Dave W

Mine did this on the motorway at 70MPH, no warning, no vibration and as far as I know the pressures were fine up until that point. Inside side wall was completely fine, not a mark on it. I'd been told by an Australian that these tyres had some issues with structural failure but assumed it was an extreme heat issue or something and dismissed it. This was one of a pair I bought in 2016 to replace the 4 year old ones that I'd driven around Australia. I've lost all trust in these tyres as a result and have replaced them all with a different make. I've had tyres give up on me in the past due to punctures but never had one like this where the sidewall split around the entire circumference and have lost all confidence in them as a result. I'd be concerned that any sign of cracking, especially on the outer sidewall, might be a sign that a similar structural failure is occurring, if that's what happened to mine.

Yes, built it myself, more or less. The two main components that determined the design were the trailer itself and the tent. The tent specifications give you the optimum height above the ground for the tent to be mounted so that determined how high the supporting structure needed to be. Original trailer... Tubular framework made and treated... the 3 longitudinal bars that support the tent bolt on so the canvas can be below them but above the main frame. The canvas fitted (custom made by a local company) Interior electrics fitted out, consumer unit, charger and two large batteries, waterproof mains sockets at each side, accessible from the front and sides. Initial water pump on wheel arch - later replaced with a better unit. LED lighting strips attached to each of the roof bars. I also added a wooden "shelf" around the entire tub top to make it easier to add/fix things into place and run wiring etc... Rubber matting on the floor... Simple water system with individual bottles to make it easier to fill and avoid contamination... Fridge fitted... (added a home made fridge slider later on)... fold down water tap at rear (there's one on each side), gas bottle in situ. One of the best things about the tent is that everything for the tent goes in the bag on the top of the trailer so there's loads of room inside the trailer for food, cooking gear, clothing and so on. Internal view, main double bed upstairs... (mattress permanently stored in the tent as per a roof tent) there's also a zipped access panel that lets you get access into the side of the trailer from the accommodation. Additional annex room has a curtain and is large enough for a double bed (we use it for dog crates !) You can deploy the tent with or without all of the extra bits depending on how long you expect to stay, for an overnight we wouldn't put up the annexe or most of the side awnings, they're all detachable.

Probably the easiest way of fitting a NATO to a TD5 rear cross member is by using a 2 inch receiver because that will use all the available tow bar mounting pick up points. It does mean that the NATO mount ends up lower than a direct mount would be tough. That's what I used on mine although my chassis was aftermarket and didn't have the captive nuts so I also added a 6mm spreader plate with captive nuts behind the cross member. I only tow a Sankey with mine so having the NATO a bit lower than intended with +2 inch suspension on the 90 means it tows really nicely as they seem to like to be a bit nose down.

I've been a Weller "fan" ever since I started soldering, about 50 years ago, scarily ! A couple of years ago though I started to find myself dealing more and more with SMT stuff and struggling with my old school setup, so decided to try out a soldering station. As it was only really an experiment and I still had the trusty Weller to fall back on I went for a cheap 2 in 1 soldering station like this one... https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/384460906311?hash=item5983a7df47:g:MiQAAOSwuxRhS-OQ At that price, I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting much BUT I don't think I've used my old Weller since this arrived. It's been really good, the iron heats up quickly and has a "sleep" mode so the it detects it's been in the holder for a while it reduces the temperature to save the bit. The selection of bits that came with it are a good selection from the very finest needle bit to a large flat bit, all of which have been fine and changing bits is quick and easy. The hot air gun is also a real bonus, as well as easily replacing SMT ICs and discrete components it's great for heat shrink too and, again, the range of nozzles for the gun mean that the heat is very localised. I was replacing some 8 pin SMT ICs on some boards last week (Cheap Chinese CAN BUS boards that didn't work due to the dodgy ICs fitted that I replaced with genuine items), the ICs are surrounded by discrete components but I manage to replace the ICs on all 5 boards without disturbing any of the surrounding components. As I said, for £60 I wasn't expecting much but I've been very impressed with it.

