crwoody

Mine was a "Mountney M range" wheel. In fairness, I had it on there for a couple of years or so before it came loose and it was better to use than the original one in terms of elbow room. I'm not even 100% sure it was actually the correct centre boss for the application, I believe there are several different versions of the Defender steering column, I'm sure someone far more knowlegeable will be along soon to confirm (or deny) this.

Need to be a bit careful with some of these after-market steering wheel bosses, they're not always a very good fit on the splines. I had one on mine a while ago and it came loose while driving fortunately I was only doing a 3 point turn at the time, but could have had bad consequenses. Gone back to the original one now, it's a bit big and daft but at least it fits properly!

Extract from Defender 1999 & 2002 MY Workshop Manual says - "Use Texaco XLC long life coolant. Use one part anti-freeze to one part water for protection down to -36° C (-33° F)." The last time I replaced mine, I used "Car Plan Premium Red" which I was told is the same spec, incorporating Organic Acid Technology - (OAT.) Been OK anyway!

It can be repaired if it's only leaking, might be more economical to replace it though if it's very tired. To repair it you need to remove it , drill out the rivets on the back and replace them with M5 bolts & nuts (pref Nylocks.) Simple enough job to remove - refit / replace, just remove 6 bolts and a couple of pipes, did mine on the drive in about half an hour. It is preferable to get the engine to TDC before commencing, I found it's not essential but it makes it easier to get it back in because the pump plunger sits in a lobe on the camshaft which is at its lowest point at TDC.

My thoughts exactly, I had the same on my old 300tdi disco, replaced the pump - stopped the leak and got rid of the clattering noise at the same time. (Turned out the old pump had a broken plunger return spring as well as the leak.)

I fitted Sumo bars to mine a while ago after an unfortunate incident with a big rock A lot stronger than the original weedy things - they will support the weight of the car so you could jack the car up off them if you really wanted to. I replaced both the drag link and the track rod on mine, I got them from - http://www.ekmpowershop2.com/ekmps/shops/c...-bars-125-p.asp Don't know about the Paddocks ones though.

The td5 does indeed have an "in tank" fuel pump, it's designed to deliver 4 bar to the engine - 4 bar of diesel, just how long it would last pumping petrol is another matter? I like the idea of the Audi V8 though

I wouldn't worry about the mangled cap head bolt, it's only an M6 x 20 bolt, the head profile / type doesn't really matter, I would say leave the existing one in. The "wire" on pic 4 (assuming you mean the blue one with the 90° rubber end,) is a vacuum pipe for the egr actuator, should be blanked off with something that fits to prevent dust and crud from being sucked into the vac pump when the solenoid opens.

You're right, it is permanent 4wd but with a centre differential to allow the front and back wheels to rotate at different speeds, ie. going round corners or if one wheel is spinning in mud. in just the same way as the front and rear axle diffs do. Then you have the centre diff lock whch ensures that the front and rear axles are driven at the same speed. When J.N was referring to 2wd or 4wd I'm sure he meant diff lock in or out. By the way do you get any vibration at about 40 - 50ish similar to an out-of-balance wheel but faster (higher frequency,) thats a fairly good indication of a UJ badly on it's way out causing the prop shaft to vibrate. I got this on mine a while back and one journey of about 200 miles was enough to destroy the seal and bearing on the back axle input shaft and cover the back door with gear oil.

Ahh, sounds a bit more serious then, I must admit I'd find that a lot harder to ignore. When you say "on and off" do you mean it does it when you're operating the pedal - ie starting and stopping, or during driving without touching the pedal?

You could try having a word with this ebay seller - http://stores.shop.ebay.co.uk/U-PM-COM-Lan...r__W0QQ_armrsZ1 - although it looks like he's not taking orders until mid April.

Hi, My Td5 Defender has a little squeal from the clutch when first setting off from cold, always goes away after the first 2 or 3 operations of the pedal. It's done this ever since I first got it 4 years ago and has never got any worse, I used to get concerned that somthing is about to let go but now I just ignore it.

Bit of an odd one there!! My guess would be there is maybe a common earth amiss somewhere. just a guess though. Do the locks do anything strange when you operate the rear wiper? The engine top cover is just there to reduce the noise a bit, you may fall foul of some EU regulations regarding "drive-by noise" but I don't imagine anyone will really notice if you remove it.

It's worth pulling the BCU apart and checking inside for dry joints, I had this on one of mine recently with one of the connections on the circuit board where the relay is soldered in. A quick dab round with the soldering iron and some fresh solder cured it in my case.

