably has a different set of vehicle regulations. M57s get a good write up - forum member Mo Murphy is fitting one into his 90 right now.