I've experienced this kind of death wobble many times on mine, normally indicates that one of the TRE's has some play in it. Once it starts the only way to stop it is to come to a standstill, very scary sometimes. It seems you've checked the normal stuff though. However, I did have the same issue many years ago on a Range Rover Classic with road tyres on and it took about 6 months to diagnose. Everything was tried, damper changed, everything adjusted/tightened, checked etc... Turned out to be the tyres, changing front to back made no difference but borrowed a mates wheels and tyres and no sign of the problem. New tyres fitted to the original wheels and the problem went away. There was nothing visibly wrong with the tyres and the only conclusion was that the tyres were distorting and took a while to return to normal again. We figured out it always happened after a bump in the road, even the tiniest pothole would set it off, even running over a cats eye. If I were you I'd borrow a set of wheels/tyres and see - if nothing else it rules the wheels/tyres in/out as the cause of the problem.

Ours is Oslo Blue, looks pretty much the same colour...

https://www.motorsportuk.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/2021-03-08-motorsport-uk-yearbook-2021-p165-208-common-regulations-competitors-safety-k.pdf This contains the roll cage specifications that all other sections refer to. If Safari cannot open the pdf because you have installed an extension or messed up the settings then try using a different browser. Normally Safari would have no problem downloading and/or displaying a pdf. You can try forcing the download by control-clicking (right clicking if you have a 2 button mouse) on the link on the resources page and choosing "Download Linked File As..." https://www.motorsportuk.org/resource-centre/

MS is still a good option and people are doing a lot with the built in CAN comms these days which wouldn't take a lot of work to bridge to a gearbox controller, even if you had to covert MS CAN signals into different ones using an Arduino or similar. I've just built something similar for my van using an ESP32 to bridge CAN devices and broadcast the CAN data on Bluetooth so I can view it on my phone. ESP32 has a built in CAN controller, WiFi, BLE and costs around £3 each from China ! That said, MS is not what it used to be either in support or ethos. The original spirit of open source collaboration which resulted in hardware, firmware and software advances got lost somewhere along the way with commercial offerings taking precedence and costs increasing despite costs of manufacture and components reducing. The MS forums are dead so support is nowhere near as good as it used to be although we do still have good resources for it here. Speeduino is probably the current equivalent of where MS used to be in terms of having an active community and open source development, I'm looking to replace the MS on my LS with a Speeduino at some point simply because it's cheaper than an MS upgrade (I'm still running MS1), faster and more flexible. I'll also be looking at controlling the gearbox with it. The Speeduino forums are still active, you have a choice of processors, the firmware is written in a modern(ish) language and there's even documentation to help developers customise the firmware ! I honestly think that, these days, Speeduino is the community built, open source engine and gearbox control system. MS is now very much a commercial offering with high costs which means it needs to be compared, both by feature and price with other commercial offerings and it pretty much falls down when compared to other commercial system. Having closed firmware isn't an issue as long as it works and you can get access to it for diagnostics and tuning/adjustment.

On a 3.5 Flapper EFi ? Do you mean the extra air valve ?

I'd not long since joined the motorway, having negotiated 3 roundabouts and a tight left turn onto the slip road followed by a relatively sharp left hand bend at 60-70 on the merge onto the motorway from a dual carriageway. No understeer, no handling issues. Whatever happened it happened in the 2 miles after I joined the motorway. I also changed lanes several times as I was overtaking slower vehicles and pulling back into the inside lane and no signs of understeer or pulling to one side. Up until it let go there was no indication at all that there was anything wrong. The inner bead, tyre wall and tread are completely unmarked/unharmed. I guess I'll never know for certain but the front left tyre (same age as the front right) isn't going back on again. Someone did warn me that they'd seen issues with these tyres and the sidewalls failing but the ones on the rear (rotated from the front) are probably 4 years older and have had a much harder life having been on when we drove around Australia. Maybe a slow puncture that led to the tyre overheating, maybe a structural failure, maybe something on the carriageway that cut it, who knows. On the plus side, nobody was hurt, I didn't spread large chunks of tyre all over the motorway and I got home safely on the spare which is from the same batch as the rears. I now have mud tyres on the front and ATs on the rear while I figure out if I should buy some more of the same make or move to something different. Seems like GoodYear might not be a good candidate

Typical really given that this topic is under discussion... Had I not had a spare with me on Sunday myself and my dog would have been stranded at the side of the A1M after the OSF tyre sidewall seems to have disintegrated. No idea what caused it as the tyre is only a couple of years old. The inner wall was undamaged, the outer bead is undamaged but the wall has split from the tread. 70MPH on the A1M, no warning, no vibrations before it went. With the spare and the means of changing it we were probably only on the hard shoulder for around 10 mins. Probably not repairable with sticky string...

