TeriAnn

I think it is a great idea who's time has not yet arrived unless you are wanting just a short distance vehicle. One for a short work commute or that goes out to the nearest town for groceries or whatever no more than once a day. Those you can cobble together using a bunch of car batteries or a couple of gulf cart batteries. I took a ride in such an electric Fiat in the mid 1980's. It works fine for a short range vehicle that drives a short distance and sit for hours on a charger. It would be a fun and likely very gratifying project for someone who needs only a occasional (once a day or less) short distance trip. But for longer distances I would wait. There are companies and universities spending a great deal of money developing the technology, motors, charging systems and batteries for reliable long distance electric cars. Once they are in production costs go down, technology improves as users gain experience and parts become available at the local breaking yards.

I'm not sure when I can pull this together. I don't expect to see any money before the end of the year, possibly later, then I need to get some time consuming dentistry done & a gearbox swap in my truck before the trip. I'm not sure if I can make it before Mid April but I'm tentatively targeting the end of March. I will need to pack up everything I own and put it into storage and I want to get my TR3 painted first along with front suspension work so it will be ready when I get back. Right now I'm hoping April through however long I'm still having a good time. At least through the end of September, maybe longer since I don't expect to be able to repeat this kind of trip. Thanks for your suggestions so far.

I am hoping to get the money together to ship myself and my Land Rover Dormobile to the UK & points East sometime this spring and hope to spend the summer camping then head home sometime in the Fall. The trip will be one woman traveling and camping in a 1960 Land Rover Dormobile. I have not been able to locate a calendar of LR events for 2010 nor am I sure which are the must see shows. So I'm hoping for some help. First can anyone tell me which are the big "must attend" shows and Land Rover parts boot sales in both the UK and throughout the EU. I tend to think of a 3000 mile trip as a normal outing so distance is not an issue. I would like to attend as many as are practical in between touring to new places in my Dormobile. Here's what I'm looking for: - What is the show - 2010 Date(s) - What to expect - Location - If I need to make advance arrangements, what, how & how much would it cost - Any pertinent comments In addition to the shows what places would be of interest to a Land Rover enthusiast to visit? In between shows I hope to just tour the country sights visiting ruins, scenic locations and possibly a historic reenactment or two. I've made several visits to the UK & Western Europe by plane and have visited several cities. This time, assuming I can swing the trip, I hope to get a feel for the countryside and a firsthand look at the history. This will likely be the only time I bring my Land Rover to Europe so it must be a trip of a lifetime. Any suggestions or advice??

Humm I surprised that rear D110 calipers aren't the same as rear D90/Discovery I/Range Rover Classic rear pads. They seemed to use the same brake components across models. Or is that yet another misconception of mine?

The Series section did not really cover D110 rear axle assemblies. At least note well enough for me to understand what was used when. I thought it best to go to the Defender section to get my misconceptions about D110s cleared up. As to my end goal of a conversion on my truck, I have not been able to find part numbers mentioned and some of the components mentioned are not available in the States. I may not have found the correct old thread and was operating under the impression that LR never fitted disc brakes on a Salisbury. I apologize if I've breached a forum rule by not being able to find the information I wanted elsewhere.

Thank you for the clarification. Since there is only one year of D110 imported to the States by LR I had a very limited view of what was available. Much appriciated

So then it was just the V8 D110's that got a 24 spline Rover rear diff starting in 1994? Or am I just totally confused because 1993 was the only year that D110s were imported into North America and we only had D90s from 1994 through 1998? May I assume I could get a caliper mounting plate off a mid '90's D110 tdi, a mid '90's Range Rover or Discovery I rear stub axle & hub, Calipers & rotors from the same vehicle and convert from Series III Salisbury rear drum brakes to rear disc brakes? No issues with axle length? We just needed more D110's in the States!

I'm trying to track down some information and you lot seem to be experts on the subject so: Which models and years of the One Ten or D110 were factory fitted with a rear Salisbury AND rear disc brakes??? My eventual goal is to be able to find factory parts that would allow me to upgrade a SIII Salisbury rear assembly from drum brakes to disc brakes. I hope to be able to go from models & years to part numbers for the parts needed to make the conversion. Thanks

Measure that static distance between mounting flanges of both vehicles. That will give you a good idea about dynamic fit. Just because you can get a propshaft to fit when a vehicle is at rest doesn't mean that it won't be to long or too short at maximum articulation and cause damage to other components of your drive train. (been there, done that, paid the bill for a "cheap" solution) Many times the cheap quick solution becomes a very expensive trouble maker in the long term.

