ashtray

took the dash apart today, i dont know who designed that mess! anyway, took the park switch apart and one of the copper switches has been overly stressed and cracked. Again, another shockingly pathetic part. These are supposed to be "bombproof" cars. Was also shocked at how many different types of screw were used to hold the dash together, you would need a photographic memory to get them all back in the correct hole, i take merc dashes apart nearly every day and all you need is a torx 20. Its like someone has found the nearest screw lying around on the floor that fits. anyways thought i might have been able to fix it, couldnt, so dash went back together awaiting arrival of the new switch, managed to find it on brookwells for less than a tenner. Anyone going overland this may be a part to put on the spares list, it wont stop your wipers working completely but it'll damn near ruin the whole trip! Cheers All Ash

Thanks western! will be tearing the dash apart this weekend to have a look and see whats gone on, intermittant now parks wherever it feels like. Thanks all ash

So my wipers wont park on speeds 1 and 2, but will park fine on intermittant. Doing a forum search it seems that this is the wiper motor park switch, correct? If so, can that part be replaced separately to the wiper motor? as £75 for a motor seems a bit steep if all i need is a switch. Couldnt find anything on paddocks. Thanks ash

i had the clutch fork problem on my old disco, very quickly the clutch pedal travel and height diminished (by quickly i mean a few hundred yards or 3 or 4 gear changes and then it went all the way to the floor, kept pumping it and it eventually locked up. I had to limp home without the use of the clutch. If your clutch is still operation then it should not be a clutch fork issue as they fail almost instantly resulting in no clutch operation. It sounds to me like an hydraulic issue.

Im running my td5 without the fan on atm, and its been fine in this weather, much improved heating and not a slight bit of overheating, even at 70 uphill on a motorway. It takes a lot longer for the engine to cool down at idle but it still does. Modern direct injection diesels output very little heat unless the turbo is singing away. My plan is to fit an electric heater matrix from a peugeot/citroen diesel and a coolant circulation pump from a merc to give the heater a bit of a boost on cold mornings, i think the heater matrix is so far away from its plumbed in connections that the engine water pump gives very little effort at circulating the engine heat

confirm that, a 2002 onward defender has a 300tdi discovery spare wheel mount that in my opinion is a lot stronger unit early late

Replace the thermostat and thoroughly bleed the coolant system, this should sort it. Td5's do start to run cold at idle but only after extended periods, not straight away.

a leak in your turbo hoses can cause this, i doubt the intercooler will be leaking as they are solid ali but a hose can definately make this noise. a bit like slowly letting the air out of a balloon! Check all your hoses are tight and have no splits

just for anyone interested, i enquired about pricing on a fully fitted webasto thermotop c from a very good company in edenbridge kent called Vehvac. They are a Webasto Authorised Dealer and they service all our air con service machines in our workshop so i know they have a good quality of workmanship. The manager Philip Leamon was very helpful with my email enquiring about the unit and gave me a huge amount of information about the product. Basically prices are as follows Thermotop C with Dash Timer £1425+VAT with Remote Keyfob £1625+VAT with Programmable Remote Keyfob £1700+VAT All prices are fitted. Anyone found a cheaper way of doing this? I could source a second hand pump quite easily, its just all the necessary plumbing and wiring that i would need to acquire.

Thanks for the replies guys, so ideally i need a twin battery setup. But for now, ill just have to keep the jump pack topped up . Nice to hear that it has a battery voltage monitor, although my mates fridge has such a feature and when the warning beeper sounds the vehicles battery definately wouldnt start. However i think it cut off the voltage at like 11 volts, which is quite low for a diesel to start easily. Regards ash

I would like to fit a thermotop c to my 02 defender. Obviously this would be used on particularly cold mornings, my question is this; The thermotops use between 25 to 60 watts of electrical power to keep the diesel burner going, plus they would switch on my blower motor to circulate the air inside. Am i gonna just end up with a flat battery ( or a struggling battery) after an hours preheat on a cold morning and my vehicle being toasty and warm, but not starting. Should a second battery be installed for this heater? Or should i not worry about the 2-5+ amps current draw over the space of an hour every morning?

Foglights should be checked for alignment during an MOT i reckon. All the ones that i have seen have been adjustable. Anyone following me with front fogs on gets a good old blinding with the rear fog! See how long they can put up with that for! i might even fit an LED one for added effect!

As far as i know it is not Thatcham approved, as it is cack and is so easy to bypass i cannot see why an insurance company would want to give you discounted insurance on it. You can fit a thatcham immobiliser and it would be simpler and more adviseable to remove the old system, one faulty alarm system is bad enough to fix let alone two conflicting devices. Hope this is of use Ash

Basically you could fit it, but you would need a separate diesel tank and a fuel pump to supply it, and the correct hoses to plumb it into your coolant system, devon sell them for about £1200 for a kit to fit a defender, they work very well, lots of other vehicles have them, mercs citroens etc

its a diesel pre heater, therefore requiring a diesel tank...

i only paid a tenner at an LR main dealer for my replacement key, they arnt that expensive, a complete set will set you back about 40 notes on devon4x4 or paddocks or the like

My nuts have the letter stamped on the actual nut... not so sure if that is a good thing. mine is a 2002 td5 90. Check if yours have a letter underneath the chrome cap. Otherwise go to an LR dealer and ask them to get a techy out and try their set to see which one it is

if your front prop slides apart, on the splined shaft, so you have two halves of a prop shaft, the uj's have to be not inline, if you get me, there is a correct angle that they have to be apart from each other, i dont know what angle this needs to be though, but i know that if the prop cups are inline they fail very quickly. i hope you got that, its quite difficult to explain. Maybe someone else will be able to help some more on that. also, my diffs have a lot of rotary play in their pinions, but this is fairly normal. Every diff i have tested is like that. Really you should have no play in any prop uj's, or on the spline either, these will cause noise/vibration and fail very quickly, be sure to keep them well greased. I find that taking them off is the best way of testing, that way you can feel for stiffness in any of the bearings

How big are your tyres? If you are running anything bigger than a 265/75 i would upgrade the steering damper to a butcher one like an old man emu one, and i would reccommend some heavy duty steering drag links if you have massive tires. The standard drag links do tend to flex with the bigger wheels. I compared the standard landy ones with a g-wagon the other day, the g-wagons bars are about 4x the girth! They even make HD draglinks look pansy!

Thats the way round i have fitted my OME damper, only because thats the only way it fits on, two different mounts. But if a shock is the same as a steering damper, then surely it can be fitted either way round, i guess it all depends on any possible foaming of the oil internally going through the valves

what about a steering damper then...?

ahh! so good job i didnt go ahead and order several hundred pounds worth of wheels and tyres with a massive offset and find out i cant steer!! Cheers Nigel! I've had the pleasure, of driving a 110 with boosts and its simply horrific compared to my 90 with boosts! i dont know how he copes with the thing! Trying to save up for some mach 5's but i just cant justify their sheer expense! Still nothing in comparison to the price of some of the wheels we fit to mercs, they are nearly a grand a piece on the pricier ones! and they bend driving over manhole covers!

ah ok!! So my assumption of more offset meaning the tyre will stick out more is wrong?

ok so 33mm offset, means that the tyre, is inset by 33mm, so a zero offset wheel, would stick out further from the axle 33mm more than a boost wheel...?

apologies for any crooked necks, oh and the size of it!