Fuel pump problem I'd expect. It's a two part pump unit, low pressure and high pressure. It'll run quite happily up to a point off the low pressure pump but will top out and be unable to rev high for any sustained period. Often you can hear the pump isn't well when you switch the ignition on before starting. If you keep it at low revs it'll run quite happily but as soon as you apply any load and/or higher revs it'll have no power.

Permanent relocation or temporary ? If it's permanent you might be eligible for a personal import as long as you can meet the criteria. You need to have a visa that entitles you to apply for citizenship for a personal import to apply, you also need to have proof of ownership and use of the vehicle for at least 12 months prior. There are also options is the vehicle is over 25 years old. You really don't want to have to pay import duty as that can be as much as the value of the vehicle or even more ! The age of the vehicle can also make a difference, as can the state that you want to enter and register the vehicle in. NSW, for example, tend to be a lot more flexible than WA so shipping into Perth is more complicated than shipping into Sydney. As for shipping, that's relatively easy but costs of containers are very high at the moment due to COVID, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see it costing 7k plus for a one way shipment at the moment. You might want to consider if your Land Rover is special enough to you to warrant the cost of shipping - you can pick up second hand Defenders in Australia fairly easily and they tend to have a lot less corrosion that UK examples ! You might also want to look at cost of ownership out there, depending on where you live, you might find getting hold of spares or a mechanic that has any experience of them can be difficult especially the further north and west you are. If you haven't done so already, join the AULRO forum.

The ECU can easily be changed from Discovery to Defender by anyone with a Testbook or equivalent (did mine with an Autologic one). Only takes a few minutes, just remember to take a note of the injector codes before you start although, that said, it would be worth checking those against the engine anyway. I'd assume that anyone that didn't bother changing the vehicle type on the ECU probably didn't bother coding in the injectors either...

It's definitely worth trying a different set of wheels/tyres if you can. I spent months trying to find a similar issue on a Range Rover classic that would start to oscillate really badly after hitting any kind of bump at speed. In my case it was the tyres that were at fault although there was no visible sign of a problem. Wheel spacers can also hide problems so removing them from the equation is definitely a good idea.

The place I spoke to a couple of months ago said they were happy to take it "as is" and said the only problems they'd had was with some water based paints which their cleaning bath doesn't strip. They use some form of acid/stripping bath to clean the chassis prior to the galvanising bath and seemed to think it would be fine. I was surprised they'd take a used chassis TBH as I'd spoken to a few places that wouldn't touch them due to the issues of contamination. As soon as I said what it was I wanted galvanising they seemed to know what to expect and said that their cleaning/stripping process would take care of it. They seem to mainly do structural stuff so referred to Land Rover chassis as being "fragile" so they'd have to handle it separately.

In my case I was working on a bare chassis and spent many hours prepping it, following the instructions to the letter. It may be that in lab conditions POR-15 works fine and it may also be that on a chassis which didn't spend half it's life immersed in mud, banging over tree roots and rocks, it would work fine. The reality though is that it's sold for DIY use and it's sold as a way of protecting a chassis and, in that respect it fails on both counts IME. It's annoying because I was sold on the idea that this coating would protect the outside of the chassis for many years, saving me my current rebuild. All it actually did was prevent me adequately "topping up" the protection over the years by hiding the problems that were building up behind it. As I said, the bits where it obviously failed are fine because they were topped up with zinc primer and chassis black, it's the bits that appeared OK where the problems have been. With the above experience in mind I think a more traditional high zinc primer is easier and more reliable to apply in the real world and any issues can be seen and easily resolved over time. The inside of the chassis, especially a used one is the bigger issue. On mine, assuming I get it galvanised after the repairs, I've cleaned out as much of the sand and mud as I can and can only hope that the acid treatment does it's job before the galvanising. Before starting re-building I'll fill the chassis with Dinitrol and paint the outside of they chassis. To be fair, if it lasts another 20 years it'll probably outlast me and I doubt I'll be able to rebuild it again if it doesn't, even if we are still allowed to drive such vehicles in the UK.

