dave88sw

when you run them out of fuel, a petrol will usually self prime after a bit of cranking so i wouldnt start looking at fuel. Is the engine turning over well or not? if not, then check your earths, theres one between the neg terminal of battery and side post of battery tray and one between starter and chassis. Also, dont trust a battery charger, they dont give you an idea of the condition of the battery, mine told me it was fine but left over night it went dead. Last thing to check is for a spark, after all if theres petrol, air and a spark it ought to show some signs of life.

The torque setting is 25lbft fyi. This seemed very loose to me, so ive done mine to around 30, suppose this ought to be tight enough because they shouldnt work loose, but i wanted to be on the safe side. They are standard M8's and i reckon 8.8 ought to be ok, spring washers under mine too.

i have seen one before, they were produced by an aftermarket accessory place some time ago iirc, we had one like it on a vehicle at work, did seem slightly pointless, they were no stronger and had no real advantages over a standard bonnet and they dont really stand out.

ive done it and id love to help on the piccy side of things, but shes in bits and the seats and mounts i made up for her are in the other garage which is a fair trek away. I'll give a basic description though, First remove everything below the runners from the disco seats, then, on the bottom of the runners are 4 elongated holes, these are the holes you want to use to mount them. Between the front two holes, i bolted a piece of angle iron, when the seats are fitted into the vehicle, the rear edge of the angle sits flat against the front of the seatbox and 2 bolts bolt the angle to the front edge of the box. Thats the front done, then it took me a while to think of a solution for the back, but i eventually came up with mounting the seat to a piece of box section, i marked, drilled and tapped the holes lining up with the rear holes on the seat runners, then this bolts to the top of the seatbox with spreader plates above and below. you cant just bolt the seats in as the runners sit where the inspection hatches are and they simply aren't strong enough. The only piccies i can offer are these badly fuzzy ones but they dont show the mountings and it actually gives a very nice driving position good luck

have a look on here http://www.longranger.net/page4/page3/page3.html i know the bloke who builds these, he does a fantastic job on them, he rebuilds the lot and welds up all the rust perfectly, he sells the kits to create the roof, they're entiely fibreglass and are very good quality.

i was 14 when i bought mine had slightly more than basic knowledge by then though, after helping dad rebuild his. I've single handedly (other than the heavy lifting of chassis) rebuilt it and gone for all the off road goodies, stopping at the point where insurance costs would rise. Don't worry, you'll soon learn the basics and beware, every time you mend or fix something you'll find 4 other jobs that need doing. As regards to petrol and additives, i wouldnt worry about it, they were designed to run on the cheapest rubbish you could put in it and they're sturdy old engines, ive thought about an unleaded head, but its better for me to run it until it needs a new head and then worry about replacing it with unleaded, that way i dont end up with a decent but worthless spare cylinder head

you say the clutch wont last long, but by putting engine and transfer from the discovery into the defender you end up with the same gearing as the discovery in the first place, which is a very capable vehicle and popular for those who tow heavy loads. Yes it will be slightly harder to pull away but you dont really notice it in my uncles (200 defender with disco box) or my dads (v8 with disco box). Just my thoughts

my dads was the same when he bought it, it turned out to be the earth wire on the relay had come loose, if i remember correctly, its loose behind the small switch panel to the right of the steering column where the switch for the heater is mounted.

its a land rover, why would you need keys??? and in answer, locks are quite easy to change, you say its a 1985, so i presume its earlier style doors with lift up handles, you may well have to unbolt the locks from the doors and then theres a small hole in the tube that accepts the lock barrel that you need to stick a pin into to pop the barrell out. The ignition barrel i think has to be replaced as a whole, but this isnt the hardest of jobs, you'll have to drill out the shear bolts and fot the new ignition barrell around the steering column, only a few hours work, i did it last week at work when a customer had lost his keys (albeit on a later model)

i'd definately try land rover genuine or at least decent quality bushes, rather than sh*tpart before you go and modify anything. Just my thoughts cos i've had too many bad experiences of britpart "quality parts for land rovers"-hahahaha

i don't like the way you say it "might be cheapo aftermarket shoes" id it were me, with something as fundamental as brakes, you would make sure they were decent quality even if that meant you spent a fortune, but hey, it's your life

there were a few late v8 defenders with lt77's (my dad has one so thats conclusive proof ). However finding a box from a v8 defender will be a pain (although im not certain that they're different to a standard tdi/td etc box?). As many have said though, that kind of power in a lightweight is never gonna be a simple task, you want to put all that power and torque through transmission that simply wasn't designed for it and is, by now, at least 25 years old. The brakes won't take it, the handling will be awful and overall it will be a major headache just fitting it. As many have said, a standard 3.5/3.9 is brilliant and has more than enough power for a series, however the more i look through the post, i start to wonder why you're planning to do this with a lightweight. If it's cos you like the look, i can't help but feel that its much easier to put lightweight body panels onto another vehicle (disco/rangie) which were designed with a v8 engine in mind. There will probs be people who disagree with me there saying its a waste of 2 nice vehicles but as i see it, if you have a rangie with a rotten body and a lightweight with a rotten chassis, making a good vehicle out of the two is a good way to save both and turn them into a useable vehicle. (anyway thats a bit off topic) good luck with whatever you decide but bare brakes in mind, afterall, its all very well making a landy go better, but if you cant stop it just as well, you're screwed and a runaway landy can do a LOT of damage.