Now I'm a tad confused, a normal state for me. It is my current understanding that Land Rover fitted the D110 with a Salisbury and rear drum brakes through 1993 then for 1994 went to a Rover diff and rear disc brakes. Its my current understanding that the factory never fitted discs to Salisburys. Am I wrong? The US spec 1993 D110's came with rear drum brakes. Also parts can be hard to find here and quite expensive so a trial end error approach to seeing what fits could easily go well over $1000 for a pile of parts that may not fit. Thanks for your encouragement so far.

Since there seems to be a lot of expertise on this I would like to ask the same question with a twist. Parameters: US Based Series II Dormobile that: Already has a GM based disc brake conversion up front Has a Series III Salisbury in the rear with hardened axles and ARB Goal: replace the rear drums for rear disc brakes using consumable parts (rotors, calipers, pad sort of stuff) from Rovers sold for sale in the US. This means 1994 through 1998 V8 Defender, 1994 and newer Discovery and 1989 and newer Range Rover. Discovery I and early to mid '90's range Rovers can be found in wrecking yards (with a lot of hunting) as a source of used parts. Question: Given the Series III Salisbury set up I have, is there a rear disc brake conversion I can make using all Land Rover parts available to me in the States? I want to be able to go to my local auto parts store and order replacement parts as needed. Thanks

I don't know what the UK market is so this might not be a practical solution for you. In the States a custom made new propshaft can be had for little more than the cost of an imported UK propshaft. So last time I needed a front propshaft I had one made up. I measured and provided the static distance between the two mounting flanges (transfercase & diff) and requested high angle U joints (allows greater spring flexing without binding) and a long slip joint (allowing greater axle movement when both wheels are moving in the same upward or downward direction simultaneously). I ended up with a propshaft that can adjust to much more articulation than the stock one can that is the proper length for MY Land Rover. All for a little less than 1-1/2 times the cost of an imported stock propshaft that would bind with my suspension and the way I drive. Make do adapting propshafts from a different vehicle will often cause problems if you exercise your suspension. If you do resort to that, measure the static distance between the mating flange mounts and pick one from a vehicle with the same or very nearly same distance.

Harder to do if there is a California license plate on the truck A? Good suggestions all so far. My main concern about my passport is the possibility of driving into Islamic countries. A lot of people have the mistaken idea that all Americans hate Muslims. But I would really like to get a picture of my truck with a Pyramid in the background and I would like to visit some of the ruins in Turkey. I have an ill defined notion of possibly hooking up with someone driving into that area going through as a group. Where I have been in the UK so far: London, about 1-1/2 weeks total, Billing Aquadrome, 4 days camping, Edinburgh, 2 days, Glasgow, 1-1/2 days, Manchester, 1 day, Liverpool, 2 days. In other Countries, Paris for about a week and a half total, a little time in a small coastal town on the Normandy coast, Berlin, Ziest, Stockholm (mostly the inside of a conference hotel), Frankfurt, Munich, and Hanover. Outside the UK, mostly fly in, stay at a trade show for a week and fly out.

Umm, what's a car park? A parking lot or perhaps what Americans call rest stops?

Probably. I think the nearest country to me is about a thousand miles away. It might be fun to do France, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg & Germany just to see how many countries I could visit in an hour I don't think twice about a 2 or 3 thousand mile drive and am used to 2 or 3 hundred miles between interesting areas. And, sometimes stopping every hundred feet or so because I see something interesting to photograph. Last week I drove a little over 350 miles each way just to chat with someone in LA for a couple hours. Last summer I drove 1000 miles each way just to attend a half week Land Rover gathering. The distances you are writing about so far don't seem all that much to me. As I recall Paris to the Normandy coast was only a couple hour drive. It might be fun to do a loop around the Mediterranean if it is safe enough. I expect this to be a once and a lifetime drive for me and the price of fuel is likely going to be cheaper than paying for lodging and restaurants. Of course I do find myself wondering if I could ship my truck in a container with full fuel tanks (42 US gallons). Please keep those ideas coming and don't limit yourselves to local driving. I understand the Pyrenees mountains are worth a visit and have some good off road trails.