Regarding POR-15, I painted my chassis with it 17 years ago. I used the recommended preparation acid stuff etc... My biggest issue with it is that it forms a "skin", sticking to itself really well, that means that if it's damaged or hasn't keyed properly it traps moisture between itself and the chassis with the inevitable results. As I'm currently repairing the bare chassis it's easy to see the parts where it bonded well... and the parts where it didn't. I've touched the paint up a number of times over the years and it's the original bits that looked fine from the outside that are the worst for corrosion. The paint peels off in large sheets like a plastic/powder coating, just a shame that what it was supposed to be protecting is now quite badly corroded. The areas that were "removed" over the years by jet washing etc... and then touched up with zinc primer and chassis black are in far better condition than the POR-15 sections. I'm probably going to get the repaired chassis galvanised this time but if I were to paint it instead I'd stick with the high zinc primer and chassis black over the top simply because those areas that were treated like that 15 years ago, when the POR-15 came off with the jet wash, are fine.

I've shipped vehicles to Australia 3 times now. Twice I shipped my competition vehicle out for the OBC and more recently shipped our 90 out for a 6 month drive around Australia. For the OBC we shipped 3 vehicles in a 40ft container, for our drive around we shipped the single vehicle in a 20ft container. It takes a while to ship, if you can you'll want to allow 3 months. I believe the requirements are similar to NZ in that you need to get the vehicle through customs and quarantine. Customs is easy really, just need to have the numbers that match the documentation and away you go as it's a temporary import, you need a carnet though which you must get stamped when you ship the vehicle back or you'll get charged a huge import levy. Not sure what the state of play is with carnets now, you used to be able to get them from the RAC in the UK but they stopped doing them. The valuation you put on the carnet should be "realistic" but as low as you can get away with. The missing at sea insurance needs to be as high as you can reasonably justify. Quarantine is the hard bit and I'd strongly advise you to talk to a shipping agent in New Zealand with experience of this. You don't want to spend the first part of your holiday cleaning your vehicle and dealing with red tape ! IME it's worth paying more for a reliable agent having experienced what it's like to have your UK agent screw up the paperwork, leaving your vehicles stranded in Amsterdam for weeks ! The vehicle needs to be VERY clean, any trace of dirt at all and you can end up having to take it to a cleaning depot where they will clean it over and over again until the inspector is happy with it. Worst case was one of the Ibex where they'd used split convoluted tubing for the wiring harness, the inspector decided that it ALL needed to be removed from the vehicle. I spent days cleaning the 90 before we shipped it, hours underneath it with a commercial jet wash, stripped everything out of it and every item was then inspected and cleaned as it went back in. They will even shine a torch into the rear floor support sections and into the bottom tank of the radiator, for example. If they find any trace of dirt or vegetation anywhere, the whole vehicle will have to be cleaned, often multiple times. Vehicle regulations vary in Australia from state to state and I expect NZ will have it's own regulations and requirements. If you ship into NSW, for example, you can legally drive a vehicle registered and taxed in another country (or could in 2014) without any additional paperwork. The state will also cover your insurance (third party only), so you can literally drive out of the docks onto the road as soon as you clear customs/quarantine. In WA you need to get the vehicle tested and registered there. You really need someone to give you the precise info you need before you get there ! Every time we shipped we shipped in a container, this is by far the best way to do it because you can ship everything with the vehicle. Shipping on RoRo or deck cargo means every low life dock worker will strip your vehicle of everything that's not securely bolted down. No exaggeration there - we shipped a vehicle from the US to the UK as cargo and foolishly thought we'd be OK to put a spare set of wheels and tyres in the back (the rear was locked), the vehicle was completely empty when it arrived in the UK. Not only were the wheels and tyres gone but so was the radio, the spare wheel (and it's carrier) and the tool kit and jack. Last time we shipped a single vehicle in a 20 foot container (our 90). We had to remove the roof tent to fit in a standard height container so that was on a pallet in the container. In the 90 were all our clothes, cooking gear, off road gear, vehicle spares, everything. We flew into Sydney arriving at around 6am with a holdall bag each, got a taxi to Botany Bay for 8am, the 90 had been cleared through customs and quarantine and once we'd re-fitted the roof tent (a 30 minute job thanks to the loan of a fork lift and driver). By 11 am we were camped on the other side of Sydney, sleeping off our jet lag and ready to go. It was a perfect transition and well worth the extra cost of a good shipping agent. In 2008 we were supposed to have a week of prep prior to the competition, we arrived at the docks on Monday morning to find that our container had not arrived, we eventually employed a different agent to help sort out the mess and they did what they could but it still took nearly a week to get the vehicles and we ended up driving them out of the docks at 6pm on Friday night, 1500km from the start point of the event where we were due for scrutineering and briefings at 10am the following morning. The agent we used in 2014 was the agent who sorted the mess out in 2008 because, without their help we'd have probably missed the event. There were a number of advantages to shipping our own vehicle for our meander around the continent and, especially for an extended stay, it's worth considering. The cost of shipping and a good agent to keep things moving isn't cheap but then neither is vehicle hire. For me the deciding factor was that we expected to (and indeed did) spend a lot of time driving in very remote areas on our own off tarmac. I wanted a vehicle that, not only did I trust because I'd built it, that I could repair if something went wrong because I know every nut and bolt of it. The major issue I'd say you would face with the 127 is it's height but it may still fit in one of the tall containers. We did originally look at using one of those ourselves but the additional cost vs taking the roof tent off the roof meant we'd be able to spend a couple more weeks out there.

