Ben Reedy

Yes, I had a Control Tech post with an internal strenghtening rib and it bent. I got a new one out of them FOC but now I think they have gone bust. Now using an Easton carbon fibre post and enjoying a lovely smooth ride with my Ti frame.

Great thread. Well done. Now tell us how it drives.

Often in Nigeria. Does that count?

EX-MOD and only 70,000 kms? Ha ha, don't make me laugh. It will have done 70,000 just nipping to the shops and back for tea bags. It will have got a new speedo after the first 160,000 kms then possibly another shortly after when that one failed. The casual way they throw parts at these cars just has to be seen to be believed.

I use MTF94 from Partco (they do stock it although most don't know it!) and find it better than old ATF. First to second actually works without grating and it seems to run quieter when hot.

I've told you before: it's the spring coils rattling against each other. Only happens under certain conditions of acceleration or cornering. It makes a nasty resonating clattering rattle that seems to come from everywhere at once. Jack up the chassis to stretch the springs and temporarily wedge some thick rubber or leather between the coils at the top where they begin to come together. You might even see a rusty stain there. Then go for a drive. It drove us mad for months until I spotted the rust stains and realised what was happening.

*smug mode* I just make sure I don't over tighten the filter in the first place. A quick clean with a rag and it comes off by hand. Never had one come undone and dump the oil yet. *smug mode off*

Fact 1 : If you deploy an airbag in a Defender the bulkhead jumps forward by two inches. Hence the next one will be monocoque. Fact 2: If you are too close to an airbag when it deploys it can actually lift your head off the top of your neck. Nervous lady drivers gripping the wheel too close have been killed this way.

My local tyre specialist has a terrifying device consisting of a portable tank that he fills from the compressor then carries over to the tyre. It has a sort of semi-circular manifold with several holes, which he lines up with the bead. Everybody in the workshop cringes and blocks their ears and the poor bloke pulls a trigger, which releases all the air through the holes rather explosively. One loud bang and the tyre is seated.

Tsk tsk these Nigerians. Why do they always type in CAPITALS and write the amount of money after the figures? 419 fraud is apparently Nigeria's second-biggest currency earner after oil. The email could have come from one of the (unofficially estimated) 2 million Nigerians now living in the UK.

Our V8 Disco (now sadly sold as it became increasingly unreliable) was rear-ended by a Mercedes saloon in Lagos recently. The damage? A hole punched through the skin of the rear door just below the spere wheel, plus some slight distortion to the rear bumper. And the Mercedes? Flattened right back to the engine. I didn't see it but from the location of the hole I'd say it was something solid on the front of the engine like the water pump that made the hole. The driver did well to pay off the constable who attended as the four heavy gents in the Merc were well on the way to getting our driver blamed and our car confiscated.

Look carefully at the coils of the springs to check they aren't rattling against each other at the top or bottom where they're close.

Engine - bog standard Coma fleet diesel oil, about stg. 28 for a 25 litre drum, change it 4x yearly. Gbox - MTF 94 Rest: EP90

Is it a metallic clatter? Check that your spring coils aren't rattling against each other at the top or bottom, this makes a horrible noise under certain driving conditions and drives people mad!

I was out on the drive last night trying to sort an electrical job. Yoof: "Trick or treat?" Me: "You look a bit old for that kind of thing." Yoof: "I'm firteen" Me: "Well you'll only get sweets here.... unless you know anything about car electrics." Yoof, coming up and peering in: "Wot's this then? You a farmer?" Me: (Exasperated silence) Yoof: wanders off, already bored.

My brother once showed me round the Defender production line. He warned me that the big rubber hammer and the pry-bar were the most frequently used tools on the line and he wasn't wrong!

Well I got it sorted and it worked fine until I introduced another switched feed from a live in the rear light box. This blew the fuse I had installed on the heavy feed to the worklamp. Dave from Canada has already predicted this and reckons I'll need a diode to prevent current from reverse feeding and making the dashboard live. Seems that (what I didn't know) in the "off" position the sidelight switch becomes an earth. Short of rewiring the switch in the rear light box and taking a double cable right forward to the relay, a diode is the answer. Or how about a 3-way switch?

Why? I took mine off to fix the leaks and found that despite being carefully applied as described above, it was still uneven and leaking in places. Put a paper gasket on and for 5 years it's been so dry that the bolts are even rusting.

Following a night-time Landy/gatepost interface by Mrs R, I'm fitting a worklamp to the rear of the roof to give additional illumination. I am going to intercept the wire from the gearbox reversing switch to the reversing lamp and use this to trigger a relay. I have found a spare red "light switch controlled" connector behind the dash and this will supply the heavy-duty circuit, switched by the relay and feeding the 55w worklamp. This will be fused, by the way. This will give me an additional powerful reversing light that can't be left on accidentally and only operates when the sidelights are on. With me so far? Now I want an additional illuminated switch near the rear door, which will enable me to switch on the worklamp independently of gearbox and lights. How do I wire the switch? Please help my mimd to stop going round and round trying to work it out. As you'll have guessed I'm no auto-electrician. Presumably it needs to be wired so that the switch also triggers the relay, right?

Took my (company) A4 to the dealer with a brake warning light. They replaced the battery claiming that every morning the computer checks all the bits & pieces and by the time it gets to the brake the battery is getting tired and it defaults to a warning. I thought this sounded like rubbish especially for a diesel battery and sure enough, next motning I got the warning again. The brake fluid reservoir was dry.

Excellent! Then there was the bloke who thought there was a town in China called Vitreous....

Gearbox cross member holes filled with Araldite.

*idle thought mode on* I wonder if MTF 94 would make the box smoother or last longer? *idle thought mode off*

So have I.

and why is the driver of the red 110 wearing a lifejacket? Looks like some kinda wierdo water fetish driving club if you ask me....