It appears like I will be seeing enough money by the end of this year to ship my Dormobile to Europe for an extended driving vacation in 2010. So far my European travel experiences have been limited to about 10 business trips total into the UK, France Germany, the Netherlands and a single vacation where I camped Roverless at the Billing LR meet in '96. If I can manage everything I would be shipping my Petrol Land Rover Dormobile over and living in it, including cooking. It would just be me alone. I was thinking 3 or 4 months before heading home to the States. I would like to hit a couple major UK Land Rover meets (nothing like driving my own Land Rover into a big Rover gathering) and a major LR swap meet. I prefer traveling in rural and country areas to cities. Actually I prefer not to travel in major cities. I expect to be driving alone on an American passport. I would like to do a lot of photography and am especially interested in visiting and photographing older ruins. I have a vague idea of visiting the UK, Ireland, Spain and where? It would be nice to see the ruins in Egypt, Jordan and Turkey. Morocco? I have heard that the drive from Sweden, down into Russia and Eastern Europe would be worth taking. I would like to have a safe sight seeing adventure and worry that a woman driving and camping alone might have problems in certain areas. So I'm looking for ideas. Which would be the best UK Land Rover events to hit? When are they? What drives would be best to get lots of sightseeing off the beaten path and take lots of scenic pictures and pictures of old ruins? Where is it not safe for a woman with an American passport driving and camping alone? Are there people traveling together in vehicle caravans that I might hook up with for parts of the trip? I'm sure people familiar with an area could show me places that I would totally miss on my own. Thoughts? ideas? suggestions?

Not an issue with a light proof container that gets sanitized on a regular basis. I've had my stainless steel tank with water continuously inside for 22 years (not the same water obviously). Whenever I've opened up the top inspection plate there has been nothing to clean out. Algae requires light to live. so most any plastic container is a place where it might grow. Except for the opaic black plastic ones. Teriann

I always power wash the underside of my truck when I came home from a trip. I'm a great believer in the saying "Take care of your gear and it will take care of you"

One place that is easily overlooked is the unused spaced between the frame bottom and the body panels. This space is protected and any weight added there only helps the C.G. height. I think of it as free load space. Sometimes you can combine spaces, such as unused under the seat box space and space in front of the rear wheel under the body side bench. I have no idea of what a Defender looks like underneath so am not qualified to say how much space you have where. But it wouldn't hurt to lay down under your truck and have a leisurely look for unused space. I keep eying the space alongside the rear propshaft between the frame sections and thinking I might put a box in there one of these days to store spare parts. I have a 109 two door so is lots of space between the front fuel tank and the front of the rear wheel. When I purchased my truck there was already a 5 gallon horizontal mounted propane tank sitting between the front fuel tank and the rear wheel on the vehicle right side. the tank was mounted to brackets welded to the top of the forward spring mount outrigger. A five gallon propane tank that takes up no space in the tuck or outside the truck. When it came time for me to add a water tank I went to the same space on the other side of the truck. I measured the space between the top of the outrigger and the body side bench, the distance between the front axillary fuel tank and the wheel arch and the body side to the side bench side. The top bench of a 109 two door has either a removable plate or a drop box for mounting a spare tyre. I removed the spare tyre box for my measurements. I made a drawing for a water tank that would sit on the outrigger and have the top level with the side bench top. I added a one inch top flange all the way around the top. Making the top width equal to the width of the rear side bench. This meant that I would need to enlarge the spare tyre mount hole in the side bench. The drawing was of a trapezoidal tank with vertical sides and front. The back sloped inwards so that it was tangential to the wheel arch. My design called for a threaded hole at the front right corner for a drain plug and three top openings. One top opening was for a pickup tube which was to be welded in place and have a pipe fitting st the top. One was threaded for a air vent. The last was a hole for inspection/manual cleaning. It is large enough for my hand and to see down with a torch. It required a custom lid. I took my drawing to a company that does custom stainless steel construction and it was built to my specifications. When I got the tank home I enlarged the spare tyre mount hole to fit the tank, added a rubber pad to the top of the outrigger for the tank to rest upon and lowered the tank into place. I added a couple holes to the flange and bolted the flange to the body. The outrigger carries the weight and the body stabilizes the tank. From the draw tube to a faucet I have a removable wire screen, a one way flow valve, a shurflo pump to a cartridge water filter to a faucet. The faucet was designed to work with the Shurflo pump so the volume of water pumped depends upon who much I turn the "valve" which is really a rheostat. For the vent, I just ran a vertical food grade flexible tube up the side behind a cabinet, leaving it open at the end. I wanted to fill from the outside and I wanted my filler to look Land Rover. I adapted a front fuel filler for the application. I cut a hole into the body side and added the filler plate. I cut off the filler tube just past where it passed through the plate. Then I plastic coated the underside of the fuel cap and the inside of what was left of the fuel tube. Inside I placed food grade plastic fittings to keep water separate from the metal. From there I ran a 2 inch diameter food grade flexible plastic tube to the fuel filler hole in the tank. The water never touches metal until it reaches the stainless steel tank. The tank holds 15 US gallons of water. Basically three 20L water cans without taking up any space inside or outside the vehicle and with all the added weight at frame level. Vehicle left side. The front filler (left) is for the axillary fuel tank. The rear filler is for the drinking water. All my fillers are locked. All the fuel fillers use one key and the lock on the water filler is keyed differently. I sanitize the tank and replace the filter cartridge 3 times a year or more if I suspect the water source on a trip. TO sanitize the tank I remove the filter cartridge, drain the tank, flow water trough it then replace the bottom plug with the tank empty. I add a cup of bleach and fill the tank. I drive the vehicle around a little to slosh the water and run the pump for a few minutes to sanitize the delivery tubing. After a few hours I drain the tank, rinse it and refill the tank adding a new cartridge. The process is basically the same as used on the big motor caravans. You vehicle is very different from mine but if you look underneath and in unused spaces you just might find space to build a water tank in. It is a lot more expensive to have a custom tank made up but it vastly opens up the possibilities.