Sorry if this goes a bit off topic but this comment just makes me think of some of the little cars you see driving around at night with a Sat-Nav stuck right in the middle of the windscreen and all lit up like Blackpool seafront - How the hell can they not get pulled up for such a glaring distraction (no pun intended!)

This is one of those "How long is a bit of string" questions really, it all depends so much on how well the vehicle has been maintained - or neglected / abused. (EDIT; As "freeagent" above!) In any case that would also apply to the rest of the engine and indeed the whole of the car I don't know about the 200TDi specifically, but the turbo on my Td5 Deafener literally fell apart after about 45'000 or so when the shaft connecting the impeller to the compressor wore right through in the centre, but that was due to badly contaminated oil that I neglected to change immediately after the vacuum pump went into self destruct. Unfortunately the engine sounds like a bag of spanners now and needs major overhaul or replacing. The above lesson was instrumental in leading me to re-think my previous maintenance philosophy of "Don't fix it till it's broke"

Econometer - wasn't that an aftermarket vacuum gauge many years ago? you could pipe it up to the inlet manifold and mount it on the dash, the idea being to drive as much as possible with the highest possible vacuum by keeping the lightest touch on the loud pedal. That being the case it wouldn't work with a turbo charged motor - would it? Or maybe I've got the wrong device. EDIT; Just done a quick search and found this - http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthread.php/...guide-3428.html

As above really, the Td5 is a good engine and probably more reliable than many LR purists would like to admit, "All that electrickery, bound to fail". I've had mine for about 4 years now and never really had any reliability issues until recently and in fairness, the problems I've had have been pretty much self inflicted through over abuse and neglect. In terms of power, with a straight through centre replacement pipe on the exhaust and chipped / re-mapped ECU the performance can be on a par with a 3.5 V8 but without all the fuel cost. I find the heater in mine is not too bad; it's up to temp within about 2 miles of driving and gives enough heat for reasonable comfort - in the front anyway. If you were to go for a 2002 or later car, the interior is better too with alarm/immobiliser, central locking and electric windows on the options list. On the downside here though, the road tax rate increases from mid 2001.

It looks to me (from the second photo) like its attached to the main terminal, along with the battery positive wire, if thats the case it's most likely where a live feed has been taken off for some after market "add-on" of some sort. Best thing here would be to just remove it. Of course I could be speaking into my trousers here, in which case please ignore me.

I noticed a big change in body roll/stiffness when I changed my '89 90 for my current one, the newer one rolls a lot more than the old one did, however the front articulation is a lot better on the new one. I put this down to the suspension bushes, particularly the front radius arm ones, the old 90 had polybushes (or similar) and the extra stiffness of these resists the twisting action of the front axle, the current car has the original fairly soft rubber bushes which are much more compliant. Both cars had the original springs and shocks and neither had anti-roll bars fitted so that was the only difference as far as I could see. I've since treated my current 90 to a 2" lift with Bearmach +2" springs (blue ones) and Pro Comp shocks but it's not really much different, I think the slightly stiffer springs are offset by the higher C of G, but then I was trying to improve articulation not reduce body roll. Changing the shocks (dampers) won't reduce body roll much if at all and on their own won't give you a lift. HD springs would do more to to increase stiffness than anything except perhaps adding an anti-roll bar and maybe replacing the radius arm bushes.

Could be a prop shaft UJ on its way out, I've had a couple go that way, first time I ignored it and knackered the rear diff input seal and bearing - worth checking anyway. Might be an idea to try and get a feel for the frequency of the vibration to see how it relates to the speed of the various bits whizzing round and round.

Been covered before - try this link - http://forums.lr4x4.com/index.php?showtopic=39425

Yes, I have to admit they do just look right somehow on a LR, just part of the character of the vehicle somehow, in fact any extra "sticky out bits" that you can tie things to or lash down to dont look out of place. Imaging bolting "grab handles" onto a new Ford Fiesta.

I get the same faults logged on mine too, and quite a few others, but I don't have ABS (or Aircon.) The engine ECU appears to be geared up for all the possible options but if they're not fitted it detects that and throws up faults accordingly, would be nice if you could tell the ECU that these options are not fitted and to not generate the codes but I can't find any options to do it, not with Nanocom anyways.

Sorry Grant, I think you friend is having a "Turkish". Nanocom only does engine and alarm ECU's and ABS & body control where fitted, check out - http://web.nanocom.it/nanocom_i.cfm?articolo=415 Besides - there's no electronics in a defender gearbox.