One more thing, I just remembered ! The military version doesn't have a normal light switch. I think the two reds are the side lights and the blue is the headlights. I vaguely remember running 3 wires across to the civilian switch to accommodate the normal switch on mine, one from the brown for power, one for the two reds and one for the blue.

Looks like the one on the left and yes, the solid brown wire. The brown/white is a bit vague from the diagram of the switch, however, I suspect that needs to be connected to the brown too as, from the wiring diagram, it looks to supply power through a fuse to various other circuits. This is the diagram for the switch, connector 1 plugs into the connector on the left which is connector 32 on the main wiring diagram. You'll also see item 31 on the main wiring diagram which I think may well be a master switch that connects the brown and brown/white wires together. I have my loom out of the vehicle at the moment so if you get stuck I can probably find it and check how I wired mine... best part of 20 years ago now ! Oh, in the post above that should read blue not pink !

It's the 8 way plug that used to connect to the convoy lights btw. The brown wire needs to be connected to the two red wires, the pink wire and the red/brown wire to simulate the switch in the normal position.

If it's the military harness (which it does look like) then you will need to join some of the wires together to get lights, indicators, brake lights etc... working. I have a wiring diagram somewhere, I'll PM you a link. I have a 1990 110 V8 ex-military which will use the same harness.

It makes no difference which side you switch, negative or live. The FIA switch has 3 independent switches, the main one for the power and two additional ones that are used to stop the engine and put a load on the alternator. That's the difference between an "FIA Switch" and a "battery cutoff switch". I personally prefer to switch the live but it's not an issue switching the earth as long as you remember to make sure that the alternator load resistor is connected to the unswitched earth (the same earth the alternator is connected to). There is a regulation (not sure if it's MSA or FIA) for all UK motorsport that the negative lead of the battery be easy to identify and/or have yellow tape on it, in the event of an incident this allows marshals to quickly identify the earth lead on the battery and cut it. I assume this is because most vehicles these days are negative earth and getting a pair of bolt croppers between the positive and the earth wouldn't be a good thing. It does, however, show that disconnecting the earth is an accepted way of isolating a battery and electrical system. On the more general query, switching earths is so much easier than switching positives for electronic controllers as they are then voltage independent. Decent powered darlington transistors are cheaper and more common for switching the earth side too. I'm in the process of converting my camper controller from a centralised power controller to a distributed CAN bus system with a controller for each item to be switched and most of the work has been in converting from positive to negative switching.

Just Enough Essential Parts was the version I was always told. Regarding the IPO thing I think Land Rover pretty much shot themselves in the foot on that when they released the new vehicle with a Defender badge on it. The fact that the company is willing to completely throw away the "iconic shape" and replace it with another Freelander/Discovery shows that the only value of that shape for them is in dodgy marketing, pretending that the new vehicle has any connection with it's past.