Please keep us posted about how you end up routing the steering. usually there are issues involving connecting coiler steering arms up to a leaf sprung truck. I'm a bit unclear as to how the problem is solved.

Thanks for the welcomes everyone! My Rover was quite sick while at the rally. Which I found to be very frustrating because it kept me off the trails. It actually took me a couple months to track down the second of the two problems. I would not call it one of my best moments. Problem #1 is that the charging system stopped charging on the way to the rally in Monument Valley. A new battery, clean battery connections and a rebuilt alternator didn't solve the problem. By the time I got home I had all new battery cables and a new molex connector going to the alternator as well. I ended up buying a small generator and charger to get me home. When the battery ran down I would pull over to the side, fire up the generator & put the battery on the charger for a couple hours. The cure was to first learn more about alternators. The place I got the alternator from didn't have the right replacement but sold me what I was told was an equivalent. It seemed that I gave them a 90 amp alternator and they gave me a 50 amp one in return. I have a V8 with EFI, two electric fuel pumps and a power hungry Bosh electric fan from a V8 Mercedes. Evidently the alternator could not keep up with the system when the fan came on. And since the ambient temperature as above 100 degrees F, the fan came on and I had a net drain on the charging system. Also, the circuit with the idiot light is used to create the electric field for the armature to spin in. I had a crimp on connector with oxidation below the connector insulator (and a nice shiny connection lug). The oxidized connection reduced the current level that could pass through the circuit, reducing the magnetic field needed to produce electricity. Of course, the voltage looked good when I tested with a voltmeter and the engine not running. It took me a couple weeks to find the oxidation below the insulation at the back of the connector. Once I understood the circuit I knew where to look. Problem #2 I had converted to an EFI system to save on fuel and get better low RPM performance at high angles. I tried to save money by buying used electrical parts off ebay. Now I know what people do with the bad parts that the mechanic hands back to them at the end of a job. So I had been tracing down and fixing problems for a few months. I still had one elusive problem that occurred intermittently that seemed to be fuel related. Most of the time the engine ran just fine. a little before the trip I replaced the fuel pressure regulator because the old one as at the low end of the pressure spec. I drove around for a couple weeks and it looked like the problem was found and cured. I declared my truck to be trail ready and headed off for the national rally with another Dormobile for company. I live on the coast where most summer days are in the mid sixties F and a hot day may break eighty degrees. As we drove inland the temperatures got well over one hundred degrees and my fuel related problem became a nightmare. My engine was running cool but my fuel lines where they passed the exhaust manifold were around 250 - 270 degrees! The frame there was around 275 degrees and I was getting vapour lock with EFI. I put the bonnet on the roof rack and was OK on the highway but not at low speeds. Who ever heard of a cool running engine and vapour lock on an EFI engine? I tried a trail in Arches the day before the meet started to see if I could do the trails with everyone else. It took me about 9 hours to do what should have been a 2 hour of less trail. About every 15 or 20 minutes the engine died from vapour lock and I had to sit there while the fuel lines cooled down. Back home where it was much cooler the vapour lock problem again mostly went away, so tracking it down was hard. I was talking to a Mustang EFI expert (I have 1991 Mustang EFI on a 1970 Mustang 302 engine). When I told him I was running a 180 degree thermostat he said he knew what my problem was. That EFI system takes a 190 degree thermostat (helps the engine run cleaner). When the engine is cold, the computer is in warm up mode to help the engine reach its operating temperature. In warm up mode the computer runs the engine lean so it produces more heat. The engine goes out of warm up mode when the engine reaches 185 degrees. I have a really good custom aluminum radiator that kept the engine running below 185 degrees. But with the engine burning lean, the exhaust got very hot, got the frame hot and the fuel lines hot. Too hot when the ambient air temperatures got above 100 degrees F. that was one of my Duh! how dumb can I be moments. Installing a 190 degree thermostat cured my problems. The national rally was an ego deflater for me.