i was once told by a very knowledgeable and experienced mechanic that if you soak new engine rubbers in a bucket of used engine oil over night, they soften just enough to stop any juddering. could be worth a try

i'm quite interested in this conversion myself, can anybody tell me what needs to be changed/modded in terms of mounting/mechanicals, electrics arent a problem for me. Obviously engine mounts will need changing, do you need a conversion plate for the gearbox and if so where do you get one? Thanks

its a series 2, door hinges are series 2, hasnt got a placcy dash, windscreen and hinges for screen are series 2, front grille panel and lights are series 2, only thing that isn't are the wings which were probably added as an alternative to driving lights They will have moved the engine mounts to fit the v8, so you'll have to move them back to fit a 200tdi, but otherwise, it looks to be a relatively simple swap, in that its probably easier than most, but still no walk in the park

i would recommend fitting a spreader plate too, especially since land rover must think it necessary, otherwise they wouldn't make a genuine part for the job https://www.lrcparts.com/view_product.php?p...t=562756-SERIES don't like their prices though im a cheapskate

i've fitted a pair of para's on mine, although its still a rolling chassis at themo so i couldnt tell you whether it leans or not, the springs weren't marked as l/r hand and they were marked with the same part no. so i assumed they were the same, however before fitting, i layed themone on top of the other and i put the spring with the greatest curve (although there was very little in it) on the drivers side to compensate for the weight of fuel tank, battery driver (as suggested by users of another forum). Also, if you look at the transmission, its kind offset to the right and there seems to be more weight on that side generally, so i assumed that the drivers side spring would need to "settle" more than passengers side and the bigger curve would allow this. Don't know how much that helps since they are already fitted to the vehicle, but you could try swapping the springs from side to side and see if it makes any difference. Oh, and i think you're right, i think petrols/diesels did have different front springs, but parabolics always seem to be "pair of front springs for swb/lwb". hope that helps

just changed my dads defender box for a disco one and we reused the defender top shaft in the disco box and it fits perfectly, i think they were all the same, but i couldbe wrong.

land rover are very strange like that, they never really did decide when to standardise, my series 3 has a mix of metric/imperial and the carried on like this, the propshaft nuts/bolts on defenders, even up to the td5 (not sure about puma but would have thought that with new drivetrain came new bolts?) are 9/16ths!! every other vehicle manufacturer can decide on a set of measurements to standardise on, but not land rover . As for the fuel lines, just find a spanner that best fits, you may well find its whitworth, i have a few of them on my series which just seems stupid to me but hay ho.

immobilisers dont stop them, most thives hotwire vehicles at the ignition switch and where do most immobilisers connect? in my opinion the battery isolator is the best method, it isolates everything, although you can run permanent feeds too, ive got one for my stereo's back up power so it doesnt forget all its stations, when detering thieves, do things that take time to bypass cos at the end of the day, if it takes too long to get it started, they're gonna give up

i'd be a bit wary of it though, its on an h plate yet it says that its on a 1998 disco chassis and running gear, i would have thought if the builder had been absolutely honest to the dvla and told them exactly what bits were from what vehicle, it would be on the disco reg or a q plate? chassis, engine, axles alone should be enough to retain original identity

twist the little plastic caps off and fill to the top of the inner tube (becomes obvious when you take cap off) and fill with ordinary engine oil. When running on lpg they do use some oil from the dashpots cos the lpg doesnt have the lubricating properties of petrol, keep an eye on it, just add it to the list of regular checks like oil/water

yep, you can buy the rivnuts and insert them yourself, if you dont plan on using many, then dont bother buying the expensive tool, have a look here : http://www.x-eng.co.uk/rivnut.asp

dont think exmoortrim do them do they? http://www.allwheeltrim.co.uk/big-LRmohair.html#110%20County all wheel trim do though

you should be able to use the fan, of course the biggest advantage of the fan is fuel saving and extra power, but the fan also runs faster than the engine fan at tickover and when moving, you've got the fan and ram air through the radiator, so they do just as good if not better job of cooling than the original. I've got a vauxhall cavalier fan on a home made mount on my series 3 and it does a great job of cooling the engine.