Based upon this thread so far I have a question that only an American would ask. Would a 300tdi mate up to a Series gearbox if you used the flywheel housing off a 2.25L petrol engine??? We have a Land Rover gap between 1974 and 1993 with only a small number of V8 Defenders in the 1993 through '98 group. Mostly we have Series petrol trucks. So would a 2.25L petrol flywheel housing from a IIA work as an adapter?? It never occurred to me that you can drop a 300tdi into a Series truck because of differences in the bellhousing mounting pattern.

Snatch them up! Search for special hardened axles as you can.

Perhaps where you come from the purpose of installing lockers is to allow you to drive the same places with less effort and stress on individual axles. Where I come from people usually don't install lockers unless they intend to go places where the extra traction is needed and you would not make it with open diffs, such as technical rock crawling. If you are braking axles & carriers already, the ARB is a strong carrier but you are still going to overstress stock axles. Especially if you drive into situations that Lockers will allow you transverse that you couldn't with open diffs. There is a lot of stress generated when one wheel is in the air and its opposite member is taking the full output of your engine. All I'm suggesting is that with greater capability comes greater temptation to use that capability and overstress the axles. The 10 spline and factory standard 24 spline coiler axle usually are not up to that kind of stress. A Salisbury 24 spline can handle extra stress and specialty 24 spline axles are generally much stronger than both the standard factory coiler 24 spline axles and the Salisbury axles. Going to 24 spline provides a strength upgrade path that is only very limited for 10 spline axles. And it never hurts to understand why the seller is selling and what he is using instead. I think my mistake in my original posting was not mentioning that if you upgrade to lockers and intend to use the extra capability that you should upgrade to 24 spline lockers BECAUSE it provides a pathway to stronger axles that 10 splines do not have. And if you intend to drive your truck aggressively that it is a very good idea to upgrade both the differential and the axles. Lockers are of very limited use if you do not upgrade the axles too. The exception being the Salisbury. "Rubbish" is such a strong categorical denial. But first please realize I am a Series owner and when I think 24 spline axle I think Salisbury axles and specialty axles that are specifically made to be much stronger than stock coiler 24 spline axles. I normally talk axles with other Series owners. I agree that 10 spline Land Rover axles and the standard 24 spline coiler axles have similar strengths. The standard factory 24 spline coiler axles are probably no more than 5% stronger than the 10 spline axles. However stock Salisbury 24 spline axles are a different design and tend to be about 25% stronger than than the standard coiler 24 spline axles. There are two different designs of Rover 24 splines and the durability differs significantly between the two. One 24 spline type is used on the later RRC, Disco 1 and both Defender 90 ends and D110/130 fronts. The second type are the Salisbury and optional HD 24 spline rears found on US spec D90's and some Discovery 1's such as the Camel Trophy Discoverys. I don't know if they were actually offered as an official optional upgrade. The first (standard coiler axle) is a one piece design (integral drive flange). They are a waisted design, with a lower heat treat level. They fatigue by permanently twisting along the entire length of the shaft, sometimes up to 720 degrees plus. When they finally break the integral flange usually pops off. The Salisbury/HD Rovers are a non waisted design but they are heat treated to a higher level. These are the stronger of the two different Land Rover 24 splines although both should be upgraded if you are planning on a lot of aggressive off roading with fully locking differentials on high traction surfaces. Neither will hold up under these conditions. When they break, they fatigue and twist at the diff splines and break exactly like Series 10 splines. This is because they are a non-waisted design and hence the twisting stress is concentrated on the smallest part of the shaft, the minor spline diameter.